Author: tlee

Confession: I saw this on facebook. My friend Kara posted for a friend of hers who lost his partner. It’s written by some 18th century priest? Farmer? But I love it so much, I want to write a play where I can include this and say the words. I’m pretty sure that’s why acting appeals to me, for the prose out there that is so beautiful, I want to embody it. (Aside: Of course, an actor’s job is demonstrate passion for the text, even if it’s crap. But if the text is worthy? Oh boy, that is the best.)

Death Is Nothing At All
Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.

Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.

All is well.
Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Our friend Lauren works at a dementia organization and she developed an improv workshop for the folks who walked through the door. Through trial and error, she set up a scenes where two people began on a bench and riffed off an idea they pulled from a hat. She would sit in front of them with that piece of paper so they wouldn’t forget. One pair chose “proud,” which Lauren second-guessed, she thought, ugh, too complex of a concept for these peeps, etc. The “yes, and” rule is basically, you must agree with what your partner says and add to it. It is incredibly difficult to do (at least when I’ve practiced.) It’s one of my favorite things about improv, even more than the jokes, because you’re making something out of nothing. You are kind of wading and plumbing the depths of the unconscious, which I so totally dig and find so moving.

Dementia Woman 1: I really enjoyed that movie.
Dementia Woman 2: I did too.
Dementia Woman 1: Can you believe we raised the lead actor?
Dementia Woman 2: I still remember him as a baby.
Dementia Woman 1: I’m just so proud of him.

That’s it. Lauren’s patients followed the rule, and the next day, they had no memory of it the next day.

I blew it with First Son. He wanted to run a lemonade stand on Saturday from 12 to 2 p.m. By 12:30, he remembered his plan and I was in no way prepared to set him up (Christmas, cooking, cleaning, kid sick with ear infection, work, etc. etc. kept me preoccupied). He immediately flew into rage tears. Wonder Twins yelling about something at the same time so I couldn’t quite concentrate on what fire to put out first. Luckily, my mom was visiting.

Me: Mom can you deal with First Son? He’s disappointed, I dropped the ball, we are not ready to sell lemonade.

She goes to sit with First Son in his room.

My Mom: You want to run a lemonade stand?
First Son: Yes.
My Mom: Why? No one will buy your lemonade. I will not buy your lemonade.
Me: Mom, not what I had in mind.

Mom laughs and changes her approach to something more nurturing. Lawd help us.

I’m not the first one to say it, but I mean it. This man is delivering his last sashay as President with not a care in the world. He is doing whatever he believes is right, and I just adore him. He has become presidential, a true leader. He is showing his spiritual side, his roots as a community organizer that comes out of caring. Please, with his tearful righteousness about gun control? (Please, we have to change this. Even the library needs to look through my bag now, and I really want to go through life without getting bombed or having someone close to me bombed, please please.) His singing “let’s stay together” and “amazing grace.” I think he’s been hassled more as president because he’s black and I also believe it’s been really good for our country to have a black president. I really like his beautiful wife and beautiful daughters, and it’s just so wild to feel affection for the First Family because that was never in the cards before.

I have no idea who is next, or even who I’m rooting for (I am a big fan of Hillary, she just works so bloody hard), but I’m going to miss this guy and am curious what he’s going to do next.

One fleeting moment of quiet at home, First Son was sitting on my lap and I told him that when he was born, he made me, Husband, my mom, my dad, my entire family so happy with his presence, because we all fell madly in love with him. First Son then proceed to turn into a pile of goo. The news was too much for him.

That how she was greeted by Father Harvey Egan, pastor of St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Minneapolis in 1978 in front of his congregation. They had a series where “lay people” would come deliver a sermon.

“So I talk about original cultures that saw the presence of god in all living things—including women. Only in the last five hundred to five thousand years—depending on where we live in the world—has godliness been withdrawn from nature, withdrawn from females, and withdrawn from particular races of men, all in order to allow the conquering of nature, females, and certain races of men….So when Father Egan prays to a female as well as a male god—and invites women as well as men to speak from the church pulpit—he is taking a step towards restoring an original balance….They laugh at the idea that priests dressed in skirts try to trump women’s birth-giving power by baptizing with imitation birth fluid, calling us reborn, and going women one better by promising everlasting life. Indeed, elaborate concepts of Heaven and Hell didn’t seem to exist before patriarchy; you just joined your elders or kept being reincarnated until you learned enough…..the design of many partriarchal religious buildings resembles the body of a woman. Think about it: there is an outer and inner entrance (labia majora, labia minora) with a vestibule between (an anatomical as well as architectural term) and a vaginal aisle up the center of the church to the altar (the womb) with two curved (ovarian) structures on either side.”

Another part of the book I liked:

“I was the only ‘girl writer,’ probably because the power to make people laugh is also a power, so women have been kept out of comedy. Polls show that women fear most from men is violence, and what men fear from women is ridicule….I finally understood why laughter is a mark of wanderers, from the holy fools of Old Russia to the roadies of rock music. It’s the surprise, the unexpected, the out of control. It turns out that laughter is the only free emotion—the only one that can’t be compelled. We can be made to fear. We can even be made to believe we’re in love because, if we’re kept dependent and isolated for long enough, we bond in order to survive. But laughter explodes like an aha! It comes when the punch line changes everything that has gone before, when two opposites collide and make a third, when we suddenly see a new reality.”

Extraordinary woman with writing chops.

First Son: Do you want to hear a joke?
Me: Totally.
First Son: Why did the chicken poop the volcano?
Me: What?
First Son: Why did the chicken poop the volcano?
Me: Why?
First Son: Because he wanted to die.
Me: …
Me: …
Me: Really?
First Son: Yeah.
Me: Wow.
First Son: I told Elliot that joke.
Me: Elliot, the guy who bit you, but the teacher thinks air-bit you?
First Son: Yeah.
Me: Did he laugh?
First Son: Yeah.

I could tell I disappointed First Son by not immediately laughing uproariously, but it’s a joke that gets funnier with each telling. By the time I repeated it like five times to Husband, we were rolling around, because, seriously, it is so unbelievable that this is our life.

Because he wanted to die.

Yes.

Love,
Mother of the Year

The poster says “Bring him home,” to which I respond “How about we leave him there?” That is how annoying I find Matt Damon.

Recently, he was caught putting his foot in his mouth for the reality series he produces called “Project Greenlight.” He interrupts an African American woman filmmaker about the value of diversity — he is pro-diversifying casts, but not the folks who write and produce film, preferring quality to speak for itself.

Ugh, gross.

I’m not even go into too much why I think this is a douche bag stance to take. One gossip site I frequent thought the inclusion of this bit meant that he was willing to look imperfect in public. I disagree. I think he included this recording of self-absorbed behavior because he thought it was perfectly okay and has no idea how fortunate he is. He is a citizen of a majority bubble.

All of Hollywood is caucasian. Still, after all this time, after some Asian Americans making in-roads, it’s still mostly white. And note, I like caucasians! But just as I like variety in my food, I like variety in the entertainment I consume. I’m tired of all-white casts. Look at every movie poster — they usually features one or more caucasian faces only. We have many more colors in this society. Can’t we do better? I say that as a very, very lazy Asian. I have far more social conscious activist friends who try to tackle the issue of diversity in many arenas, but for me…I don’t know what my point is. All I want to say is that I plan to spend my money elsewhere, thank you very much.

I am attempting to log in more hours at our local library so the children do not become illiterate. They roam, mostly drawn to the library computers, which feature “educational” games (I guess. Are any screen game truly educational? Yes, of course they are, but the kids need less screen time not more of it.) I let them choose a bunch of DVDs and books, and the Wonder Twin Boy liked “Do You Sing Twinkle?” Until I started reading it that night, I did not realize it was a story about divorce. In fact, the subtitle is like “A Story of New Families.”

I’ve had to explicitly reassure First Son that divorce is not in the cards for this house and that it was not a worthy anxiety. In the meantime, Wonder Twins Boy loves this story about a couple who divorce, the mom remarries and moves three hours away with her new family. I truly recommend this book if your family is coping with this kind of situation, but for me, I’m trying to sneak it out of our home pile of books and to never let the kids read it again.

Yay! Parenting win!

I rented two movies lately from the old New York Public Library . Whiplash, the story about a music student (drummer) and his perfectionist, psychotic, brilliant teacher (played by a bald guy who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor last year). Julie and Julia has Meryl Streep playing Julia Child. In both cases, the genius portrayed submits themselves to ruthless amounts of repetitive, tedious practice. The Whiplash guy drums til his fingers bleed, Meryl Streep has one scene with a giant pile of onions she diced for practice. When I first saw these back to back, I was like, is that what it takes? Being nut-so? But Meryl Streep is so full of brio, joy with her portrayal of Julia where you sense Julia enjoys herself, much as Meryl Streep enjoys herself.