Sage Woman Chronicles

On the Precipice

“First, accept sadness. Realize that without losing, winning isn’t so great.” ~ Alyssa Milano

“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.” ~ Carl Jung

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” ~ Jimmy Dean

“Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.” ~ Hugh Prather

For some reason I’m feeling melancholy today. I don’t feel this way very often so it has thrown me off balance a little bit.

After writing in my journal, I realized that my emotional state has to do with a number of factors. I’ve been feeling like I’m in a rut and need to make some changes. One thing I need to do is get out and do some face-to-face book marketing. That’s a scary prospect. Another is my body is telling me to get back into exercise again, and the another is that I want to learn something new and meaningful.

This weekend a confluence of events helped break me out of my rut a bit. First, I found a new podcast to listen to, suggested by Anne Bogel of the “Modern Mrs. Darcy” blog and “What Do I Read Next” podcast. The new podcast is right up my alley in terms of my interest in spirituality and creativity. The title is, “The One You Feed” with Eric Zimmer. After listening to two podcasts in which Eric has a conversation with Father Richard Rohr, I was hooked.

The next thing that happened was I began reading my friend Cappy Love Hanson’s memoir, Love Life, With Parrots. When I first quit teaching to become a full-time writer, I wrote a memoir, but it wasn’t good. The woman I asked to read it said I was too guarded. And I do feel that way when I write. I don’t want people to know anything about my faults. I don’t want to be vulnerable on the page. It’s okay to do that with my fictional characters, but to put all my flaws out there for everyone to read is just too scary. Yet, as I was reading Cappy’s book, full of all her vulnerability, and thinking back on the podcast I’d listened too earlier in the weekend, I had this overwhelming feeling that one day I was going to go back to that memoir, revise and publish it. Yikes! That’s another scary thought.

Another thing that occurred to me this weekend is that I’ve been feeling quite dissatisfied with my reading life lately. It’s not that the novels I’ve been reading are bad. I have enjoyed the stories and learned some really interesting things from them. But my inner student is feeling neglected. So, I’m going to finish my Goodreads reading challenge by devouring some of Richard Rohr’s books and other non-fiction books that I have on my reading list.

As the days go along and I continue to examine my inner landscape, I will probably discover unfinished business that needs attention, or I’ll finally face the changes I need to be making that I have been resisting. That’s a good thing. Sometimes I need to do some cosmic closet cleaning to make room for new experiences to come into my life.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. I appreciate it. For those of you in the U.S., I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, women’s novel, and is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, and print-on-demand at Amazon and other fine book sellers. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

Life’s Journey

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” ~ Oscar Wilde

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~ Albert Einstein

“Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.” ~ Carol Burnett

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” ~ Maya Angelou

Last night some of my acting students and I got into quite a discussion about the short play they were rehearsing. It’s a dark comedy. As we were talking about the characters and what could have made them the way they were, it became this wonderful “teachable” moment for us.

I’ve always approached teaching as a kind of fellow traveler. “Wow, here’s this interesting piece of literature. Let’s see if we can figure out what the playwright, movie maker, or author is trying to get us to see about the way he or she sees life. And, it’s my philosophy that my point of view is not more important than the student’s. My only job is to open doors so they can do their own thinking. I just bring up a multitude of possibilities for the students to consider.

So, it was interesting that my meditation with Oprah an Deepak today connected to the discussion the night before. Oprah said that each of us has our own path, and nice as it might be to have someone tell us the choices to make, or to give us a glimpse of what the future holds, that’s not possible. We can’t flip to the end and see where we end up. We have to just slog through life learning as we go.

To me, life is an adventure. Oh, there have been times when I’ve played it safe, but I can’t do that for long. I get bored and look for my next adventure. Sometimes the adventures I go on are strictly intellectual like the course I took this summer on Alfred Hitchcock, or emotional like having to deal with loss, or disappointment, or the ups and downs of self-discovery. But then I guess all adventures, even physical ones, have those components. Adventures, some people call them challenges or problems, shake up our lives and help us get a new perspective.

If ever I am asked to give a speech, this would be my message: There will be people who will open doors for you, but it’s up to you to walk through and find your own way. The important thing to do is to keep moving forward. Sometimes it will be hard to see the path because of all the brambles, but you have no idea how many people you will help if you just keep trying to find your way.

Something else interesting happened yesterday that relates to the message of this post. I was at the chiropractor and his wife was in the office. We hadn’t seen each other in perhaps ten years. She told me, “I knew you right off, because you look exactly the same as the last time I saw you.” And she said something else, “You look so happy.” I told her I am happy. All the challenges I’ve had to go through have been worth it. That doesn’t mean there won’t be more things for me to learn, but because I’ve come to love myself and my life, they will be so much easier to deal with.

That’s always my hope for my students, friends and family members, that the challenges they face will help them clear out the guck so they can arrive at a happy place.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting on my posts. I appreciate it. Have a happy weekend.

Shakespeare for Any Situation

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” ~ William Shakespeare

“I have good reason to be content, for thank God I can read and perhaps understand Shakespeare to his depths.” ~ John Keats

“But what if Shakespeare – and Hamlet – were asking the wrong question? What if the real question is not whether to be, but how to be?” ~ Gayle Forman, Just One Day

So, two or three posts ago, I wrote about my dilemma about whether or not to direct a Shakespeare play. I am not a great student of Shakespeare. I haven’t studied all the plays or the ins and outs of his life and I’m not obsessed with seeing every production of his work produced nearby. I do, however, believe that all his plays and poems, can be applied to any situation we face in life. That’s why I chose to direct the play Measure for Measure this coming spring.

While I was preparing this post, my husband and I went to see the new version of Murder on the Orient Express. I loved it but then I’m a bit of a nerd in that way. I love to see different versions of the same story. In fact, I have two versions of Jane Austen’s Emma, and have seen multiple versions of Jane Eyre. In my opinion it’s a good thing to reproduce the timeless stories so that new generations can become engaged with the story. Every Christmas, my husband and I watch more than one version of A Christmas Carol. Each director has just a little bit different take on how to tell the story and I love that.

Since I love comparing the various versions of plays and movies, I was surprised at how many critics panned this new version of Murder on the Orient Express. I was so disturbed by the reviewer on NPR, asking why do it?, that I wrote a long comment about the need to do remakes of these classic stories, and that just because an actor in a previous era was fantastic in the role, doesn’t mean you won’t learn something new from a different actor’s interpretation.

Which brings me back to Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. It’s not one of Shakespeare’s cannon of famous plays that everyone knows and it’s not performed as often as some of the others, but it’s one that has stuck with me ever since reading and watching it forty years ago when I was in undergraduate school. And now that more women, and some men are telling their stories of sexual harassment and abuse I think it’s time to revive this play, even if only in my small town.

In the last couple of years, I’ve read and watched lots of movies that center around the issues women face. Measure for Measure, is in part, that kind of play. But Isabella’s situation with Angelo isn’t the only reason I wanted to do the play. The three main characters are on a journey of self-discovery and those are the stories that I find most intriguing.

If we choose to be, we’re all on a journey of self-discovery. Angelo and Isabella are both characters who try to deny their darker, more natural, some might say animal, instincts. But it’s been my experience that the parts of yourself you try to push away, or stuff into the darkest corner of your psyche, are eventually exposed. That certainly happens to Angelo, and because of his demands on her, Isabella must also come face to face with her sexuality, something she has been trying to deny.

As I study this play, more facets and deeper layers of what drives the characters are revealed to me. That’s the sign of a great and timeless story. All of Shakespeare’s work is like that, even the light comedies have a deeper message than the antics of the characters.

I had a meeting last week with a man who is not only an Actor’s Equity member, but an expert on Shakespeare and who has done Measure for Measure seven times in one capacity or another. When I was getting ready to drive to town for our meeting, I was feeling “sklunklish”. (That’s a word I love from the Cary Grant movie Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer that means not feeling well. I love it when people make up words, much like Shakespeare did.) I wished I didn’t have to go into town so early before my class that evening. Yet, the more this gentleman and I talked, the more I was energized by the conversation. And I felt like this is just the right time to examine the issues the play presents. I don’t know if I’ll get enough actors to produce the play, but I’m learning a great deal from my studies.

Though I love the Shakespeare plays I’ve studied, I have shied away from directing them, or even using them often in my dramatic structure classes because of the language. But with the wide range of situations and themes his plays cover, I can never go wrong watching, directing, or showing more of them in my dramatic structure class.

In the new year, I hope to be writing about how the rehearsals are going.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. I appreciate it.

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, women’s novel. It’s available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, and print-on-demand at Amazon and other fine book sellers. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

Season of Appreciation

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” ~ Albert Camus

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” ~ Albert Einstein

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” ~ John Muir

Today is Veteran’s Day in the United States. It’s a commemoration I have never felt comfortable with since I became old enough to understand its meaning. I abhor the wars that caused so many men and women to sacrifice their lives, health and sometimes sanity. I want to honor the warriors, not the wars. I know that sometimes good comes from terrible events, I just wish we could learn to settle our differences in ways other than war. So, I’ll just say that I honor these warriors on one of the first days of appreciation that marks this season.

The other morning we had a glorious sunrise. Arizona is known for its sunrises and sunsets. Barry and I have hundreds of pictures taken from our front porch, or from the road outside our house. Each new glorious sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset, I’m filled with gratitude. I pay attention to the sunrises mostly in autumn, and winter because in summer sunrise is at 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. and I’m not coherent at that time of morning. But the summer sunsets turn the landscape into a peachy golden flow. The quality of the light is unlike anything I had ever experienced before moving here. Unfortunately, I have not as yet been able to capture the effect with my phone camera. Which is actually something I like about that magical time of day. To appreciate what I’m describing, you have to be present when the sun turns the desert luminous.

In the autumn and winter, we are greeted by the sun streaming through our southern facing windows making gorgeous patterns on the walls and furniture. It greets me as I prepare breakfast and Barry’s lunch. It’s like a lovely companion.

When we first moved here, I noticed something I had never seen while living anywhere else. As the sky is beginning to lighten, or darken, a lavender band forms at the horizon reaching out in the opposite direction. When I lived in Portland, the sky was often obscured by clouds, and when I was younger, I didn’t pay close attention to the beauty of the nature around me.

I can no longer imagine living in a large city with the noise and fumes. I’m much older now and know the value of taking a moment to allow the beauty of nature to sink into my soul.

As we enter this holiday season, I plan to take time to be grateful for all the abundant splendor around me while I can.

I hope you have a magnificent weekend.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. I appreciate it very much.

Reading, Writing, and Belonging

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

“Humans aren’t as good as we should be in our capacity to empathize with feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on Earth. So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were ‘reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.’” ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson

“I never feel lonely if I’ve got a book – they’re like old friends. Even if you’re not reading them over and over again, you know they are there. And they’re part of your history. They sort of tell a story about your journey through life.” ~ Emilia Fox

I’m not sure exactly what it is I want to express with this post, except for the last nine years I’ve been focused on writing and that has changed me in profound ways. Long before I was a writer, I was an avid movie watcher and reader. I still am, and for quite some time now I’ve been trying to understand just what it is about story telling in all its forms that draws me in. It might be the communal aspect of watching a movie or reading a book with one or two of my friends and then discussing every little detail about it. But watching and reading can also be solitary activities and I love that about them too. Or it might be that stories help me understand human beings better. When I hear people talk about how they are affected by the books they read, or write, I know that there is something fundamental about story telling that we need. Maybe I don’t need to define it, just enjoy it.

I have a number of former students and friends who are totally into cosplay, attend Comic Cons, dress up as their favorite characters, and are even on panels at these events. They read all the fan fiction, watch all the TV shows and movies about their favorite characters. And at first I thought them a little daffy. But after listening to them talk about the different layers of the plots and of their characters, or of the movie we watched in class, I changed my mind. I remembered all those hours of discussing movies with my father and I knew that these students were demonstrating a great deal of understanding about human behavior, their motivations, and hangups because the stories engaged their imaginations. Most of my friends and students have empathy because of their attention to the extreme situations their favorite characters have to deal with. They put themselves in their shoes. They think about what they would do in a similar situation. I love that!

The thing that connects me to great stories is the playwright or author’s ability to help me feel with the characters. When I was in college, the first play I was cast in was The Merchant of Venice. As we rehearsed the play, I understood more fully why Shylock wants his pound of flesh. He, as a Jew, has been treated so horribly. He’s a wounded character but unfortunately, he gets punished again at the end for trying to get what is due him, by literally taking a pound of flesh from the man who can pay his debt. In a way I couldn’t blame him for wanting revenge. But the whole point of the play is about how showing mercy is better than seeking revenge.

When I read a great book, or see a timeless movie, somehow I not only understand other people better, I understand myself better. That’s what I aim for when I’m reading, directing a play, watching a movie or writing. I’m looking for new clues that will help me understand human behavior a little better.

I just realized that I wrote this post because until recently, I felt like the odd person out. I mean, a lot of the people I associated with were into sports, or outdoor activities, or going to concerts, even some of my theatre friends, and I just didn’t get that. I mean I love nature and music, but I didn’t understand the whole sports fan thing, until I began to have students who were into dressing up like their favorite characters, and analyzing every detail of the books and movie world they inhabited. I finally got it. Most people are looking for their tribe, a place to belong. I’m finding my people and it’s a good feeling.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. I appreciate it.

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, a historical, time-travel, magical realism, women’s novel. It’s available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, and print-on-demand at Amazon and other fine book sellers. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.