for years he persevered and persevered, through thick and thin, this dear friend of david’s. a consummate actor and dedicated off-off-broadway theatre co-founder and artistic director, he was not hindered by the somewhat invisible but definitely impenetrable wall in new york city’s theatre world. and then…
the front page in the arts section belies the rest of the story. but every artist knows it. the ever-present imperative to create and to succeed, not only from a soul place, but from a place where you just might be able to afford to pay the bills, to have a littlebit extra, to hold the esteem of your colleagues, to be recognized. you hold the towel close, knowing that at any moment it might be the thing you do – you just might throw in the towel.
chris decided to take on mitch albom’s tuesdays with morrie. but it took a long time to land. everything takes longer than you think. a long fermata of longing. every artist knows this. most craftspeople know this. most philosophers know this. poets write of it. composers strew melodies around like patio lights. painters throw paint and prep canvas time and again. dancers pirouette, spinning ever faster. writers wordsmith, deleting and reading and elaborating and deleting. beavers in bogs – singularly focused, ridiculously hard work – and the tree still stands. and then…
the sea dog theatre tells this remarkable story – tuesdays with morrie – through the interwoven magic of len cariou and chris. it is earning high regard and the reviews are outstanding. it has landed.
when my big brother died, i was lost in a maelstrom of emotion. it was hard for me to wrap my head around how the world would go on at a point he could no longer feel it. it wasn’t like i hadn’t experienced loss before. at that point in my life, i no longer had any of my grandparents present on this earth with me. that just felt like a more natural thing – to lose those we love who are elderly, who have lived long and full lives. my beloved brother, on the other hand, was merely 41 and there were so many hopes and dreams he still had for himself and his family. i am still struck by the fact that the world does, indeed, go on. the sun rises and sets; the moon lingers in the night sky. and my question, both existential and somewhat obvious, remains unanswered: how it can go on if he can’t feel it anymore. how it will go on – someday – if i can’t feel it anymore.
at some point a few years ago, i played for a memorial service at a synagogue. one of the meditations before kaddish made me weep. penned by merrit malloy, it reads: “when i die give what’s left of me away to children and old men that wait to die. and if you need to cry, cry for your brother walking the street beside you. and when you need me, put your arms around anyone and give them what you need to give me. i want to leave you something, something better than words or sounds. look for me in the people i’ve known or loved, and if you cannot give me away, at least let me live in your eyes and not in your mind. you can love me best by letting hands touch hands and by letting go of children that need to be free. love doesn’t die, people do. so when all that’s left of me is love, give me away.”
the white trout lily humbly bows on the forest floor. much like people, though on a different scale, their presence is ephemeral, fleeting. on sunny days, their petals will curl back, up, towards the sun; on shady days these small flowers may not even open. their simple beauty a mystery to the passerby, their faces shyly downward, they fill the underbrush on the side of the trail, dotting the landscape with fragile white blooms. i trust they are not concerned with the impact they make on the world nor do they wonder about their footprints once they are gone. they are simply there – love – dressed in white floral.
as we have moved through the pandemic and the devastating myriad of even just this past year, it is inevitable to think of all the loss, the loved ones who have died, the families and concentric circles left behind in grief, questioning. it is also – yes – a reminder that we are still here.
my dear friend sent me a link to a new york times op ed by charles blow. she drew my attention to the last line, words of perfection: “when i am gone, and people remember my name, i want some of them to smile.”
we just read/watched the new york times interactive article from may 24 called ‘an incalculable loss’. tiny people on the screen of our laptop, nearly 100,000 lives were represented – deaths from march 8. the visual is mind-boggling, staggering really.
bone-weary.
we paused at every descriptor on the screen for people who had died. a man who loved to wear suspenders. a woman who always smiled. a composer. a mother of six boys. every one of them with lives and circles – concentric circles reaching out and out and out.
bone-weary.
of the excuses, the justifications. the inadequacy. the gross miscalculations. the ignorance. the comparisons to the flu, car accidents, natural attrition. the opening-up push-for-the-purposes-of-an-election despite the fact that whole-cities-numbers of people (PEOPLE) are dying in short order.
bone-weary. of the division, the based-on-nothing arguments, the dangerous political game-playing, the i-don’t-wanna-wear-a-mask-so-i-won’t whining, the inability of those “in charge” to focus, the heinous lack of regard for truth, the gross name-calling, disrespect and distraction from the president’s mouth, the dogged inaction of that same office to quell the spread, to actually even the playing ground for all and address the real issues, the zealousness of those who have his nationalistic vision in their rose-colored glasses of divisiveness, of inequity, of apathy.
bone-weary.
these are lives. people who never expected in march to not be here on memorial day to recognize and honor the fallen, those who actually have protected us. oh, you say from-the-‘other-side’, that’s everyone – no one has any guarantees on life, you argue. ahh. but we can expect that we live in a place that has our best interests at heart. that we live in a country that will do all that it can, with all of its armor of knowledge and research and its vast fortunes, to protect us all – every one of us – from something like this – a mere global pandemic.
i write to both My Girl and My Boy every night to say good night. i have since the day they left for college. that’s about 4,380 times for my daughter and 3,285 times for my son. i’m quite certain that they have rolled their eyes multiple times along the way. but the idea that these 100,000 people no longer have the option of loving their child – or anyone they care about – with a nightly goodnight wish stuns and breaks my heart. this could have been different.
bone-weary.
we passed the park down by the beach yesterday. we passed by the marina. we passed the irish pub. we passed by the bar with wide open doors, people spilling out onto sidewalk seating. we counted four masks. in all those people, all those crowds, all that bustling humanity – up-close-and-personal-no-social-distancing – only four masks. this is one of the very towns – kenosha, wisconsin – used as an example of a whole city wiped out to illustrate the number 100,000. it makes me tired.
bone-weary.
“you keep thinking people are going to wake up, but they never do,” said a friend yesterday.
bone-weary.
tired and disheartened. alive, wide-awake and pissed.
reverse threading 