Tag Archives: freedom

The Two Leelee’s

Artists, LAFPI, playwriting, , , , ,

by Leelee Jackson

This Hispanic Heritage month, I had the pleasure of teaching kids about the wonderful and amazing Frida Kahlo. While brushing up on my knowledge of her legacy, I was deeply inspired with how vulnerable she was to include herself in her art pieces. As a child, Frida found solace in creating art when her illness (polio) made it so unbearable that she was paralyzed and oftentimes bedridden. Her roots as a creator stemmed from communicating the truth of her pain. Frida found herself expressing her big feelings by centering herself as the focal point of her work.

WHAT? Girl, how?

“My painting carries with it the message of pain” Frida Kahlo.

When I write plays, I center those around me. My mother, father, sisters and friends. Where I’m from, my culture and parts of my upbringing like Spice Girls and double dutch. But when it comes to writing about me, I just don’t do it. I steer away from telling my story because I feel like I’m better at telling other people stories because it’s more relateable. It’s not like I’m not in there, I’m just not the lead… or supporting but more like the understudy. But Frida challenged me. And boy what a challenge it is.

Have you ever told the truth about yourself? Like telling the paper what it is you truly believe of how you really are and who you know yourself to be? My god, it is not for the weak. When Eugene O’Neill wrote his semi-biographical play Long Day’s Journey Into the Night, he made it so that it would not be produced while he was alive. The play is his truth. How he sees himself and the toll his toxic upbringing had on him. The play was so revealing, it exposed him in this vulnerable way that he refused to share until years after his passing. Baby, I get it.

Engaging with Frida’s boldness as a truthteller, I challenged myself to write a play about myself (cringe!). I am able to see myself on paper in a way I’ve only been able to think about and I don’t always like who or what I am seeing. A friend from my graduate cohort once said during a lecture, it’s important to “show your scars, not your wounds,” as to say if there is something we are not yet healed from, we do not have to feel pressure to write about it or share it with the world. And I agree. However, I have the scars, yet refuse to confront what caused them or who caused them due to the fear that more often than not, it was me.

Each scene in this new… experiment has me feeling all undone and exposed in a way I’ve never been in my life. I write a little bit then hide from it. Scared that it’s not good or I’m not good or that I’m not telling the whole story or that it’s a poor depiction of my memory and how I want to communicate who I am and how I think of myself.

In the portrait The Two Frida’s, created after her divorce with Diego Rivera, we see two versions of the artist holding hands. Both have their hearts exposed. While one (the traditional Frida) heart is bloody and open and… undone, while the other, a newer version, heart is closed. Healthy though exposed. For me, this is what I hope for myself. The chance to see a healthy part of me holding this raw version of myself with love. The way I’d like to approach that is through playwriting which is my art and accept myself through it all.

I look to Frida as my north star in writing about myself in the most honest way I can understand. I look to her for guidance as I think about how I see myself on paper and in the mirror. It’s okay to confront pain and lies and truth and my ugly through my art work. But I’ll also be available to hold my hand and allow for each version of myself to be seen, loved and accepted. By creating this work and even sharing it (if I feel like it) I’m giving each version of myself the chance to be visible by the world. A world who has been harsh, unkind and unforgiving to me but also, caring, generous and graceful.

I love you Frida Kahlo! Thank you for your truth which has set me free.

Jenische (Gypsies)…

LAFPI, Playwright, playwriting, , , , , , , , ,

They were camped less than a mile outside Cooke Barracks in the empty field on the way to town for months.  The young children would wave at me as I passed by.  I would walk because, 1. I was in tip top physical shape and, 2. I did not have a license to drive in Germany.  Everyone on Base noticed them – the gypsies – camped like something out of a movie. Dark haired, dark complexioned – a beautiful and intriguing people… One weekend, the children waved as usual but the teen-aged girls called me over to have me show them how to put on makeup.  I showed them how to apply eyeliner, mascara, blush, lipstick… losing my stash of course to their giddy “May I haves.”  I asked them if they were gypsies, “No, we are German” they answered.  Adamantly, Wir sind Deutsch.  We are German.”  The next time I walked to town, they were gone…

I think about them sometimes – German, not Armenian, not gypsies – and the freedom I felt standing there in their camp.  I think about their claim to a land, a heritage not expected by outsiders or even by insiders with standardized tests.  They did not look the part but the field settled softly beneath their trailers disguised as carts disguised as trailers.  And the trees hung over them shielding their skin from the penetrating sun as if ordained as covering since the beginning of time.  And when they were gone, the trees sagged and could be heard moaning for the children.

Gypsies; part of the world but not confined by the world, always ready and willing to move anywhere to find home – never losing the authenticity of self.  Owning their space and place in time, they drew you into their story…made you look…made you want to know…

Sometimes, I feel like a gypsy (submitting work authentic to me and clearly not on the same-dar as what is being selected).  Sometimes I consider “what if I changed”…but never do because it’s the me way down on the inside that’s got so much to say and there is somebody somewhere who needs exactly what I write, how I write it, because the feeling of freedom when I write is worth the waiting period needed for that gypsy spark to ignite.  It must be the softness of the ground beneath my feet begging for seed during the planting season promising fruit during the harvest that keeps me pushing on head first into the wind and rain…into the fray…because I belong…because I am a storyteller…

When contemplating words and worlds, sometimes I go to the movies to see what other stories are being told.  It inspires/fuels/rouses me to create another day…  On my last such outing, I went to see THE GREY by Joe Carnahan and Ian Mackenzie Jeffers (based on the short story by Jeffers titled GHOST WALKER).  It is a wonderful movie, wonderfully told.  There is a poem in it that made me think of my life as a writer… in this time just before…

Once more into the fray

Into the last fight I’ll ever know

Live and die on this day

Live and die on this day.

— from THE GREY

And all the artists said, “Amen.”

The Deliberate…

LAFPI, playwriting, Uncategorized, , ,

It’s time to write but the internal mulling over process is growing branches – more like veins – and they’re burrowing…going places I did not expect.  I have been reading a lot of poetry lately – writing more of it than I have in years.  I have entered my sacred circle, searching for stories never expecting to find them in poetry but there they are – visible more to my ear than my eye, writing an old thing a new way.  I found a new poet, too.  Nikky Finney – who is not new but somehow she was hidden from me all these years.  Perhaps, I wasn’t ready for her; she’s intense.  Her poems help me understand the ache in my own poetry to be more than…  They’re like short stories – her poetry.  Raw, refined and full of truth – her poetry is a lesson in the deliberate…   Deliberate as in:  Intentional, on purpose, premeditated, calculated, planned, and not accidental.  Every writer should have/develop the ability to deliberately tell their stories, their way – to flip the switch that turns off all outside interference and just say it…

I am noticing a greater freedom in my poetry lately.  Now that I am focusing on it; it seems to have evolved into another form of storytelling.  It even almosts writes like a play.  In the past, I have written monologues in poetry but I never thought much about the connection to a freedom I haven’t had in my plays.  Not that I am not free already but in poetry, one can be sparse and direct and move on to the next thought.  This is the first time my poetry has become part of my circle where I thought of it as story first.  Putting together a manuscript recently, I found myself looking at the context of the whole, the arch, the subtext of the whole, the imagery, the story…   And, now, I can hear pieces and parts of poetry whispering to me from the shadows; on the verge of the light of day yet always just able to crawl back into their hiding places – too many to catch.  They want me to sit with them by the fire and listen as they slowly tell me – everything…they promise to tell me everything…  But, I have been so busy lately; there has been no time to linger in my sacred circle longer than a moment. Especially, since I was expecting characters from a play to speak and not fragments of poetry. 

Maybe the poetry will end up being a play…  At any rate, if I deliberately go with the flow and write whatever wants to be written now; I am sure it will enhance every area of my writing life.   May be the break will bring me back to the characters more refreshed and ready to rock and roll.  As long as I can meet my deadlines…