Embracing failure

My full length play Want, which has been in rehearsal for weeks and was scheduled to open July 29, will now open Aug. 4 for a two-weekend, rather than a three-weekend run.  Our leading lady got COVID, which put rehearsals behind, and the set took longer to build than expected.

I think this was a really good decision.  So much better to have a shorter, stronger run than a longer, wobblier run.  Besides, this might mean larger audiences each night.  I know this decision relieved everyone involved of a lot of tension and anxiety.

I, oddly enough, have not been tense and anxious at all.  I learned a long time ago that, instead of biting my nails and hoping everything is going to work out and worrying about everything going wrong, I can simply embrace the possibility of failure.  The actors might be terrible.  Or the actors might be great but no one comes to see the play.  Or people might come to see the play but everyone hates it.  Yes, any of that could  happen.  Okay then, let's all just do our best.

I learned this lesson in the late '90s when I did my one and only skydive, a tandem, meaning I was strapped to a dive master.  I was terribly nervous about it as I approached the plane, so much so that I was awfully afraid I was going to back out.  So I thought to myself "Something might go wrong, and if it does, I'll probably die.  Knowing that, accepting that, do I still want to do it?  Hell yes."  I simply put myself in the hands of my dive master; I did everything he said without thinking about it.  If he had told me to set my hair on fire, I would have done it.

Of course I want my play to be a roaring success.  Of course I want the actors to be brilliant and the audiences to be moved to laughter and tears.  Of course I want the play to go on to greater success, to win a Tony and a Pulitzer.  Of course I want my next play to be even more brilliant and more successful.  Any of those things might or might not come to pass.  Do I still want to write?  Do I still want to see my plays performed?  Hell yes.

The Eloi and the Morlocks

Sometimes when my siblings and I have our bi-weekly Zooms, we will talk about politics.  My sister and I will go off on how stupid and mean and mendacious the current crop of Republicans are.  My brother reminds us, and accurately, that they say the same things about us ("us" here referring to Democrats/liberals/the Left).  "But this is different," sister and I could cry out.

I've never felt as though I were adequately explaining, or even understanding for myself, in what ways the Left is different from the Right these days.  But it suddenly hit me: I can't think of a liberal equivalent of Sean Hannity, or Tucker Carlson, or Marjorie Taylor Green, or Steve Bannon, someone whose mission in life is to sow discord, rile adherents to violence, spread lies, relentlessly excoriate the other side.

That's the trouble with us Lefties: we want the world to be fair.  We want everyone to win.  We don't seem to have it in us to fight unfairly.  We're like the Eloi to the Republican Morlocks.  We just don't have the stuff to fight dirty, to eat our opponents.

I certainly don't want to become like what I hate, but I do see the disadvantage to the famous Lefty bleeding heart.  That's thrown in our faces like an insult, but isn't it a compliment?  That we want to be generous and take care of others?  That we feel for those who are suffering?  In a way, I don't care that the Morlocks will 'win', at least in the short run.  I'd rather be a loser than a Rush Limbaugh or a Maria Bartiromo.  Those people are ugly, inside and out.  There is a vileness in them, at least in their public personae, a viciousness that seems to know no bounds and no shame.  

I know, I know, they're human, I'm acting like them right now, see, there really isn't any difference, blah blah blah.  But I beg to differ.  I'm thinking these things, but I do not act on them.  And if I had a spotlight and a microphone, I would not use them to rave about how terrible 'those others' are, or spread lies, or support what is clearly corrupt, or try to rile anyone to violence.  I just don't have it in me.  Which may be both my finest quality and my downfall.

I am not who I thought I was

I have always thought of myself as an earth mother type, someone who wants to and could live an elemental sort of life.  After all, I read and reread all the Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House" books and imagined a prairie life for myself.  When I was ten-ish, I used to go around our home collecting the things I was sure I would need when I became shipwrecked.  (As I recall, those things consisted of a small box of raisins, some safety pins and paper clips, some twine, and a deck of cards.)  When the TV show "Survivor" began its run decades ago, I thought "This is a show created with me in mind" and applied to be on it several times.  I thought an experience like that would be as close as I could come to living in the most elemental, stripped down way possible in this modern world.  (At least, for a middle-class American in this modern world.  I'm aware that many people do live in ways which put mere survival at the forefront of their existence.)

Because I lived in a small apartment in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles for so long, I never had a chance to put my hands into dirt, to grow things, grow my own food, own a cow and a goat and some chickens.   Never had the chance to live out that fantasy version of my life, the simple life lived in relationship to the earth.

Well, the joke's on me.  For the thirteen years Sweet Hubby and I have been living in our current home, with our great big backyard, I have had the chance to dig and grow and be who I've always said I wanted to be.  And have I so much as put one seed in the ground?  No I have not.

Every year, when winter begins to thaw and spring starts to creep toward me, I continue to fantasize about all the wonderful vegetables and flowers I'm going to grow in the planter boxes SH built.  And every year, I just don't get around to it.  Too busy with very un-elemental, un-earthy pursuits, such as having lunch in a restaurant with friends, and writing, and reading, and seeing movies, and answering emails, and playing online games with family and friends, and going to live theater performances.  I'll pull a weed or two every so often.  But that's about the extent of my prairie life.

SH is the farmer.  In the past, he has planted onions and lettuce and carrots and radishes.  The blueberry and raspberry bushes he planted early on continue to thrive and give us the most wonderful berries.  On the deck he built with his own hands, he puts up pots of herbs, strawberries, tomatoes, and peppers, and lots of flowers.  And I?  I'll pick what I need to cook with.  That's how involved I am.

It's a strange feeling to bump up so unmistakably against a long-cherished image of myself.   An image I continue to nurture, but secretly, in a way I don't even want to admit to myself.  The earth still calls to me.  One of these days, I'm going to farm our land and gather fresh eggs from our chickens.  One of these days.  It's going to be so lovely and satisfying.

Instincts and creeps

Many years ago, while I was living in Los Angeles, I was walking home from my job on a Friday night. I had $10 in my wallet, which was my money for the weekend.  (That's how long ago it was - $10 could provide a weekend's entertainment plus gas.)  As I walked along the dark street, I saw two boys (maybe 14 or 15?) walking ahead of me, whispering together.  My hand tightened on my purse strap and my heart beat a little faster.

"Stop being so paranoid," I scolded myself.  "They're just kids, they're not criminals."  They peeled off in another direction and I kept walking.

About a minute later, one of them came running up behind me.  He had a knife, which I believe he planned to use to cut my purse strap, a snatch, not an assault.  He wasn't expecting me to turn around and start talking to him.  

The upshot of that event was that he got my $10 but let me keep my wallet, and I even got an apology from him.  I was rattled but not hurt.  This was the first of several muggings I experience during my time in L.A., the only one I saw, or felt, coming.  All the rest of them were hit and run, ambushes.

About a week ago, I decided to walk on a path I had driven past but never explored.  It was broad and straight, with houses on one side and a forested area on the other.  The day was fine and it was a pleasant stroll.  

I noticed that another, narrower path took off from the broad path into the trees, so I decided to take that walk as well.  As I started on that walk, I saw a man who looked very much as though he were going to walk the broad path.  But when I turned around a few moments later, he had instead followed into the trees, coming up behind me.  I stepped aside to let him pass, but as he kept walking, he turned around a few times to look at me.  I decided to back out of that area.  I just wasn't comfortable with what had looked to me like him deciding to follow me into the forest.

I walked about a half mile away to another path that led into the forested area.  Even though I was among trees, there was a big apartment complex in sight, and a well traveled road within sound, so I felt fairly safe.

As I walked along that second path, I came up behind two boys (again 14-15 or so) with skateboards.  They didn't seem to be doing much, not actively skating.  I saw them go up ahead of me, then turn off the path and go stand among the trees.  It creeped me out.  I couldn't think of why they would take their skateboards off the path.  It just didn't feel right.  So once again, I backed out of the trees and just walked along the road to my car.

I'm now grateful to my first young assailant.  My experience with him helped teach me that I should listen to my instincts.  If something doesn't feel right, I should honor that feeling and act on it.  I don't even need to be right about what I fear.  I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't backed out those two times.  I don't need to know.  All I need to know is that both those moments just weren't comfortable for me.  

 

Letter to the Supreme Court Justices

Honored Justices Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett,

Well done.  You did it at last.  You finally had the opportunity to overturn Roe v  Wade, and you did it, with all the courage of your convictions.

You were bravely undeterred by the fact that the majority of Americans support a woman's right to decide if she wants to bear a child or not.  Undeterred by 50 years of precedent.  Undeterred by the fact that many women will not be able to travel to a state in which abortion is legal and so will either have to perform abortions on themselves or give birth to children they do not want and most likely can't afford.  Undeterred by the fact that, in some states, a victim of rape or incest will be forced to bear the child of her assailant.  Undeterred by the fact that outlawing abortions does not eliminate abortions but only turns women into criminals or unwilling mothers or corpses.  Undeterred by having revealed for all to see that any liberal cause stands no chance in the high court.  Undeterred by the fact that this country's standing in the view of the civilized world has once again been diminished.

Knowing now that you have sided with the rights of gametes over women, I am very curious to see how you take on gun rights and limitations, should such a case come before you, as it most surely will.  Are you going to side with gun owners, or with the rising number of people killed by guns in this country every year?  

And Justice Thomas, a special note just to you.  You have already signaled your eagerness to reconsider other rights that have previously been granted by the court, specifically citing contraception, gay sex, and gay marriage.  I'm wondering if you are going to include interracial marriage in that package of issues, and if so,  how does your white wife feel about that?