2-29-12 No Plan...

except to keep writing. Even if it's only this.

2/27/12 Free Exploration

 Free write on the Wolf-man encounter (vignette #2 yesterday's post leaving off at...)

...I discover soon enough that he knows perfectly well wolves do not inhabit the Santa Cruz mountains. He asks the question because wolves are what he wants to talk about...

I don’t know a lot about the wolf situation in Idaho. What I do know I’ve heard from my pro-wolf friends which is that the wolves are entitled to protection. They’ve painted the anti-wolf crowd as gun-happy rednecks with a low IQ. My friend Callie tells me that while vacationing in Idaho she spotted a personalized license plate that read: NO WOLFS.

“Well,” JR says. “One of ‘em just crossed into California so it’s only a matter of time.”

He puts his magazine on his lap. It’s Muscle Magazine. On the cover is a gleaming close up of a man’s torso, biceps look ready to burst.

It doesn’t fit at all, JR having this magazine. I’d expect maybe Cigar Aficionado or American Hunter. 

He raps on my knee with his knuckles which makes me jump a little, but there’s nothing suggestive about a rap on the knee.  He points to one of the biceps.

“Imagine this muscle right here is Canada. The wolf crossed over here to Washington, traveled to Oregon and moved into California right about here.”  He indicates a vein wrapped so tightly around the bulge circulation seems impossible.

“He’s been cut off from his pack, see. And he’s trying to find a female. He’s been traveling over forty miles a day. No wolves in California though.

A lone wolf.  I see him in silhouette as he trots along the edge of cliffs.  Imagine him hunkering down on a bed of redwood needles for the night, sleeping light after his one, solo howl bounces unanswered off canyon walls.  

“Not since 1924,” JR says. “My guess is he’s likely to head back to Oregon along this route,”

He’s back to the bicep.

I get sleepy when people throw around dates and try to acclimate me geographically. I stifle a yawn and JR senses he’s losing me. He raps on my knee again.

“You ever seen a cougar in person?”

I don’t tell people about the lions anymore. The truth is I see them too often. More than any of my neighbors.  I see them when they’re not supposed to be around, like midday on mountain roads.  They’re supposed to be nocturnal. They’re supposed to be light brown to golden, but I see a black one cross the road about fifty feet in front of me, and linger for a moment as he watches from the shadows,  his long tail floats a few inches off of the ground.

That’s one of the ways you know it’s a cougar—the tail. It’s long and curls up a little at the bottom. When a cougar is in motion, the tail doesn’t hit the ground, but floats suspended in a downward slope.

My dogs see him too. They sit suddenly, on their very best behavior. Another dog or a cat they’d  bark their heads off and just about yank my arm out of the socket.

I tell everyone about my first few sightings.  I pull up alongside other runners in my car, roll down my window and say “Just so you know, I saw a cougar alongside this road last week,”  They look around, a little freaked out, not sure. Maybe they don’t believe me. Maybe they do, but they’ve researched the stats and know that cougars almost never attack people. Almost never.

I tell my friend Mary, a neighbor and nurse at the hospital where I work.

“Another one?” she says, her eyes widen.

“By the alpaca ranch,” I say.

A week later two alpacas are attacked, but  not killed.

 Smart cougar. Imagine the fur ball.

“I see them all the time,” I tell JR. “So often that I don’t tell people anymore.”

“Why not?” he asks.

“I barely believe it myself.”

It’s not that I’m prone to hallucinations. There’s only been one period in my life when I see something that isn’t there. Spiders. Big spiders, suspended inches over my head.  I wake up in the middle of the night and literally jump out of bed like those traumatized Vietnam vets we see in movies, you know when they hear a firecrackers or a helicopter.  I Race to the light switch, flip it on and crouch down. No spider. Oh my god! Is it on me? I strip off my clothes and scrub my fingers through my hair like a madwoman.  I rip the sheets off of the bed, take out the vacuum, examine every nook and cranny. Nothing.

This happens night after night and always when my husband is in Mexico for five week stretches.

I’m not anxious when he’s gone. It’s true that my young daughters and I are alone at the end of a remote mountain road, but we have our dogs and I feel safe.

Other than taking mushrooms two or three times, it’s not like I’m having flashbacks from past hallucinogenic abuse—never acid or anything like that.  

Yet night after night—not always consecutively—there might be a few days between visits, but the spiders come back,  primal terror, and nothing. Afterwards I sit up in bed with the light on, too terrified to go back to sleep. I’m exhausted.

There’s this German woman I work with--Prema.  A name she was given by some guru. Prema is a bossy know-it-all and I hate to reveal any kind of vulnerability to her, but I know she’s up on dreams and symbolism and I’m feeling desperate.  I tell her about the spiders.

“You must listen to the spider woman,” she says. “She is trying to tell you something.”

“But what do spider dreams mean? You know, symbolically?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “What matters is what she means to you.”

My friend Edwin, a minister, laughs at Prima’s interpretation.

“How does she know it’s a female?” Still, he thinks it’s a warning of some sort. “Let’s face it,” he says. “It’s terrifying you. You can’t sleep. It only shows up when you’re alone. It can’t be a good thing”

He thinks it’s a sign that I need to stop fucking around and come to Christ.

I never really get to the bottom of the spider thing. The last time I see a one I’m on a plane- my first trip to Europe. I fall asleep and wake up and on the seatback in front of me is a spider made of pure, brilliant light.  It moves its legs, and glistens and throws off shimmering rays before it bursts into billions of sparkling fragments and evaporates. Just disappears. I blink and there’s nothing there.

I feel calm. I look at the girls happily chatting across the aisle from and me and snuggle into Michael's shoulder

So yes, there was that. The spider incident. But that was almost twenty years ago.

The lions are different.

They don’t scare me. I get scared a little afterwards, when I think about it, but the two times I’m on foot and see one I watch it disappear soundlessly into the forest and I keep walking. I look over my shoulder a little bit, pull my dogs in closer to me, but I keep walking.

2/26/12 Performance PieceMusings

So, I'm taking David Ford's Tuesday night solo performing workshop in SF--Yaay. For now, this blog may be about writing a solo performance piece, then again I'll be happy if this blog is about anything at all. I've seriously neglected it.

I have a couple of ideas right now. The one I'm most intrigued with is this series of vignettes I've written--still very rough draft--about plane trips. Something about being on a plane makes me want to write. I don't know why exactly, but it has something to do with relinquishing control (to the pilot and whatever) in a confined space with no control and no schedule.  Something to do with the possibility of dying, which of course is always there, but more so (for me) in a billion pound capsule hurtling through the space "Between beasts and angels"

I don't necessarily want to write while flying--not enough privacy--but I want to write about it afterwards. About the observations and my shifting internal dialogue. How there's an almost spiritual component-- something about connection and the people you meet and how they can stay with you. Like this guy I met recently who was one of those wolf hunters from Idaho. I have a friend who was recently there--a pro-protection of wolves friend--who snorted over a license plate which read: NO WOLFS

Anyway, this guy called me "Honey" and "Mama" and was like JR Ewing after his liver corroded. At first he made me cringe. I knew I'd hate his politics and if the plane hadn't been full I would have switched seats at first sight of him. But he told me how he'd just visited his brother for the first time in ten years, how he (JR) was smiling on the outside, but crying on the inside over leaving him. He asked me about mountain lions in my area and whether or not I owned a gun. When I told him I didn't he said "Oh no. Now I'm gonna worry about you."

By the time we landed I really cared for him. Not enough to exchange contact info, or anything, but touched. I liked knowing that someone in Idaho was worried about whether or not I was safe from cougars. And I hoped for him that he'd get to see his brother again soon. 

All of these little connections. There's something important here that I'm compelled to illustrate on stage. 

I read the vignettes to David and our (already fabulous) class. David encouraged me to continue exploring the idea. He said it might work, and that key to the success of bringing it to the stage would be to 'up the stakes'. He cautioned me against deliberately focusing on upping the stakes.

I still have to figure out what upping the stakes means, exactly, but I believe it has to do with discovering that certain element that will make people care, that will make them invest emotionally. Not make as in force...

Anyway, he told me not to focus on it, so I won't. 

Another thing we talked about was the freedom we have to fictionalize on stage. To speed through time, for example, or combine several stories into one. I'll play with that too.

My other idea is to write the next part of  "Law of Average" 

We'll see.

I'll be writing much more on each of these, fleshing out details and emotion, but here's a sample in first draft form (Number Three you've already seen on this blog).

One

On the plane home from Nampa the guy next to me is an asshole. This guy behind me was shuffling a deck of cards and I was thinking it was kind of cool to play cards you know in an age when everyone is connected to something electronic the guy next to me turned and asked him if he was going to keep doing it shuffling that is and the guy kind of mumbled that no he wasn’t just for a while longer and the guy next to me said because it would be really great if you wouldn’t. and so the guy behind me stopped for a bit and when he started up again it was just this soft little heart-breaking flutter and I was pissed at the guy next to me and thought to myself if he said anything about the soft shuffling I would tell him to get ear plugs next time he flew rather than try to control everyone around him. I mean what if there was a little baby crying? He'd be the type of asshole who would complain or make the poor mother feel worse. Earplugs man. I imagined the people around me thinking good for her shes right. And the guy behind me being a little bit embarrassed but also grateful. The stewardess came along doing her little check and made the asshole pull his laptop out of the seat pocket and put it on the floor for take-off. I thought it was stupid—the pocket seemed perfectly fine. He hesitated like he thought it was stupid too, but she insisted. I thought ha! Then another steward came along and told him to put his seat in an upright position before take-off and I amended my imagined speech to you must not fly very often if you flew often you’d know to bring ear plugs and put your seat up instead of telling your neighbors what to do. The plane took off and he fell asleep and I noticed his laptop sliding out from under the seat in front of him. For a moment I thought about letting it slide all the way to the back of the plane but instead tapped him on his arm and let him know. He was thankful and said I don’t know why they made me move it in the first place and I said I know,  I was wondering the same thing. And then I felt some sort of affinity for the guy and realized that if he said anything more about the card shuffling I probably wouldn’t speak up because we had connected. Unless what he said was way outta line.

 Two

There’s a stop in Sacramento on this flight to Boise.  The stewardess encourages me to sit wherever I want for the twenty minutes it takes to get there from San Jose. I’ll have to be in my assigned seat for the more serious leg from SAC to BOI.

When the flight lands in SAC, I dutifully grab my carry-on and head back to 15b.

“What can I do for you, Honey?”

Honey. My grandma called my honey. So did my aunties, my uncles and my mom and my dad. I’ve called my daughters Honey since I first looked into their unfocused eyes, felt their little hands grip my finger.  And now my Iranian, Filipino, French Irish grandson whose skin is luminous and golden like a jar of honey shot-through with sunlight.  My eight month old granddaughter who leaves openmouthed honey-sweet kiss-prints on my cheek.

The man in 15a looks like Larry Hageman. Not the young Larry from I Dream of Jeannie, but the pre-liver transplant Larry who played  JR Ewing. JR Ewing at the tale end of the Dallas series when it became very evident he had a drinking problem.

Honey is an evocative term of endearment that sometimes makes me feel close to perfect strangers. Like the diner waitress

“More coffee, Honey?”

But in cases like this—with JR here—it makes me simultaneously feel vulnerable and young and suspicious. 

 “I’m here to claim my seat,” I say.

“Oh you are, are you?” he says. “Well, let’s do this, Mama.”

Mama. No man has ever called me Mama.

I have two worries about this promotion from ‘Honey’ to ‘Mama’. 

One, that JR is one of those overly familiar, groping types who’s already laid claim to me.

Two, anyone listening will think we’re a couple. That I’m the type of woman who allows her husband to call her ‘Mama’ and maybe even calls him Papa.

JR clears his magazine and i-pod from my seat and watches me as I settle in.

“You from Boise?” he asks.

“Nope. Santa Cruz mountains.”

“That’s some pretty country up there,” he says.

Which is exactly what I expect him to say. 

“Me, I’m an Idaho boy from way back,” he adds. “Been visiting my brother in Los Gatos for the past three weeks. Before that I hadn’t seen him in ten years.”

“Good visit?” I ask.

I don’t like to talk on planes. I like to read and sleep.  Still, I believe in being polite. There’s the obligatory pleasant greeting before the flight which sometimes stretches into a polite conversation. Then, hopefully, the conversation winds down before take-off  and we sit in companionable silence for the rest of the flight. Perhaps I’ll repeat his beverage order when the stewardess says “Huh?” Perhaps he’ll offer me his complimentary pretzel mix, but we’ll  settle back into companionable silence.

 “Ever see any wolves up there?”

“Wolves? Never. Cougars, yes.”

I discover soon enough that he knows perfectly well wolves do not inhabit the Santa Cruz mountains. He asks the question because wolves are what he wants to talk about. 

Three

You find your seat on the plane 13B, the aisle and before you stow your bag, you worry that you may have left your phone in the terminal. You plunge your hand into the main section and rummage. You feel nothing. Phones can be sneaky though. They’re not as big as they seem for one. Thinking that perhaps you had a rare moment of unconscious organization you begin to check the front zippered pockets. Nothing. You must have left it right there in the terminal on the seat beside you. You are nearly convinced of this when 13C shows up.

“Sorry,” he says.

 “No problem,” you say. 

Barely looking up you stand, one hand still rummaging and step aside to let him in. You sit back down, recheck every compartment. This is your all-purpose traveling purse. There are a lot of compartments. Shit, you think. I’m going to be one of those people who leave the plane before take-off. You wonder how complicated it will be, to exit now with the beefed-up security and X-ray scanners.  You wonder if you’ll need an escort.  An escort will take time. Maybe even delay take-off. Your fellow passengers will go from suspecting you are a terrorist making a hasty exit, to hating you for making them late. Your hand closes over your phone. “There you are” you say aloud. You look at the man in 13C. He’s reading a magazine and doesn’t look up. You feel bad that you didn’t at least say Hello when he sat down. You don’t like to talk during flights, but you do like to at least great your fellow flier. He has a nice profile, the man. Might be Middle Eastern, or Italian. Which makes you feel slightly worse for not at least saying Hello. You want him to know that even if he is Middle Eastern you aren’t the type of American to think right off that he’s a terrorist. You text your husband with lots of x’s and o’s, turn off your phone, tuck it deliberately in the front zippered compartment, and lean your head back. It’s cold. The menopausal stewardess has all of the air nozzles going full blast. The right side of your body is warming up though. The heat from 13cs body. You like him. There’s a feeling of comfortable companionship between you. The menopausal stewardess with her fried blond hair starts her seatbelt check and you notice the seat across the aisle, 13a, is empty. It’s a small plane—a puddler jumper—the seat is solo, both an isle and a window. You look at 13c and say “Please don’t take this personally,” He looks up from his magazine and you smile, unbuckle your belt.  “I’m gonna snag that seat. That way you won’t have me falling asleep on your shoulder.”  He smiles back. “I’ll try not to.” He says. He has a nice smile. White teeth. 

You move across the aisle and he says “I should have showered this morning” You laugh and wave him away. It’s not a typical gesture, this waving away. Usually done by fake, jokey people. Usually accompanied with the expression “Get outta here!” or “Oh, you!”

You tuck your purse, settle in. Sneak a glance at 13c. He’s back to his magazine. You like his face. Unshaven, not perfect. Hair more salt than pepper. You like his style. Jeans, black sweater with a gray stripe running down the sleeve, socks that match the stripe, neutral suede shoes. Good shoes, like they sell at the walking store. He looks like he’s showered. He looks soap and water fresh. You miss him a little bit. It’s colder in this seat for one, and what if the plane goes down for two. You’ll be alone clutching the arm rest instead of locking eyes with his and reaching out for his hand with a sort of stoic resignation. 

There’s a bustle a few rows ahead and you look up to see a late arriver headed in your direction. Sure enough it’s the rightful sitter of 13a. “Oops. Sorry!” You say, unstow your purse and scoot back across the aisle. He looks at you. “I’m back,” you say. “You sure get around” he says. “Hahaha!” you laugh. A little too loud.  You buckle up and lean back wishing that instead of laughing too loud you had said something clever like ‘Yes, I try not to brag about it,’ or  ‘I try’ maybe narrowed your eyes slyly at him with a sexy half-smile playing on your lips. You close your eyes, feel yourself warming up again. The plane taxis forward.

You awaken with a snort. Shit, how loud was I? You look across the aisle at 13a. She doesn’t look up from her laptop. You turn your head. 13c’s eyes are closed. You’re thinking no harm no foul when 13c says “You should have told me you snored.”

You look at him, his eyes are still closed.

“What?” you say

“Full disclosure. If I’d known I might not have committed to this relationship.”

Hahaha you laugh.