By Cynthia Wands

In the past few months, I’ve found a disconnect with revisiting books I loved, movies I remembered, television shows that I thought I liked. The view seems to have changed. Whether it’s this isolation, or my own aging process, or the political and psychological climate, I’m no longer as satisfied with what I thought I liked.

It’s also true that I’m not seeing the plays, operas, dance concerts in live performances that I used to see: my window to live events has closed for the time being.

But some of the artists that I’ve enjoyed, have sparked my imagination to consider them in a new light. One of them is a painter, Andrea Kowch, who came to prominence when she was quite young; she was 17 years old (in 2003) when she started winning awards and gallery shows for her artwork.

I’ve loved her portraits of women, strangely posed, in a natural and disturbing landscapes. They seem to resonate differently with me today. Here’s a bit from her biography:

“We all share a common thread, and as active participants in an ever-changing modern world, the purpose of my work is to remind viewers of these places that we sometimes perceive no longer exist, and to recognize and honor them as a part of our history that is worth preserving.”

One of my favorites of her paintings is this one, titled “Pecking Order”:

Her biography contains a description of her artwork, that sounds very much like magic realism in theatre:

“Inspired by memories, inner emotions, history, and my fascination with nature and the human psyche, the stories behind my paintings stem from life’s emotions and experiences, resulting in narrative, allegorical imagery that illustrates the parallels between human experience and the mysteries of the natural world.”

When I read this, I thought, that’s a brilliant synopsis. It could stand in for a play, or an opera, or a dance performance. And that made me feel somewhat connected to someone’s path in their artwork. Nowadays, that’s a rare treasure.

Here’s a link to her gallery that shows more of her artwork:

So here’s to the magic of artwork. Changing visions. Shifting views.

by Cynthia Wands

This quote jumped out at me this morning:

“True healing is an unglamorous process of living into the long lengths of pain. Forging forward in the darkness. Holding the tension between hoping to get well and the acceptance of what is happening. Tendering a devotion to the task of recovery, while being willing to live with the permanence of a wound; befriending it with an earnest tenacity to meet it where it lives without pushing our agenda upon it. But here’s the paradox: you must accept what is happening while also keeping the heart pulsing towards your becoming, however slow and whispering it may be.”

~ Toko-pa Turner 

I’ve been following the writings of Toko-pa Turner for a while, and I’ve always loved her essays on solitude, healing, and belonging. I’ve reread one of her most recent books a few times, and come away with new insights every time.

Healing from these past two years of isolation and and pandemic fatigue seems to be a lost path for me – I’ll have to continue this dance of protection and longing for the foreseeable future. (Insert screams of frustration here.)

This solitude is a quiet kind of punishment after a while – writing doesn’t come any easier in isolation. I find myself diverted with different kinds of projects to keep my curiosity alive. Baking cakes, fussing over the garden, pruning roses, crafting with silver-plate tea pots. All kinds of diversions to feel the creative pulse.

Today I’m going to listen to the rain (RAIN! REAL RAIN!), and light a fire in the fireplace, and try to feel the hope and healing for this next year. For all the female playwrights listening to the rain right now in Los Angeles, here’s to the recognition of all of our hopes and all of our healing for this next year.

And as an aside…

Ted already claimed the best spot by the fireplace, so I’ll have to settle in next to him.

by Cynthia Wands

December 21, 2021, the shortest day of the year. I’m glad today is here, and will be very glad to kick 2021 out of here, another year of the pandemic. What a difficult year. It’s been exasperating, infuriating, melancholy, sad, briefly joyful, buoyant, hopeful, frustrating, with a sprinkling of hopelessness thrown in.

So here’s a book, HOPE IN THE DARK, that Rebecca Solnit wrote, a few years ago:

I first found a reference to this book by an article written by Maria Popov, and I’m including it here because the entire article is really wonderful:

Solnit herself has written memorably about how we find ourselves by getting lost, and finding hope seems to necessitate a similar surrender to uncertainty. Here is a passage of hers that I find really wonderfully apt for playwrights right now:

“Certainly for artists of all stripes, the unknown, the idea or the form or the tale that has not yet arrived, is what must be found. It is the job of artists to open doors and invite in prophesies, the unknown, the unfamiliar; it’s where their work comes from, although its arrival signals the beginning of the long disciplined process of making it their own. Scientists too, as J. Robert Oppenheimer once remarked, “live always at the ‘edge of mystery’ — the boundary of the unknown.” But they transform the unknown into the known, haul it in like fishermen; artists get you out into that dark sea.”

But to get back to hope. Hope for what we’re looking for right now. In the book “HOPE IN THE DARK”, here is an idea of hope that I especially loved.

“Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes — you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterward either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone.”

A wonderful idea to consider on this shortest day of the year.

The writings of Rebecca Solnit can also be found at her website:

Essays

I have been agonizing over writing for the past week. What should I say? What am I thinking about? How will it end? And I was no further along. I realize I need to get out more and talk about writing.

A few weeks ago, while doing a check-in with some friends I was newly inspired. Not necessarily by what to write, it was more of the feeling that I wasn’t doing enough. So I quickly did a search and found several classes that were starting within the next couple of days. I signed up for a 4-week class that was just to generate work, get me writing. I also signed up for several free writing prompt workshops, again, just to generate material. It was the best month of writing. I felt like I was getting further and actually accomplishing something. Then I took a day to review what I had been doing. I now had several different plays started.

But that was a month ago. Life got in the way. My daily writing of at least 10 minutes had gone by the wayside as my days were consumed with “my real job”. How do I get back to that place of creativity? You can’t have that many plays going at one time and expect them to be good. But at this point, I just wanted to finish something, anything. It wasn’t until after meeting up with a friend for drinks that I have some focus or even clarity. Instead of overthinking the work, just keep writing. It may be the worst thing ever, but you finished something and you may have even learned something. The next one and the one after that will get better.

You have to have the nerve. You need to muster up the courage or resolve to do something. Easier said than done. Confidence? Courage? To just write? I need to not overthink it. Just write. Could it be that simple?

I don’t know. I’ll let you know next time. But I do hope you are working on something!

Just keep writing!

Jennifer

After seeing “Poor Clare”, I’m convinced that the story stirs up inquiry about Clare and the arc of her journey from being a young woman enveloped in the bubble of a privileged life to an alternate painful reality beyond the walls of a palazzo.  She was innocent and harmless in her mind until Francis of Assisi showed her how her lifestyle enslaved others into a life of hard labor.  

What I found interesting about the story is the parallel between her story and Siddharta (the Buddha).  Both walk away from their privileged lives.  Their paths diverge where Clare follows Francis of Assisi and serves the poor; while Siddharta goes into a quest  inward into meditation to realize all is Maya.

I think we are all at different stages of awaking to alternate realities.  This is the richness of life. We can explore freely in mind and our hearts and make our own choices.  We stand on the shoulders of giants, including Clare of Assisi, Francis of Assisi, Buddha, our parents, our teachers and an endless list that includes ourselves.  

Playwright Chiara Atik notes that the play does not offer a solution to the crisis of homelessness.  It did however bring me to turn the wheels as to stepping out of our comfort zones, and exploring the power of our true being.

“A lot of people don’t know but when I was about 14 or 15 my father lost his job and we became homeless for quite sometime. Of course, we were living up in Canada and I thought we were just camping…”

“…It’s totally out of control now the whole homeless thing. And we’ve really got to do something about it. Not only is it unnecessary to live in this country that way. Let’s face it. It’s getting totally annoying”.

JIM CARREY – COMEDIAN

In a few hours I’ll be sitting in a darkened theater with the lights directed on stage to watch “Poor Clare” unfold. My initiative to see this play comes from different places. Firstly, starting with reading Carolina Xique’s interview with playwright Chiara Atik. The second is my curiosity and concern about homelessness.

Facing my own fear, I’ve often asked myself how far am I from a state of being homeless? That thought floats along my spinal column, so that I get out of bed and and put on my game face for work. There are easy days and there are not so easy days. I count my blessings that I’m able to work.

I don’t know anything about homelessness other than what I see on the surface. I’ve talked to some “homeless” men and women to find out about their story. Some feel ok to share the truth or half-truth. I’ve talked with other people to find out their opinion about the state, but I think nobody really knows what it’s all about, because it is complex.

One woman, in her 60’s (maybe she was younger, but being outdoors had weathered her face and body too soon) has a daughter who has family and lives a normal life. “Why aren’t you living with them?” I asked. “Because we don’t get along.” That conversation was sometime ago. I’ve seen this woman a few times again, and she’s off the street now, and lives in an apartment of her own through the means of Section 8.

I’ve met two women who lived in their cars for a period of time. One woman, “Paloma”, was a chef. I met her in a writing class. She was writing a memoir about her life as “people without a house”. She read about her experience in the weekly workshops and I admired her cunning and courage to get through that period of her life. For example, she stayed in the parking lot of a grocery story that gave her access to bathroom facilities. Eventually the staff/management of the store figured out why she was there.

Out of compassion for her, they let her “live” in the parking lot, knowing she was in a transition period and was working to get out of her homeless state. They were also aware of the dangerous elements that a woman being alone could be exposed to. In allowing her to camp in the parking lot, they could keep an eye out for her. Paloma has since found a good position as a personal chef and is thriving in her new life.

The other story, I’m not sure how her life turned out. I met “Claire” at her friend’s yard sale. I had picked out a few things for myself at the yard sale. She and her friend encouraged me to come back next weekend as they promised to have more offerings then. So I did. And that’s when her story unfolded to me. Claire’s friend had decided she could no longer host the yard sale in front of her apartment building. Later, Claire revealed to me that she’s living in her car and had had falling out with her friend.

So, she was trying to make ends meet by selling her clothing (which must’ve been expensive as they were beautiful). She said she had loads of clothes in storage and she imagined that some of them would look “gorgeous” on me. She told me where she spent most of her days, and asked me to visit her. It was at the park where I walked my dog.

She was a complicated woman. I saw her quite regularly. Naturally, I had become friendly with her, because how couldn’t I? I was tempted to invite her for a hot meal to my home, but my friend discouraged me. “You don’t know this woman.” One day, Claire asked me a favor. She wanted to take a shower and asked if I could let her use my bathroom. I didn’t see any harm in it, so we arranged for the meeting.

My friend was aghast. “What?! Are you kidding? Now she knows where you’re living. First, she want to use your shower, and next thing you know she’ll be moving in with you.” Because I didn’t have the courage to backout of my agreement with Claire, my friend was present during Claire’s visit.

Maybe I was wrong on all counts. I just don’t know, but I avoided that park for quite some time, and it was an inconvenient change. I felt uncomfortable engaging further with Claire, because of my own fears. I am deeply curious how I will change after seeing tonight’s play. I’ll let you know tomorrow.

Before sitting down to write, I googled “Beginner’s Mind in Writing”, and there were several sites that came up, including not surprisingly Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones”.  I have it on my shelf, among other books about writing.  

Continuing on the theme of “Beginner’s Mind”, I searched for other areas of interest that this Zen concept has been applied to:  

Sports – https://keepitsimplegolf.com/2020/05/01/a-beginners-mind/ 

Music – https://www.beginnersmindmusic.com 

Yoga – https://yogalondon.net/monkey/using-beginners-mind/ 

Cooking – https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/articles/2018/04/23/the-beginners-mind-of-a-master-cook   

Sex – https://sexandrelationshiphealing.com/blog/the-beginners-mind-an-essential-tool-for-recovery/ , https://www.meetmindful.com/using-beginners-mind-to-keep-your-sex-life-fresh/ 

Grief – https://omh.ny.gov/omhweb/grief/griefcounselingresourceguide.pdf 

The last one on grief only brought up one link that addresses grief with a “Beginner’s Mind” applied.  It was written in 2004, and it is a resource guide on grief counseling.  The reference to “Beginner’s Mind” was only in the first paragraph.

Defining “Beginner’s Mind”, the Zen Master, Shunryu Suzuki.  wrote,

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.

As it applies to grief, the handbook says,

As bereavement workers we must meet the grieving without expectations about what should happen or what they should be feeling. There are no experts in this work.

oFFICE OF mENTAL hEALTH, New York STATE
– AUTHORS: Susan Wheeler-Roy, Ed.D. & Bernard A. Amyot, M.S., M.A.

I’m still stifled by these words.  My thoughts, emotions, my entire being still freezes when I think of my own grief.  I like that… “my own grief”.  I’m owning it.  I’m not passing it on to anyone else.

Today, someone reached out to a friend asking for my contact information as this person had just recently found out about my husband’s (Bruno Herve Commereuc) death that happened more than three years ago.  It’ll be four years in January 2022.  I imagine how horribly sad and shocking it must be for this person to have just found out. She has pictures of her baby in Bruno’s restaurant, “Angelique Cafe”. Her baby is now a 25-year old man. Bruno had many lifelong friends. He was that kind of a man who was unforgettable and took a big bite out of life. He lived big. He was bigger than life.

They’re now beginning their process of bereavement.  I put myself in their shoes, but it’s not the same.  It’ll never be the same between any two people who knew the same person.  And then there’s this space of time between then and now.  

The five stages of grief, as identified by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, are: 

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Maybe the normal (if there is a “normal”) flow is from 1 to 5, but my experience is it is fluid from one state to another at any given moment, but definitely time is a big factor in processing the loss.  Either time just helps to forget the pain if I don’t want to deal with it (denial), or it just allows me to move along the timeline to be angry, to bargain, to be down and feeling lost, and then after all that, fatigue sets in. I surrender and just accept it.

Then… it could start at anger again, if something pulls me there. But this is when awareness is important. Perhaps having a “Beginner’s Mind” – to be open to possibilities. I have choices. I can choose to be present and just allow the storm to pass and carry on with life again, like everybody else is doing. I’m not the only one who’s suffered. We all suffer. Why hide our imperfections? There are no mistakes, just lessons.

Learn the alchemy

true human beings know.

The moment you accept

what troubles you’ve been given,

the door will open.

rumi

I found the information in the resource guide (“a field manual” for bereavement workers), published by the New York State Office of Mental Health to be very good.  Chapter 4 on “Sudden Death Loss Issues” to be quite accurate.  Amongst the identified issues were:

Inability to comprehend– the disbelief of the event does not allow the individual to grasp what has actually happened. There is a searching for “why” and “how” this happened in the initial period following the death-loss event.

The ability to cope is diminished due to the shock of the event and the additional stress that has just been imposed on the individual.  

All true.  I couldn’t cope well with processing information and events.  It was as if I was a new born baby, having to relearn to comprehend.  It was a strange sensation, because I could see myself as the forest, and not in the trees. I witness/ed that I had become incapacitated, and I couldn’t understand how to learn again.  I struggled. I had to regrow neural paths to cope, to survive, to learn to find joy and thrive again.  Talk about “Beginner’s Mind”.

Thank you.  Thank you for trying to seek me out.  I look forward to meeting you and I anticipate I’ll be learning new things about my Bruno.

(Dedicated to a new friend).

by Analyn Revilla

I was at a busy intersection on Slauson the day before Halloween 2021.  The van was loaded with large pumpkins and sundries to carry the entire household (humans, dogs and chickens) with food and snacks (the latter considered not as food, but necessary) for three or four days.  The weather was chilly, and I recognized LA has a fall season.  Some deciduous trees had turned their colors to yellow and brown, and dropped their foliage everywhere.  

The intersection at La Cienega is always backed up, and Saturday afternoons aren’t different from the other days.  My eyes wandered as I noted all of the cars sitting idle.  All were pretty much the same:  SUVs, trucks, sedans, vans.  Ho hum… until I spotted one SMART car.

It looked smart.  The shade was an unusual creme neatly outlined by a piping design, akin to a Coco Chanel suit.  I don’t know anything about SMART cars, other than they’re still being sold in Europe, and it’s pretty much dead in the United States.  The Europeans like their compact cars which makes sense when navigating the narrow streets of cities, towns and villages – at least of what I’d seen in my limited travel experience of Europe.  Anyways, it made sense and indeed smart to travel in compact cars in small streets.

Now here’s what struck me as weird.  As I sat in my wide and roomy van, I noticed an arm connected to a hand with fingers that held a lit cigarette.  Why was that odd to me?  I started to see more details.  The opened sunroof billowed smoke into the atmosphere above, while the arm, like a puppet, was drawn in and out of the driver’s side window consistently and rapidly! The pace was like a matador swiftly and adeptly moving a red cape as a bull charges at it. The tease, the dust, the heat and the cry of the crowd incests the animal further, making it charge more furiously towards the bullseye.  This arm was flicking ashes on the street after each inhale of nicotine.  

I watched in wonder for a little while, until I awakened to the trick my mind was knitting together – the juxtaposition of a chain smoker in a teeny car with S M A R T smattered across the back.  I laughed. We are humans. We are inconsistent. I simply love it.

“We’re all bozos on the bus,

so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.”

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