Chasing Alligators

Ah the blank page.  What to do with it.  I’ve promised myself that I would blog every two weeks, once on the Coffee with Gail blog and then on The Artist’s Path.  But inspiration feels in short supply.  I’ve taken time off since pulling Path 2012 together for April—reading, walking, two small road trips, watching videos, doing some research on Path 2013, but leaving the white expanse of space bereft of words.  

 I said to a class mate from my high school days that I’m not a writer, but a wannabe writer.  All the poems, short stories, novels, plays, films from a lifetime leave me in awe of the written word and those who use it as their medium of expression.  I’m grateful to them beyond measure and not just as a source of knowledge, a way to know the self, a source of pleasure and pain, but these words allow me to practice my own way of expressing myself through using my body, my voice, my Self as an instrument to play their words. Yet…yet there is still that yearning to make some part of the world manifest in words.

And so I listen for that tap on the shoulder when my muse, often absent, off inspiring someone else I suppose, whispers in my ear, planting an errant thought that begs birthing.

These last words remind me, and not sure why but willing to just chase this alligator and see where it leads, of a time I was driving cross country west to east  on I 40 and decided to stop off at the University of Oklahoma in Norman where I had attended grad school in theater.  Like most universities in cities, it had grown, bursting the seams bordering the neighborhoods surrounding it.  I scarcely recognized where I was.  My internal map was not working and it’s usually spot on.

  

 University of Oklahoma's Bizzell Library 

 Where My Acting Thesis On Agnes of God Remains for Posterity

Finally I found the Fine Arts complex and wandered through the building where the theater program is housed.  The main change in my 25 year absence was the addition of a  black box theater where I had once directed The House of Bernarda Alba and what I believe is now a full on musical theater program. 

Few people were about, so perhaps I arrived between semesters.  I found the classroom where I had spent many hours in acting courses and where when I was teaching  one semester a couple in their ‘60’s wandered in.  I welcomed them and they told us that they had once been students there, fallen in love, married and eventually gave birth to one our most iconic child actors and gifted directors—Ron Howard. 

     Rance and Ron Howard

We were thrilled and to this day I watch for Rance Howard who is still living, (Appearing  most recently in the film The Dilemma directed by Ron. ) and his wife Jean, also an actor, who died in 2000.

                                                                                    Ron Directs is Mother in Apollo 13

They spent an enchanting hour with us talking about OU in their day, working in Hollywood, Opie (Ron Howard) and the craft of acting.  No specifics remain in my memory, but they seemed so content with one another and so genuinely happy to spend some time with us.

Sometimes inspiration literally walks into your room with no warning, to tap, tap, tap. 

I still don’t know what to write about, but I’ll post this jaunt down memory lane and hope my muse shows up before the Path blog is due.  Who knows …maybe inspiration will literally knock on my door again.  The welcome mat is out!

The Quilter- A Monologue for Performance

Copyright July  2011  All Rights Reserved

(Grandmother sits with granddaughter (not seen) teaching her how to quilt while reminiscing.)

Lila Belle your stitches're way too big.  Slow down and take your time.  You got no place you need to be but here.  Now don’t you go and roll your eyes at me.  When I was your age I’d sit all day with my grandmother and quilt.  We’d have us glasses of sweet tea, sliced tomatoes fresh from the garden and toast.  With friends, a quilt in the making and iced tea you could set the world to rights in no time.  Course men folk called it gossiping, but it was more than that, much more.

Sweetie sit still.  You scrunching around like you got ants in your pants. You need to visit the little girl’s room?  Huh? No?  Well I tell you  what, you take yourself a deep breath and when you breathe out just push that needle in.  That's right. But slower.  You gotta get yourself a rhythm going, then the mind can just wander off cause the hands, why they know just what to do.

Oh gosh let me think.  Why I reckon I was 7 or 8 when I worked on my first quilt.  Course I done a bit of piecing before that just like you're doin now.  I remember sitting on my Nana’s screened in porch.  My grandpa'd put in a ceiling fan on the porch and it’d go round and round stirring up hot air of a summer’s afternoon.  My bangs kept tickling my forehead and the dust from the cotton fields across the road would get in my nose.  I’d do my darndest not to sneeze, but sometimes I’d just have to let loose with one and then of course three more would follow.  I always sneezed in groups of fours and so did your mama.  Yes, she did.  I found that so strange.

Lila Belle you make me sound old as the hills.  Old times?  Shoot I’m not old enough to remember old times yet.  You give me a few more years sweetie pie before start askin me about old times.  Those stitches are looking good. Most people forget to breathe when they’re working on something new.  And that just makes it harder, so you just remember to breathe real deep.  Oh and smile too, cause that relaxes the whole body and then when you’re relaxed you can breathe better.  That’s it.

Your mother?  Of course darlin', I got boatloads of memories of your Momma.  There was the time she was 13 or so and had to bake a cake for a Halloween Party at school.  And I told her she had to do it all by herself cause I had my hands full with your Uncle Hiram and Uncle Oris. Well I don’t know what she was thinking, but she didn’t hardly let the cakes cool before she was covering it with green icing.  Now I never understood why she used green food coloring for Hallo... Oh, well you may be right; maybe for second she thought it was St Patty’s Day.  Anyway she was slathering this green icing all over the warm cake and when she put the second layer on top and started covering it with icing, the top layer started to slide off.  Course I was hanging out the wash when all this was going on. She started screaming and I ran in there thinking she’d done cut off a finger or something and I took one look at that lopsided cake dubbed it the Leaning Tower of Pisa and then I just burst out laughing.    Your Momma, she just glared at me with that look of hers.  It took her a minute or two before she let her funny bone get tickled and then she let out a whoop you could hear clean across town.  Then with her fingers, she pushed the top layer back in place and skewered it all with toothpicks and licked her fingers.  It looked sort of like a fat, green  porcupine which I decided was just about perfect for a Halloween cake. And you know what? That cake plate came back licked clean as a whistle!

Oh Lord it’s hot as Hades in here.  I wish I had that ole fan of Grandpa's?

Well you're just full of questions today. Oh yes I remember great Nana Margaret.  She was my mother-in-law and despite what everybody says about mother-in-laws I always liked her.  No honey, don't hold the needle so tight; you'll get a cramp.  You’ll get the hang of it, just takes  practice.  You do a little bit every day and before you  know it you’ll be quilting in your sleep.

Now where was I.  Oh yes Nana Margaret.  She was a helluva woman.  Oops guess I’ll have to put a quarter in the jar.  Course if I say enough bad words we might have us enough money saved up to get us an ice cream cone.  That’d go down real nice right about now.

Anyway Nana Margaret.  I met her when I was 16.  She seemed old to me at the time, but I realize now she couldn’t have been more than 38 or 39 and here I am on the downhill side of 70 and I don’t feel all that old.  Course when you're 16 everyone older seems old to you.  What?   

Well let’s see she musta been 83 or 84 when she passed.  She had a good long run at life.

I remember she kept the coffeepot going all day long.  Of course she was so laid back I always thought she needed the caffeine to overcome her natural lassitude.  I never saw her hurry for anything.  And it'd drive me nuts cause she'd be late all the time, but now I kinda admire her for it.

My last memory of her?  What an interesting question Lila Belle.  Well let me think.  Two days before she died I was on the phone with her, long distance.  She sounded good.  Not as if she'd be gone in 48 hours.   I asked her how she was doin?  And she said,  "I feel like I'm just losing myself bit by bit, kinda floating.  You know, I'm off on my last, great adventure." I asked her, “Margaret what’s your earliest memory?” She paused, I don’t know if she was still smoking at that point, but often when we talked on the phone, I’d hear her take a drag on her cigarette while she accessed her memory banks.  “Well”,--she always seemed to start her thoughts with a long, drawn out 'well' as if she was giving herself time to collect her thoughts. So she said, “Well, I can see myself in this drainage ditch along the road.  It’s summer; and it’s hot as hell. Oh Ok you're right.  That’s another quarter, but she said it not me.  

Then she said,  “I’m dripping with sweat.  I never did perspire. And I sure as hel...heck didn’t glow.  There's not a cloud in the sky.  But the sky's not that crisp blue you get on a cold, dry winter’s day.  No it’s kinda milky blue. And the ditch is still damp with dew, so it must be morning.  I’m surrounded by dandelions, a carpet of yellow all around me. My arms are out and I’m twirling in circles. Even now I can feel a smile on my face.  Don’t know where I am, but the flowers sure are pretty in the morning light.”  Those were her exact words.  For some reason they just stuck with me. She died two days later, in the morning.  I still miss her.

You know what Lila Belle, I think you and me need to raid the curse jar, cause we need us an ice cream cone right about now.  Don'tcha think?