Back to Writing!!

Hi there. So, I went to log into my website, www.sheilamcmahon.com, only to discover that it is gone. It is now an advertisement. So I am faced with the question of whether I would like to reup with it – and the answer is, I don’t think so right now. I haven’t been doing anything with it. I had a large section of my unpublished but basically finished novel, Someotherville ,posted, with some glaring errors that haven’t been corrected yet, and that was the whole thing. I don’t know enough about websites to make a really good one, and frankly, I really like wordpress, and I don’t think I need a different site.

I am considering posting part of Someotherville here, but I don’t know if I want to yet. I have been thinking over the fact that I haven’t made a concerted effort to get it published. I don’t know what stops me – I’m happy with the book, I think people would enjoy it – there’s no reason not to work harder, finish the last round of corrections, rework one section just a tad more, because I had a revelation about it, and then send it off to —who? That’s the big question, I guess.

But the small question of whether I should contact the website people and get my site back is easy – no. Not necessary. And if some other Sheila McMahon (and there are a lot of us) should snag it, then good for her.

I’m glad I still have my wordpress blog, and perhaps I should start with rededicating myself to posting here every day. I find myself putting things on facebook that would be more appropriate here, anyway.

Alphabetography

Hey what up?  Sorry I haven’t been writing much – the fall is hard for me, and I get myself into a funk.  I was somewhat depressed over the weekend, but now I have an idea for a new project for one of my classes.  It’s actually an idea that I read somewhere else a few weeks ago, but I have ideas as to how I’m going to use it.  It’s a memoir project.  The idea is that for each letter of the alphabet, you tell a different story from your life.  You might say, A is for Accident, and then tell about an accident that you had.  We are going to do one letter a week.  Meanwhile, we are still going to work on memorizing a poem, and we are going to talk about the mechanics of poetry.  We will also read some other people’s memoirs.  Yeah!  I am so excited about this work.  Can’t wait to get started.  I think we will start with my favorite idea generator ever – you take about 5 minutes and write down a list of all the people you can remember from your life.  From there, you make a list of important moments in your life… using that list to come up with ideas for your memoirs.  Ok, have a good day.  <3 Sheila

Reflections

It’s Saturday, and I have had quite a day.  I wouldn’t be able to point out any one thing from today to sum it up, rather, it’s been a hodgepodge of strange events, sharp contrasts, old memories gurgling, and artistic ambition calling.

The most important thing I did today was hang out at the Sculpture Garden by the Walker.  I have been thinking a bit about what I want the cover of Someotherville to look like, and I had an idea.  Let me go get my notes, and I will tell you what I was thinking:

Make a scale model of the Irene Hixton Whitney Bridge and the Sculpture Garden out of yarn and wire, both knit and crochet.

Steps:  Measure and inventory – 10-17-09 11 am

One of my regular footsteps = 1 (one stitch???)

For park, walk, keep track of where sidealks go.  For sculptures, walk around them, as clas as possible, estimate hight, sketch.

Don’t use the Internet.  Do the math myself.  If it’s not perfect, that’s ok.  Loring?  Maybe trail off like an apron – part f loring, but certainly not all.

When this is done, photo of my version = cover art.

Tday I was thinking of some new project, if each step we take in life is like a stutch, we could map a day = wat to do with thime in car, though?  Yarn would just stretch loose until the next place – stitch where your feet hit the groind”  Stimfferer to make yarn math up woth roads?  Or wire?  could do this sti hing on a street map…

I was just thinking of how I feel more and more that I am turning into an artist, and I look up to see:

A sketch I did while sitting in the car next to Loring Park

Visiting with the Dead

sacrificed everything through no intent

wanted to hold on, yet there it went

no hand holds in reach now

just one cold marble stone

and memories ricocheting

song fragments say it best

and allow me to lay my head

down to rest in a world

where a 21 gun salute

or a memorial held in a gym

are all that’s left of

him and him, those events

and the thoughts in my head

my unreliable, mortal memories

I hope they are enough.

Writing Questions

Hey there.  So, I am considering whether I should be writing more.  I have been teaching this year, and that has been going fine, but I’m not sure if I want to find a way to pursue writing, too.  I really enjoyed the process of writing Someotherville, and I think that I might want to go into an MFA program for writing.  This is questionable, though, because it’s a big risk.  I don’t know if I would get in, I don’t know how it would go.  Do I have another novel in me?  I think I do, but I don’t know what it is yet, so I’m not sure whether it’s the right thing to do.  The first one isn’t even published – yet.

Do I have the kind of dedication that it would take to commit my life to writing?  I think that I do.  If I set things up right, if I was in a position to have time to write, I would certainly write.  I had planned to write this summer, but the summer was too sad.  Waiting and hoping for Jay’s dad to get well, and the fact that he didn’t, well, that kept me from writing and from finishing my M.Ed.  I plan to finish my M.Ed. in the next two months, and then after that???  Who knows – keep teaching high school?  Or turn my life upside down in a mad attempt to be a writer.  I know which one sounds more appealing…  a little adventure, a little risk.  I can go back to teaching if I need to – and don’t get me wrong, I love teaching, but I love writing, too.  Guess I have some thinking to do.

The Sun Machine Co-op review

Hi.  Jay and I went to go see the Sun Machine Co-op tonight at Lily’s 3301 Central Ave NE in Minneapolis.  I thought they were good and entertaining.  Lily’s is a nice place where you can get a good cup of coffee.  Jay had a nice hummus and vegetable sandwich, too.

I didn’t pay tons of attention to the first guy that was on, since we were eating outside, but I liked what I heard.  Then Wallace Wylie came on.  We know him, and I play his first disc fairly often, so we went in.  I like him a lot.  He writes thoughtful lyrics and I like to try to catch all of them as he sings.  I thought he would play some from his first disc, but it turns out that he’s working on a second, and so it was all new songs.  (new to me, anyway!)

After that, Brian David played.  I really like Brian’s guitar playing.  The last time we saw him he played with his band The Pharaohs of Rhythm.  This time he started with someone on keyboard and someone with a (?) drum, and then he played some songs solo.  The music was very mellow and he has a nice voice.  It all went too fast!

I am not a music critic, so all I can say is that I enjoyed this evening a lot, and would recommend going out to see these guys.  It’s cool to support local music, and they don’t hurt your ears. 

Pawlenty.

Hi I am just mad because I read an article in the Strib regarding our darling Tim spreading his budget across other agencies in Minnesota.  This makes him look like his budget is slimmer than it is.  I guess I wouldn’t care, except that he generally tries to play it off like he’s this great fiscal conservative, and he seems to be thinking of running form Prez, and people just might buy his line of reasoning if they don’t know the truth.

And President Pawlenty is just not a epithet I want to be spitting out in another 6 years…

He’s hiding his true costs by doing this.  Much like a heavy gambler might hide their losses on a secret credit card.  I hope people see this when they read this simple little article, and keep it in mind in the future when they hear about his great conservatism – don’t even get me started on the idea that all of us have had no new taxes since he started… suffice it to say that shuffling your costs off to an alternative accounting system is not a valid savings plan, Mr. Governor.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/56646752.html?elr=KArks:DCiUHc3E7_V_nDaycUiacyKUUr

Being Called a Traitor is Mildly Amusing in Real Life

So, this happened:  We were at the VA Medical center in Mpls. waiting and worrying over my very ill father-in-law when some person took it upon himself to write us a nasty note and leave it on our car.  It said, and I’ll have to just approximate because I don’t have it in front of me, “You are a vet and you voted for Obama, and you’re proud of it?  TRAITOR!”

Hell yes, I’m proud of voting for Obama.  I wish I could vote again.  But this is beside the point that I want to make right now.

Our car has been the lucky recipient of several of these notes over the years – we have probably 40 or so bumperstickers that just give a brief outline of some things we agree with.  We are somewhat to the left of moderate liberals, in fact I’d say that we are Really Quite Liberal.  This does not make us traitors.  This simply means that we believe that the US could do a better job, that we could be better people, could do better for people.  That we believe in equal rights, for each and every individual human being on the planet.  I don’t think that’s so crazy, and it’s certainly not against the ideals of our country.

As far as I understand, being American is supposed to mean that we strive to do good.  That we strive to be ‘the best’ in the world.  I don’t think this means the best at dominating others, the best at killing people who are helpless, the best at taking away other people’s liberties.  I think it’s supposed to mean that we are the best at doing what is right, selfless, helpful and fair, which is what the people at the VA have worked for.  I would think that guy would be proud that he defended a country that has free speech in which we can display our thoughts, whatever they might be.

The Pressure of Expectations

Hey there. So I have noticed something, and that is the fact that we can’t know how things will go. Since we can’t know how they will go, there is no sense worrying about them.

Doesn’t seem to stop me from worrying, but it’s good to see evidence, once again, that worrying doesn’t help, it only wears you down. So next time you are worrying over something, please give yourself a break. That anticipation, unless you’re enjoying it, doesn’t do you any good.

Fringe Festival Volunteering

Hey all. I’m so excited to be volunteering for the Fringe this year! I do feel like a lightweight, though, I’m only working 9 shows. There are 800 over 11 days!! I’m just not too sure of my overall schedule, and I didn’t want to commit to things I will have to get out of later.

I went to the training on Saturday, and it was really well done. I feel pretty well prepared to do my part. I am thinking that maybe Jay and I should try to do a show next year – it’s a great deal. You pay $400, and they give you the venue, some advertising, and a tech. That’s amazing. Not everyone who applies gets in, though. It’s not juried, it’s based on a lottery system. I think that’s so cool.

I can’t wait to see what people have prepared for their shows! And if you want to get in to some shows for free, you should volunteer. You get a ticket to another show free for every show you work.

Check it out!  www.fringefestival.org

12/30 NaBloPoMo09 – Harry Potter at the Drive In

I want to say something nice about the new Harry Potter movie, but I just can’t.  All I can think is, you call that a movie?  Doesn’t something have to move to qualify as a movie?  And is there some sort of shame in having color in your movie?  Does it all have to be silver and black?  Is this a 2 hour homage to the Oakland Raiders? I would rather be watching football than watch this movie.  Maybe that doesn’t sound extreme to you, but trust me, it is one of the strongest statements I can make.

Jay had the right idea – he fell asleep about 20 minutes in, and snored the whole time.  I foolishly stayed awake, thinking that something might happen.  I mean, there was a plot in the book, as I recall.  I read it – maybe it was a bit tedious, but I did.  All this seemed to be was an extended series of near-poisonings where everyone turned out to be alright.  By the time that something I dreaded happened – which I won’t divulge, in case you are one of the dozen or so people who haven’t read the book – I was just plain burned out.  The only reason I didn’t walk out on this movie is that I literally didn’t know where the exit was, and I didn’t want to turn on my headlights on the off chance that I might ruin someone’s enjoyment of the movie.

At least I got to see it at the drive in.  I haven’t been to a drive in since about the 6th grade, when I believe they had Star Wars followed by Porky’s, and the only things I remember are my dad snoring through both of them and some kid at school saying that if my family saw Porky’s at the drive in, my mom must have thrown a blanket over the whole car.

My mom did not.  But in retrospect, I’m surprised.  I wish I had had a blanket to throw over my car tonight – that or I wish I could pull the memory of that movie out of my brain with a magic wand and store it in a test tube on the shelf…no, even then I wouldn’t get my 2 hours back.

10/30 – NaBloPoMo09 – The Fabric of Time, or Why Not To Bother Setting People Up

When you hear phrases like “Time marches on” or ‘Time waits for no man,” you might begin to think that time flows on irregardless of your needs or wants in life.

Time, though, has a mind of its own.  I can’t wait for the day that a Nobel-level physicist discovers and proves scientifically that which I know intuitively – Time is a bitchy seventh grade girl who runs the universe like Stacy F. used to run the junior high.  The question is, now that I’ve been out of 7th grade for 25 years, and have escaped the influence of that sphere, (Well, can we ever truly escape?  That’s another blog…) is it possible to escape the random and cruel influence of time on our lives?  Time doesn’t work irregardless of your needs – time figures out your individual needs and runs at a different rate just for you to mess you up.  The it sits in the back of the social studies class with the other cool kids laughs while you try to pick up the shards of your shattered aspirations.

These thoughts flow from a simple fact – I was granted an extra day today.  Time must have been looking the other way or torturing someone else for a change, because I thought today was going to be tomorrow, and boy was I surprised to find that it isn’t.  It’s Wednesday today.  If it had been Thrusday, like it will be tomorrow, I would be finishing packing for the beautiful Sawyer MN, Bill would be heading off to Camp Courage, and I would be wondering how time can go so fast.

I know I should make use of this found time, but I will probably whittle it away wondering what to do…and this is where Not Bothering To Set People Up comes in.  It takes forever to orchestrate two people meeting each other, and it never seems to be worth the effort.  I have had one, count it, one, time that I introduced a couple and it worked. So I know I can put that on my list of things not to do today.

I guess I had beginners luck that time.  Usually what happens when you set someone up is that suddenly your eyes are opened to the unattractive aspects of your friends.  And who wants to have that realization?  I don’t care if my friends are attractive or not.  I just want them to be fun to hang out with and laugh with.  Even with my found day today, there isn’t enough time to sit and pick everyone apart.

Well, that’s all I’ve got.  I hope you have a nice day and that Time doesn’t steal your lunch money.

Quick review of “Whatever Works”

See it. It works.

9/30 – NaBloPoMo09 Teaching in America

Howdy. So I have been asked by a Brazilian educator to write about what it’s like to teach high school in the United States.

I’ll try. I don’t think my experience is typical – I have taught Drama in Florida, Drama and Reading in Chicago, Illinois, and Drama, Reading and English in Minnesota. I worked in large schools (2,000 kids or so) for the first 6 years; one year as a substitute. The past 4 years I have worked as the only English teacher in a very small school – with an average of 75 students.

I think that if a student here knows about the different options, he would be able to find a school that suits him. Of course, that depends on where he lives, too. We have something called ’school choice’ here, which means that if a student doesn’t want to go to their neighborhood school, he can go to another school. Usually there is transportation for those students. A lot of people have widely differing opinions about school choice – some argue that it’s great because it helps students integrate racially and stay away from situations where a poor neighborhood has a correspondingly poor neighborhood school. Others claim it is a way for white parents to send their kids to less integrated schools.  This is a very complicated and controversial topic that perhaps I will research and try to go into in more depth at a later date.

Personally, I think school choice is good if it helps students voice their opinion about their neighborhood school. If the kids get a say (with their parents) about which school they will attend, it’s almost like a vote. Competition to be a better school and attract students seems to help ensure better schools for the kids. And that’s what it should all be about.

There are some people who also think that we should be working to make sure that all high schools are offering the ’same’ education across the country. This is not happening. Each state has standards that their Board of Education writes up and publishes, but the standards are left to local interpretation. I think this is a double edged sword. I believe strongly in ‘teacher autonomy’ – that a teacher should have the power to make decisions in the classroom for his or her students. But I wish there was some sort of a consensus, too, officially, about what might be ideal.

Now maybe I’m just belying my ignorance here, but I have never seen a national resource for curriculum that could be used at the high school level – at least not for Engish/Language Arts. Instead, it seems that I have worked to interpret the Minnesota standards on my own and implement them into a curriculum. This also leads to me repeating bits and pieces of what I was taught in high school and making up new curriculum myself. I’m fine with doing that, but I would love to be able to check myself against a true standard.

I think a lot of the problem with that is there are a lot of companies that want to write and sell curriculum. If the government put together a really good resource, I suppose they would be limiting free enterprise’s chances to make money.  Again, I think that the needs of the students should be the most important.

Well, I think I introduced some rough ideas about a lot of interrelated topics in this post.  I will try to refine my thinking and continue to write on the topic.  As always, I would love to see this turn into a discussion so if you have any comments or questions, please be sure to post them.  Sheila

8/30 – NaBloPoMo – Emotional Vertigo

I have been a do-gooder all my life.  Always wanting the best, the ideal.  Not materially, but spiritually.  I revel in good deeds, in participating in a successful endeavor that will do no less than change the world.  The next right thing is my mantra.  Joy is being useful, helping people.  I want to do good and seek out the good in others.  I want to be the first to catch a glimpse see it, coerce it out if it’s latent.  Maybe this is why I am a teacher.

Lately, I have been experiencing something strange – a confusion, a dizzying mental drag causing me to sway in my belief in humankind.  It’s as debilitating as the vertigo I used to occasionally suffer, but again, it’s spiritual and emotional.  A doctor once explained vertigo to me as a brain’s confusion between reality and its perception of reality.  If the muscles in my neck are too tense and a breeze caresses them in just the right way, my brain will believe that I am falling although I am simply standing or sitting.

Emotional vertigo, I posit, is the confusion in my brain that arises when my ideals are brushed by even the lightest hushed wind of a disappointing human reality.  When my expectations of something or someone I’ve idealized are met with non-ideal reality, my emotions swoon inside.  My elbows tingle, I mix up words as I try to speak, I weep without direct cause.

The cure for physical vertigo that has worked for me is to stretch my neck and to ice those muscles.  I am still seeking the cure for ‘emotigo’ – I know that the disillusionment will not last.  Reality may not be ideal, but it’s not bad either – somehow to stretch my mental muscles and reset back to reality.  Perhaps vacation will do the trick.

6/30 – NaBloPoMo09

Everything is an advertisement lately. I was reading some advice about blogging, and the article mentioned advertising on blogs. I have never even thought about trying to advertise anything. Sometimes I talk about my novel, *still seeking representation* but I don’t consider that to be advertisement.

The author was saying that if you had enough viewers every day, say 1000, that you could get a company to place a banner on your page and they would pay you $200 a month. Weird. Perhaps I can be accused of not knowing what I’m talking about, since I have a daily average of about 5 readers – and that is a vast improvement over a couple of months ago… (thanks, you 5) but even if I had a large readership, or perhaps especially if I did, I would think that letting some corporation try to influence you to buy some crap you don’t need – or even crap that you do need – would be a let down. I would be disappointed in myself.

I hope that if you are another blogger, you will agree with me that advertising on your blog is not the way to go. I actively seek out pages that are by people who are writing for the joy of writing or because they are committed to the topic – not because they are mildly clever at embedding a bunch of key words that advertisers want you to click on.

Not everything needs to be a goddamned advertisement. That said, someday Jay will get his t-shirt printing endeavor together, and maybe I will offer his atheist themed shirts. But then it would be a cottage industry, not a corporate interest. And I would be sure to only offer shirts which would be entertaining to read in an ad… then it’s an even trade, right?

NaBloPoMo09 – Away We Go!

NaBloPoMo is exactly what I need right now! So I’m going to do it- 30 blogs in 30 days.

To start off, I have seen three recent movies without talking about any of them. They don’t flow naturally together at all, none the less, I shall discuss each of them in this blog as if they do.  Hope that works for you.

I think I will start with my favorite, which was Away We Go. I laughed a lot.  At one point, I laughed so hard I thought I might have an asthma attack.  I cried a little too.  Lots of events happen in this movie, but what I liked the best was that they addressed a lot of different women’s experiences with fertility/infertility.  Some of it was just funny, like over the top touchy-feely parenting, but I felt that they balanced that well with more serious situations.

It’s been very difficult for me to articulate why, not being able to have children* myself, I don’t go out and adopt.  I can’t exactly say why, but it doesn’t feel right to me yet.  Maybe I’m still in mourning – but I know I’m not ready to adopt right now.  In the movie, I feel like the couple from Montreal (don’t worry, I’m not ruining the movie for you here) showed exactly why I am hesitant – I am afraid I would feel how they feel. Ok, spoiler alert, I guess, because I’d like to talk about it in more detail.

I have been in her shoes – the woman who does the sexy/melancholy dance – because I have often wanted to ask pregnant women how it feels to get pregnant and have no problems – but I’m sure they couldn’t tell me anyway, and I would probably start to feel envious, which is a complete waste of time.

Anyway, I liked that part of the movie because it’s not a feeling that is talked about – the feeling that no matter how much you try to fill the hole that is left by not having children, nothing will.  You have to live with the hole.  And if you adopt, that’s great, and they are your children fully and completely, but the reality is that if you had wanted a biological child, an adoption is not a replacement of that lost possibility.  It’s probably not fair to the adoptive child to have a parent who is still longing so deeply for a biological child, and that’s why I’m not ready to adopt yet.  I am still in mourning.  I don’t know how long it will take.  It’s definitely better than it used to be – I no longer weep about it on a monthly basis, but the pain and loss is still there.  Seeing someone portrayed in a movie who went ahead and adopted several to ‘make a family out of whatever we can,’ and seeing the possible cracks in that goes a little way toward helping me understand myself, which I appreciate in a movie.

I also liked that the main couple reminded me of myself and my husband in that they are so in love.  And like that couple, we laugh a lot.  And when someone’s grumpy, it’s usually me.   They have little jokes, they are disappointed by the same things, and so on.  I loved them as a couple, and I love us as a couple.

The second movie that we saw recently was The Proposal.  I don’t have that much to say – it was entertaining and cute, but it’s obvious that compared to Away We Go, the director didn’t seem as confident in the audience being able to grasp the events and interpret them – this is especially evident in the last scene where what’s his name says some mushy-gushy stuff, and the director cuts to shots of random office workers making doe eyes or covering their mouths in surprise.  It was so effin’ silly.  But other than that, the movie was fine, and was enjoyable two times, so far.

The final movie we have seen recently is Transformers II, or whatever the hell it’s called, which was pathetic.  I was the one who wanted to see it – and I was sorry about 10 minutes in.  The cars transforming was neat, but there was no plot to speak of.  Well, there was a plot.  It was a very young and oddly mismatched couple competing to be the last one to say ‘I love you’ to the other.  Meanwhile, aliens attack the world, yadda yadda, the girl says it first because she thinks the boy has died, and only then he can say it back.  Plus shitloads of chase scenes, and some very racially stereotyped robot characters, and a couple of near crotch shots of a couple pretty girls.  I think that sums up the movie, actually.  So so very bad.  And they’ll make a million bucks each.  Oh well. Hollywood, right?

If you only have the chance to see one of these movies, it had better be Away We Go, or you are a fool.  We’ll try not to judge, but why don’t you make it easier by just seeing it.  It’s worth your time. 

*without going medically further than I want to, that is,  Please don’t email me and tell me “there’s always something they can do” – it’s not them, it’s me. Plaintive smile. – thanks, Sheila

Pride Day

I know, I know, I’m supposed to be writing my memories of Michael Jackson today, but the only thing I have is that my cousin had the Thriller album, and I loved it so much that I got my parents to buy it for me for Christmas in the seventh grade.  And one of my other friends had his pictures up in her locker.  She kissed his picture, and I remember being shocked.  I think kissing a photograph is very intimate.  Silly, since it’s one way, but that’s how I still feel.

What I am actually writing about today, after the non-related intro paragraph, is Gay Pride in Minneapolis.  As you may know, it’s set mostly in Loring Park, across from the Walker Art Center.  I love that area – Loring Park, the Irene Whitney bridge and the Sculpture Garden serve as the setting for the climax of my novel, Someotherville. *ahem, still seeking representation*  There’s something about Loring Park that is just very comfortable.

I can’t say that I had any Earth-shattering insights, it was just a nice day where I met a lot of nice people. I was especially gratified to see that there were at least three booths specifically for Transgender people.  I have had the honor of serving several Transgender students over the years, and I’m glad to see that their community is being served by at least a few non-profits.

I also thought it was great that such a wide variety of Minnesota was represented.  Corporations, small independent artists, churches (lots of churches.) and in the middle of religion row, a booth from Minnesota Atheists.  A man was holding a ‘hug an Atheist today’ sign.  I was so happy to see him that I did run up and hug him.  So did Jay.  The people running the booth said that they were working hard to present a positive image of us.  It seemed to be working.  We are definitely joining that group.

I also saw students and old friends, signed about a dozen petitions, picked up great resources for future students, walked through a well-done exhibit about the history of homosexual persecution and ate a falafel.  It was a great day.  We are still waiting until Gay marriage is legal in Minnesota to wear our wedding rings, but Jay and I held hands alot, and for once it felt like our Gay friends were free to do the same.

I have to close now, but a big thank you to the organizers of Minnesota’s Pride events this year – it was really great.

Ivan the Drunk and his Terrible Tale of Woe – Theater Review

I had the pleasure of seeing “Ivan the Drunk and his Terrible Tale of Woe” on Saturday.  If it isn’t yet June 21st 2009, you haven’t missed it yet.  You should go.

The set is beautiful and cleverly transforms into layer upon layer of dream-like sequences and settings that Ivan recalls from life and returns to in his memory.  The memories are surreal – it’s not a strictly linear play – and the interaction between the music, setting, and acting/dancing are evocative of intense emotion, often with no words for minutes at a time.  Some of the scenes are nightmarish; but it is always clear that they are based on events from his life.  At no time does it seem completely random – the action is grounded in a reality, even though we as audience members only have a minimal sense of the reality, it’s clearly there.

There are light hearted moments, too, as Ivan talks to his burden, which he quite literally carries around with him.  The physicality of Paul Herwig leaves no doubt from the very opening moments that this burden is taxing.  I wondered, though, whether he would be able to share his burden with someone else if he would allow it.  He wouldn’t allow it, and thus we saw several examples of his loved ones being shut out of his life.  This is painful to watch, as it is a depiction of an emotion that many of us have felt – perhaps it is a universal emotion – of not being trusted with someone else’s pain.  The other performers, every one seamlessly controlled yet fluid and accessable, each have moments of physically embodying the hardships of enduring Ivan’s distrust.

I don’t even have a word for that kind of rejection – the pain that accompanies the knowledge that a loved one would rather choose to carry their burden alone, whether it be alcoholism, drug dependency, post-traumatic stress, mental illness, or any number of other sadnesses.  That kind of rejection doesn’t get talked about much in our society – and here is a play that articulates it beautifully – subtly, the other characters throw bruised look and a walk away – Ivan watches in horror as he realizes he has shut another loved one out – but unable to do anything but hang onto his burden for dear life.

And you get the sense that life is dear to him – even after all of his struggles in the war, after nearly being killed, after killing (in more ways than one), he wants to live.  He seems to wish for things to have been different – in one of his memories, he alienates one family member, and then has a memory-do-over and tries again, only to alienate another family member – and so on.  He can’t get it right, because he can’t rewrite his memories into falsehoods.  So we see the pain and hurt and degradation.

All the while, though, there is a sense of healing, too.  Perhaps it’s in the very beauty of the movement, the imagry, the music – but one gets the sense that Ivan does have a poetic soul.  You wouldn’t know it from his ‘tchotchkes,’ his baudy little soldier rhymes, but he must have, if the events in this play are going on in his mind.  The reasons for his pain, the contents of his burden, are slowly unpacked for the audience to see and feel – we get both sides of the rejection and pain, and realize that as personal as the rejection is for the other characters, it is a double-edge sword that hurts Ivan as much as them.

The play has no breaks – no intermissions or even black-outs, and Ivan is on stage the whole time.  There is physical and verbal comic relief, but it is closely tied to the tragedy, and by the end, as an audience member, I was physically tired just from watching and paying as much attention as I could.  In empathizing with Ivan, I had a sense of relief and anxiety for him as he approached the final scene.  I was glad to see how the resolution of the final minutes was uncompromising in maintaining Ivan’s reality, yet found a way to articulate joy and beauty in the process of life, even a tragicomic life such as Ivan’s.

In the end, I felt spent and sated – I felt trusted as an audience member to understand and interpret the action in my own way, and, surprisingly, I felt closer to some parts of my own life that have been difficult for me to process in the past.  Something shifted in my own way of thinking about rejections that I have experienced and family members whom I have not understood – maybe some room for compassion has opened up where there was only pain and rejection before.  Regardless of my personal emotional reaction to this play, I feel I can confidently say that it touches a deep chord of humanity and will give you a lot to consider, whether you have direct experience with someone like Ivan in your life or not.

Can’t Wait to Vote

Hi All,

I am so excited to vote tomorrow – it doesn’t even seem real that there might be an opportunity to live in a new America.  I have been a dem since I was a little little kid, and unlike some of the other identities that I had as a little kid, (Catholic, anti-choice, frightened of my own shadow) dem has pretty much stuck.  I wouldn’t mind if they got a little more liberal, as a group, start making sure that everyone could marry another person of mutual choice, stop talking about “killing” Bin Laden (honestly, jail for life would be better to me) stuff like that, but overall, I guess I’m fairly comfortable with being a dem…and now it seems like we might have a chance to see if it works or not.

I’m sitting in the same house I was in when Reagan creamed Carter in 1980.  I remember walking to school and the bully of the class asked me who my parents were for.  When I told him, he laughed, pointed at me, and said I was backing a loser.  I didn’t even know what the hell was going on, but I wanted to show that we weren’t losers.  And I think it’s fitting that the bully of the school was the first open republican that I knew.  Draw your own conclusions.

My point is, I feel like a 6th grader again.  I hope strongly that my guy wins, I’m loving the fact that I can vote.  I hope that Obama wins tomorrow.  Hope feels good.  I am reserved, but I have to say, even reserved hope feels good.

If you’re reading this before you vote, please do go vote.  Your vote is a piece of democratic gold, only redeemable tomorrow.    See you at the polls!!

Sheila

Dash it all, I keep forgetting to write!

Hello all,

It’s time again for me to make my perennial complaint:  I forgot to write all week!

I don’t even know if anyone has been checking out my blog, but if so, I apologize to you, and thank you for your patience.    I suppose I should have something to write about right now, but I really don’t.  So I shall babble until I feel inspired to talk about something real.

Something real, like the presidential elections.  I can’t wait.  I have been eagerly anticipating it for months, and I just can’t wait.  But if Obama doesn’t win, I don’t know what I’m going to do.  Probably go into a depression deeper than the economic one we’re (theoretically) facing. Hopefully it goes our way.  Audacious.

I am working on getting the house ready for a future sale, nervous about that, enjoying my dog immensely, guess that’s about all.  So, yeah, inspiration never struck, but you can’t win them all.

Take Care,
Sheila

Balancing emotions with academics at school

Hi. I thought I’d throw in a quick one.  The dog is outside doing his business, it’s three am, and I haven’t written for two days.  It was a busy day at school, we threw a holiday party for the students, it was fun and it went well.  I like planning days like today.  There was a little chaos, but I don’t think anything untoward happened, and it’s good for the students to have some fun together at school.

It’s so hard to keep a balance between having fun, learning, being nice to each other, and moving forward academically.  I will have to explore  that one later, when I feel up to it, not on a fly by night entry – but I will confess that I find it very difficult sometimes to balance everything.  Either I get all about academics, which makes me too uptight, or all about emotions, which makes me maybe too relaxed about academics.  But I do believe that you can’t learn at all if your emotions are raging out of control.  And one emotion that students have is stress – maybe a little stress is good, but I am constantly seeing kids “stress out” about school, and when they are in that state, are they actually learning?  I doubt it.

Anyway, it’s late, the dog is finally in, and if I don’t get as much sleep as I can at this point, I’m liable to be grumpy in class, and that wouldn’t be good on the last day before the holiday break.  I should tell you my theory about how much teacher can accomplish when they are stressed out… but I don’t want this to be a lesson in irony, so good night to you!  Sheila