Lies

Am going to stay away from lies -- even to justify or shape my poor behaviors in my life.  Will try to create a level of truth that stings all sides of any issue -- because it betrays the changing views of what is right or wrong, what is salacious or good, what is real or unreal.

I am no genius -- that's for sure. I have made tremendous judgment errors, outrageous lapses in common sense, ridiculous hyperbolic statements. Mostly, and I can say this truthfully, I have done all these living-life things with a simple heart.  I am not a schemer, not a planner of evil/good (only of choice); and I generally didn't care if I looked good after some decision or not.  I think that I tried to remain true to principles that I espoused.

I don't know if an outside judge will render a verdict of success or failure on my choices, or no my actions. I can't care about that.  What is done...is done...is done.  So all I can do is continue to live the true and honest way -- and continue to accept what has gone before.  My ethics are to see my actions in the light of truth and honesty -- and to acknowledge errors without condemning the man who made them. 

Reviewing the Past

Looking at the past is like playing an old movie over and over again in your mind.  You get a lot of the details wrong, sometimes the sequences of things wander away from logic, and all the motivations and reasons for things seem suspect. Why is that?
Why does our mind reshape our experience(s) to make our present self look great -- or even heroic? What is there about ego that needs such protection and building up?

There are a lot of "hero blogs" out there where people glorify themselves -- kind of like those awful family "Christmas letters" that still go out annually from some families. Kids in those families are consistently just short of winning the Nobel prize for something or other -- everyone is getting or has just gotten a huge promotion -- and that new baby has genius written all over the way she spits up after every meal.

What do we lie? Even to ourselves? What is there about the truth that is so frightening? What is there about normalcy that is so disappointing?

Nancy Nixon, founder of MANNA...

This is a simple tribute to a great and wonderful woman -- a terrific actress, a loving wife, a spectacularly "human" Mother, a creative and hardworking problem solver, a one-in-a-million student, an influential and beautiful artist, a compassionate and giving human being, a true heart among many that are false, a friend without end.  Nancy Nixon was all of those things and one helluva lot more. 

She so loved her family, her husband David, and theatre that she managed to intertwine all of them together into a life that truly mattered to everyone she met or worked with. St. John's Baptist Church in Charlotte was richer for her membership and participation.  Charlotte, NC was a more cultured and fun place for the humor and deft portrayals she brought to its stages. I was in awe of her patient sense of invention, her hard work, her wonderfully patient humanity. If she had not been married and the Mother of such a fine family (4 beautiful, talented daughters and 1 able and successful son) I would have been proud to have been her life-partner. 

As it was -- we were friends, colleagues, co-workers, student-teacher (in both directions), and understanding listeners. Nancy navigated all her in-laws, her friends, and her acquaintances with a sense of ease and giving -- never sacrificing one relationship for another, never shortchanging anyone of her help or company.

When she died all of me wept. My insides were incapable of reacting -- I retched and fought to stay connected with my own life.  It was only she -- and my memory of our last conversation on the phone -- that kept me alive, and still wanting to live. She was the one person in my life who taught me the first and last lesson about life and death --acceptance. 

Anything Writen Now...About Then...is Fiction

In reading blogs that take us back in time -- 20, 30 years or more -- I see the tendencies to hyperbolize, glorify, edit, change the tone, present the self as victim, present the self as hero, lie, move the pieces, rearrange the emotions, and in a thousand other ways -- rehabilitate one's own part in all that history.  I am sure I would be guilty of the same inventions and sleight of hand, so..... I think it is important to establish limits on what I write, and who I might talk about, and what I might say. 

I intend never to embarrass anyone I know, or have known.  I intend to stay away from moments that were so sensitive at that time that all feelings were clouded by memory, all intentions were blocked by self justification. I will hope to avoid the "big lie" in the present by questioning the "reality" of the then. 

This may make this blog unreadable by others; but the "karma" at least will remain pure. Holding back details I may remember only as a subsequent "invention" to make myself feel good then -- will only blind the eye to now. The smart thing to do is to avoid the "lie" -- to stick with what I know in the way that I know it; and not to hurt anyone else in the process. I need to understand that the purported "karma" that comes from reliving past fictions is not the way to live life now. The Jesuitical things to do is
to honor the past as its own truth -- and the present as a new and different truth.

What to Write, What to Write...hmm?

Should one delve into the past exclusively -- should one deal only with the vagaries and trends of now -- should one bear one's soul in a confessional of emotional blather -- or should one write about what one can't yet write about?

All this is grist for the mill. All this conjecture is pathos set to an alarming tune.
All this is wonderment at what is most deeply troubling within.  Is writing the answer to despair, or the antidote for it? Does the writing trigger the end -- or is it a catalyst for a newly revised future? Who can possibly say. 

At present life is stable but futureless.  I have removed myself from a friendship that was moving in reverse, and stagnating in the present.  Poor me.  Poor her.
I have stood moot in another relationship that was mutually self-destructive, and thereby halted the fear, if not the pain, of a future encounter.  I love...others. But with a detached quality of objectivity -- that creates a glass cover sandwiching the specimen of friendship itself. There is no future in any of this. It cannot be as it was; it will not become what I hoped it would; it may not grow past what was there before. It is the trap of time, and space, and self.   

Women

A long time ago, near the Northern thumb in a place called Michigan, I helped compose a theatre piece called "I Don't Understand Men; I Don't Understand Women!" That title underpins what has become a lifelong quest -- to understand and illumine the thinking of the sex opposite. Now as days grow shorter I  try to recall all the things learned and forgotten over time. All the mistakes. All the steps made, and the stumbles, and the idiotic trips down the wrong way. Many pacts have been made -- a kind of pool of ideas and judgments has grown to become a virtual tontine, mocking me (at least) to the end.

Talismans of many relationships and near-relationships have made ther way into the pool. The ground underneath is spongy to every footfall. Walking is difficult; secure steps are impossible.

Wondering now if, if...I was the only composer to have missed the clear meaning...the only creator who was left unmade by the experience of that piece. Did other "theatre-makers" also begin the journey at Interlochen and travel through time never finding the perfect answer? The "cogito ergo sum" side of me says "there is no answer." But the heart seeks what it seeks, wants what it wants, and loves what it loves. There is an unflinching tautology hidden within our desire; and that desire guides our too-human steps.