Here we are and it is almost Christmas. Indeed, many of you who are friends on Facebook will already have been subjected to some element of the Andrews-Cayley household’s version of good cheer. (You can always see more of what I’m talking about on my Facebook page if you happened to have missed out.)

Consider this gang of ridiculous animated whatevers. They’re silly. They’re certainly tasteless, lacking in artistic merit, crass, commercial. And yet…their annual FB appearance is actually requested, looked for and I have to admit to a considerable amount of pleasure in opening the box in which they are stored and taking them out each year.

They remind me of my childhood when, at Christmas, in our family silliness reigned supreme. Oddly too, they have a sort of sacredness to them. They reinforce in me the need to celebrate—not in ignorance of the fact that terrible things are happening; that we may be entering dark and difficult times. Rather because of that.

The times of my childhood were not easy. The threat of nuclear disaster was real; there was rationing of food, coal, clothing. World War II seemed still to hang over everything. Memories of loss and battle, bombing and devastation were strong in everyone’s minds. That’s what made Christmas so important. Somehow the coming of Christmas meant that the grey, cold cloud would one day be lifted. The coming of Christmas meant that there was hope.

I know that for many this is a time of anxiety and loneliness. I wish that I could change that but I can’t. All I can do is what I know how to. To take in the season with joy. To send out good wishes to all who might like to have them. To rejoice with dedication and commitment in my own odd and peculiar way.

One more thing: if you live around Ottawa and didn't get an invitation to Stories from the Ages: Redux. Four Sunday Evenings of Wonder Tales, know we want you. Further details: click here

Saturday was a great day. One of those times spent in easy joy with friends. A time that began with waking from an adult version of a pajama party (wine, cheese etc. after Come Sing the Messiah); moved on into a breakfast that morphed into lunch. A time when four o’clock in the afternoon quite suddenly seemed to come upon us out of nowhere. A time filled with good talk, ranging from discussions of children’s literature, to the vagaries of parenting, to first hand experiences of the role of the CIA in Latin America with all sorts of joking in between.

It was a great day but not all days are like that, some of them are downright bad. I note this because later on I met another friend who asked me how I was doing and who, when I told her, came up with the oft repeated mantra about how I should be living in the moment, one day at a time.

She’s a friend. She meant well but, as they do each time I hear them, her words caused a small spurt of anger in my veins. The truth is I don’t actually want to live in such a manner. I don’t believe we’re meant to. I believe we’re supposed to have dreams and schemes for the future, dates on our calendars; we’re supposed to plant seeds with thoughts of harvest--all of which means we will have hopes and fears.

The need for those hopes and fears doesn’t change in the face of a life threatening diagnosis of cancer (or any other disease for that matter). Yes, we may all step off the curb and get hit by a bus tomorrow but living with the fact of my own mortality two inches from my nose makes for an awareness that is way more immediate and compelling. That awareness is always with me, entwined inextricably with every minute of every day.

Acknowledging this is crucial to me. It doesn’t mean I don’t do things. Watch this space if you want assurance on that score. It doesn’t mean I’m in a constant state of angst and misery. Anyone who knows me even vaguely will attest to that. It just that whatever I do, I do it with the knowledge of cancer in my life.

So why does the “one day at a time” mantra make me angry? Because it’s glib, because it’s easy. Because it holds no recognition of what is actually being asked for. Above all, because I need my times of worry. I need my times of grief. They’re part of my humanity. If they’re lost, so am I.

A small rant but heartfelt. Fear not though, the Two Women are working busily on the Stories from the Ages: REDUX series scheduled for Peter Devine’s in Ottawa’s market area on Sunday nights throughout January. The tellers are chosen. They should have their stories picked by the middle of this week. Publicity is set to start going out soon after. We’re also getting ready for Christmas. Why not it's definitely going to happen!

It’s a long time since I wrote anything in this blog. Truth to tell, I thought I was done. It’s four years now since I was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer—prognosis that I would possibly be dead in months. I’m alive simply because I have a mutation that’s only found in 11% of white non-smoking women (the percentage going up to 40 if you’re a female Asian non-smoker). The mutation makes me more responsive to treatment, of which I have had plenty. I kept working but somehow always with a sense of finishing things off. I’m still in a place of “who the hell knows?” but I keep failing at dying. Exciting things are happening. My job entails getting the word out. So, here we go again.

 And what is the cause of all the excitement? First, any day now, a contract for a new book will appear in the mail. The contract will be with Running the Goat Books and Broadsides located in Tors Bay, Newfoundland. The book will, I think, be called To See the Stars. It’s a collection of five short stories, linked by the central character, a young woman named Edie Murphy. She starts out little more than a child, living in an outport, in 1906. Life takes her first to St. John’s and then to the garment industry in Lower Eastside New York City. She’s caught up in some major events of the era--the first ever strike of women, a terrible factory fire. She goes places I haven’t but I know her, not just because I’ve created her but because she was born of my family’s history, far off in England but feeling so much the same.

Second, there’s Written in the Body. That's the CD I recorded earlier this year for Storytellers of Canada’s StorySave program. You can see the stunning cover image, designed by Annette Hegel and featuring me in a school play at the age of ten, above. The CD itself works through the interweaving of a literary story by the English writer Sara Maitland about a ritual in which a young man must dress as a woman to hunt seal and the tale of my own childhood longing to be a boy. Written in the Body has sparked big dreams within me. More to come on that. In the meanwhile—purchases: http://www.storytellers-conteurs.ca/en/shop/Jan-Andrews-Written-In-The-Body.html. Digital  downloads: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/janandrews.

Finally (for now anyway), Jennifer and I are busily planning Stories from the Ages: REDUX. Sunday evenings in January, there will be Wonder Tales, told at Peter Devine’s, a lovely pub in Ottawa’s market area. At the moment we’re in the process of lining up the tellers. More to come on that as well.

Yes, I have reduced energy. Yes, I have some pain. But life is life. It keeps on keeping on. Maybe I’ve had to learn to adjust my sights. Maybe there is grieving but grieving never will be all of everything. There are simply too many interesting things to be doing.

I guess I never got out of the game, not really. I just stopped blogging. REDUX for that also. REDUX, REDUX, REDUX!

in that ancient city. All this on top of also voyaging to England for a performance of The Book of Spells in Brighton along with a chance for me to present Who Wants the Dress? in Surrey and Sun Horse Moon Horse in Yorkshire. Trust me, more details will follow!

In the meanwhile, of course, we’re focusing on our upcoming 2wp performances of The Odyssey with Ottawa tellers Gail Anglin and Ellis Lynn Duschenes -- the close-out to our third full season. What a success this season’s been. One more spur to our desire to bring the best that storytelling can offer to an ever-widening range of audiences. Indeed, we even have plans for the “ever-widening” part. More to follow on that too.

For the four of us, coming back to The Odyssey is almost like coming home. It’s hard to believe but this great epic has been in our lives for almost twenty years now. How good it feels to speak once more of the wine dark sea and dawn with her rosy fingers; to bring to our listeners the terrible struggle to overcome the Cyclops, the delights of Circe, the ferocious battle Odysseus must take on to rid his home of Penelope’s suitors, the tender reunion the two share. That’s my section and I have always loved it for its humanness, its clear evocation of how difficult it is for two people to come together after long separation no matter how much they love each other; how much they have yearned for just this time. 

Work with other storytellers goes on too. I wrote a blog not so long ago about the frequent need to let go of ideas and phrases, structures and images we’d thought essential in the creation of some piece. This week brought us the opposite – a portion of a planned performance that had hit the cutting room floor but which now had to be re-instated; a portion which had moved from being a pleasant but unneeded diversion to becoming an absolute necessity.

How could that happen? It happened because it had to. Because originally that portion had been pushing the whole in some direction that left too much of what was going to be important out. The teller had to get rid of it so she herself could see more clearly what her story really is.

It might easily have happened that that portion needed to stay gone but, as the teller edged up on what she hadn’t even known she wanted to be saying and discovered the means to take hold of it, the piece began to find its true voice and shape. That shape called back what had had to be omitted. As I said before, the process of creation is a mystery, a fluidity, an ever-moving target. We simply cannot afford to forget that.

The news today is still all of the Boston Marathon. How could it possibly be anything else? I’m not exactly an athlete but I do know the joys of competing, the delights of being a spectator. I’ve lived with athletes. I know their commitment, the exhilaration the rest of us get from watching them give their all. The Olympics last summer were for me a lifeline in a hard time. I watched every minute I could manage, not just for the distraction but because the beauty of the body’s strength that was made so visible gave me a touch of faith in my own. I grieve for the hideous loss of all those who have suffered but also I grieve for the marring of this wondrous event. I think we need to let ourselves feel the pain before we give any thought to powers of healing. Feeling the pain is one more way of recognizing just what has been taken from us. 

Love to each and every, Jan

The Toronto Storytelling Festival is coming up this weekend. http://www.torontostorytellingfestival.ca/site/ Jennifer is working on a new piece about nineteenth century women who longed for the exotic, the adventurous, then went out to live their dreams. It’s a show that highlights the differences between us for, although I find it fascinating, it’s not something I would have been drawn to on my own account.

I do, however, see its importance for what these women really wanted was to reach higher, to go beyond the life that was prescribed for them. Also as I listen to the rehearsals I realize that when I was a kid all the adventurers I ever heard of were men. Women who risked and dared were usually mocked in some way or other, much as the suffragettes were – chaining themselves to railings, going on hunger strikes and other footling activities!

Once more, I’m reminded of the need to get all of the stories out there, especially the ones that call to us, the ones that are particularly ours to tell.

Right now, of course, The Odyssey is also calling to us again – the last show for the 2wp 2012/2013 season. http://2wp.ca/the-odyssey/ As I began to work on some of the promos, it came as something of a shock to realize that Gail, Ellis Lynn, Jennifer and I have been working on this great epic now for almost twenty years. We have it in our souls.

Always when we come back to it, there’s a freshness; always a deep feeling of satisfaction and delight. Always it strikes a strong chord with our audiences. When I mentioned that The Odyssey was upcoming in my close-out remarks to Jan Gregory’s show, I heard little sighs of anticipation and saw faces light up all around.

Yes, this is very much a man’s story. But what a story. It seems to have all of everything within it. It’s such a human tale. I have never even come close to regretting that we took it on. The resonances are for all of us. I remember after one performance talking to two women about the terrible battle of homecoming – a gut wrenching event if ever there was one, no holds barred. “We don’t like it but we do have to admit, there will be a time of ruthlessness for all of us,” one of the women said to me. “Better to face it,” the other woman agreed.

Stories of men, stories of women – always so much to think about. Another of the great joys of our lives.

Still, I wanted to pass along the news that the Ask No Questions tour was truly a great success. Audience numbers were up in most locations. The people of Wakefield did us proud by turning out in a mega-snow storm; the new venue at Burnstown proved highly successful; our decision to move to the intimacy of Showplace in Peterborough was confirmed. Most important of all, the show lived up to expectations. Audiences were deeply moved. Talk at the intermission was all of similar family histories. At the end, one group had to be almost shooed out the door they had so much to say to one another. “I was completely enthralled and experienced the empowerment and catharsis that derives from hearing, truly hearing/receiving a profound story about what it is to be human,” one listener wrote.

Through it all, Jennifer and I had the satisfaction of watching Jan Gregory prove once more just how much is to be gained by consecutive repeat performances. There was a continuous sense of deepening with each night. How does this deepening occur? I think it’s engendered by the fact that the more times you tell a story, the greater your chance is to live it; to feel what is really happening under all the words; to be there fully -- moment by moment -- as the events unfold. This means that parts that once seemed funny suddenly don’t any more; parts that once were serious take on a new twist. It makes space for memories and connections to come flooding – from you and from your listeners. The foundations are firmed and enriched.

I leave you with a thought to ponder. Jennifer was recently in a workshop given by Alexis Roy from Montreal. It was all about stage presence and its necessity. Somewhere along the way the talk turned to The Iliad and The Odyssey. “Ah,” said Alexis. “That’s different. When you work with the fine old classical material, presence is almost not an issue. The text and the tale carry you. They’re all that’s required.”

Off to sea and sunshine. Two women journey forth.

I am a huge fan of crosswords – not the cryptics but the other kind.  I especially like the Saturday New York Times one because it always seems to have some extra level of challenge. The thing that always amazes me is how so often I don’t know the answers and don’t know the answers and then suddenly do. I’ll go to bed at night baffled and wake up in the morning to “Yeeeees!”

I’m thinking about that because I’m fascinated with the fact that sometimes the brain has to be left to its own devices. It seems to need time to head off and work out a few things for itself – quietly, without any overt interference on my part. I came on a brilliant example of that last week when I went to Kim Kilpatrick’s reprise of her one woman show Flying in the Dark. A Blind Woman’s Story (http://2wp.ca/flying-dark/).

Anyone who was reading this blog last year will remember the intense and difficult work Kim did to find her way to shaping the second half of the piece. I think we all knew we’d gone as far as we could when the tour began. We also knew the place we’d got to was good but not quite as good as it could be. Now, there’s the remount – by Ottawa Storytellers in its regular season venue at the Fourth Stage of the NAC.

As Kim was preparing, she wrote to me. “I just can’t do the second half the way I did it. It doesn’t seem right,” she said. Off she went on another journey. The result was truly an improvement – steadier more natural – but what caught my attention particularly was the fact that really all the previous elements were there. They had just needed time to settle and become more integrated into her being so that she could bring them forth anew. Not only that, through the process, the whole evening had become richer. The first half was almost unchanged but it came to its listeners more clearly – stronger; Kim’s voice was different, more grounded, deeper as if that was more settled too.

So there it is – a call to patience; to know that sometimes we simply have to give ourselves space. We go as far as we can. We want to go further but we have to wait, live more, before we can. I’ve always loved the following quote from Shakespeare In Love for just this reason:

Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.

So what do we do?

Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.

How?

I don't know. It's a mystery.

I think mystery is important. I think we have to trust its power.

At the Fourth Stage performance, Pat Holloway OST’s trusty publicity manager was heard to say, “This show has legs.” Kim is, of course, eager to be performing it widely. Contact us at http://2wp.ca/contact/ for more information about that. Also catch news about Kim’s doings at http://kimgia3.blogspot.com Great Things About Being Blind.

Bright, bright cold here. Winter in all its harshness and its splendour.  One of the wonders of the earth.

Jan Gregory is back with us this weekend for final touches to Ask No Questions. Watch this space.

There she is in all her glory. Jan Gregory of 2wp’s next production -- Ask No Questions: Family Secrets -- sitting on our spare bed (which happens to be in Jennifer’s office), preparing herself last weekend for another day of working on the show.

What a day it proved to be. We all thought the script  was set and ready. Then, as Jan began a read-through so that we could get some better idea of timing, we all knew we were wrong. Where was the flow; the vitality we’d all anticipated and were striving for? Somehow they seemed to have disappeared. They were gone.

For a moment, we looked at one another in despair.  “Leave the script,” said Jennifer. “We’re done with that,” And we were. Jan set the pages down. She stood by the couch in our living room, a teller. She began to tell the tale. The shape she had built so carefully remained strong but the means of it were altered. Elements we’d all believed to be so satisfying quietly dropped away.  

When Jan headed back to Montreal on Sunday afternoon (minus her car’s wing mirror which had come off in a small skirmish with a tree when she’d arrived on Friday evening and followed Jennifer’s not quite appropriate instructions for entering our far too icy road)…

When Jan headed back she was smiling, knowing the time had truly come to start moving into performance mode: the time for taking what she had created more deeply into herself, for trusting the voice of it, for readying herself to speak Ask No Questions in her own inimitable way.

All this is simple for me to write but the step she had taken when she set the script down represents one of the most difficult aspects of any creative endeavour. Always and always you dream up some phrase, build some structure, detail some episode, evoke some underlying concept. Whatever it is, it seems so brilliant. It may indeed be so. Nevertheless you have to let it go.  You have to accept that it was simply a way of moving yourself forward, a part of the process – a part that will block and bind you if you persist in clinging  to it once its time has passed.

“Kill your literary darlings,” they say. Over and over, I find myself facing the necessity of that. Something like it comes up in other parts of life, of course (back to the need I mentioned in my previous blog for distinguishing between tradition and bad habits, for instance). Still, it somehow seems most  wrenching in that work I have struggled so mightily to bring forth from nothing; that work I want above all to make perfect; that work which is closest to my soul.

But, there we were in our living room and the shift had been made.  Once it had, it was as if each one of us had taken off a set of blinkers. We could see so much more clearly what had to be added and adjusted so that Jan would be enabled to carry her listeners into her family’s world. It’s a journey backwards -- first to post World War II Britain and then beyond that to the pre-War poverty of an industrial northern British town. It’s a journey that has to do with solving a mystery; a journey built of silences and teeming life.

Hoping you can join us, or perhaps find means to bring 2wp's work to where you are. Delighted to report that although it's cold today the sun is shining. The ice on the lake has tones and shades beyond describing.

Thanks for your company, Jan

A stunningly beautiful day – the sun shining on the snow and ice left by yesterday’s freezing rain.  Other delights include the fact that I opened my email to find a new draft of Jan Gregory’s upcoming show, Ask No Secrets, in my in-box.  This latest version represents a huge leap forward, moving the piece from a collection of anecdotes into a fully-fledged entity with a dramatic arc to keep listeners on the edge of their seats.

The adventure takes a new turn. I’m excited. I’ve probably said it before but I can’t help repeating myself. I love this process of development, of how each teller must work to find their own path. I love it that there are no recipes. I’m enthralled at the quest of the 2 women to try to find useful pointers along the way. Jan G will be back with us this weekend. I’ll keep you posted as the developments develop. (Tickets for Ask No Questions already available)

Thinking about the work of change inherent in nurturing a show to fruition, I find myself also thinking about the place of change in all our lives. It’s such a constant – sometimes sudden, sometimes gradual; sometimes cellular, sometimes monumental -- always life-altering whether we are aware of it or not.

I’ve given my life to what in bygone days seemed eternals but have proved in recent years to be two rapidly shifting art forms.  As an author, I have to know that book publishing has become a leap-into-the-unknown business.  As a storyteller, I have to face the knowledge that, because the demographic for performance arts audiences seems to have become fairly static, we are probably in for a major upheaval down the road.

I believe I have to this take on, especially since some time ago I decided that I could not bear the process of aging if it took the form of continually looking back and claiming everything was better in the past.  With that, I made a commitment.  I decided I would do my best to remain a vital part of the world I actually live in even if it’s not the world I expected, even if there are losses of things I’ve come to love.

One of my bits of the world centres on the traditional folktale, whether I’m working as a teller or rendering the stories into versions for my readers. I’m aware that there are many who would insist we change the traditional folktales at our peril.  These voices seem important.  We need the guardians -- the gatekeepers -- to make us constantly alive to what the old stories bring us; to how precious their themes and motifs are. 

But what if we won’t also take a risk? What if we choose to leave the stories rigid, to let them languish – reflecting a life our listeners can no longer relate to because it is not the world anyone lives in any more? I ask this out of my own experience. I remember, as a kid, feeling shut out by all those fairytale princesses because they weren’t who I wanted to be. I remember being among those who needed someone to take me beyond the ethos of the Brothers Grimm – not in a way that would rob the stories of their power and wisdom but in a way that would help me make them mine.

Recently, I was caught up with other tellers in a discussion that revolved around what seemed to us the excessive anxiety of contemporary parents. I was definitely on the side of suggesting that such anxiety is unjustified but I also knew I had to admit it is very real. After all, I’ve seen it in action. I’ve felt its compelling force.

I put forward the idea that, instead of fighting it, we might try to use it to help us see fresh potentials and possible paths. Let’s take one example.  Let’s take Henny Penny. Let’s consider if it really matters whether or not there are graphic details of how all those poor foolish animals get eaten.  Let’s mull over the possibility that it might truly be enough to have them simply disappear into the fox’s cave (a solution adopted in at least one literary version I’ve seen). It might even be OK to have them rescued at the last minute as long as we make it clear that their actions have brought them into serious danger of a kind that is part of all our realities.

As usual, I have no answers but -- also, as usual, I do think these are issues with which, as storytellers, we have to be constantly engaged. I was once in a strategic planning workshop where the facilitator enjoined us to be careful to distinguish between traditions and bad habits. His caution has stuck with me. I take it out and look at it quite often in many, many aspects of my life. 

 At the end of July we tootled merrily off to the Storytellers of Canada-Conteurs du Canada (SC-CC) Conference – a grand and glorious celebration of twenty years of dreaming and scheming, building and achieving, held in Montreal.  We came back to the news that I had a cancer diagnosis that required immediate attention.  Dealing with treatment has consumed most of my time and energy since.  Now we are in a period of respite. We don’t know what the future holds but we do know we have a chance to get back to our normal life again.  That means putting 2wp high on the list of things to do once more.

The first show of the season – The Wind and the Moon: Tales of Power and Passion by Stéphanie Bénéteau -- has been and gone, delighting audiences with its elegance and wit.  Also over is 2wp’s exciting contribution to Naked Narrative – the Ottawa Storytelling Festival, 2012.  To my regret, I missed all of that.

I am thrilled to bits to think I won’t be missing any more.  Next up is Jan Gregory’s show, Ask No Questions: Family Secrets. This past weekend she was with us, here at the lake, working on the script. Jennifer and I knew this was a story we wanted to help grow when we heard part of it at the SC-CC Conference.  We approached Jan very soon after that. 

 “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” is something I heard often, growing up in England.  England is also where Jan comes from and as we sat around our kitchen table talking our way through much of Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday I recognized a great deal in the quirks of human behaviour that shaped her youth.

But what a tale hers is – wider and deeper than I could ever have imagined, stretching through generations, bringing with it histories that could not be mentioned; silences that held the family entrapped. Layers upon layers were uncovered there, under our roof.  Births, marriages, deaths – the big, big moments came welling up  to find their place in the story’s artistic arc. 

Crucial to it all is the fact that Jan is a fine, fine writer.  Even from what she has set down so far, I feel I have lived in her family’s home with her.  I have sat with her at the top of the stairs listening to the conversations of anguished adults – conversations she wasn’t supposed to hear.  I too have been held captive by the caution, “We won’t talk about this, now will we?” “We won’t tell about what happened today.”

Jan will return for further work with us in December but already we are aware that Ask No Questions is truly going to offer 2wp audiences something special; something they absolutely will not want to miss. 

Dates for Ask No Questions are:  Perth -- February 7; Burnstown -- February 8; Peterborough --February 9; Wakefield -- February 10.  Details at: http://http://2wp.ca/12-13-season-venues/    Mark your calendars now.

And what of our lakeside world?  Wonder of wonders, we woke up this morning to find it had snowed overnight.  Not much but enough to change the world.  Now the sky is blue and everything sparkles.  I am reminded how beautiful winter is and how much I love it.  Indeed and indeed, I am glad to be writing.   I send forth good wishes to all.

Jan Gregory. Coming to 2wp in the New Year