Good Bye Forever and Hello For Always

Carla Zilbersmith has passed on. I have been reading for days now about the process of dying and how our consciousness lets go of this earthly realm. All my life I have been terrified of dying and it has guided my actions and in-actions. It is the reason I chose a path which was not really me and was afraid to choose a path that was untried and scary. My fear of death pushed me away from everything I passionately desired again and again.

Carla's very public exposure of what it is like to die, on both her blog, in her film and on Facebook, gave me a gift that nothing and no one else has ever been able to give me. It has shown me it is not such a horrible, terrifying thing to leave our known consciousness and enter into another. It is not the worst thing that can happen, this thing we call death, even though it takes us away from the immeasurable gift of life. It has shown me that step by step if we stay aware, we can go in a way that ennobles ourselves and others.

Carla lived her life with passion, hope, kindness, honesty and an awareness of the moment by moment beauty that is with us all the time. And she showed me how to do it by simply being totally present the very last time I was lucky enough to spend an hour with her. She was so there ALWAYS for everyone she cared about even when it might have been detrimental to her well being. The day I visited her a few months ago she smiled at me with that deep and loving smile and said, "Don't worry. You have a generous heart. You will be fine." It meant a lot to me to hear her say that. I so wanted her approval and love. She gave it generously to a fallible, not always there human being because she knew I needed it. That was Carla.

Her sharing of her death in a very real and messy way, made a lot of people uncomfortable. It freaked a lot of people out. It made some feel very guilty for how they had abandoned her. It even made some people demand that I stop sharing news about her. But it also made some people take a good long look at their lives and the choices they have made. It made some folks write me loving letters of support and compassion.

I learned from Carla how to be a human being: vulnerable, messy, stupid, fucked up, wise, witty, risk taking and compassionate. I learned these things because she was all these things with me, at one time or another, and her being that way allowed me to be that way as well.

I do not have an incurable disease. I have a curable disease: fear. And now because of watching how she dealt with all of this I have a deeper, rock solid courage. Not a bombastic, in your face courage to stand up to injustice - I always had that. Now I have the courage to simply be and when I open my heart to others who are worth opening one's heart to (not everyone is there yet, are they?) I believe in my heart of hearts that those people will embrace me and I them. It has begun already.

It took me a long time to see how truly good people can be and it is because of those who loved Carla and those she loved that I genuinely believe in the inherent goodness of people. It is because of Carla's example that I can see beauty in this world. Despite all its decadence and craziness, all its perversions and meanness, all its falling short, it is a "wonderful world." Such a gift Carla Zilbersmith has given to everyone whose heart opened up to her and to whom she deeply touched. Such is the power of a soul in grace.

Good Bye Forever, Carla and Hello for always.....be at peace in your next life...for no one can extinguish you. No one ever will.

My Friend Carla is Dying

My friend and colleague Carla Zilbersmith is no longer eating, has written her last brilliant blog by choice and is in the final stages of the inevitable from this horrid disease ALS aka Lou Gehrig's Disease. She was diagnosed with it about 2 years ago and like clockwork, it has ticked away according to its own insidious plan. I don't quite understand why something this unfair is happening to one of the funniest and wittiest humans on the planet but it is. The last thing I feel I have the right to do is question life's randomness when Carla doesn't seem to be doing so. She is now surrounded I am sure by loving caretakers, adoring parents and a son who I first saw nursing a few weeks after she had given birth. It was in fact the first time I had met Carla herself. I remembered thinking when I first saw her - in those rare flashes of insight one sometimes gets - that this woman was both strong and very fragile. Maybe it was the red hair and pale skin. I knew then as I know now that her particular gene pool was unique and like a shooting star, burning quickly. Because of her rarity, I became fast friends, prone as I am to love the beautiful and one of a kind.

Carla and I were on and off again friends. Sometimes our creative energies blended perfectly and sometimes clashed. It didn't matter. I recall telling her I thought we would be friends til our dying days. I had no idea how quickly and how devastatingly that time would come. And now it is here. Dying days.

I have an elderly 89 year old mother who is also dying but she has had a decent run, albeit not a particularly happy or easy one. She, like Carla, is now housebound, rarely venturing outside the sanctity of her home. Why would she when the world can be so incredibly unforgiving to the disabled, the elderly, the ill?

I also have a 13 year old dog companion who was diagnosed 2.5 years ago with congestive heart failure and given hours to live. Some people would think I was crazy the way I fought to find him the best cardiologist, paid stiff prices to get him on medication and nursed him back to the living. Of course, I have no children so it makes a lot of sense in light of that. Luis is also dying now. He can not climb, run or play the way he once did and it is just a matter of time before his little brave spirit says bye bye, reluctantly I am sure.

Like Carla, Luis loves life. And like my mom, crippled with arthritic pain, he hangs on to it for...dear life.

Dear life. I don't think we recognize, most of us, til it is too late just how dear it is regardless of what befalls us. And that is why we cling to it, beyond all hope until the pain becomes so overwhelming that we decide, it is better to go gently into that good and long night. I think Carla made that choice recently. She decided that enough is enough. I hope I also have the wisdom to know when to let go, when to know that the universe is calling me home.

On Wednesday night at 7 PM at my college I am showing the documentary that will make Carla's journey and her battle with ALS much more known in the wide world. Perhaps the film will speed up the cure for an ugly disease that claimed my uncle Carmen's life as well. ALS grabs people, the young particularly, by the throat and wreaks its havoc on the muscles until no breath, no swallowing, no control is left. Carla recognizes the importance and futility of having control and that is why she has chosen to let go of life by her own choosing. She knows how to use humor fearlessly in order to push away the demons. It is something we can all learn from.

I have tried to learn from watching Carla's battle, her good nature and her integrity. I think because of her I am a better human being. And I don't say this lightly. I had significant flaws behind the mask of toughness I wore. Significant. Now I feel that it's okay to have flaws, to be vulnerable and in fact it is actually a very good thing to be human. If my life were endless and impenetrable, I would be a wall. And nothing could ever make it inside and behind the barrier. Because of Carla, and the harsh treatment of life in general over the last few years, I can grab at life like the hungry human I really am. I can go for it for however much time I have left.

And that's the real lesson here. Carla knows how much time she has. I think most of us are in a long state of denial about death and so we miss out on much in life we really want. We don't have the discipline, the passion and the awareness that says clearly, THIS IS IT, folks. It's not a dress rehearsal and there's nothing else like this ever again. Imagine the enormity of that.

So thank you beautiful and unique Carla for the gift your blog has been to a lot of us. Thanks for the shining example of the way to handle an incurable devastating illness. I hope I die from old age in my sleep. Who doesn't hope that? But if something hits me hard, some horrible thing waiting down the pike, I and many others have the memory of what it looks like to live and die in a state of grace.

I only hope I can come close to what Carla has provided: a role model of the Divine in the every day. Carla the butterfly, the Gerber daisy, the clown, the helium balloon....I will miss you, my fine fine friend. And like hundreds of others, I will always love you.

Encore. Bravo. Standing ovation.


Read her blog folks....

www.carlazilbersmith.com

Body Parts Know, Don't They?

We are the first place they look when the rest is mysteriously and suddenly dead. Often there is some mysterious substance called DNA underneath us that apparently is a door to the universe. Some people think we keep growing after the rest dies but in fact the rest is shrinking so we are creating an illusion even at the end, aren't we? When alive, we get filed, buffed, clipped, polished and painted if we're lucky and if we're very very lucky we are pampered in salons. Too often, however, we are neglected, gnawed at, picked at until we bleed at our base, and then we split, chip, become jagged and ugly. When that happens you bring out the big guns, the dreadful clipper, and unceremoniously reduce us to our nubs telling yourself, "Oh they'll grow back stronger now." You delude yourself through us. We are your helpmates as you get older and lose calcium because we can tell before even the doctors test your spine and hip for osteo that your bones are softening. Please for gods sake pay better attention to us. We are so much more than this earthly shell. We are the final tip when you point to the stars. Like arrows we are what your eyes follow when we play a piano. We are your pick when you strum the strings of a guitar. We can turn a man or woman on just by being run gently across their back and shoulders. We can flick the insects from the leaves of your organic gardens. We can help shape a pot on the wheel and then decorate it without the use of a tool. We are the tool. We are the way you see the universe of your body in a grain of calcium. Honor us and when you do neglect us, and you will, remember we will be here for you when all else ceases, when the heart stops beating, the legs stop moving, the eyes stop seeing.
Take a moment to look at us today like you never have before.

What does it mean to have the life you dream of?

Retired from teaching. An occasional class of my choosing. No Internet. No obligations. Endless days of sunshine stretching on forever. Writing my plays and screenplays. Practicing my craft. A warm climate. And no financial worries. The perfect life. Good health. Close friendships. A wonderful lover and deep connection: spiritually and physically. Gardening. Trips to Hawaii, Costa Rica, Alaska in June, London, the Amalfi Coast. Good health. Good health. Good health. Emotional and physical. Profound sleep, no interruptions. Appreciation. Meditative practice consistent. Inner peace and tranquility. Love. In every single shape and permutation in every place I reside in the interior and exterior. Riches, vitality, good health. Consistent exercise. Completion of projects. A conscious presence in this world and the next. Remembered after I leave.

Prayer for an Insomniac

Going to sleep I resist like anthrax because of the dreams I don't have and the climb into bed alone and the worry about the way the world is headed and more importantly the way my neighborhood and my city is headed even on the freeway every night I drive home from work almost every night there is some lunatic gangbanger driving 100 miles an hour with 2 or 3 cars in hot pursuit of him and I know he has a gun and I can't get out of his way fast enough and just last week an old guy was killed in a collision with one of these lunatics and the hold ups and the drive bys and the global warming and the economic meltdown and the endless emails from survival companies in Montana and Chinese imports and oh god there is nothing not to worry about and I close my eyes and hope the herbal sleep aids and the adult CD of lullabyes and my little dog curled up at my feet and the sound downstairs of the housemate in her own cocoon will get me past the night terrors that come from long ago and now because there is so much to be frightened of and worried about and there's nothing I can do about any of it so I let go when I realize my terror is impossible and real at the same time. And then later I awaken maybe 5 AM and I wander the house and read from the Internet and hear the stillness until the sun comes up and I see it. A green bean popping up in my garden poking through and the heat from the sun steaming the shingles and the light oh the luscious light of early morning and the world is new and the impossible happens I feel no fear for a moment one moment and I am so grateful I am alive amen

Flamenco shoes

The 100 pound Flamenco dancer/teacher said to her newest and oldest student, "I have a beautiful pair that don't fit me quite right. Wear them and they will make you feel sexy and when you dance the Flamenco your passion will be fearless and consume you." She brought them from her closet where I glimpsed dozens of Flamenco dance shoes in a million different colors and dresses that fit her skinny frame tightly and made her look like a wild electrified energy rod. Here I was just fifty, newly divorced and wanting so badly to be skinny and sexy again and I was now convinced these shoes she placed on the floor near my feet would bring me back to a state of grace. "How much?" I asked. A hundred and fifty. They were from Madrid after all and hardly worn and she was charging me just twenty dollars less than when she had purchased them a few months ago. They were blood maroon with a strap across the face of them and studded heels so that when I moved my feet, the familiar clicking sound of the Flamenco dancer resounded and echoed across the dance floor. "Well, try them on, " she said, knowing even if they didn't fit me I was going to purchase them any way. I slipped them on and walked and fell in love with the way they lifted my rear and straightened my back and I made a singular dance move with assurance and pride and I beamed. "I will take them, I said and we both smiled. Three weeks later I stopped taking dance lessons and the shoes sat, still sit, in my bedroom closet because I made the fatal mistake of wearing them to a jazz club and while on the street, the blisters they caused made my feet bleed and my toes got infected and I ended up not being able to walk for a month. I have never worn them since that day but I can not sell them or give them away. I would like to have them dipped in bronze the way they used to dip baby shoes in bronze and plant a rare orchid in each one of them. A reminder to never try to be what you are not: skinny and under 30.

What Ends Can Be Embraced

That part of my life is over now...teaching for the last 18 years at a community college is beginning to come to the end days. Running a theatre department that I revived from nothing. Now a new energy is in place to take over. My energy is facing elsewhere: filmmaking, acting, writing. The hardest part is relinquishing the control and saying good bye to my child...that particular theatre...and strangely my friend Carla is dying, really dying from ALS and she and I were the jumpstarters of the program for the first year...she's leaving the earthly plane forever...and this house, my home, clearing it out, giving things away...knowing my time here is also coming to an end...my little beloved companion dog Louie, how much longer will those mitral valves hold out? He was supposed to have died 2.5 years ago and he is 13 years old and my little Honey...blind now, losing her hearing at 15 years old, how much longer? And the ancient cat Lily who sleeps all day and is 18 years old, how much longer for Lily as well? And my mother turning 89 on March 19th and knowing full well every single day may be the last...all these endings. But I am not sad. I am grateful. I can feel the preciousness of every single moment in a way I could never before. I know it's fragility and its impermanence and its rare decaying beauty. I embrace the change because it is reality and reality is the best and truest high there is....this moment...my god I have this moment by moment by....forever, don't I?

What Is No Longer There

What is no longer there…lush green vegetable gardens a water pump a half acre of beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, the sun blasting down on my 40 year old mother as she picks out weeds smoothes the soil and I play in the backyard under the enormous willow with its flowing branches and the music from a transistor radio plays somewhere inside the house as my sister gets ready for her date and we wait for the afternoon to pass. My mother insisting I eat a string bean raw and the crunch of it between my teeth and the richness of the afternoon because of nothing in particular except here in this time and place something still feels intact and real and a neighbor drops by in my tiny neighborhood by the water and life seems rich and perfect and whole. My father rushes into the backyard in a frenzy and examines the take from the garden his mouth watering demanding that we eat soon because he does not have much time and must get back to his job and put the finishing touches on a patio he has just poured and he is hungry so hungry for his pasta and the fresh tangy red sauce my mother made from the glowing garden tomatoes. He barely notices me making a mess as usual in the mud and dirt while my sister leaves through the front door for a summer date with girlfriends her hair curled, lipstick blood red, her skirt short enough to show her knees. Summer. I say the words in my mouth like I am eating a ripe cherry. I love the summer. Freedom, no school, freedom. Do whatever I want all day long. Bliss. I know it will end as each day passing kills my freedom but it can’t it mustn’t because once this day is gone once it is over it is over bye bye forever and even as a child I sense how fragile this is yet I take it all for granted. My mother stays forty and beautiful, my father virile and strong, my sister kind,  smiling, excited about her life unfolding before her. Somewhere inside I am already grieving.

Remember when .....

September 1981 Amherst Massachusetts. Nervous frightened an undergraduate in a creative writing class the teacher walks in tall, imposing looking scholarly and artsy at the same time, I am intimidated by his attitude. He barely glances at me; it is as if I do not exist. His eyes scan the room and land at the rear where someone is sitting who he stares at, lets his gaze swallow this person. I turn to see out of curiosity why whoever this is is deserving of this intense focus. A tall, depressed looking woman, younger than me, her head buried in a thin paper back book, gives him no recognition back. “I am Kirby Farrell. I write,” he declares. “I’m a writer and my job is to teach you to find your voices. Some of you already have been looking. Others…” his eyes now find me…”Well, others might take a very very long time.” The air is heavy with tension, nerves. Sweat. A bead drops from my forehead but I am too self conscious to wipe it as it slithers down my cheek. I shift in my seat like a trapped animal in a cage. Outside the warm autumn of Western Massachusetts radiates with undergraduate laughter, chatter, whispers. I hear leaves crunching under feet taking their time to get to or from their destinations. I gather my things ready to rush from the room, the words “who am I to think I can be a writer like these people?” running like a circular saw slicing my insides to pieces. No one in my family has done anything. I shouldn’t even be in college. This is a mistake, a big fat stupid mistake. Then a hand taps me on the shoulder. The woman from the rear of the class has moved into the empty seat behind me. She whispers, “Do you have an extra pen or pencil? Mine just ran out of ink.” I reach into my backpack and pull out the only pen I have and give it to her. Her coal black eyes see into me. “You have another, right?” she asks. I mumble something stupid. Kirby steps forward and smiles at her. He calls her Monica as if he and she are lovers. “He’s full of himself,” she says softly to me. “Don’t let him bother you.” Are we now friends for life? Is she my lifeline in the sea of academic muck I will have to wade through? Later, weeks later, Kirby tells me Monica’s father is a famous author. And I remember her words to me. “You have real talent,” she said. “Everyone else in that class is full of shit. Including the teacher.” She's a friend. We run, eat, get crazy together, swap stories, are silly and save one another's lives. And she shares intimate stories of what it's like to be the daughter of Richard Yates. I believe now, after recognizing her burden, it is better that no one in my family has succeeded in the outside world. When I pick up a pen,I believe for the first time ever I have something to say. She helps me shape words, ideas. I fall in love with her entire being. I feel respected, seen. And when she becomes homeless and manic, I invite her to sleep on the sofa in my apartment I share with two other people. I know now, 30 years later, everything in your life can change when you give someone your only pen.

Beware The Narcissist

Recognize anyone like this? Beware...

What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

NPD is a type of psychological personality disorder characterized primarily by grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy. Narcissism occurs in a spectrum of severity, but the pathologically narcissistic tend to be extremely self-absorbed, intolerant of others’ perspectives, insensitive to others’ needs and indifferent to the effect of their own egocentric behavior.

It is not uncommon for persons with this disorder to frequently compare themselves to the accomplished, well-known and well-to-do. They feel entitled to great praise, attention, and deferential treatment by others.

Those with NPD crave the limelight and are quick to abandon situations in which they are not the center of attention. Defects of empathy may cause narcissists to misperceive other people's speech and actions, causing them to believe that they are well-liked and respected despite a history of negative personal interactions.
Those with Narcissistic Personality Disorder are often ambitious and capable, but are unable to cope with setbacks, disagreements or criticism. These emotional limitations, along with lack of empathy, make it difficult for such individuals to work well with others and to build a successful career (Kernberg 2003, 2004, APA 2000).

Diagnosis of Narcissistic PD

Considerable overlap between the characteristics of different personality disorders makes diagnosis of NPD a challenge. Grandiosity, lack of empathy and exploitative interpersonal relations are not unique to NPD, nor is the need to be seen as special or unique. The differential diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is typically made based on the absence of certain behaviors. Borderline Personality Disorder has several conspicuous similarities, but unlike NPD, is characterized by self-injury, whereas narcissists are rarely physically self-injurious. The need for constant attention is also found in Histrionic Personality Disorder, but HPD and BPD are both relationship oriented, whereas NPD is characterized by the avoidance of intimacy. Psychopathy, or Antisocial Personality Disorder is differentiated from NPD by the psychopaths' willingness to use physical violence whereas narcissists rarely commit crimes Kernberg 2003, Vaknin 2007).
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR), a patient must exhibit five or more of the following traits in order to be diagnosed with NPD:

Read more at Suite101: Narcissistic Personality Disorder NPD: Overview of Symptoms, Diagnosis and Prognosis of Clinical Narcissism http://narcissistic-personality.suite101.com/article.cfm/narcissistic_personality_disorder#ixzz0iskNphHD

Could Have, Would Have, Should Have

By this age I should have had grandchildren. A close relationship with my sister. A deep and loving sexual relationship with someone. More maturity. More selflessness. Less anger. More compassion day to day. More discipline. Success as a playwright internationally. Success as an actor. Better health. More physically fit. Less self righteousness. Less defensiveness. Less material goods and a richer spiritual life. A deeper bond with others. Living in a  stronger community. Deeper ties with others. Less isolation.  I should be debt free. I should have owned outright my home. I should have been able to move to Los Angeles and be more involved in the theatres I belong to. I should feel happier, less depressed. I should have decided about Judaism by now. I should have less of a trigger when it comes to my emotions. I should be more stable and balanced. I should eat healthier. I should be thinner. I should be more disciplined about everything. I should not be so lazy. I should be smarter. I should not have to worry about money. I should have more prestige and be valued more highly by colleagues at work. I should value my colleagues more at work. I should have healthier relationships.

I see that I want a greater sense of community and to get away from the computer by getting out more into the real world. I feel like when I first moved here I had that but now that the computer has taken over my life, I am losing touch with real people and engaging in real ways and this concerns me a lot. I suppose I don’t go out as much because I am afraid of getting attacked or worse killed by a stray bullet which I guess is a little ridiculous but that happens to people as they get older and feel more vulnerable and fragile. I wish I could get my courage back to take more chances. I wish I did not feel all the time that my time was running down and out. I really wish my friend Carla was not dying and we could turn back the clock and I could appreciate her more when I had her as a colleague and friend. I wish I could take more risks emotionally in the real world and everywhere else. I wish I had learned to stride rather than take mincing steps. I wish I had learned to reach for the stars and moon and the sun and not just shadows.

The First Day of....

Yesterday March 19th was my mother's 89th birthday and I was not there with her to celebrate it. I live in California and she in Massachusetts and I can no longer fly home whenever I feel like it due both to financial and physical limitations. Every year that she gets older so in fact do I, and now I am too old to wish myself into a new life like I have so many times in the past. Now I am pretty much stuck with both the body, mind and life I have created.

So here on the first day of Spring in 2010, I get to size myself up and ask if it has been worth it so far....after all I have no children, the mark in an Italian family of value and worth as a woman. I forfeited that reality for both emotional and physical reasons and because as they say "it was not in the cards". Actually looking back now the choices I made were all pretty much made when I was about 8 years old.

The blog below this one pretty much explains it all: I rejected 100% the path my mother had laid out for me. At least the surface path. Because I think underneath that surface path, the roles decent women should take, which in her opinion were clear in the 1950's and 1960's, she watched and waited and, dare I say, hoped for my rebellion. I think I was her under the surface path where she had so long wanted to walk but could not because of fear and the oppressive nature of being a woman back then and of course, my father, the eternal chauvinist.

I never received much encouragement to be who I wanted to be. I risked the ire and rejection of my mother and my older sister if I did and yet here I am today: a filmmaker, an actor, a writer, a college professor, owner of a beautiful home, with great and remarkable friends, foster mother to children in Bolivia and Cambodia, and embarking on what is most likely my most intimate and longest relationship to date with a man I have known for 25 years.....all signs of health and growth and commitment.

I wonder about the other women in my family from later generations, nieces most especially. I have 4 nieces, 3 of them who ended up having children and one who seems lonely and a little lost although she still has time to find herself. I wonder how strong their mother's voices were in their heads and if they had the courage to stand up to that figure and speak the truth: To say with deep conviction: I am not you, mother. I am independent of you, both emotionally, financially, spiritually and every other way and this is my life, not yours. Of course, maybe you do not need to say that unless she refuses to let you go. Then I suppose a dramatic scene is called for if only to act as a breaking off climactic moment. But doing it in your own mind and heart is pretty much the only way you ever do claim your own life and "grow up", isn't it?


It is the first day of spring. I am truly blessed to have this life, to own this life I have created out of dreams and whispers. It's also the first day of the rest of YOUR lives, nieces. As an act of faith in yourselves, you might choose one thing you are afraid to do...write that children's story, draw that picture, make that movie, dance that dance...you only have so many springs and yours are winding down...so get to it...don't waste another moment...find the time, make the time. Reclaim yourselves.

When mom is gone either metaphorically or for real, make sure you are able to locate that under the surface path because, truthfully, it's the one she really wants you to walk anyway, despite her fears and protests. Trust me, I know.

Today is the first day.......

Karma Free Writing: Things My Parents Taught Me

Ann Randolph, that great and brilliant actress and one woman show, sent us a recommendation. She suggested we look into Karma Free Writing which begins today, the first day of spring. Check it out at
http://karmafreewriting.blogspot.com/

So here is my Day One...very revealing....you ought to try it

I learned I was funny
Inventive
Smart
Resourceful
Creative
Wounded
Strong
Sensitive
Too sensitive
Defensive
Artistic
Non musical
Wild
Rebellious
Messy
(Out of control at times) I choose this
Shy
Caring
Selfish
Protective
Loved animals
A gardener
A scavenger
Depressed
Awkward
Fearful
Very very brave


Flying down Blueberry Hill a hundred miles an hour on my winged steed, a red Schwinn footbrake bike like mad dogs were nipping at my feet. Hollering to my friends Joey and Jason ten feet behind me that they were girls and realizing I was a girl and not a boy. Feeling the loss of that as they laughed at me and said, "Who you calling girls, girl?" And wanting to be a boy, wanting very much the physical limitations lifted so I could fly over the hill and into a world of endless possibilities in which no one could say, "No you can not be that, do that, want that, know that because you are the wrong sex." Coming home sweaty, knees bleeding, exhilarated and proud that I beat my buddies once again on my mad quest for adventure in mundane places and seeing my mother standing, arms crossed at the front door, looking disappointed in me because I was not frilly and clean and unblemished. Hearing her ask me for the hundredth time, "Why are you so out of control?" And shutting down my listening as I rushed past her shouts and into the kitchen where I would stand in front of the fridge looking for fudgsicles to feed my lust for ice cold chocolate which was the only thing that could or would soothe me from her looks of disgust and disdain and her realization I was never going to be like her other daughter, the princess, the cheerleader, the winner and stuffing my feelings along with the fudgsicles and my own disappointment in myself down my throat, worrying I was not good enough to be as good as I actually was in math and other male subjects and realizing I might end up like all the women in my family with kids or worse: without themselves.

The Broken Society

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: March 18, 2010

The United States is becoming a broken society. The public has contempt for the political class. Public debt is piling up at an astonishing and unrelenting pace. Middle-class wages have lagged. Unemployment will remain high. It will take years to fully recover from the financial crisis.

This confluence of crises has produced a surge in vehement libertarianism. People are disgusted with Washington. The Tea Party movement rallies against big government, big business and the ruling class in general. Even beyond their ranks, there is a corrosive cynicism about public action.

But there is another way to respond to these problems that is more communitarian and less libertarian. This alternative has been explored most fully by the British writer Phillip Blond.

He grew up in working-class Liverpool. “I lived in the city when it was being eviscerated,” he told The New Statesman. “It was a beautiful city, one of the few in Britain to have a genuinely indigenous culture. And that whole way of life was destroyed.” Industry died. Political power was centralized in London.

Blond argues that over the past generation we have witnessed two revolutions, both of which liberated the individual and decimated local associations. First, there was a revolution from the left: a cultural revolution that displaced traditional manners and mores; a legal revolution that emphasized individual rights instead of responsibilities; a welfare revolution in which social workers displaced mutual aid societies and self-organized associations.

Then there was the market revolution from the right. In the age of deregulation, giant chains like Wal-Mart decimated local shop owners. Global financial markets took over small banks, so that the local knowledge of a town banker was replaced by a manic herd of traders thousands of miles away. Unions withered.

The two revolutions talked the language of individual freedom, but they perversely ended up creating greater centralization. They created an atomized, segmented society and then the state had to come in and attempt to repair the damage.

The free-market revolution didn’t create the pluralistic decentralized economy. It created a centralized financial monoculture, which requires a gigantic government to audit its activities. The effort to liberate individuals from repressive social constraints didn’t produce a flowering of freedom; it weakened families, increased out-of-wedlock births and turned neighbors into strangers. In Britain, you get a country with rising crime, and, as a result, four million security cameras.

In a much-discussed essay in Prospect magazine in February 2009, Blond wrote, “Look at the society we have become: We are a bi-polar nation, a bureaucratic, centralised state that presides dysfunctionally over an increasingly fragmented, disempowered and isolated citizenry.” In a separate essay, he added, “The welfare state and the market state are now two defunct and mutually supporting failures.”

The task today, he argued in a recent speech, is to revive the sector that the two revolutions have mutually decimated: “The project of radical transformative conservatism is nothing less than the restoration and creation of human association, and the elevation of society and the people who form it to their proper central and sovereign station.”

Economically, Blond lays out three big areas of reform: remoralize the market, relocalize the economy and recapitalize the poor. This would mean passing zoning legislation to give small shopkeepers a shot against the retail giants, reducing barriers to entry for new businesses, revitalizing local banks, encouraging employee share ownership, setting up local capital funds so community associations could invest in local enterprises, rewarding savings, cutting regulations that socialize risk and privatize profit, and reducing the subsidies that flow from big government and big business.

To create a civil state, Blond would reduce the power of senior government officials and widen the discretion of front-line civil servants, the people actually working in neighborhoods. He would decentralize power, giving more budget authority to the smallest units of government. He would funnel more services through charities. He would increase investments in infrastructure, so that more places could be vibrant economic hubs. He would rebuild the “village college” so that universities would be more intertwined with the towns around them.

Essentially, Blond would take a political culture that has been oriented around individual choice and replace it with one oriented around relationships and associations. His ideas have made a big splash in Britain over the past year. His think tank, ResPublica, is influential with the Conservative Party. His book, “Red Tory,” is coming out soon. He’s on a small U.S. speaking tour, appearing at Georgetown’s Tocqueville Forum Friday and at Villanova on Monday.

Britain is always going to be more hospitable to communitarian politics than the more libertarian U.S. But people are social creatures here, too. American society has been atomized by the twin revolutions here, too. This country, too, needs a fresh political wind. America, too, is suffering a devastating crisis of authority. The only way to restore trust is from the local community on up.

Say Yes

Say Yes

when two violins are placed in a room

if a chord on one violin is struck

the other violin will sound the note

if this is your definition of hope

this is for you

the ones who know how powerful we are

who know we can sound the music in the people around us

simply by playing our own strings

for the ones who sing life into broken wings

open their chests and offer their breath

as wind on a still day when nothing seems to be moving

spare those intent on proving god is dead

for you when your fingers are red

from clutching your heart

so it will beat faster

for the time you mastered the art of giving yourself for the sake of someone else

for the ones who have felt what it is to crush the lies

and lift truth so high the steeples bow to the sky

this is for you

this is also for the people who wake early to watch flowers bloom

who notice the moon at noon on a day when the world

has slapped them in the face with its lack of light

for the mothers who feed their children first

and thirst for nothing when they're full

this is for women

and for the men who taught me only women bleed with the moon

but there are men who cry when women bleed

men who bleed from women's wounds

and this is for that moon

on the nights she seems hung by a noose

for the people who cut her loose

and for the people still waiting for the rope to burn
about to learn they have scissors in their hands

this is for the man who showed me

the hardest thing about having nothing

is having nothing to give

who said the only reason to live is to give ourselves away

so this is for the day we'll quit or jobs and work for something real

we'll feel for sunshine in the shadows
look for sunrays in the shade

this is for the people who rattle the cage that slave wage built

and for the ones who didn't know the filth until tonight

but right now are beginning songs that sound something like
people turning their porch lights on and calling the homeless back home

this is for all the shit we own

and for the day we'll learn how much we have

when we learn to give that shit away

this is for doubt becoming faith

for falling from grace and climbing back up

for trading our silver platters for something that matters
like the gold that shines from our hands when we hold each other

this is for the grandmother who walked a thousand miles on broken glass
to find that single patch of grass to plant a family tree

where the fruit would grow to laugh

for the ones who know the math of war

has always been subtraction

so they live like an action of addition

for you when you give like every star is wishing on you

and for the people still wishing on stars

this is for you too

this is for the times you went through hell so someone else wouldn't have to

for the time you taught a 14 year old girl she was powerful

this is for the time you taught a 14 year old boy he was beautiful

for the radical anarchist asking a republican to dance

cause what's the chance of everyone moving from right to left

if the only moves they see are NBC and CBS
this is for the no becoming yes

for scars becoming breath

for saying i love you to people who will never say it to us

for scraping away the rust and remembering how to shine

for the dime you gave away when you didn't have a penny

for the many beautiful things we do

for every song we've ever sung

for refusing to believe in miracles

because miracles are the impossible coming true
and everything is possible

this is for the possibility that guides us

and for the possibilities still waiting to sing

and spread their wings inside us

cause tonight saturn is on his knees

proposing with all of his ten thousand rings

that whatever song we've been singing we sing even more
the world needs us right now more than it ever has before

pull all your strings

play every chord

if you're writing letters to the prisoners

start tearing down the bars

if you're handing our flashlights in the dark

start handing our stars

never go a second hushing the percussion of your heart

play loud

play like you know the clouds have left too many people cold and broken

and you're their last chance for sun

play like there's no time for hoping brighter days will come

play like the apocalypse is only 4...3...2

but you have a drum in your chest that could save us

you have a song like a breath that could raise us
like the sunrise into a dark sky that cries to be blue
play like you know we won't survive if you don't
but we will if you do
play like saturn is on his knees
proposing with all of his ten thousand rings
that we give every single breath
this is for saying-yes

this is for saying-yes

--Andrea Gibson

My Friend The Screenwriter

I have a good friend who is a talented screenwriter. He has worked with the most imaginative and creative directors in the world. In fact, his name is on some groundbreaking films as a creative consultant. I won't mention his name to protect his privacy and will just refer to him as W. I met him in a workshop he was giving in Marin county about 20 years ago. At the time I was working on a story idea my colleague Carla Zilbersmith had given me while we sat and ate a Chinese meal at a now defunct Berkeley restaurant. A lot has happened to the three of us since then. Carla had a gifted and promising career as a singer and actor for many years and then contracted ALS, a wicked disease; W. worked in house at one of the most famous studios in the world as an esteemed colleague of the biggies, got divorced and left his lucrative position; and I actually grew up, a rather notable accomplishment for one who was rather thick headed and decidely without any role models to show me what growing up actually meant. I suppose I accomplished other things as well like dragging a dead theatre department back to life, writing some surprisingly good plays and film scripts, making an award winning short and establishing myself as an innovative teacher. I also went through a painful and gut wrenching divorce, got in a lot of serious trouble at work and became a militant anti Bush person openly supportive of some pretty controversial figures. Like I said I was growing up. I saw W. today after about a year of not having contact and we had a long, leisurely and delicious lunch together. We shared intimacies about our lives in a way neither of us was capable of in the past. It felt really great. But we also talked about that story idea that W. had asked to take control of 3 years ago. He's been developing it into a screenplay off and on for a while. I used to think he would never finish it because he was such a perfectionist and well, frankly, I just could not imagine the reality of what he was doing. I could not imagine the depth that he was seeking in this story through these characters because I had only seen the film as a popcorn movie, nothing more. But W. had always envisioned something great in this story idea. It had captured and obsessed him for years and today for the first time I understood why. The story's scope is enormous. Not only does it shapeshift and time travel but it deals with the most important parts of our collective lives: the loss of American ingenuity and community. He's in it up to his armpits now and he said it was the most important creative endeavor he had ever undertaken and I believed him. I think he's writing as if his life depends on his finishing it and you know what? It does. I don't know what this is going to turn into for him, for me and for Carla but something tells me that when W. finally types Fade Out, he will have written something remarkable. Everything we artist types do should be aiming at that star, everything we do should push us past our preconceived notions and tight boundaries into the possibility of the extraordinary. I am learning that in my acting classes, in my attempts at writing, in my teaching and interaction with students and friends and in my close personal and intimate relationships. It's a great lesson to learn because every moment of every day feels richer to me and I feel more alive. I wonder where this knowledge of the divinity in each of us sat for most of the years of my life. I think it was hunched down inside a cave poking its wary head out, looking for a safe haven. And finally, finally, I realize there is no safe haven. Everything is fraught with peril so why not just jump into the abyss while you have the chance and go for it? W. is doing that. Carla certainly is. And now I am doing it as well. I suppose there was a reason the three of us connected two decades ago. Our time is now. And guess what? So is yours.

How The Light Gets In

What I have to say today is best sung.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LHtII3G3gU

Cruelty and Humor

I don't have much of a sense of humor when folks make jokes at others' expense. I find it petty and, regardless of the wit involved, mean-spirited. I don't care if the person who says it is a stand up comic or a co worker or family member. If it is said in a way that lacks any awareness of another's feelings, I don't laugh. I don't appreciate cheap shots. When I was younger and had self-esteem problems, I wouldn't speak up when such nonsense was leveled at me but that is no longer the case. A person gets one chance with me and then I say adieu. Here's the reason: 99% of the time, a joke or remark made at another's expense is really a reflection of the joker's low sense of their own worth. I think the best way to get them to see they need to do some inner work is to have nothing to do with them and hope they just may wonder why. The other reason I walk away from them after letting them know how I feel is selfish: I don't want to waste precious minutes of my life around people who don't like themselves and in turn, don't really like me. I don't want to lose a nano second around misfits who make a living off self hate. They are in actuality losers. I am not a loser. So to the person who made a personal remark to me that was out of line and untrue: look inside yourself and ask yourself why you felt you needed to pass judgement on me so quickly without knowing me. If you're reading this, you know who you are. I venture you are just really terrified of anyone getting a little too close for comfort. How sad. No wonder you are alone.

The Wise Mistress of the Imagination

I began writing again a few days ago. I'd noticed a contest for a one act and looked through my dozens of unfinished scripts and decided to yank one out of the slush heap of the abandoned. I really love when this happens, this beckoning. This one is a 2 character piece which is something I have never been able to handle before because my imagination tends to expand outward once I begin a play. In this case, however, the story of the long love affair that goes amiss between a man and a woman and then full circles again set against the backdrop of a failing America is irresistible. It's perhaps about many of us in a lot of ways; at least I'm hoping it has a universal quality to it. The tug on me to write this is really not about entering a contest. There's something else going on here. The recognition, perhaps, that a love from the past that would not be entirely extinguished may just have been the one true love of my character's life. And I wonder if there really is such a thing as a second chance when damage has been done both to the heart, mind and body of the relationship. Can we heal? There is after all the deeper Platonic love that won't die but what about the sexual love? What happens if that leaves? Is it true once that is gone it will never return? There's also the passage of time. So much has happened in the US during the 30 year span of the play. I like the way I am fracturing time, mixing up the decades, pulling from real events; I like the way this play has the potential to make a statement about both the personal and the political. The grand master of that blend was of course the late great Arthur Miller. Not coincidentally I am also working on a piece from A View from the Bridge in Richard Seyd's acting class where I am Beatrice Carbone, the neglected wife of Eddie Carbone who has an obsession with his 18 year old niece, Catherine. My play is nothing like A View except that it is about love: love of a man and a woman and love for a country's ideals and the sadness that comes to everyone when we betray each other and those ideals. Now that I think of it, I suppose it is a bit like Miller's piece. Any way it is good to be back, to be pulled at by the muse again. When she disappears under the onslaught of grading papers and writing course outlines and fixing up something else that has gone wrong in my 100 year old house, I think she will never return. But then one day she whispers seductively in my ear and I am pulled into the love affair with the pen. Or in this case, the keyboard. And then time becomes meaningless for a while as I disappear into the lives of these imaginary people speaking words they are saying for the first time and directing me through the labyrinth of imagination. (Aren't I lucky to be able to do this?) So here's a task for you: let your imagination seduce you in some small way today and as you do, be present to what that moment is like when you let yourself fall into her clutches. I would propose it is a lot like falling in love. Every time it happens, it really is a second chance.

The Remarkable Carla Zilbersmith

I will confess. I adore Carla Zilbersmith. She is not only a brilliant writer and the one time possessor of the voice of angels but she is also, and I say this in no small way, the most honest and courageous human being I have ever known. Carla is facing and dealing with Lou Gehrig's disease that has stripped her of the ability to move and speak to a great degree. She is facing her death in a manner that leaves one deeply moved and changed. I saw Carla yesterday for the first time in 2 years although I have attempted to maintain a connection with her since she became ill, either through emails or her blog. I admit to being frightened and staying away out of that fear and I am not proud of that. But yesterday I finally did what my heart told me to do and I went to visit her, to show her a plaque that will hang in the college theatre honoring her and the students who receive a yearly scholarship named after her. It was a wise choice because it was a real choice, borne out of love and deep respect. And, frankly, it was propelled by the simple fact of deeply missing her presence in my life. It is Carla's presence that has always had an amazing effect on everyone. A few people didn't "get" Carla; they read her and her jokes too literally. Carla was always about irony, at least when she was being a shitkicker. That feisty, funny and wise person is alive and well in Carla. I saw that yesterday; but there is something else there now: a deep and compassionate humility for those she loves and the very world we all live in. Carla has few enemies but there are people in her life, one in particular, who has been extraordinarily destructive and mean-spirited. I suppose one could say this person is "troubled"; I think sociopathic is more like it. That person will get their comeuppance one day; the cruel and selfish nature of this person will bring about their own inevitable destruction. I have NO doubt about that. Carla, on the other hand, lives in a beautiful home of bright color with young people, some former students, as her caretakers and wise and beautiful old friends who rush to her whenever she is in need. And her father, Jack, a beautiful man of great strength, is by her side at all times, helping her cope and taking the love that emanates from Carla's extraordinary smile and heart and giving her love in every look and touch. I have not even mentioned Carla's deepest and most profound joy, her son Maclen. Carla says it best in the songs she wrote and delivers in her last remarkable CD. I have been honored to know this woman. I knew when I met her 18 years ago that she would have a profound impact on me and she has. Few people have had such an impact in such a way and I asked myself after I left her home yesterday, why? I think it is because Carla always tells the truth; she always knew when to call someone out on their bullshit and she did not have to do it with language. One penetrating gaze from Carla could rock and shake up your world and guess what? It still does. I know Carla is going to leave us soon although if there was something, anything I could do, to change this outcome, I truly would do it. She is an important person and her legacy is truth. Never let anyone tell you differently. Carla's life and the things she has done with it, the people she has helped grow and grow up (me included) will NEVER forget her and will make certain others know her name. This is how legends begin. It is how people really do live on. I confess. I adore Carla Zilbersmith.