It was 8 am and I was walking around the block after walking my kids to their school bus stop. I noticed this piece of edifice on the sidewalk. I looked up wondering where it fell from. Like a jigsaw puzzle, I found the niche.
So I called 311. (I did not call 911). While I was getting transferred to the building department, busybody that I am, I pointed out the brick-like piece of architecture to every dogwalker and child walker who passed.
“Look at this piece of architecture! It came from that building right there.” I was not put on hold for long. I gave the address to the building agency (grateful that our city infrastructure was intact — that the government shut down did not reduce the response time.)
And boy, did they respond!
Officer Iosilevich came knocking at my door. See, my doorman, who had been tipped off by my neighbor, pointed out that I was the complainant in this edifice-falling potential disaster. I remind you. I dialed 311 — not 911. (I love 311, the city’s hotline number.)
This was the fallen cornice — as big as a brick. You can see the impact on the sidewalk. Within 30 minutes of my call, I got that knock on the door. I discovered that four firetrucks and two cop cars had responded.
Officer Iosilevich told me it was a good thing that I called. I wondered if the building owners would be fined or required to make their building safe.
I went back home. It wasn’t even 9 am and I had begun my job, saving the city, one complaint at a time.
Incidentally, at lunch time, I headed down to 57th Street to the Carnegie Hall block where I was going to see the movie Gravity at the Director’s Guild. But the street was closed due to a wobbly crane atop a building. I could not get down the block to see the movie Gravity, but I appreciate the gravity of gravity.
my view while teaching. And the shadow of my studentsThis is an awesome place to explore.Along the West Side bikewayAround the uptown FairwayThe George Washington Bridge and the little red lighthouse creep up on you
The detour under the highway
Yesterday I took a long bike ride, from where I was teaching — around Central Park and 77th to 180th and Broadway for my girlfriends’ craft club.
I took the bikeway. Around the uptown Fairway, I had to detour under the West Side Highway.
Like when I run, when I ride, I am not fast. That gives me time to talk to myself. And time to think. Too often, I scold myself. So last night, I was trying just to be. Just to notice.
Notice the generosity of the Hudson River. Notice the crazy summer flowers that refuse to believe summer is almost over.
Coming back home, in the complete dark, I did not have so much fun. Many places along the path are pitch black and I don’t have a light. I need more light.
Last night we saw A Little More Than You Wanted To Spend, a funny, sad one-man show with and by Chris Clavelli about the death of his 6-year old son Jess.
This sucks. I mean the play is awesome, but the show reminds you that life sucks.
Life is a total crap shoot. You get shit. You get joy. You live. You die. Other people live and die too.
You have to talk about it. You have to write about it. You have to tell about it. You have to live it. You have to make something, maybe theater, out of it.
The sucky part, sometimes, is living on and getting up when you feel like curling up in bed and not getting up.
***
Taking the garbage out last night with my daughter Charlotte, one of our neighbors, a former Hollywood starlet from the 1950s (and this is not even giving her away because we have several senior actresses in our building), asked me, “How’s your boyfriend?” or something like that.
Charlotte looked at me quizzically.
“He’s doing good,” I said, about my husband. “He’s got a great creative spirit. Is directing a show upstate this summer.
The former starlet said, “He’s wonderful. He’s got a twinkle in his eye and great artistry despite the tragedy of his life.”
We said good bye at the recycling bin.
“What did she say?” Charlotte asked. “The what of his life?”
“The tragedy. I suppose, she meant the tragedy of his Parkinson’s diagnosis,” I told my daughter.
I don’t think of my husband Chris’s life as a tragedy.
This is not the first time a neighbor has used stark terms to refer to my husband’s disease in front of my kids. I guess, in the dailiness of life, the reality of Chris’s illness is not a tragedy, it’s normal.
It is not always a comedy, but tragedy? I don’t know. Chris feels he is lucky. He feels there are worse diagnoses.
***
This is the second time I’ve seen Clavelli’s play. It’s blown me away. Made me laugh and cry.
I am friends with Clavelli, and his girlfriend Leonisa, who funnily enough, was my work out buddy at my former workplace, before she and Clavelli got together.
The play reminded me to hug my darlings, to love the people in my life, to laugh and cry with them, to talk about truths, to listen to other people’s truths, to make art.
When someone tells their truth, I can’t argue or judge. Hearing someone’s truth makes me want to tell my truth. Because, I know, making art is a way of healing.
Life is a tragic-comedy.
***
Any way, go see Clavelli’s show. It’s really good. It’s only running in June in NYC.
the Connected Life, getting my kids off technology
A Church A Day, on trying to find meaning by visiting a church a day.
Now they’re all rolled into one (thanks to web developer extraordinaire Felicity Fields). This one, To Pursue Happiness, is about those four goals and the primary goal: to stay happy.
I pursue happiness though I may have absolutely no reason or right.
I feel a loss that my kids are growing up at lightning speed. I feel a sadness that my husband is increasingly challenged by his Parkinson’s Disease.
While these are challenges, they don’t define me. I don’t have to enter or stay in a place of permanent sadness or loss. Life is about what you do with the hand of cards you’re dealt. And I’m dealing.
I’m thriving. I’m staying honest. I’m finding joy. Two great joys in the last couple of weeks were:
Curtain call at the Listen To Your Mother show
As a cast member of Listen To Your Mother at Symphony Space
As the leader of Artists’ and Writers’ weekend in the Adirondacks.
I was anxious about how these would turn out. Would I deliver the goods? Could I? I did!
In these forums, I could be honest, funny, and surprising.
I could write about and share a lot of feelings, including but not limited to sadness or happiness. A range of emotions, even ambivalence and anger, is acceptable and encouraged in my writing.
So while I still do feel, at times, lost, I can find myself through writing and in the company of other women writers. That’s how I pursue happiness.
***
Before the Listen To Your Mother show, the cast warmed up. And that’s Shari Simpson-Cabelin, assistant director, doubled-over, laughing. (I’m in the white pants.) (Photos by Jennifer Lee)
At last week’s Listen To Your Mother show, I was reminded that I am not alone. There are a lot of women telling their truths, deep stories about hardship and love.
Here are some of the Listen To Your Mother (LTYM) New York City posts from my fellow cast members.
Thanks to Shari’s blog for compiling these so I could repurpose! And thanks to producer Holly Rosen Fink, a steady presence, who made this show such a hit.
I got to work with the fab director Amy Wilson, who blogged on motherhood conspiring against her, even as she put on a show.
Here are more stories from the Mother’s Day show.
Co-producer Varda Steinhardt‘s piece was about tracking the orbit of her sons’ stars.
Marinka received the dreaded call from the nurse’s office, It’s Always Bad News.
Kim Forde, 8 and 1/2 month pregnant, read Welcome To The Circus, a guide to the family circus.
Elizabeth (Kizz) Robinson wrote About Me, on how to be child-free and loving.
I haven’t posted my story yet. I want it to be a surprise.
Over the summer, you can see the show at the Listen To Your Mother YouTube channel. There will be videos from all 24 shows across the country, some still going on. Also, upcoming are professional photos of our NYC show by the awesome Jennifer Lee.
***
At my Adirondack retreat and at my LTYM show, I heard a lot of stories that make me go, “aww” – and I feel in the company of AWW — Awesome Women Writers.
Through relentless honesty, these women writers (and one guy) make it okay to be honest and to tell my story too.
When our daughters were little, they always wanted to hear a bedNIGHT story. Of course, they meant a bedTIME story but I dared not correct them. It was one of their charming childhood malapropisms. Chris and I would tell them stories until they entered the magic of their dreams.
(courtesy of Peter and the Starcatcher)
And if you are like them — and like me and Chris — sometimes still, you want and need a good new bednight story, and so I suggest, little one, that you take yourself to see Peter and the Starcatcher. (Though for some reason I keep calling it Peter and the Dreamcatcher! A penchant for malapropisms may be genetic!)
Whatever you call it — Oh. So. Good.
I was bummed when it closed on Broadway. More than a few of my friends told me that I’d like it. But it’s not always easy for me to get to see everything I want in New York City. Though God knows, I try.
Once in a while, I get a reprieve. While it closed on Broadway in January, it reopened a few blocks away in at New World Stages with much of the same cast and in the same amazing production.
Score.
I don’t know how to summarize the show’s many themes — It is about how to grow up; how children are wiser than adults; how believing in one another is never wrong; how music and comedy make magic; how letting go is part of what you do when you love.
Children can fly (one of my darlings at the swimming hole in the Adirondacks).
My favorite recurring theme was taught by the girl Molly. Here is her secret to good leadership: a leader looks out for her tribe. Molly taught this to the boy who became Peter. Molly, played by Nicole Lowrance, is the only girl in the show. She’s so good.
Molly has to be sister, friend, love interest, and, of course, mother to the orphan boys.
But she is not the kind of mother or leader who scolds needlessly, (although she does scold).
She is the kind of mother who finds magic in stories. She’s the kind of mother who soothes scared nerves by suggesting a running race. Molly’s a playful leader.
She knows that to save the day, a leader must:
be creative
be open-minded
be brave
be empathetic
be funny.
I found a new heroine and her name is Molly! Molly is the starcatcher.
The musical shows how theater is a collaborative art. And there are many times when the antics reminded me of the joy of improv comedy, but the show only looks seat-of-the-pants hilarious. The action is all orchestrated. (Brilliant brilliant directors Roger Rees and Alex Timbers! And my old chum Wayne Barker — brilliant, brilliant — did the music! Funny. Funny!)
It’s a physical show where the leads play doors and walls and mermen.
The words are witty and the physical shenanigans are hilarious. At one point I was laughing so hard I was crying. And then at another point, I noticed that Chris was weeping.
I think his tears came from the place of nostalgia for we miss the nights when our darlings were still little enough to climb on our laps and beg for one more bednight story.
Ah well. We can always take them to see this show. And even if you’re not in NYC, you can see it too, as it’s touring this year, starting in August 2013.
Do you feel like you “get” social media, or do you just use it because that’s where all your friends and family are?
I get social media. But to get it, you have to give it.
I am Facebook, Twitter, Instagram girl, but I put myself out there. I’ve seen studies that show the more engaged a social media user is, the happier she is.
Some people complain about social media, “I don’t want to know what you had for lunch.”
I admit I occasionally report what I’m cooking. When I recently updated my FB status, “Making chili, meat and vegetarian,” several cyber friends in several states were also making chili. Coincidence? I dunno. But it was interesting and fun and I felt less alone in my solo chili-making kitchen.
Sometimes I overshare. That’s me. I overshare IRL too.
As a wife of someone with Parkinson’s Disease, I feel connected to friends and family through social media. Apathy is a side effect of my husband’s disease. On social media, I can’t tell if people are apathetic towards me. I try to notice only the thumbs up, the cheers, the interactions that lead to deeper sharing. I affirm people, just like I like being affirmed.
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve connected in person with two different high school friends who were visiting New York. I wouldn’t have stayed in touch with them without Facebook. When we got together, we talked about deep stuff — how we felt different, theater, how we parent, what’s new with our siblings, how we work.
Of course, it’s scary to put yourself out there and swim in the social media community pool. It’s easier and safer, emotionally, to lurk, dangle your feet in the water.
My social media mania has one downside.
I was reminded of this jealousy factor, when I read: More kids than suitcases’ blog post about torturing yourself on spring break. Because yes, just by the look of some other people’s spring break pics, they’re having a lot of fun out there. I saw in friends’ feeds palm trees and London tea (different people obviously.) That made me wish I was somewhere fabulous.
But I was. I was somewhere fab. Making every day fabulous is one of my life goals. (Thanks to my former colleague, Klay Williams!)
Compare and despair. I try to post awesome pictures of me and the kids having a really good time out in the world. (See below!) Because a picture of one of my kids staring at the phone, laptop, or TV is boring. I post about things, people, and events that I want to remember. I don’t want to remember boredom, bickering, apathy, and negativity.
I want to remember doing cartwheels on the beach. I want to remember bike riding. I want to remember making each other smile and laugh.
On a dreary cold afternoon in Manhattan, I took my two 13-year old daughters to see a sparkly, “You Are Now the Owner of This Suitcase,” a magical play by a team of writers about a place in the world that is the exact opposite of the place where I grew up.
Way back when Hillary Clinton was running for president, the cover of the New York Times ran an article about Ms. Clinton’s (and my) hometown that began with a phrase, something like, “In the lily whitest of Chicago suburbs, Park Ridge, Illinois…”
We did not have diversity in Park Ridge or in our class of about 800 at Maine South High School. The one African American kid was actually African, an exchange student from Kenya. There was one Jewish family.
No wonder I love diversity. I love it beyond words can explain. And I love that this play loves diversity.
“I think I now know about 20 different ways of saying, “I’m looking for a beautiful woman new to the city,” says Joe, one of the dozen characters who wander on the stage on a quest. He is looking for the owner of the suitcase.
This play, “You Are Now the Owner …” is the middle play of the Jackson Heights trilogy, a microscope on diversity and a kaleidoscope of racial and ethnic community.
This is magical realism with a contemporary ‘tude.
A magic cell phone and a diverse community that looks out for each other. (photo by Joel Weber, courtesy of “You Are Now the Owner of This Suitcase.”)
Characters jump from a storybook. A cell phone turns into a girl.
With so many storylines, I lost the thread of plot at times, but I was just happy to be with my girls and to be transported, taking a trip, like that suitcase.
Here’s some poetry from the play:
ROSA: As a rose petal falls and the rain feeds the underground, my love will remain true to the one that grants me my soul through and through.
TOMÁS: That makes you guys soul mates. Ah that’s nice.
They make their way to the book. ROSA crawls in. TOMÁS looks around.
TOMÁS: Man, this place may not be a fairy tale. But love does live here.
There’s action in magical realism. (photo by Joel Weber, courtesy of “You Are Now…” )
The play is a multi-culti mish mosh, just like the borough. Just like New York City.
My favorite character was Salim, the fast-talking cell phone salesman. His shop seemed to be the hub upon which the whole world spun.
One of my daughters said, about the play, “It was abstract and beautiful.”
The other said, “It was a mystery.”
I said, “The play celebrated diversity.” Like David Dinkins always said, “New York City is a beautiful mosaic.” And so was this play.
Thanks culture mom media for the tickets! (My thoughts are always my own!)
“You Are Now the Owner of This Suitcase,” was conceived by Ari Laura Kreith and written by Mando Alvarado, Jenny Lyn Bader, Barbara Cassidy, Les Hunter, Joy Tomasko, Gary Winter, Stefanie Zadravec.
I think the show has closed now, but like a suitcase in your closet, I hope it opens again soon and transports you somewhere warm and diverse and teeming with interesting and eccentric characters to enchant you.
After all, this is spring break! You deserve such a nice break.
Kathryn Cramer, one of the workshop leaders called our writing weekend, “an unqualified success.” And George Davis, another leader, made this awesome video:
As you can see, we wrote, we ate, we talked, we wrote, we did yoga, we walked, we ate, and we wrote a little more.
Writers working at the Adirondack weekend retreat.
On the last day of the weekend we started writing with a prompt that began, “I weathered the storm when I…”
I weathered the storm of hosting my first writing weekend. Turns out the hardest part was not the weekend, but getting home again.
It took me a couple of days to get back to New York City from the Adirondacks due to the storm known as Sandy. My Amtrak was cancelled and I relied on friends to give me lifts along the way. (I began writing this post yesterday from a comfy Holiday Inn, half-way home in Albany. I admit I enjoyed my enforced solitude, a menage a moi!)
During the storm, my fam and I stayed in constant digital contact. On the Upper West Side, we never lost electricity. But there is no replacement for real life hugging. And real life writing. And real life family.
Joanna Parson, Kathryn Cramer, Mary Beth Coudal, workshop leaders for the writing weekend
I’m totally grateful to the family and friends (and small businesses) who helped make the writing weekend happen. While holed up in the Albany hotel yesterday, I wrote a letter to the editor thanking everyone (I hope!) who had a part.
To the editor:
In this political season, there has been a lot of talk about which political party helps small businesses the most.
After my first foray as a small business owner hosting a writing weekend in Westport, New York, I believe that no party helps a small business as much as the party of other small businesses.
Thanks to the Westport, Wadhams and Essex small business communities who fed the bodies, minds and spirits of a dozen
George Davis led a workshop on storytelling in the digital age.
writers last weekend.
Special thanks for catering to Carolyn Ware at Ernie’s for lunches of sandwiches and chili; to David and Cynthia Johnston at DaCy Meadow Farm for a quiche brunch; to Janice Hainer at Everybody’s for the groceries; to Jim and Jayne Vance at Westport Hotel and Tavern for our cozy first night’s dinner together; and to Dogwood Bakery for the artisan pizza. We’re lucky to have such tasty options. The writers loved the local foods!
Beyond the nourishment of feeding our bodies, the weekend fed our spirits. We paused to breathe, thanks to Michelle Bartz Maron at Lake Champlain Yoga Arts @ Live Well. A morning stretch allowed us to stretch as writers throughout the day.
Kathryn Cramer explains it.
The writing workshop teachers, storytellers George Davis of Essex, Kathryn Cramer of Dragon Press Bookstore in Westport, Ted Cornell at Crooked Brook Studio in Westport and Joanna Parson of Letter Perfect in New York led the writers to hone the art and craft of writing stories from real life.
Thanks to artistic director Shami McCormick of the Depot Theatre and to teacher Shoshi Satloff for their support and to the entire Jones family for the setting of Skenewood, a magical place for a writing weekend.
To reach an audience of writers for the weekend, I must thank Nathalie Thill of the Adirondack Center for Writing in Saranac Lake and Valley News columnist Colin Wells for spreading the word.
This memoir writing weekend was my maiden voyage as a small business owner. I felt lucky to set sail and discover land in Westport, New York. Because of the work of small businesses, artists and teachers in Westport’s midst, the writers at Skenewood had a meaningful and fun time at our first Adirondack Memoir Retreat.
Sincerely,
Mary Beth Coudal
Writers talking about writing at the Adirondack Memoir Retreat. (l. to r., Joanna Parson, Alex Speredelozzi, George Davis, Beckie O’Neill)
My biggest thanks go to the noble writers who attended the weekend, willing to depart on a voyage in uncharted territories.
The art of memoir requires risk, as does the art of making a writing weekend happen.
My business coach, the awesome Mandy Gresh, was the first to call this writing weekend “my maiden voyage.” I like that.
We hiked on an Adirondack road.
Turns out the journey through the woods and into the writing weekend was not as fearful a journey as it could’ve been. (Though the weather in New York City was more treacherous.)
We’re tentatively planning another Adirondack weekend retreat for Artists and Writers: Talking about Setting from May 16 to 19, 2013.
Stay tuned to our website at Boot Camp For Writers for updates on writing workshops and weekends in Portland, OR and New York, NY. Which reminds me of two last thank you’s.
The dock at Skenewood.
Thanks to our Boot Camp web developer Felicity Fields. And special thanks to my Boot Camp biz partner, Kelly Wallace.
When I came up with the idea for the weekend, Kelly said, “Oh, yes! Good idea!” It was!
Elaeocarpus holopetalus – Mount Imlay Rainforest (Photo credit: Poytr)
I have loved my job for so many reasons for so many years. Just because you love someone or something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t let it go. Like parenting. My kids want to go to camp or on school trips. I love them but let them go.
Without going into all the deets, my workplace has offered a voluntary severance package to everyone. And I’m taking it (effective within the next couple of months).
Sometimes work grows around you like a vine in a tropical rain forest, hitting the top layer and you’re still on the forest floor. Or sometimes work’s part of the undergrowth. And you’re reaching for the sky.
According to the internet, (which we all know is NEVER wrong!) there are four layers to the rain forest (and these coincide with where we are on any given day):
I think the point of life is to grow wherever you are. Life is only about growth. Or maybe the pursuit of happiness. That’s all.
And I need to grow. And pursue my happiness. We all do.
To such an end I’m starting some projects such as offering a querying and getting published workshop in New York on August 16 in partnership with Kelly Wallace who’s offering the workshop in Portland on August 18. We’re working on the website. We’re onto something.
We’re on the forest floor or the emergent layer, continuing to grow, starting anew.
100 Days of Poems and Pics 