Sage Woman Chronicles

Restless Anticipation

“I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.” ~ Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“There are times when a feeling of expectancy comes to me, as if something is there, beneath the surface of my understanding, waiting for me to grasp it … Oh, something is there, waiting for me. Perhaps someday the revelation will burst in upon me and I will see the other side of this monumental grotesque joke. And then I’ll laugh. And then I’ll know what life is.” ~ Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“Dreams and restless thoughts came flowing to him from the river, from the twinkling stars at night, from the sun’s melting rays. Dreams and a restlessness of the soul came to him.” ~ Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.” ~ Thomas A. Edison

Twenty years ago my husband and I sold our house and took a three month trip around the world. Some people thought we were crazy, mostly family members. But most people admired our daring and supported us. I will never regret taking that trip. It changed me in ways that are still hard to define and as the anniversary of leaving the country approaches, I’m hungry for a bold new adventure.

I’m not sure what has caused my restlessness now after so many years of living in a kind of cocoon. Maybe it’s because last year I dedicated myself to doing some intense personal work. Because of that work, I’m a new person and see the world in new ways. Whatever the reason it feels like it’s time for a change but I’m not sure what form it will take yet. All I know is that I feel great anticipation like I did when Barry and I decided to do whatever it to took to take the trip.

A couple of weeks ago something extraordinary happened during one of my meditations. I saw myself swimming and playing with whales and dolphins. They were singing to me and I understood their song. They were telling me that I needed to embrace play and I need to allow all the great things the universe has to offer to come to me. When that happened it was like the whales and dolphins accepted me as one of them and they gave me the key to a door that I’d locked long ago. I opened that door and my inner landscape hasn’t been the same since. When that happened, I wanted to say “Yes!” to all kinds of new things.

Almost as soon as I thought about something I’d like to try, an opportunity came to me. I love watching and talking about movies and a few days after my meditation experience, I was invited by Turner Classic Movies to be a member of their Inner Circle, to make suggestions on programing and the like. What could be more fun? Then I found an opportunity to submit a story or essay about identity for publication in a yearly journal. I also got an invitation to submit a short story to a contest. The prize is a trip to Greece, one of my favorite places on earth. I’m going to say yes to those opportunities. My work may be rejected. I don’t care. I want to stretch myself and try something new.

Those opportunities, though small, have sparked my desire to again experience new places. Barry and I have dreamed of living in New Mexico for quite some time but we thought making the move impossible, until recently. Being open to possibilities is often all that’s needed to experiences something new and wonderful. In any case Barry and I have started creating new dreams and that in itself is a welcome adventure. Creating new dreams keeps us young.

Who knows where these explorations will lead, but it’s so nice to be in a state of restless anticipation again. In my estimation living in the status quo is boring. That’s why I’m always looking for the next new thing to stimulate my desire to keep expanding.

I’ll keep you posted on any new and exciting things that come my way.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment or share with a friend.

Woes and Rewards of Writing

“Honesty is your innate ability to stand completely exposed, allowing the world to do what it may and say what it will so that you may know who you are beyond the realm of ideas.” ~ Matt Kahn, Whatever Arises, Love That.

“When I run after what I think I want,
my days are a furnace of stress and anxiety;
if I sit in my own place of patience,
what I need flows to me, and without pain.
From this I understand that what I want also wants me,
is looking for me and attracting me.
There is a great secret here
for anyone who can grasp it.” ~ Rumi

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way,
that some poems don’t rhyme,
and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end …
Life is about not knowing,
having to change,
taking the moment and making the best of it,
without knowing what’s going to happen next.
Delicious Ambiguity …” ~ Gilda Lee Radner

“Do not compromise your artistic principles, ever. Know who you are and know how you got there. And choose your associates wisely. The ones who believe in you will stay by your side through thick and thin. The rest will disappear and you must allow them to disappear. Please yourself first. Be your own worst critic. Dive fearlessly into your own soul. Everything else is minutia. ~ Terry Green

In Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows part 2, Dumbledore says that “Words, in my most humble opinion, are our most inexhaustible source of magic.” I agree with him, or rather Steve Kloves who wrote the screenplay. But sometimes finding the right words to express the inner experience is difficult. I’ve been struggling with that as I continue the seemingly endless revisions to my first novel, The Space Between Time.

Part of the difficulty I’m having has to do with the fact that I’ve come to a peaceful place in my life and I find that it’s difficult to remember all the pain and suffering that brought me here. But conflict is the heart of story and if my two main characters are a reflection of my own life’s journey, then I’ve got to put them through the same kind of life shattering situations I experienced. My characters have to make mistakes and the wrong assumptions, they have to struggle to grow and improve their lives just like I’ve had to do. If I don’t write them this way, they won’t be well rounded characters.

At first I resisted going back and digging up my past. Who wants to live their own dark times? I wanted my characters to be happy enlightened people. But my book was boring and didn’t reflect real life. Something interesting has happened as I’ve worked to remember. I’ve discovered that issues I thought were healed long ago, still have rough edges that prick and hurt. Writing and working on myself are like a dance. Sometimes my toes get stepped on, but that wakes me up to the next round of healing I need to do, which in turn helps me make the situations in my book more realistic.

There are times when I feel very vulnerable and exposed by what I’ve written. It can be such an uncomfortable place in which to be. Yet creativity is impossible if we’re not open to uncertainty. Ah, delicious ambiguity! That’s where the possibilities lie. Writing reveals the heart of the writer and exposes it to the world. Artists know that none of us can move forward, we can’t have that happy life we long for without becoming vulnerable. When we embrace uncertainty, possibilities open up for us. That’s what my characters are teaching me. I hope doing all this self-examination is helping to improve my book. I guess we’ll see.

Ah, well, back to revising and peeling back the layers.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment or share with a friend.

Compromise Is Not Always Good

“Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.” ~ Janis Joplin

“All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

“If you want to do anything, do it now, without compromise or concession, because you have only one life.” ~ Gao Xingjian

“Tragedy in life normally comes with betrayal and compromise, and trading on your integrity and not having dignity in life. That’s really where failure comes.” ~ Tom Cochrane

I’m going to come right out and say that I’ve decided to support Bernie Sanders for President.

Obviously I’m an extreme liberal. It’s the way I was raised and it’s in my DNA. I’m not telling you that you must be liberal too. The point of this post is to encourage you to examine your values and choose to back the causes, and candidates that are aligned with what you believe and don’t compromise them for any reason.

Until this year, I’ve waited to see who is nominated for president and then choose to vote for the best candidate. You see I hate politics, the wrangling, the negotiations, the compromises, the mud slinging. Ack, it makes me crazy. But last year as the presidential race got into full swing, more than a year before the elections, I had an epiphany. What if I studied all the candidates running and backed the one who reflected my values? Would that make a difference?

Most people will agree that we’ve come to a crossroads in our country. Do we let the wealthiest among us take over and turn our country into something different than the Founding Fathers intended, or do we take back our voice, and our rights? Where we differ is on which presidential candidate will help turn the tide. As I wrote, you have to decide which one you should support. That’s a personal decision that you must make. What I’m advocating is that you examine your values, study the candidates and their platforms, and then choose the one that fits what you believe in rather than just vote for the most popular candidate. I decided this elections season I needed to make my decision earlier than normal, and that’s when I had my epiphany.

At first I backed Hillary, because she’s a woman and I think it’s high time we have a woman president. But as I studied her platform and compared it to Bernie’s, I was faced with a decision. Do I back Hillary because she’s a woman, and because she’s more electable than Bernie is? When I thought of it that way, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t compromise my principles and back a person because she was more electable than an old Jewish man with fly away hair who speaks his truth unabashedly. It’s not that Hillary doesn’t have a plan, but there’s the matter of who is giving her money. Would she feel more obligated to her wealthy contributors than to the welfare of ordinary Americans? On the other hand, Bernie’s money comes from ordinary people not the wealthy. He’s got a solid plan for how to turn this country away from being governed by big corporations. And he’s like me, an ordinary hard working man. When I made the commitment to back Bernie, I let out a big sigh of relief. I’d made a decision that was in alignment with who I am.

All the personal work I’ve been doing in the last year or so has changed me. I don’t want our country to go down the road of any number of dystopian novels and movies that have come out in the last few years. I don’t want corporations to run the world as they do in Cloud Atlas, or to have a wealthy dictator living in a luxurious central city, while people on the outskirts barely have enough to eat like in The Hunger Games. I want a Star Trek kind of society where everyone has an opportunity to live the life of their dreams with no fear of discrimination because of their race, gender, or place of birth. I think Bernie Sanders is working for that that’s why I support him.

My epiphany has more significance than backing a certain candidate for president. I’ve decided that I must make little contributions to the change I want to see, like writing this post, contributing to causes that are working to make life better for the poorest people on the planet. Little by little, I’ll find ways to get involved in making change happen, just like I changed myself a little at a time. That’s how the big changes are made, one little step at a time.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment or share with a friend.

The Blessing of Patience

“The longest journey
is the journey inwards.
Of him who has chosen his destiny,
Who has started upon his quest
For the source of his being.” ~ Dag Hammarskjöld

“Imagination is what is there after you know everything; without knowledge, one’s imagination may be too thin – lacking in strength and too fragile to build on.” ~ American director Zelda Fichandler

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

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” ~ E. L. Doctorow

I’ve discovered this book revision business is not for sissies. It’s a long process of peeling back the layers to get to the real thing I’m trying to say.

Before Christmas, I was very impatient to get the revisions finished during my month long break from teaching. But, of course, my hopes did not come true and in a way that’s a blessing. To tell you the truth I’ve been impatient to finish my novel for a year or more. That was part of the problem with earlier drafts. I rushed through important sections of the story. It’s never good to cheat the reader by not exploring an issue the characters must deal with.

The other day I watched Sense and Sensibility as my personal tribute to actor Alan Rickman who died last week. He’s one of my favorite actors. Part of the reason I love his work is because he never rushed through his lines. In his movies, you always know exactly what he’s saying because he enunciates every word enhancing the emotional emphasis.

After watching the movie, I was reading the trivia on Internet Movie Database. In it Emma Thompson, the screenwriter, stated that she’s a slow writer. It took her three years to finish the screenplay. When I read that, I had to admit I’m a slow writer too. And something about her saying that, allowed me to finally let go of trying to finish my book quickly. I am going to hold it within my being so I can more easily see beneath the surface of where the story is leading me.

Something else helped me decide that working slowly but steadily is a good thing. I watched the movie Proof in preparation for my dramatic structure students watching it tonight. It’s about Catherine, a mathematics genius, who has to put her life on hold to take care of her mentally ill father, Robert, who is a mathematics legend for solving an important proof when he was in his twenties. Catherine and Hal, Robert’s former student, are talking about Hal’s work in mathematics. He’s discouraged and doesn’t think he’ll ever make any significant contribution to the field. Catherine encourages him by saying something like, “You have to chip away at a problem. Sometimes you have to come at it sideways.” That’s what creative people do. They think outside the box.

It’s too bad we live in a fast food society where we demand instant gratification because the invention, the social change, the play, musical piece, or painting all take time. Sometimes many years. Building a healthy business takes lots of work too. Just as changing your life for the better takes a consistent effort and sometimes you have to sneak up on your problems from the side to get the perspective you need to solve them.

I’m not quite sure how I’ll approach my novel from the side. Perhaps being silent and listening to my characters speak to me is the best way to do it. In any case, I’ll keep chipping away at my novel until it tells me it’s finished. I’ll let you know from time to time how it’s coming.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment or share with a friend.

My Favorite Class to Teach

“I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.” ~ Frank Capra

“A film is – or should be – more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.” ~ Stanley Kubrick

“Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.” ~ Barbara Tuchman

“You know what your problem is, it’s that you haven’t seen enough movies – all of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.” ~ Steve Martin

“God made Man because he loves stories.” ~ Elie Wiesel

Last week I wrote about the profound experience I had during meditation on December 31, 2015. One of the things I realized at that time was that I’m a person who says “no” more than I say “yes”. For most of my life I’ve been a fence sitter. Often I want to say “yes” to life, but I allow the not knowing what the future will look like to hold me back. This coming year is about saying “Yes!” to more new things that come my way. I’m going to get off the fence, embrace the unknown and do the things I love to do without apology.

As I was getting ready for this new semester, it occurred to me that when I tell people I teach theatre classes, I often feel like I’m not as good as the instructors who teach the core subjects. Then I remembered that I decided to say “Yes!” to the things I love so I plan to enjoy the classes I’m teaching this semester to the fullest. Tonight I’m going to begin teaching my favorite class of all time. It’s Dramatic Structure. The name is kind of weird, however, what we do is watch plays and movies and analyze them. We try to get through the many layers of meaning to the core ideas the playwright or screen writer is trying to express. I hope this process will be as helpful and enriching to my students as it has been for me.

I learned to love play analysis with my father. When I was in high school, dad and I would stay up late on weekends watching old movies. Then we’d discuss the characters, plots and what the movie meant to us. Our family would also watch the Sunday Night Movie and do the same thing. It was a great way to get to know myself, my family, and to have the skills to interact with the kids at school, or the people I worked with. I loved doing this so much that I found a wonderful purpose in working in the theatre, teaching, and writing. Analyzing plays and movies has helped me become more compassionate and empathetic as well. I’m grateful that my father was willing to watch and discuss movies with me. We got close and had lots of fun too.

So as I begin this new semester, I’m going to tell my students that I love teaching these classes and why. Hopefully that will inspire them in ways that I can’t even imagine.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment or share this post with a friend.

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