A Random Congregation

 At times, even in old age and with certain political leanings, a table of strangers can prove to be one of the most gregarious and warm times we may have.

As one of my advance birthday treats, Daughter took me a dinner theatre. We had never been to this particular one before (but had been to a few others.) This was in downtown St. John's. In a gorgeous old hall.

There were, of course, two of us and we were seated at a table of eight. We knew none of them. Slowly the thaw began, and we all introduced ourselves. Beside me were a thirty-something woman and her teenage son who were from the tiny village of Dildo, Newfoundland (yes, you read that right).

Beside my daughter sat a couple from Buffalo, New York. And next to them was a woman from Tasmania and her sister who was from Melbourne, Australia. A very United Nations representation indeed.

The USians made us all a little nervous, until Buffalo Hubbie said it was their fifth trip to Newfoundland and they felt they were quite Canadian now. You could see the relief around the table. As you just never, ever know. This opening gambit thawed everyone out. 

The conversation soared after that. Tasmania was really interesting in that when I mentioned Richard Flanagan, one of my favourite authors, her face lit up and she told me he was one of her closest friends as they were both activists. Long chat about Richard. Melbourne had actually lived in Newfoundland on a contract for a few years a decade prior, loved it and hauled her sister to see it as she never forgot her experiences there and they were staying a month, touring. Dildo was treating her son, a theatre nut, to his first dinner theatre.

The dinner was served. Daughter and I gave the table a list of things they should see that weren't on the touristy brochures after we ascertained what interested them. Another flood of conversation about the whales and the extraordinary bird and caribou life here.

The musical show was hysterically funny and was a murder mystery in a home for the aged called "Foggy Memories."

Half-time saw a break with dessert (delicious) being served and more conversation. The Buffalos were huge fans of PBS (the US public broadcasting service) after I mentioned I was a supporter since its founding. We all had seen some of the offerings - All Creatures Great and Small, Grantchester, etc. We then sympathized with what was happening in the USA but all agreed that most Americans were not like the horror show that had taken over their government. Buffalos were quite weepy at this outpouring of support and understanding.

At the very end. We all stood along with the cast and sang "Ode to Newfoundland" the provincial anthem.

As we all parted after everyone (audience too!) singing the anthem (see below) it was quite emotional for a bunch of strangers to all be hugging each other as we parted ways to different areas of the province.

And it crossed my mind, if only politicians and governments could sit down and do this, the world would be a far, far better place. We have so much in common and so little dividing us.

Ode to Newfoundland

When sun rays crown thy pine clad hills,
And summer spreads her hand,
When silvern voices tune thy rills,
We love thee, smiling land.

We love thee, we love thee,
We love thee, smiling land.

When spreads thy cloak of shimmering white,
At winter's stern command,
Thro' shortened day, and starlit night,
We love thee, frozen land.

We love thee, we love thee
We love thee, frozen land.

When blinding storm gusts fret thy shore,
And wild waves lash thy strand,
Thro' spindrift swirl, and tempest roar,
We love thee windswept land.

We love thee, we love thee
We love thee windswept land.

As loved our fathers, so we love,
Where once they stood, we stand;
Their prayer we raise to Heaven above,
God guard thee, Newfoundland

God guard thee, God guard thee,
God guard thee, Newfoundland.

 Count how many times "love" is mentioned in this beautiful anthem.

Sunday Smatterings

Of cabbages and kings....

I put all names in the hat to receive my cards and bonus, added another card so extracted 6 names rather than 5.

So here they are:

Cup on the Bus
River
Gigi from Hawaii
Twilight
Tom (Sightings)
DKZ

I am also sending one to Elephant's Child in thanks for her mailing a beautiful Monet bookmark and card to me ( I have your address EC).

So please, send me your snail mail addies ASAP to wisewebwomanatgmaildotcom. You know what to do with those ats and dots.

In other news the show was a roaring success, sold out both shows. I can't tell you how thrilled I was to be back on stage again but more so it was around the special type of energy that only a theatre crew can produce, it is highly intimate and gratifying.

My birthday was wonderful in every way. I do wish I had more energy, I know this seems like a constant bleat from me but hell, aging, winding down, you know. One of my siblings sent me the most wonderful email and I will treasure it. As some of my family of origin need some massive healing this meant more than I can say. It's never too late to "do the work" as a wonderful shaman once told me. And it is good and rewarding work to throw out the old patterns and embrace the joy.

A dear friend treated me to the most wonderful gift, a writers' festival weekend in Cape Breton. The brochure above has a painting done of her thirty years ago. This painting will be auctioned off at the end of the festival. The painter has dementia now, a beautiful talented woman with that wonderful long flowing white hair many of us desire in elderhood but are rarely gifted with.

I decided to fly. I've been adverse to flying for a few years now. I don't truly know why. Grandgirl convinced me as did my generous friend. One of those elder "notions". I can get assistance, and it's not about that, truly. It's the airport and cramped seats and overall discomfort and herding cattle atmosphere. Anyone else feel like that or is it just moi? I mean I'd fly at the drop of a hat before but now it's with a feeling of dread.

So onward as I embrace the new year for me ahead. We just never know, do we, what lies ahead and that's a very good thing, I would think.

On the Go

Another shot of Eastport, some day I will write about an extraordinary experience I had there.

I keep planning a no-do day with PJs, books and knitting on the go. But no dice. Not happening. Today was a good one I thought, just a phone call with a distant friend booked for 11.30 and then the rest of the day to moi. Not to be. Joanna, my cleaning genius, called and said she was "doing" me today and her car was banjaxed so I had to pick her up (dressed for that, nothing worse than tempting fate with a bad accident). Joanna is the boss when it comes to cleaning my place. She is at a bargain basement rate and shovels me out and keeps me reasonably civilized. Left to my own devices I can't tell you the condition this place would be in.

So I'll briefly list what's on the go here:

(1)I've created a strange androgynous alter ego (Pat Picco) who's making a series of interview type podcasts with off the wall others. More on that later. I've had to work very hard in talking out of the left side of my mouth and lowering my voice to create this persona and sound tests are tomorrow. Her first interview will be with me and another knitter discussing the mathematics and other elements of knitting. Other interviews lined up will be with a naval architect and another with practitioners of a Philippine martial arts (kali, escrima, arnis) who come from opposite sides of the globe and met accidentally at a brainstorming session I was at. More on that and links when up and running.

(2)The long overdue anthology has been published!! Yay! This is the collection of the short stories, essays and poems that came out of my writing workshops. It will be launched formally next month followed by a book tour.

(3)I'm on the Board of Directors of a feminist theatre which supports women playwrights, directors and actors and is putting together a new season of great plays and a grand gala in November.

(4)I'm working on a collection of my own short stories and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I have enough for a book. I'm enjoying the process of super-editing and culling.

This is all keeping my life full beyond measure but exciting and enriching and stimulating too. I believe I'm the elder (by far) of every space I'm in but hell, I feel so much gratitude and sheer old-fashioned lucky for this privilege.

Dis & Dat

Grandgirl at 2 - her personality and joie de vivre haven't changed one bit.

We saw a great production of "Rock of Ages" last night. A trip into the Big City for us rural rubes, with a before show treat of an exotic dinner of Indian lamb curry with all the trimmings. A lovely night out. An advance Mother's Day gift to me as Daughter will be working on the real one in May.

We had some great weather, record high temperatures but outside right now? Wind, rain, all day. Fire going. Cosy indoors. Wretched outdoors.

Real moment of ohmygawd the years - where have they flown? - when Grandgirl forwards her university graduation photos to me yesterday. A burst into tears moment: pride in her, but a sense of loss and gratitude all mixed up. That I'm alive to experience this when so many don't make it. That she has grown up in a blink. Her world is her oyster now as she is considering grad school in Europe.

I've got a procrastination list as long as my arm. I'm living like some spoiled diva, knitting and reading and doing a bit of writing and living off the benefits of previous labour, i.e. frozen meals, bread and soups in my freezer. Recommend. Also ideas. I think I'd go mad without my brain generating ideas all the time. Some small, some large, some executed, some stored in one of 10,000 notebooks. Do I burn them all before I die?

But reality beckons, a few tax returns, some writing commitments and a completely deferred editing job. My brain just wasn't there. It's coming back. I need to straighten up and fly right.

So there I am. For now.

30 Days - Day 13

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Life is very full, I have no complaints though. I'm performing tomorrow morning with the read-through of the mystery dinner theatre and then in the afternoon I'm conducting the seventh in the eight writers' workshops I've put together.

Today I met with some friends for coffee and chat and that was good. One of them pumped up my tire which has a slow leak, I was grateful. I was nervous with it. I am replacing these winter tires soon so don't want to spend money in the meantime on just one tire. Budgetary restraints.

I'm not very good at car upkeep and ongoing maintenance, I often feel my head's in the clouds with writerly thoughts. Other stuff is so mundane.

The warp speed of my weeks now stun me in their race through my life.

"My gawd," said a younger male co-worker the other day, "I only wish that I'll have half your energy when I'm your age."

Good, I thought, maybe it's the chia seeds

30 Days - Day 11

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It made for a long day today as I was volunteering for all of the afternoon followed by the Volunteer Dinner. Pro bono, I put together the monthly financial statements for a recycling/recreation/community project group. Bigger than it sounds as there are quite a lot of transactions needing the right pocket to fall into for presentation to council, etc.

The photo above I took in the general area, I drove out a ways on the "arm" (i.e. localese for "bay") and took Ansa for a walk and found this old boat which begged of me a shot. I wanted to lie down and angle a little upwards but the dirt was not accommodating and it wouldn't look well to show up for the din with clay falling off me.

Food was cold plate which always leaves me hungry, don't know why. But a jolly evening, I escaped just before 8 as there were reports of moose gallivanting along the road, released from winter confinement in the hills perhaps.

Right now, I'm boiling up some kidney beans on the woodstove having soaked them for 24 hours. I'm going to make my famous chili and freeze many wee pots of it.

Oh yes, on Friday morning I have a semi-public read-through of my mystery dinner theatre play. I hadn't read it in 6 months as those who commissioned it wintered in Arizona. But now they're back and rearing to go with it. I did a read through by myself this morning and I must say I'm delighted with it.

Usually with such a time lapse I find many flaws with my writing but these characters hold their own and are hysterically funny and the whodunit was a bit of a shocker even to me.{grin}

I love surprising myself and I'm so glad that the project is back on stream.

Rejection

A famous writer said this to me a long time ago: "The more material you send out the more you'll be rejected and you know what? The pain of rejection lessens."

It does. Seriously. A short 2 hander play I've been trying to get staged for a while now was scheduled to be performed in February. But cutbacks. Now the powers-that-be inform me that they can now only put on 3 plays for the festival rather than 5 and mine didn't make that particular shortlist.

Next.

Taking Offence

Dear Diary:

Some of the gang went off to have lunch at a theatre event yesterday and then visited an older friend now in a swishy home for the aged followed by dinner at one of my favourite Chinese restaurants. A jam-packed-with-activity day.

I didn't even get a token invitation: you know, along the lines of: you must be up to your neck but hey, would you like to....

I admit it. I was hurt. That lasted about 4 minutes.

And then I started to laugh and laugh and laugh.

At myself.

Because seriously, Diary, it totally sounds like a day from hell for me: 12 hours of constant company and being "on", a horrific dinner/lunch theatre thing that every year involves at least one male actor in drag playing a simplistic, overly sexual (huge balloon breasts),short-skirted, simpering, grotesque, stupid woman that would have me gnashing my teeth in rage as all about me fall down in thigh-slapping, helpless laughter.

Thank you for small mercies.

Coming to Life

In my experience there is nothing more profound than seeing one's creation come to life. Whatever it is, a painting, a poem, a book, a song, knitting, embroidery, sewing. Yesterday, it happened again for me when our theatre board met in St. John's and we had a first read-through of my newest play, a two-hander (two actors on stage). The feedback was terrific, the suggestions for enhancement thoughtful, even the ideas for promotion and public relations superb. I felt so blessed. They, well, loved it.

Some of the idioms I use are very Irish and after feedback I changed it to the Newfoundland patois. A wonderful 3-1/2 hours of seeing my newest infant take her baby-steps and spring to life. I was very close to tears at the end, happy tears, and, so I noticed, these were shared with 3 others. One even went so far as to tell me that his own father, many years ago, had handled an emotional scene in their lives exactly the same as the scene at the end of my play. Different words of course, but the scenario was the same: ordinary, everyday words carrying a wealth of underlying meaning.

There is no greater feeling in the world than this: watching my baby stagger out into the world and lead me where? Who knows.

Bring it on.

Finito

I finished it tonight. Amongst other things, like a 7k jog, like a card game at the community hall followed by a long telephone chat with a friend who is leaving for a cruise to Alaska in the morning.

It was nearly finished anyway. I started it on Sherkin Island and fell upon it every chance I got, packing it in with my book and my android and my notepad and my camera and taking it with me everywhere so I could stroke it and add colouredy squiggles to it. Like a well loved pet. Well, so it is.

So I knew what the end should be. And tonight I wrote it.

And it's, like, done. Seriously done.

A two person play. I'd always wanted to write a play about two women with a secret. I knew the secret but they didn't. So then they find out and tell me about the secret. And you too when you see it.

And today I told one person, then another. About this play and these two women. And they got excited too. As excited as me.

Let the production meeting begin. Then the auditions. Then the table readings. Then.....

I am over the moon. Elated. Excited.

Writing does this to me.

Words on Play, Play on Words

Podium where we all read at nightly salons last week.
 

I have this marvellous idea for a new play. All based on a story that was told to me and my friends on a mini high school reunion. We were on the floor, howling in disbelief. My friend who told it is one of those really serious people. She seems to attract family trouble and drama like pins to a magnet.

Her house is the original Dysfunction Junction where her husband lives on one floor of it and she on another. Where they have favourites amongst their adult children and entertain them separately and the daily policy is to take sides on each and every family argument, banishment, grandchild-sitting, dryout centres for various progeny and real estate difficulties.  And they own a shop in a small town and see absolutely nothing wrong with their lifestyle choices.

She is totally oblivious to the fact she is causing havoc in a room with the droll way she uses words. With the result that now all she has to do is enter a room and we all fall down. Her eyebrows are always elevated in shock at the instant hilarity that greets her.

"No, seriously now, what's so funny? You can't be laughing at me, as my hair was just done and my clothes are not loud or anything and I have sensible shoes, look....." and she sticks the shoes in our faces.

And the way she says this? Roseanne Barr would have serious competition. When we performed my play in Ireland, she barged right into the dressing room after and told us all that that kind of drama happened in her house all the time. No, boy, there was nothing new in my play for her and she walks out, shaking her head. We all fall down.

So this play based on one of her stories? Well, it is scattered throughout pieces of paper and notebooks and needs to be keyed onto my playwriting software and submitted by December 15th, for performances in May 2013.

I would credit my friend Faye but she just wouldn't get it.

Scattered thoughts on Ireland: The family and the experience.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~In Ballyduff on a magical evening~~~~~~~~~~~

One of us said: Isn't it wonderful to be together as a family with all the old baggage dead and buried?

Another said after a wonderful dinner with the linen and china and crystal and silver outdoors on the sun-filled patio: This has been the best day of my life.

Another said: Can you believe the Canadian ambassador to Ireland attended your play, I mean, can you believe it?

Someone else said: That concert we just saw at The Booley House, I would pay $500 to see it again it was so incredible, all that talent under one roof.

I said: It took this trip for me to see Ireland like I never saw or heard it before.

I said: I never did so much dancing to so much live music!

I said: Was that Liam Clancy's daughter and sister I spoke to? Seriously. Was it?

All of us said: Everytime I sit on this rock on this strand, I feel such peace and happiness. Like my whole life comes back together. Or something.

PS One of these days I'll string it all together and it will come out all coherent like.

.

Ouch!

So far, I've been on a fairly blissful ride with my play. Rapturous (well, close!) audiences, A smooth run of over a year now in different corners of the province and a crowning success in St. John's back in late May where the standing ovations were swept into our spirits and became almost a de rigeur feeling at every performance.

You may think life is all a big bowl of cherries for me, as a playwright and director.

Not!

Last night, well, last night.

It started poorly with people gossipping loudly at the back of the theatre, it looked like (from what we could see) they were pointing out people they knew in the cast.

Our stage manager did the needful and it looked like she just fell short of ejecting them physically. Bear in mind we are performing while all this is going on.

Then there was the opened plastic wrapping of the programmes by the door which a breeze caught and the unholy sound of this was amplified throughout the theatre. Another intervention by the stage manager.

Meanwhile we struggle womanfully and manfully to perform against these irritants. There are defective stage lights which overheat us greatly. I positively hate heat of all kinds, anywhere near the tropics is wasted on me as a vacation.

And then the audience. We struggle to describe them at intermission.

We never... Arctic chills... Can you believe?... Are they just stuffed mannequins?... What's with the silence?... Are they breathing?... Should we shout fire, just for fun?...

The second act brings the same. A coldness we'd not experienced all through the play's run. Unresponsive? Someone should call the coroner!

Lines were fluffed, cues were missed. We were just not having any kind of a good time with it. You need audience interaction. One can feel warmth and positivity.

When the final curtain came down - I'm serious here - there wasn't even a ripple. The coma continued.

We forced ourselves to take a curtain call. It felt so weird. But then a slight arousal rippled across the living dead and they clapped. Gently. Politely.

We decostumed and mingled with them afterwards and the verbal feedback was excellent, as in "best ever" "Oh, I'm fair haunted with it" "I could listen to that music forever, you must put out a CD," etc. Many hugs and kisses.

But. But. We were shell-shocked. It knocked all the stuffing out of the catcalls of "See you at the airport!" when we left.

And since then, the cape of self-doubt settles down around my shoulders like thick, black smoke and steals the glory of the past year.

Oh please be kind to us, Ireland!!

Ireland Performance - Update

For any of you who will be at or near Tipperary, Ireland in late August and have even a faint interest in seeing my play please email me:

wisewebwoman at gmail dot com

and I will send you particulars. Tickets would have to be booked right away as it is a small theatre and tickets for the general public will be released directly after the first dibbers, such as you and my Irish friends and family.

We have one more performance here before leaving for Ireland next week.

And I can't tell you how excited the cast, crew and myself are.

In all cases it is a dream come true.

I continue to pinch myself.

Travelling Theatre Troupe

~~~~~Ansa, taking a break from rehearsals~~~~~

Our cast and crew of my play were 'away' this past weekend, so we made a 'time' of it. 'Time' being part of the Newfoundland lexicon.

time n DC ~ n (1950, 1963); cp DAE 10: on a time 'spree' (1855 quot), NID 12 c 'carousal.' A party or celebration, esp a communal gathering with dancing, entertainment, etc; cp SCOFF n

Cast and crew number 12 of us, well 13 when you include my dog Ansa, who has become an integral part of rehearsals and getaways and is quite spoiled by everyone.

I've talked about this amazing cast before but given the afore-mentioned 'time' more talents unfolded. One actor channels Bob Dylan in his spare time and another rivalled KD Lang in a performance of Hallelujah. We had to drag ourselves off to bed as I think we could have partied until dawn, but had our audience to keep in mind for a top-notch performance of the play the following day.

I'm beyond delighted to be a part of all this, especially with Grandgirl in tow who said to me coming home in the car:

"Boy, grandma, I sure wish that looking down the road, my gang can have this kind of fun once we're older!"

Amen, baby. Amen.

~~~~~~~Curtain call and standing ovation.~~~~~~~

~~~~All pictures taken by Grandgirl.~~~~

Theatre at my Door

{click to enbiggen for enhancement of this shot}

And not my door only. Everyone has a theatre at their doorways, whether city or country or in between. I only have to open my eyes to see it, to feel, or to hear it.

Back in the day, one of my running partners would always encourage this joint meditation:

Tell me what you see.
Tell me what you hear.
Tell me what you smell.
Tell me how you feel.

We would often run five or more miles, "telling" each other, and be so shocked we had covered such a distance.

Today is mauzy, now brightening as I write, the sun burning off the wannabe misty fog.

I see the boat chugging in and take out the zoom lens. I love playing with my camera. And I catch the shot, the mauze, the boat, the trees framing, the mauzy houses opposite.

I wonder if the captain caught enough crab or was (s)he laying mussel nets. I think about a living on the sea. How more meaningful it is to be a harvester, no matter what the catch, eggs, potatoes, fish.

I am a harvester of words. Of pictures. Of dreams.

Blog Jam

Please share in my glorious flowers.....which fill every room in my house

Give more weight to your dreams than to your fears(seen on post by friend who has realized his dream).

I am nearing a 1,000 posts over nearly 7 years. Am I running out of words, thoughts, ideas?

Late at night, I often hear music in my head. Always classical. Short. There is possibly a name for this syndrome if syndrome it is.

Today I was playing the soundtrack from Frido Kahlo and it never fails - it affects me like a punch in the stomach. Don't know why. Or there could be a 1,000 reasons.

My hearing is nearly restored. What a gift hearing is. And sight. And speech. And walking. And....

Far too many work files here. But they are listed and I am attacking them.

I love things to look forward to: Saturday night there's a friend being bemedalled by a senator and this is all disguised as a birthday party for her. I can hardly wait to see her face.
And Sunday we're having a cast BBQ to celebrate our recent success.
And oh yes, Friday night I am off to a play - a theatre performance by a father and daughter.

The View from Here

View of the packed theatre from the 'gods' on Saturday night.

Wow.

I feel that my life, being quite surreal at the moment, needs a few days for it to drag my arse back down to earth and into normalcy, or whatever passes for that.

Talk of wildest dreams, dreams that I carried with me from about seven or eight years of age, being realized sixty years later!

So the play has now been performed in the city. Twice. To sold out audiences and standing ovations. Media coverage was amazing. Print, radio and television. I would have told you I was not good at speaking spontaneously. I proved myself wrong. I think this goes to the place where passion sits. Once we are passionate about something we can talk of it without preparedness or scripting.

The cast and crew were amazing, it is wonderful to see the characters birthed originally in one's spirit come to life in a professional, beautifully lit and 'sounded' environment where the acoustics are perfect. What a theatre!

A precious friend flew in from Toronto to offer her support and attended both performances. Daughter insisted on arriving a few days before to provide whatever I needed to keep the nerves and stress at bay. At such a time, I realized one really senses who one's dearest are. And words are completely inadequate to express how I feel about them. I could never have done it alone as the enormity was too great to comprehend and I needed their soothing presence, reality checks and outrageous humour. And we all realized that this was One Big Moment, never to be repeated in such a way again.

I'm still absorbing it all, still pinching myself, thinking there is be a play inside me, all ready to be written about the making of this play.

And Out The Other Side

Amazing possibilities are out the other side when I suit up and show up.

We have this amazing theatre troupe I've written about and a pretty damn good play. So everyone says. For how can I speak of it, all the characters are dear to me and spring from my fertile imagination. I get to love my characters, they are my babies. And the brilliant cast makes them even more real. And people ask me about them.

"So what happened to Phelim," they ask. And I am flattered. He has become real to them too.

And for years, many times, I drive by this place, a very old church, oblong. Tall and sleek-ed. Lovely old windows. White and blue. And another dream takes hold. And I think, ridiculous. No. This could never be.

And a friend has the dream too. Independently. And we find out the building is for sale. For a song and some TLC. And we go there today. And say to each other as we look around this gorgeous place, key trembling in our hands.

"This is where the box office is. This is where the washroom will go. This is where the dressing rooms can be built on."

And maybe, just maybe, our theatre, our very own theatre will be birthed. Yes, overlooking the ocean. You are all invited to the premier performance. We counted. It will seat 90. Comfortably. How perfect a dream is this?

Cast Parties and Nollaig na Mban

My heavens, (said she in ladylike fashion) my post on Nollaig na Mban has just about gone viral.

Just in time, say I, as I am planning my NM event here for January 15th (next Sunday) when Daughter is here. Tomorrow (8th) I have the cast (and crew) of my play here for lunch. Marvellous times are ahead for us all, we are black and blue from pinching ourselves, and we need to nail all further rehearsal times down, prepare for fresh debuts and sort out far flung travel arrangements, etc. More on that later.

Needless to mention all this cleanup and reorganization of my home has paid off in droves. Dark secret - one bedroom - in spite of all my good intentions - has become a bit of a catch basin for STUFF.

There hasn't been much time for anything else and Daughter arrives on Tuesday. I am so looking forward to that.

And the cast event tomorrow is icing on the cake. It's extraordinary when you put one foot out into uncharted territory where the footsteps following can take you. And I hadn't a clue when I first conceived this play that it would take me on the best journey of my life. Beyond my wildest dreams.

Pinch.