A DISORDERLY TIME

I visit my friend Molly once a week, that's when I hear about all her friends. Unfortunately, she has friends who drive her mad with all the demands they place on her, demands that Molly says, are too much. And as she also says 'I ask nothing of them, nothing of anyone! I want to be completely independent of anyone or anything.  I work on myself night and day, to break myself!  she demonstrates with force, over a raised left knee, the breaking of, what seems,  a very stout branch. 'I want' she gasps 'to be a completely free person.'

This visit is very like the last one, and the one before that, and so on. 'Can you imagine' Molly fumes, 'She called me disloyal!' At this point, Molly clutches the front of her finely pleated linen blouse and crushes it again and again, in her fists, as she acts out an event, that took place, since my last visit. The front of the pleated blouse, appears in danger of being torn apart, as Molly, in her frustration, continually, crushes, wrenches, and stretches the delicate cotton material.  'Me disloyal!,  I thought she was my friend! but now she  treats me as an enemy! I asked her again and again, why, have you turned against me like this? I beg of you, tell me what I have done, that earns you the right to call me disloyal?'

 When I'd first entered Molly's impeccably cared for home, I felt quite pleased with the world. However, now as I sat in the spartan surrounds of her impeccable world,  I felt myself  about to automatically slip up? or maybe slip down? into, another gear. I'd  developed, this gear, almost unconsciously over the years, for protection from, the outburst of Molly's wrath.  I  prepared myself to absorb all of Molly's frustrations. Prepared myself to become a great sea sponge, so that she could feel better, and go on until I visited her next week.

As I feel weaker, I see her grow stronger. I strive to find the right words that will stem the flow of hysteria, that has built up in her quicker than usual  today, and that now, in my imagination, threatens to flood over me to wash me down the hallway out onto the street into the path of fast moving cars, that will then squish and squash me flat forever.

But wait! I had decided that today, I would not get caught up in Molly's world of drama. I casually rise from the soft padded armchair and stroll to the long narrow windows. I say 'Oh Molly, how lovely these curtains are , they look as if they've been crocheted.'

As a younger woman, a school drama teacher had told Molly her voice showed great dramatic performance quality.When she eventually replies to my casual comment, Molly's voice is that of a very stylized actress, resonant and dramatic.  'An old woman gave them to me when I visited her last year' she booms loudly. 'Poor old thing. She lives with her daughter-in-law in a tiny cold  room at the back of her own house.  Ha! lives? More like exists!. Her daughter-in-law has taken over the whole place.'  To my dismay, my friend now becomes even more excited. 'Sit down please!' she commands me, 'I have a lot I want to get out of my head, then I will be alright.' No longer am I a great sea sponge, now I'm a great '??!!' with legs. I return to the armchair, fold myself into it and wait.

I soak up a world of rage, insanity, injustice, frustration, all of which pours itself out in a love of Christ, in service of the church, in adoration of priests, in deep devotion to Sister Christina, in! in! But wait, wait! Again,  I feel a little strength growing inside my crumpled spine. A deep breath straightens the shrunken vertebrae. 'Molly'  I say with my usual caution, 'perhaps you could tell them, they are asking too much of you, tell them'. At this point, my friend cuts across my words and collapses into the matching arm chair opposite me, buries her face in her hands and is silent. I'm not sure what to do, and so I too am silent. It must be just right, because on the occasions when it wasn't, it wasn't good.

The buried face is slowly raised, it is now blood red. 'Do you know' Molly fumes, 'Mrs Lester forced me to take one of her nerve tablets,! she pushed it into my mouth!' There is a furious demonstration of  the tablet being pushed between Molly's even white teeth. She continues to talk, as she continues to demonstrate,the nerve tablet episode. 'No, no!' she gasps, as she presses, wriggles and taps her finger tips hard against her own clenched teeth, taps as if her teeth were notes on a piano.

Behind Molly is a wooden bookcase, and on one shelf are two small pot plants. They are sickly looking  things, with stems that can barely hold up the tiny wilting leaves that bravely dare to sprout in this emotion packed place. Each visit, I ask for permission to give the plants a little water. In the hope of distracting Molly, I suggest I water the wilting plants ' Water them! water them! I have no time' Molly says, 'Let them die! I'm too tired to care, too tired even to live.'

Once, long ago,I used to feel I was being hard hearted to leave Molly, in such a state. But I eventually learned, all will be well. 'I must go now Molly.' I say. A beautiful unearthly smile starts in Molly's green eyes and spreads over her broad features and down to her well shaped mouth. 'I feel so much better' she says in that dramatic actress voice. I say,  'See you again next week Molly, thank you for a lovely day.'

Outside, the sun is shining. In a nearby park, children play and laugh. Something in my goodbye to Molly had a strange and prophetic ring about it. As I walk, I think back over the afternoon. once again I hear the sound of laughter from the park, and it's then I realize, I never laugh when I'm with Molly, she doesn't like laughter, and she gets angry when I laugh. I don't think I'm going to visit Molly next week, or even the week after, I know the next visit will be very like this one, and the one before that, and so on.

Tushie 1987

THE WHITE FLOWER

Just humour him, they told me.
It's easier that way. Let him talk about anything, even if it makes no sense.
His eyes, in his pale face are as bright as a clear blue sky on a sunny day. His once curly black hair, now spreads over his high forehead, in straight silver strands. These days when he listens he is calm and sweet. Only a few times have I seen the old emotions burst and flare out of him. Seen the emotional sparks flicker and race over the white walls and over me. I learned long ago to sit and wait. Wait for the stillness  to return and reconcile us both in its uneasy silence. 

I sit beside his bed.

There's a small white gardenia, on the old wooden bedside table.

Its perfume fills the space, its whiteness glows in the darkened bedroom.

My old friend is restless today, in his double bed.

His long thin fingers, tap time, on the folded back white sheet

'You know, in my fanciful thinking days, I used to think,

I had hands meant for a pianist. My head was full of fanciful foolish thoughts in my youth.

Do you see where I've been pulling out these weeds? doesn't the soil look rich where I've turned it over.

But if the soil is so rich, why does this bush have no flowers. It's their time to bloom you know. Whatever is the name of this bush! I once knew the names of every plant in my garden. Just the way one knows the name of all in their family. But not now. Why I could close my eyes, and ask a child to pick a leaf, or a bloom from the garden, and then have them place it in my palm, and with closed eyes I'd tell them what its  name was. The rough petals of the fading  hydrangeas were easy to guess. They had a sort of sand papery edge.

I turned the tables on a child one day and  said, 'now you  close your eyes and tell me what you think this feels like.' I placed a few petals of the hydrangea on his palm and then pressed his thumb firmly down on them. He told me quick as anything, that it felt like one of the flakes from his breakfast Wheaties  packet. We both had a good  laugh about that. I never forgot that little child, I thought it was a wonderful response.'

My old friend's memories rise as from a sunken vessel. They float on the surface for a moment and then sink back down with the weight of the past. The world of yesterday.

'Why everywhere I look I see flowers. It must be my imagination playing tricks on me. But surely this is real? Look and tell me if you can see it too'. 

I asked my old friend what it was he saw, He replied, 'why the walls, they are covered in her image. and the tiny vase that holds the gardenia, it has a miniature image of her face painted on it. See how the vase is surrounded with a swirl of red, blue and gold light. And there's something to think on. See how my image is beside hers on the little vase. I'd never noted, that we are actually there together. One could almost say, as one.'  But try as I might, I could only see the face of my old friends dead wife. 

BURNING BRANCHES (MY PLAY, 2002)

Re-entering 'My Maze World'
--------------------------------
 Some years ago, I wrote a performance piece. I endeavoured to express, my inner life (a life of emotional trauma, carried from babyhood into adulthood; trauma hand -balled down the line, by generations of poor parenting, often extending  to abusive parenting. )

 To write within the center of that dark place, was not easy. And how I felt, while writing the piece, as I fell, from wall to wall, as if  emotionally drunk, in the privacy of my small writing space, was horrible; how I felt as I sniffled and snuffled, like a heart broken, snotty nosed little child, and felt and refelt, the gut wrenching misery of so many years, did not stop the urgent flow of my words

 How I felt, as tears seemed to make a watery, wavy mix with the invisible ink of the text, and then, spread out on the blank A4 page on my computer screen, creating a watery color picture, into which the wounded inner one, could enter and find a place to belong and become, is another story in itself.

 However, the end result of my efforts was a massive inner shift, brought about by seeing my images, in a concrete form. The inner imagery was made to live, by the incredible enthusiasm, generosity, and willingness of the actors, who breathed life into what had moved on from the performance piece, to what had became my play, called 'Burning Branches.'

 I'd like to take some time, to reflect on the  'long ago' experience, of my amature theatre production of 'Burning Branches' as  up until now, I've found no way to sift and sort my way through it. It  will  probably be a little (probably a lot) confusing, and I may need to retrace my steps now and then. However, it feels important for me to begin now, and I'll do the best I can.

THE ACTORS
The actors learned long pages of script, attended hours of rehearsals, and presented 12  sincere- creative performances. I've not seen any one of those folk since that last show, in 2002, but, in my mind's eye, I still see every face. The Italian waiter, who managed to change all his shifts to fit in with the rehearsals, and performances. The petite gorgeous girl who wore the long skin tight red evening dress, and  played the fem fa tale, She pulled it all off beautifully, without a hitch! (or requiring even one new stitch!)

For me, the couple who played out the emotion of  'DESIRE', looked like the living word in motion when
they mouthed and pouted it to each other, 'deee- zyyy - aaah'. Thinking along the lines of skin tight, reminds me of the costume the actress wore for her part as the portrayal of  'DESIRE'. She looked like a greenish, bluish, shimmering  strange, exotic fruit. The male part of desire was a tall slim fellow, with flashing green eyes  a full mouth, and a very pink tongue. He seemed able to move all at the one time, which was most effective.

As for the actress who played the 'bitch of a witch (it was pretty hard on her, she was a dark character all through) Boy she was mean and boy she was great in her meaness!!) The three 'Child Tesses' were just perfect, in costume, looks and in character. Although three young women played the part of Child-Tess, in theory, they were, in essence' meant to be seen as the emotional portrayal of one character.

Then there was Philip, with his grand and articulate presentation of his part in things, and along side of him, his shrewish wife, who pushed him faithfully throughout the play in a wheelchair, unearthed  from the prop room, while disguising her pretty face with a perpetual grimace, her figure with a granny dress and covering her lovely black hair with a granny shawl. She was the real old crone, down to the last detail.

 I could never  forget the fleeting and sweet touch of the girl on holidays from England. She played the role, of Beatrice the theatre cat. The  wandering soul, ever hopeful, of finding a home, and  whose constant plaintive cry was, said in many ways but amounted to the same thing,

'It's only me, a harmless little thing,
won't you open your door and let me come in?'

There were also the two narrators of the work, who pushed and shoved each other psychologically as they tried to assert themselves over each other, leading on to near fisticuffs. I believe, every one of those performers was working towards their dreams, I pray they discovered them, or one day very soon will.
I can only say, they helped me towards mine. Thank you. Thank you.

LOOSE PAGES FROM MY PLAY
--------------------------------
My idea is to re-explore my feelings on what I wrote all that time ago, and see where I stand now, in relation to it. I'll start by explaining a bit about the play its characters, and the actors.

CAST CHANTERS  (Ten, men and women, repeat the following, in a (directed, like a choir singing) 'chant-rosary'  form in the back ground, while on stage.

MEN
----------
I cursed the church
I cursed the church. (repeated over and over)


(Men use a low voice and say it like a rosary)



WOMEN
-------------
I ranted and raved
I ranted and raved  (repeated over and over)

(Women use high voice, same chant-rosary style, as the men are using)

MEN AND WOMEN
----------------------
At a designated point, the men and women join together to chant their lines.

MORE  CAST CHANTER PIECES
-----------------------------------------
Becomenumb, becomenumb
Becomenumb, becomenumb
Becombnumb becomenumb
Becomenumb becomenumb

There's a ghost in the blood red fire,
a turn in its left eye, a turn in the,
turned left eye, a turn in the turned left eye.

(Note to actors. Instead of tapping fingers, maybe we'll clap hands. We'll talk it over at next rehearsal.)

(More to come)   Tushie

LISTEN AWHILE TO MY SONG

I explored the world through those, who said they loved me.
Took their flame of light and traveled to unknown worlds within me.
Ash filled my lungs, made me cough, and cough,  made my eyes dry.
I polished my dry eyes with my burning tears.
It was an ordeal, no doubt about it. But then, I did have to step out of my coffin,
to make the exploration. And although I managed  no more than, to
limp along for ages, finally, I learned to dance and dance and even sing!

Are you interested in my thoughts? Perhaps not. And intuition tells me,
if you give me even half an ear, I'll talk, talk, talk forever. You see,
I love words, love my own voice, my own song.
But first, there was the vast thirst and hunger.
I recall I wrote about  this some where long ago, I said something like,

'I cannot go close enough, to touch the sun, sky, the moon.
Drink with my eyes enough, rivers, rain or sea, to appease,
my gut wrenching hunger, my dying thirst.'

But that was all before, I came to love my words, my voice,
learned to love my own song.



Tushie  2012

THEATRE OF LIFE

'A Shady Character'  by  Trish  3/1/12

This person is auditioning for the 'The Theatre of the Absurd'. There is  a new performance piece set to begin rehearsals,once all roles have been cast.

'Another Character'  by  Trish

Tushie  3/1/12