A while ago I returned home to the mountains of Arizona for a respite from my own little economic crisis: I was totally, and completely broke, having depleted all my resources in a last ditch effort to stay in LA (after being laid off the year before.)  I was sad, I was tired, and I was totally heartbroken.

So I moved home and stuffed my face with mom’s cooking, did a lot of writing (it’s amazing what can happen when you’re not spending every waking second worrying about scraping together rent money, food money, cell-phone-bill money…) and basically embarked on the road to recovery.

And while a lot has changed in my little home-town, apparently the thing that has changed the most, is me.  You see, last weekend I went to see a production at our local (newly remodled) theater.  It was (I thought) a horrifying production – horrifying in that it hadn’t yet been developed, hadn’t the benefit of a practiced playwright or director at it’s helm, and as such I left quite angry that I had been asked to fork over $17 to sit through something so wildly unprepared for the venue or admission fee it had adopted.

I talked about it with the people I saw it with; we were all disappointed – what a mess!  I thought about it that evening – How frustrating that this great venue had been used for this level of work!  I even ruminated on the value of ruminating on it further, as the thing had already come and gone and I wasn’t going to have anything further to do with it…

But then I blogged about it.

I decided that the observations I’d had were worth further exploration, and that my opinions about the responsibility of a producer/writer/director might be an interesting read.  I put a lot of thought into my critique, and I knew it was stern, but I maintained my opinion that art made purchasable and presented for fee, is art of an elevated responsibility , inviting critique and measurement by those paying to see it.  For it is one thing to present a play (for entertainment or development purposes) free of charge, it is entirely another to present it as a “finished” production for a fee.

In any case, my blog currently has about 14 dedicated readers, and so I thought they might (as many are writers or purveyors of entertainment) raise a discussion point or two, we would enjoy that discussion, but that nothing else would come of my observations.

Then Google found me, directed some locals my way, and all hell is breaking loose on the thing.

Because what I apparently don’t know about my hometown is that it is NOT okay to voice an opinion – that the mantra “If you can’t say something nice…” extends to all facets of expression here, and that, if I’m not careful, apparently I will “never make it in this world” as surely there is no place for a person like myself who spits on the little people and touts myself as so super-important… Yes (apparently) I am, as one comment reads “WORSE THAN MAGGOT POOP.”

So, why am I sharing this here?  I think it is because I’m absolutely, incontrovertibly, fascinated!  And in spite of the vitriol of these comments, I can’t imagine taking the post down.  I’ve never before been the recipient of this kind of outrage; it’s stunning… it is also helping me understand the danger in playing the role of a… (booming voice)… CRITIC.

A while ago I had a show up that sold great houses, but in the end failed to bring in the kind of critical praise I so hoped for.  Big deal, happens to everyone.  But one critic in particular laid some hefty critique my way, calling my script (paraphrasing) an underdeveloped hunk of junk.  I remember at the time feeling a bit stung, and then feeling angry that people were going to read his review and possibly decide against attending the show.  But I didn’t read it as a personal attack – I knew that this guy possibly hadn’t understood the play, that it was, stylistically and subject-wise, not everyone’s cup of tea, and that this man (as much as I might dislike him at the time) had a right to his opinion.

But I have the ability to process his review with this kind of level-headedness, because this is my profession, and because I’ve cultivated the kind of skin to take it. I don’t have to like it, but I can handle it without loosing my mind, my cool, or my manners.

The one thing I did not consider as I wrote my own sort of “underdeveloped hunk ‘o junk” review, was that this town, and more importantly, these people, might not share my perspective on the roles of an artist, his/her responsibilties to their audience, and (more importantly) they might not have any idea what to do with that kind of criticism.

So I have to say that this experience has taught me what it feels like to be on the receiving end of “Critical loathing” – it has taught me that I might want to think twice before voicing any local opinions, and it has reinforced my opinion that grace and calm in the storm of any criticism is a much more powerful tool than “MAGGOT POOP.”

It’s summer movie time. Ahh summer. I remember hot and sticky summers in New York when I’d escape the heat by going to the movies. In the cool darkness, I could watch the pretty things on the screen float by like colorful snowflakes.

This summer, I have two movies to recommend highly. They’re chick flicks but not in the conventional sense, and I’ll try to give you my impressions of them unconventionally. 

One Sunday, I walked to a cheap movie theatre to catch Winter’s Bone directed by Debra Granik. Yes, I walk in LA. 

Ree, the 17 year old heroine of Winter’s Bone, walks a lot. Her quest to find her father before the family home is taken is not an adventure to distant lands filled with fantastical robots. She walks in a winter Missouri landscape to the houses of her distant cousins. Occasionally, she might get into a truck, but only occasionally. 

Not much is said in Winter’s Bone except the essentials, and Ree is smart enough to not talk too much. Even when she’s showing her younger siblings how to fire a gun, she says only what she needs to. 

The universe of Winter’s Bone is divided by gender. There is a definite man’s world and a definite woman’s world. The men won’t talk to Ree, but the women do. However, the women aren’t the archetypical nurturing home bodies. They are not earth mothers. They have their own problems and issues. 

They can help Ree, but they can also hurt Ree. When Ree goes where she shouldn’t, it is the women who beat her down—not the men. When Uncle Teardrop shows up to rescue her, he faces the men—not the women. 

However, it is the same women who also bring resolution to Ree’s quest and make her take part in a ritual both gruesome and necessary. Through this act, Ree moves from girl to woman in the tribe. Even though Ree and the women will never be on the same side, there is a respect for Ree as a woman and not a girl. 

I like that the film shows us powerful women without getting all you-go-girl Oprah about it. Among the women there is a tribal hierarchy where loyalty is prized along with an ability of knowing when to talk and when not to. The brutality of hierarchies among women is rarely shown. 

The men can have their meth labs and their guns and axes, but the women are the ones who keep the world going and always, eventually, get their way.

 As I walked home from the cheap movie theatre, I wondered if I would see another movie this summer as good as Winter Bone. 

Then Tilda Swinton showed up in Luca Guadagnino’s Lo Sono L’amore (I am Love). Julia Roberts might want to learn Italian, but Tilda Swinton owns Italian. 

Language is important in I am Love. What are the words we use and how do they conflict with the appropriate words to use? How is changing places and languages like putting on a different set of clothes? 

Tilda Swinton’s Emma is a master transformer. She doesn’t just act a part. She becomes what she needs to be. Her first transformation happens before the film begins. She is Russian born, but she becomes Italian when she marries her husband. Her second transformation is complete at the end of the film in a moment that reminds us that great actors and directors can move beyond words. 

Why does one transform? Why does one change? Necessity? Love? How does one escape the beautiful prisons one builds around one’s self? How does one not just love but become love?

When I’m in the middle of a project I’m pretty careful about what extracurricular activities I allow myself because I understand that being open to them may (and often does) divert, as well as inform what I’m writing. Today I trusted in the actress Julia Roberts, and went to the movies to see her in EAT, PRAY, LOVE where I was introduced to Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2006 story. (No, I haven’t read the novel.)

I don’t need to tell you that there is evidence of rebirth out of destruction all around us. My little bit of transformation actually occurred in the lobby before the movie, while I waited for about twenty minutes for my mom and sister to arrive. I was early; they weren’t late, and no, there is no reason to bore you with the details of my “destruction” of nearly twelve months ago.

For, as I wrote in my last blog post I was diverted from my play rewrites this summer when I suffered the pneumonia relapse. Then I was inspired to start writing the first of my novella series. Somehow two weeks ago, after my birthday, I was diverted off my writing track and have been literally consumed by researching my family tree.

I realized today that I got blocked two weeks ago, because I don’t really know who my protagonist is. What I realized today is that I write to figure out who I am in relationship to the world around me, i.e. I also don’t know who I am. Since my protagonist shares my worldview, albeit she’s twelve-years-old, this poses quite a dilemma. Some people, like Ms. Gilbert, call that finding God or the god within ourselves.

What I’ve learned in the last couple of weeks is that I am apparently descended from French Huegenots and Lutherans, and others who desired a better life for themselves and their children and escaped religious persecution by coming to North America. They settled in Virginia, fought the American Revolutionary War, and were rewarded with land grants in the newly formed counties of Georgia, which were confiscated from the Creek and Cherokee peoples. Many bought and sold Black people, but I was gratified to discover last night that at least one family may have fought for the Union during the American Civil War.

It is no wonder to me that the first Amendment of the United States Constitution is: The Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

I believe that my little trip to the movies has started the path toward my creative rebirth. Let’s just say, I’ve worked through my block and have a better idea of where my project is going…

It’s Tuesday night of my week to blog; end of day two. Where have I been? I should say, “I’ve been writing a life affirming post, of course!”; something that describes my life as a playwright. The truth is I actually haven’t thought much about playwriting or this blog for over a month other than to stomp down my abject fear whenever it arises that people who read what I write really don’t care what I have to say.

So I forge ahead. Back in June I imagined that I would update you on my rewrite of PHISHING. However, in June I also happened to attend a college reunion, which I followed with a relapse of pneumonia when I feverishly (accidentally) burned my hand on a splashing, microwaved (boiling hot) cup of tomato rice soup. I came out of the hospital after 6 days and have spent the last three weeks recovering and worrying about how I am going to pay my bills. I go back to work on Friday, and the semester starts next Monday. Where has my summer gone?

With all of my good intentions to rewrite PHISHING and WATER CLOSET, something said to me at my college reunion sparked my return to a story that I first began as a tween. In the first two weeks of my recovery I wrote over 10,000 words toward a projected 30,000 word novella, the first of a series. Then I had a birthday. Not a milestone birthday. Yet this begins the year toward a definite milestone indeed, and I haven’t written a word in the intervening week. I have been immobilized. I have barely moved from my computer where I have spent the last week researching my family tree on the Internet (free resources, of course). Why, you ask? I can’t answer that question. I don’t recall the connection.

I do know that when I was a young girl I used to ask my grandpa all kinds of questions about our ancestry. He never answered me directly. He just sort of hemmed and hawed, which I thought was odd at the time. I was romantic in my youth, and thought that I would naturally be proud of where I come from. Over the years I’ve heard tale of being of Irish and English descent on my father’s side. However, it’s always been kind of like my family starts with me, my parents, and my two sisters, and in a way it’s turned out to be true.

Over the last seven days, I have discovered that it’s possible that my father’s family apparently “won” in the 1805 Georgia land lottery, and moved from Virginia and the Carolinas and settled land confiscated from the Creek people. There they purchased and sold Black people, farmed, mined, had many, many children, and apparently some of them intermarried with the Cherokee people. They also settled in Alabama.

There is even an unsubstantiated written rumor that in the early 1700s an ancestor of mine “married” a member of the Monocan tribe in Farnham Parish, Richmond, Virginia near the James River. They’ve fought and some died in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Indian Wars, and quite a few were Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, and (at least) one was murdered.

I’ve read that my g-grandfather was so upset upon finding out that his mother was part-Cherokee that he burned her paperwork and fled to Oklahoma to get away from his family. He apparently also changed his middle name; either to escape any connection to her “Indian blood” or most likely to escape the rumor that he murdered a man for teasing his horse. Of course these are musings posted online by “family” members passing down stories, jots from family bibles, and records copied out of the State Archives.

I guess you could say, I’m incubating an idea. That may indeed be the point of this blog posting, and an affirming one after all; research, research, research. Who knows where it will lead. Unfortunately, I don’t have any children to pass my worldview on to, but I write. Maybe someday someone will care very much about what I have to say. I love serendipity 🙂