Retreat & Recharge

“Come by, we’ll have some dinner,” said my friend, casually.  Dinner?  Me?  Alone?  Spontaneously?  Sparks of misfired neurons: does not compute, does not compute.  I raced to his house to see if this was yet another product of my imagination.  No.  There it was: pasta, tofu, green beans and a quiet patch of porch.  His little boy whirled ’round until he was affectionately hanging from my neck.  It was so innocent and pretty, the opposite of what I’m accustomed to…  Z’s water usually spills into my plate at some point, someone is always bursting into tears, at least one person falls out of a chair, the toddler-boys routinely throw food and cups at me.  It looks like an uprising at the monkey house.  Monkeys swinging from the rafters, screeching, howling, throwing fruits and vegetables at their keepers.  But I was with one civil child and two adults, and we were conversing.  It was sublime.  And it makes me realize how conditioned I’ve become to utter madness.

I find that my frame of life does not foster simplicity… It involves food and shelter; meals, planning, marketing, bills, and making ends meet in a thousand ways.  It involves not only the butcher, the baker and the candlestickmaker but countless other experts to keep my modern house with its modern “simplifications” (electricity, plumbing, refrigerator, gas-stove, oil-burner, dish-washer, radios, car, and numerous other labor-saving devices functioning properly)… doctors, dentists, appointments, school, school conferences, car-pools… What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives.  It puts the trapeze artist to shame.  Look at us.  We run a tight rope daily, balancing a pile of books on the head.  Baby-carriage, parasol, kitchen chair, still under control.  Steady now!  This is not the life of simplicity but the life of multiplicity that wise men warn us of.  It leads not to unification but to fragmentation.  It does not bring grace; it destroys the soul. - Ann Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea, 1955

This book was directed at women of the 50’s, but speaks to those of us who regularly burn the candle at both ends, especially the stay-at-home parents of today.  It’s a meditation on the basic human need for solitude and how important it is for us to retreat and recharge ourselves for weeks or days ideally, but hours or even minutes will do if that’s all we can manage.  This summer I’ve had Monday mornings and Fridays to write.  My time has a desperate quality to it.  I rarely take a deep breath or even eat during this allotment.  Instead I rush to Stumptown, set up camp, grab a latte, two glasses of water and write, write, write, fast and fevered, before time expires and it’s back to dodging tomatoes in the monkey house.  September is closing in.  Back and back to school, to teaching, to the rituals of blustery autumn and sleepy winter, glistening rain and less time than ever.  The river pulls me along.  I break the waves and hold on for dear life.  We’re in this vessel together for such a short time.  My babies, all four, are growing up too quickly.  It’s hard to not attach every fiber of my being to them, but there’s always a cry for freedom from within.  I suffocate without a room of my own and yet so rarely do I have one.  I’m the kind of woman who goes to Burning Man not because I’ve always dreamed of going (which I have), but because now with so much to lose, going actually scares me.  It will be the mark of solitude for a new age.  After nearly three years of a word here, a line there, and then three short months of regularly writing ten hours a week, the first draft of my play is done.  Between last night and today I feel transported to a strange new planet.  I think I’ll stay.

Storm Large

When more than one friend takes me by the shoulders, stares wildly into my eyes and begs me to do something while shaking me I usually listen.  So I saw Storm Large’s one-woman show Crazy Enough at Portland Center Stage (PCS) last night.  I nearly missed it.  I got my ticket during JAW and by then the show had been extended and regularly selling out.

Box Office:  “All we have are matinee seats at this point.”

Me:  “What about  Friday night?”

B.O.:  “All we have are matinee seats.”

Me:  “Anything for Saturday night?”

B.O.:  “Just matinee.”

Me:  “How ’bout Sunday night?”

I don’t know what was wrong with me.  Five whole minutes later I finally settled on a seat for he last matinee which happened to me coincide with the Hawthorne Street Fair and Sunday Parkways.  My whole neighborhood was shut down for cyclists (a totally awesome Portland thing).  But TC and the kids were caught up in the current and I found myself locked out of the house and my car, and unable to reach them.  Twenty minutes before curtain I finally gave up and cried on the front stairs.  The Universe did not want me to see Storm Large.  I called the box office to release my seat (someone was obviously meant to go in my place).  The very people I tortured told me to hold on and came back saying I could come to the 7:30 show!  Oh, thank you, Universe!  Thank you, thank you!

If it’s true that we become our names this one is a force of nature like Rain Big… or Shine Huge… Storm Large.  To see this woman in this show in this city on closing night is something that’ll stay with me forever.  There was a feeling that something important was happening.  We were part of something bigger than us.  She harnessed a cyclone of love, pain, and despair and converted it into electricity before our eyes.  She threw it at us.  We threw it back.  The vast majority of us were first-timers.  (People were turned away – it seems this show could have had an eternal run).  We stood, sang, cheered, cried.  It was as if a great, precious ship were setting sail and we, the lucky audiences of Portland, were there to see it off.  Her most popular song, 8 Miles Wide, is a catchy, upbeat anthem for being your big bad self and/or letting your freak flag fly.  It closes the First Act, so what you have are hundreds of sparkling people singing vagina lyrics in the lobby.  Fantastic.  It’s actually a grrrreat song.  I can’t wait to play it on guitar.  I almost have to teach it to my daughters (minus the bit about “even the hard core dykes love cock-shaped sex toys” only because 1. being eight and almost five they might miss the metaphor and 2. my oldest might link it to the funny vibrating “flashlight” in my nightstand and then I’d have to put it out of reach; I’m not ready for the inconvenience).

The back page of the Crazy Enough program is a photo of Storm Large and director (and PCS Artistic Director) Chris Coleman in a beautiful embrace.  Paul Beaton, Crazy Enough co-writer (and member of Storm’s band, The Balls), is aglow in the background.  The photo is the embodiment of collaboration – support, magic, artistic break-through.  One cannot help but fall in love with this woman.  She’s brilliant, brazen, ballsy and yet achingly vulnerable.  Something makes us root for her.  I don’t know where Crazy Enough is headed next.  Broadway I presume.  It’s a dark and flawless production teeming with kick-ass vocals that run the gamut from folk to rock, excellent acting, an awesome band and much more than eight miles of laughs.  Props to Chris Coleman.  I’ve seen many shows at PCS and they’re always well-done, but Crazy Enough blew me out of the water.  If it weren’t for his encouragement and guidance this work wouldn’t exist.  Wherever you are in the country, I’m shaking you by the shoulders and telling you, when it comes to your city you must figure out a way to see this show!

Storm Large = Goddess of Crazy-Ass Talent

Man-Boys & Wheelie Toys

Relatives from our very blended family took us outside the box last night for what they called “some good old redneck fun” at the Willamette Speedway.  Redneck often evokes images of men who drive pick-up trucks, work with their hands, love the outdoors and speak with similar country accents regardless of their places of origin.  In this case it also means man-boys with big wheelie toys.  The raceway is way the hell out in Lebanon.  As we drove past sheep, feed plants, and dairy farms we entertained the usual questions, “Who lives out here?  What do they do for a living?  Where’s the espresso?” and we agreed, as we always do, that while one could get a yard big enough for several horses out here it would be at the expense of good coffee.

We bounced along, the crackle and pop of gravel beneath our wheels.  The raceway is a dusty expanse with designated areas for spectator parking, heavy machinery, racers and racers’ families.  Out of nowhere PB buzzed up to us on a dirt bike.  Wide-eyed and sweaty, he looked at least ten years younger than his age.  Similarly, so did the large man laughing his way across the road on a puffed up ATV.  The wonder of it all.  This is how these folks spend their time and money.  It’s more than a hobby, it’s a life.  We followed PB to the back lot where racers and their families had set up camp in their trailers, RVs and tents.  It was a pretty sweet deal.  PB’s trailer is air-conditioned and big.  If I stood in the middle it would not be a problem for me to spread out my arms and spin.  In fact, there’s room for two to three adults to spin.  It has a full mini-kitchen (gas stove, oven, fridge), a nice table, sofa, flat screen t.v., separate master bedroom and bathroom.  What’s not to love?

I quckly learned that one does not dabble in racing.  Not only is there the initial investment of the car, but there are constant racing fees, maintenance, gas, gear, trailer upkeep, etc., etc.  A hefty truck is necessary to haul a race-car around.  Getting us in set PB back $70!  The stands were made of once solid now flexible, faded, frayed wooded planks.  As we made our way to the top I heard Ann Curry’s voice, “Tonight on Dateline… tragedy at an Oregon speedway…”  It would be a story about the reckless subculture of racing and how their aren’t enough inspectors to prevent the collapse of grandstand seating.  During the investigation they’d uncover hundreds of deaths that could have been prevented with a little structural engineering.  The children were outfitted with earplugs to drown out the roar of engines and the deafening sound of cars whose mufflers had fallen out by accident.  At one point the announcer said, “Looks like it’s a drive shaft out there, folks.”  Behind us sat a brother and sister in their 30’s.  They’d been coming to the races since they were babies and pointed to the spot in the stands where they used to sleep.  The scene was remarkably similar the Pixar feature, Cars, except the cars weren’t so shiny.  They flew by at about 100mph and side-winded curves as if the force and momentum of gravity would have to send them reeling off track, but somehow they stayed in.  Rounding the bend toward us it seemed entirely possible that they might take flight and come crashing into the stands.  All we’d see was a slow motion, sound-distorted scattering of screaming spectators, the ripping of chain-link and the underbellies of cars in thin air hurtling toward us just before a crushing darkness.  Ann Curry would say, “We’d like to warn you the images we’re about to show you are quite graphic…”  They said it couldn’t happen.  But it could.  We cheered when PB took to the track.  We were riveted as he raced by at 75-80mph.  The children cheered and hooted.  He took the lead.  We cheered and hooted.  He won!  What a great inauguration into the world of amateur racing!  We felt attached to a great indestructible star.  Later we found out PB sobbed the entire race, which he’d dedicated to the beloved dog they recently put down.  Before long the boys made a break for the track.  They tried to climb the fence, eat cigarette butts, knock over people’s sodas.  We had to split.  But the girls were transfixed.  They had no intention of leaving.  Ever.  They’d packed their bags and were very excited to spend the night with family at the Willamette Speedway.  (“Coming up next, a world known to few… the secret ring of raceway kidnappings… stay with us.”)  For the girls it would be one of those childhood memories that takes on a life of its own.  D is still thrilled over going to the rodeo years ago with PB.  She’s been dying to introduce us to the magical world of cattle-roping, bull-riding and boot-tossing ever since.  We’re just not ready.  I’m so happy we finally got to experience the races.  We’ll definitely go back.  But the rodeo?  Calves falling down, bulls thrashing about, people flinging their shoes into a poopy arena?  This sounds like one of those things best left to a man-boy grandfather who owns a pick up truck.