Home Thoughts from Home

Good to be home, safe and sound and know we have done good work.  Rave reviews for The Book of Spells and the Towards More Powerful Telling workshop; lots of good comments from kids and teachers in schools. 

On the flight back I had a window seat which I always organize if I can.  Partly that’s for the view and partly it’s because the journey becomes more real in its passing and thus less jarring on arrival. 

As ever, I was overwhelmed by the sight of the landscape underneath our feet.  First, there was that very particular range of colours that comes from the light of the prairies (yellows and pinks especially blended in the snow tones this time).  There were the squares of the fields and the snaking of the rivers, looping back on themselves almost in their flowing through that vast open land.  It all comes to an end so suddenly as you cross the line that marks the beginning of the bush which changes -- almost equally suddenly -- to Canadian Shield.  The Sleeping Giant was visible as we went over Thunder Bay; the sun shone on the waters of Lake Superior and then the glistening and glowing and the shore line disappeared beneath absolutely regionalized cloud.  More cloud appeared over Toronto.  We flew into Ottawa at dusk.

We bring much back with us but know there is one issue that is definitely going to require more mulling.  This has to do with a realization that came to us through the workshop – an awareness that so often it is the emotions we might describe as “negative” that tellers have to struggle so hard to bring forth.  There’s a holding back in the chest almost when it comes to such things as rage and jealousy, even though those things are crucial to the tales. 

But the voicing brings such energy, such release.  “I want to work with the witch,” said one of the tellers.  We tried this and that and finally undertook the strong resistance which involves physical pushing.  “I’m the good, good girl,” I said.  Suddenly, there it was -- “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”  Those who were watching and witnessing almost cheered.  All knew that what was happening in the here and now would not destroy the story’s subtlety; all knew what was happening would be rendered and rendered till it found its deep-down essence.  It would belong to the teller – forever and ever amen.

Now we prepare ourselves to do similar work with The Odyssey on the weekend coming up.  Odysseus himself is not always Mr. Nice Guy.  We have to find him, along with Circe, the Cyclops, Penelope, Calypso and the rest.

The picture?  That’s by 2wp’s designer and publicist Annette Hegel (web.me.com/annette.hegel)  She produced it while she was staying at our home when we were in Australia last year.  It's the view down the lake from my office window.  Our Christmas present to ourselves. 

2012 cometh

So, here we are.  Christmas and the holiday season are over.  We have stepped -- bravely or otherwise – into the New Year.  I long ago stopped making resolutions but I do like to have a theme.  I was going for “less is more” but could never quite get it to feel right.  Finally, I woke up one morning and knew I had to do a bit more in terms of taking unto myself one of 2012’s major upcoming events.  And so the theme is “being 70.”

Mostly I don’t expect “being 70” to bring about that much in terms of radical changes but I do believe it’s something that needs to be thought about.  I know all that stuff about “being as old as you feel” and “aging doesn’t matter” is garbage because aging does matter.  It matters a lot.  It is certainly not without its benefits.  For those of us on artists’ incomes, the old age pension is a liberating miracle of stability – not a ton of cash, of course, but something that does appear with absolutely unfailing regularity.  Then there’s the push to get on with things, to decide what you really want and make it happen.  Still that links up with the other side, because the push arises out of knowing that -- come what may -- time is running out.  Inevitably that’s a sobering thought. 

I know perfectly well 70 isn’t exactly what you’d call the end of the world but I do feel it merits some attention, some awareness, some sense of its situation in the pattern of my life.  I want to do some looking back and also some looking forward (as well as some just “being” along the way).  Oddly enough the back and forward seems connected with the development of my Who Wants the Dress? show.  A big part of that show comes out of the ways of my childhood and my unfulfilled longing to “be a boy.”  At the moment, the piece is an hour long and ends with my recognition of the fact that I am still a work in progress. 

What will the progress be?  I’m finding myself drawn to a second half involving a Music Hall star of my grandparents’ day.  Her name was Vesta Tilley and she made her mark as what is referred to as a male impersonator although her aim was not to convince people she was a man.  She sang and spoke as a woman.  She simply wore men’s clothing – top hat and tails of an impeccable kind.  Her specialty was masher roles i.e. acting like a toff.  The irony is that she was loved, approved of, lauded even in my family where I -- with my wish to wear boy’s clothing -- was seen as something of an aberration (hopefully, at best, going through a phase).  Where is all this going to lead?  Will I have to learn to sing and dance?  Perhaps “being 70” will show.

In the meanwhile, the Two Women are off to Saskatchewan on January 9.  We’ll be performing The Book of Spells.  A Love Story at Paved Arts in Saskatoon on Jan. 11 (http://www.2wp.ca/) and in a house concert at the home of the illustrious Kevin Mackenzie, Jan.19.  (Kevin -- http://www.storiesbykevin.com/ -- being the man to thank for getting us going on all this and doing so much of the organization.)  We’ll also be presenting our Towards More Powerful Telling workshop (http://www.2wp.ca/storytelling/) for the Saskatoon Storytellers Guild (http://www.sc-cc.com/groups/saskatoon.html) on the weekend of Jan. 14 and 15, rounding the trip out with tellings and readings for kids in libraries and schools.  It should be a good rich time and no doubt I will be writing more about the workshop and other aspects of note at some future point.

Saskatoon is where I first lived when I came to Canada from Britain in 1963 (even worked at CFQC Radio writing advertizing copy for a year).  I can’t say the adjustment to prairie living was easy.  Apart from anything else, my ex was a student and we had little money and before I knew it a baby was on the way.  Nonetheless, when I left after four years, I knew that I had been somewhere special, somewhere that was home to people of vision and strength.  I am, therefore, glad to be going back.

Snow at last and today it’s -20, the blue jays looking as if they’re wearing down jackets they’re so puffed up.  Yesterday, the wind had swept parts of the lake ice were clear; today the snow’s blown back again.  I got new snowshoes for Christmas and so far have not been able to use them (a slight matter of an over-enthusiastic burst of cross-country skiing just before New Year’s).  I’m itching to give them a try.  Carp all you like.  Winter is a great, great season.

New Year’s wishes to each and everyone from the enthusiastic life-livers at 2wp. 

Well....I've been sick

Amazing how a not even all that serious bug can turn the brain to porridge, leading the generating of even the simplest thought to be a monumental task.  So it has been for me this past week or so.  Amazing too how easy it is to get down in these times, to be seriously concerned that creativity has flown forever through the window taking with it all ability to do anything (creativity that is absolutely, totally, for sure and certain, never to return.)

Part of this, I think, has to do with the mysterious nature of our calling.  We actually don't know where so much of what we do comes from -- those ideas that pop up out of nowhere leading to fresh involvements; those times when everything all starts flowing in unexpected ways.  We're not even sure about the day to day stuff so there's always that suspicion we might wake up one morning and find it (whatever it is) has all gone away. 

There’s also the role of plain old fashioned exhaustion.  We’re so excited by the potentials, we simply run and run.  And the running of late has been so good.  It's been hugely satisfying to see that the work of 2wp is gaining acceptance; to have helped Flying in the Dark soar to fruition (or some such metaphor); to get The Odyssey rehearsals going and watch the tellers' excitement at their discoveries.  It's been grand to see that listeners are now coming to www.jansstorytellingclub.wordpress.com in growing numbers on a regular basis; to celebrate the fact that When Apples Grew Noses and White Horses Flew.  Tales of Ti-Jean has made the Silver Birch Express Award list.  (You can check that one out at www.janandrews/books/When_Apples_Grew.html)

It’s been good!  No, more than that, it’s been great!  Still, time is pressing.  We have to be gearing up for various other adventures on our lists. Above all, we have to get back to working on Dragon’s Gold which has its premier February 16 as part of the Ottawa Storytellers regular season at the Fourth Stage of the National Arts Centre (www.ottawastorytellers.ca/4th-stage-at-the-nac/).  We’ve already mulled extensively; we’ve explored sundry versions; we’ve decided who out of the three of us (the Two Women plus Katherine Grier) will tell which bit, but this is a piece of vast emotional sweep.  Jennifer and I are off to Saskatchewan for two weeks of performing and workshop-ing on January 7.  We can’t just wait till we return.

We have to find means to take ourselves back in time – back to the days when Odin and Loki and the old Norse pantheon walked the earth.  We have to inhabit the battle that gives Sigurd his triumph over the terrible dragon, Fafnir; we have to live with the disastrous effects of the draught of forgetting that deprives Brynhild of all that she has longed for; we must prepare ourselves for the funeral pyre that brings a culmination to the treasure’s curse. 

Not exactly Christmas fare, I hear you cry.  In a way, you’re right but I think too of what I put in this blog not long ago when I wrote of Pina Bausch – of how through art there may be transcendence.  We may walk the darkness in all its fullness; we may know its horror and still come forth thrilled at the knowledge that we are human, we are alive.

If only the porridge would clear!  Even as I write that I know I actually have a fair amount of faith in its going.  After all, I’ve been down this road before.  Who hasn’t?  And….and this morning I started re-learning Alan Garner’s The Stone Book for a post-Christmas performance.  It’s one of my favourite pieces and there it was – that thrill of anticipation, the tingling of delight that comes with the evocation of a great tale.  (www.2wp.ca/the-stone-book/)

Probably shouldn’t ignore the need to rest bit though.  Maybe have some sherry, eat some fruitcake, contact some old friends, bask in some old memories, walk in the winter woods, ski if we can just get some cold weather and some snow.  In other words…..have Christmas.

Also rejoice in whatever natural phenomena our lake can bring us.  Saturday morning the temperature dropped suddenly.  In half an hour we went from open water to an ever-growing sheet of ice, rippled and dappled with the wind.  We could, quite literally, see the water thickening, we could see the cold catching the ice shards at the edges and holding them firm.  Then the sun came out and the temperature rose.  The ice began receding.  Half an hour later a substantial amount of it was gone.  We’ve never witnessed anything like this.  Maybe we won’t again ever.  All we can do is wonder at the world’s variability – its ever-changing energy and life.

Time then for the good wishes – to each and everyone of you, in any of the ways you happen to need or want.    

Flying in the Dark's Run Concludes with a Full House

Flying in the Dark's initial run is over but the accolades continue to come in.  We gathered comments, as we always do, after the shows but Kim is still getting emails and so are we.  Everyone is entranced with how she opened and closed by telling in the darkness, adding to the immediacy of her experience; how she carried us into her landscape so we too in our own ways could live it -- a landscape of sights and sounds and scents and textures that is rich and full.   Everyone is intensely moved by her honesty in the second half where she allowed us to see not just her strength but her vulnerability; where she -- a daily blogger of Great Things About Being Blind, known for her humour and positiveness -- allowed us to enter into the other side of her world.

No one will ever know how hard this was for her.  If I have learnt anything from all of this, it is that living with disability means you have to prove your ability, over and over on a daily basis; you have to keep demonstrating how good your days are; always and always you may find yourself faced with the voices of pity, the voices that imply you are not just disabled but incompetent, the voices that seek to undermine.  You can't afford to admit that you have weaknesses; you are pushed to appear almost super-human, even though you may do that with a laugh. 

I didn't feel I could put this before but now it seems fitting to let it be known that Kim was wrestling with words and shapes and images almost until the last.  In this, she showed incredible artistic commitment, always coming back for more.   One of our sessions left both of us  shaken to the core.  We had thought it was "all right" and suddenly it wasn't.  Neither of us knew what to do but still she hung in. 

The work was hers and what she finally crafted -- in its simplicity, its grace, its laughter and its poetry -- had nothing to do with impositions from outside.  Having said that, I would note that the work Jennifer and I did  with her was what opened the doors.  I would also say this depth of work is rare but when I see what Kim achieved I am yet more convinced that storytelling must have more of it if the art form is to keep on reaching out to listeners and so grow.

I'm going to finish with some quotes from Flying in the Dark's admirers.  Before I do that, I would also point out that this is a show which has legs.  It can travel.  It could come to you if you would book it.  Just get in touch with 2wp at http://www.2wp.ca/contact/

On to the quotes: 

"A very moving performance, exceptionally honest."

"Kim, now I have the opportunity to tell you again how much I enjoyed your storytelling last Saturday night
in Perth.  When the lights dimmed and faded away, and your voice came out of the darkness as a small child, full of wonder and joie de vivre, I was enchanted, and I am pretty sure the rest of the audience was too."

"Kim is a great storyteller - gentle and vulnerable one moment then funny and raging the next.  She had me gripped from the first moment."

"In the second half you showed your adult self, the struggles that I share with you and the courage that you have and I have and that makes us equals. I was able to stop thinking of you as "the remarkable blind woman" and start learning skills from a remarkable but at times insecure just-like-me woman."

"Story telling is such a lost art - who knew it was alive and well in Ontario until you two came along?  And, do you know what?  It's just the same as being a child and listening with that tremendous focus, totally enchanted, totally in thrall, hearing nothing else, knowing nothing else."

"Thank-you, Kim, for that wonderful, funny, thoughtful, profound and totally entertaining show."  

Who Wants the Dress? -- and also Pina Bausch.

A week for pulling back, trying to quiet the administrative buzzing in my head so that I can get into my own work.  I have a show at Ottawa's Once Upon a Slam (http://onceuponaslam.com/) tomorrow evening -- perhaps the scariest piece of work I've ever done (the scary part being for me and not, I hope, for my listeners.

Who Wants the Dress? is another interweaving of life and literature -- again with a story from Sara Maitland's Angel Maker (aka A Book of Spells).  This one's called Seal Self.  It's about a young man setting out alone from a small English village to gain his first experience as a seal hunter.  For this, he must put on women's clothes.  He is supposed to come back with a seal skin to prove his manhood; he returns naked and empty-handed, not knowing who he is.

It's a tale I care for deeply but the telling is by no means easy.  Just for the Seal Self story, I would be nervous but then there's what follows -- the tale that is my own.  That comes out of something that happened to me not long ago when I got to hear storyteller Ivan Coyote telling the story of her coming out.  I was so struck with how we had lived in different times.  When I was young, for instance, gay men were still subject to imprisonment; lesbian women simply didn't exist.  That doesn't mean I believe everything is easy-peasy now, but I do know it isn't the same. 

Ivan's story came at me in a storm of what ifs?  I'm still wrestling with those although luckily the turbulence is abating somewhat.  I think I have created a good strong piece but getting up and putting it out there shakes me to the core.  I've written about this before -- when the piece was called Meeting the Trickster.  I know I've said already how part of telling these stories has to do with a chance to speak to and for my generation and others, within and without the GLBT world.  It's all at the top of my mind though.  I can't quite think of writing about anything else.

That's how it is for me always with the big pieces that I don't do often.  Each time as I start the process of reclamation, I have to immerse myself, to walk the journey and walk the journey alone in my study before I can ever hope to walk it up on the stage there at the performance time. 

I have to make space, to shut out other people's endeavours and other projects although sometimes there will be miracles of inspiration that come light-leaping in.  Such a thing occurred on Tuesday, when Jennifer and I went to the movie Pina -- about the life of the great dancer, choreographer, Pina Bausch. Go see it if you can.

Here is a woman who changed the world, who risked and dared, extended her artistic reach and vision almost beyond believing; a woman who created wonders -- dances that are rivetting and utterly unforgettable, dances that leave her audiences changed.

She died very suddenly in 2009.  When we got home, we checked what others had written about her. We came on a remembrance created by actress and theatre director, Fiona Shaw.  Shaw talks about Pina's "wild freedom and imagination, bound by a remarkable discipline;" Shaw speaks of how Pina's dancers "danced from themselves."  Shaw says, "When you see the work -- the repetition of human love gestures, aborted wishes, rejection, inadequacy, desolation and absurdity -- you still come out thrilled to be a member of the human race."  (http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/jul/06/pina-bausch)

I think what Pina tells us is to go for it.  I think we all of us need to be trying to do that.

Pina herself asked, "What do you long for?  What is all this yearning?"  I think that's a question to stir the soul.