July 9, 2022

Tending to let these days fly away from me. 

My garden is the most beautiful summer garden it’s ever been, and its prime is still weeks off. 

Went to the Magnetic last night to see S’s Starbright. It was smart, mature, fulfilled and fulfilling, among the best things I ever hope to see there. Its word-of-mouth was so strong I feared disappointment, but it was better. It bore traces of its lengthy development process: the next step in the development process would be to take those exact gestures out. Though THIS play redeems it at the end, I have trouble with the mentally troubled and yet somehow heroic  protagonist, the person whose quirks and tics and delusion ruin everybody’s life and yet, somehow, all energy continues to be poured into them.  S got past this at the very last minute. Actors are lazy these days, and don’t bother to speak above conversational tone. That almost works in a black box, but even there, not quite. Included a child actor of miraculous gifts. Facebook claims it was a sold-out house, which it certainly was not, unless a lot of people who bought tickets didn’t bother to attend.

I don’t remember one conversation with either of my parents that was about anything significant. I certainly didn’t get the culture-wide sex lecture. I never was told why we were Republican, or why we went to church, or why we went to the church we did. Why were those particular art reproductions hanging on our walls? Why was that station on dad’s radio? I would not have know we were Irish without my grandmother. There was never a conversation about art, or music, or politics, or racial relations, or public events. Do I know what my parents believed about anything? Father asserted we were “Conservative,” and that must have meant something specific to him, but I never knew what. I was never asked how I felt about anything. If I were crying they would ask “what’s the matter?” but I don’t recall what happened then. Mother told stories about her youth and her family, and related anecdotes that illustrated the need for kindness or helpfulness. Once when I was afraid she told me to pray, and that actually did change my life. Did she pray? If so, for what? Did she keep African violets because she loved them, or because she felt she ought to? Did they think taciturnity on these issues was virtuous, or did all remain unsaid by long-enduring accident? It was pretty much all transactional. I was not the solution to this problem, What I thought or felt had to be dragged out of me. I don’t think they knew what interested me until they went to see me in a play or read a poem I wrote. In some ways this was well: I never felt pressure from them to be some particular thing rather than another. Tolerance or Indifference? Or fear too deep to be expressd? 

I wondered why this came up as I sat at the desk writing, and then realized it was inspired by the character in S’s play, thinking about the catastrophe she wrought by oversharing. That, at least, would be laid at the feel of none of us.