Transitions

 

   As is evident in my recent posts, I have been thinking a lot about changes, about how life changes with comings and (more often now) goings, about how my life is so different now than before my spinal surgery six years ago.  It is breath-taking how life can be radically different, sometimes quite quickly. 

   I continued to reflect on this in my latest Claremont Courier column, which came out on Friday. 

                     A RETIRED LIFE? 

   I recently went to a talk at Scripps College by DJ Kurs, the director, currently, of Deaf West Theater in Los Angeles.  Deaf West is a small but increasingly mighty theater that produces plays featuring deaf and hearing actors, some of which, like Spring Awakening and Big River, have ended up on Broadway.  Troy Kostur, one of its best deaf actors who I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a few times, including as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar last year for CODA, which, in a bit of an upset, also won Best Picture. 

  Mr.  Kurs, signing and assisted by an interpreter, spoke about making theater more accessible, not only to the deaf but also to folks with other disabilities.  He talked about radical inclusion in theater, making it accessible to disabled audiences and also opening it up as a space for disabled actors and performers and disabled writers and creators. 

   I was all but jumping up and down in my wheelchair.  As in the Roberta Flack song, Mr. Kurs was singing – signing – my life with his presentation.

   I wanted to say, to proclaim, “That’s my jam!” (I was actually thinking of another word, but this is a family newspaper.) Writing (and sometimes performing) for the theater with a disability is what I’m all about. 

   Or it was.

   Since my spinal surgery six years ago and really several years before it, I haven’t had the ability and energy for playwrighting and performing.  I sometimes think about trying to revive one of my works or working on a new one, but, with still adjusting to my new, increased disability, I don’t feel I have the time, the strength, not to mention the resources. I almost felt like Mr. Kurs was taunting me, “killing me softly with his words”: look what I get to do, and you can’t anymore!     

   Is this what it feels like to be retired? I often wonder about this, as I think about adapting to my post-surgery life and find myself reflecting on the life I had before my surgery.  Is this what it’s like when you’re no longer doing what you used to do, especially when you loved doing it. 

   But I also think about it when I see all the retired people living here in Claremont and what a fantastic place it is to retire.  The college students may see Claremont as a “retirement community,” as one noted in speaking at a Pomona College commencement some years ago, but this isn’t a place where the retired while and waste away. 

   To the contrary, in Claremont, retired people actively pursue their passions, whether in marching for peace or protesting a current injustice or in auditing classes at the colleges.  There are concerts, lectures and presentations to attend and no end of local issues to debate and advocate. 

   Yes, the presentation on the disabled in theater struck a sensitive, even painful chord in me, but I was thrilled that there was the opportunity right here to see, and for others to see, that this work is going on, that, indeed, progress is being made.  I was glad to be kept informed, to be engaged.

·         * 

   Speaking of disabled artists, Raul Pizarro’s paintings all but glow.  They are illuminated, literally, with the white and pale colors in them shining out amid the dark colors, making the dark colors all the darker yet not so dark.  I don’t know how, but they radiate. 

   I have had the great pleasure of being friends with this fellow wheelchair user from Ontario, not only because of his sublime art.  He has been a real hoot, quite a character, as they say – quite an entertaining dinner guest. 

   Raul died on March 18 at age 47. He had recently undergone medical treatment that was thought to be successful. 

   I will miss the beauty and also the bawdy humor that Raul added to the world – and am thankful for all the work he left. 

   There will be a memorial service for Raul on April 28 at 10 at the Fox Theater in Pomona and also a gathering at 5 on the 30^th at the dA Center for the Arts. I suspect he would get a kick out of the venues. 

 

A different - and difficult - shyness

   Last month, I attended a memorial for an old family friend, the mother of three children that I grew up with here in Claremont.  I had not seen the three in years, decades, probably since high school if not earlier, and I was really interested to see them, what they were like after all this time. 

   I arrived early, and soon enough, there they were.  We said hi to each other, asked each other how we were doing, said, “Fine.” And then – nothing.

   It wasn’t that there was nothing to say, nothing to talk about after all the years that had passed.  It wasn’t that there was so much to talk about that it was easier not to talk.  It wasn’t that it wasn’t an appropriate place for a real conversation. 

   It was that we were embarrassed.  There was embarrassment, mostly on my part.  I was embarrassed to speak, embarrassed by my impaired speech, and also embarrassed that I would make them feel embarrassed if or when they couldn’t understand my speech. I’m pretty sure that they were feeling embarrassed, unsure about if they would understand my speech. 

   So it was easier, a relief, not to say anything. 

   Now, it’s true that I had a mask on, which didn’t make talking or understanding me any easier.  But even if I didn’t have a mask on, the scene would have played out the same.  (Also, having my speech device wasn’t feasible that day.)

   I was thinking about this later that day.  There was nothing new about what happened.  This happens constantly, over and over, almost on a daily basis.  It happens when I’m out on my own, and someone who knows me or knows who I am (many people in Claremont know who I am) will come up and say hello.  It even happens at my Quaker meeting when someone outside the half dozen or so who understand my speech come over to chat after the close of worship. 

   After a few brief pleasantries, they will look at me, often with a sad, guilty smile, sometimes making an effort to carry on an all-but-one-way conversation and then walk off, sometimes with an excuse (needing to use the restroom, catch someone else to talk to, etc), sometimes not. 

   Something like this even more poignantly happened when groups of college students worked with me to put on one of my plays – a play that, in a cruel irony, deals with and shows, in part, the experience and results of having impaired speech. Other than rehearsing and performing the play, the students and I didn’t really converse and make connections.   

   Like I said, this happens over and over.  As I thought about it that day, I thought about how, yes, it’s sad and frustrating, and I thought about how there are certain things I can do to mitigate or ease the situation, like having my speech device or having an attendant or friend who understands my speech with me. 

   But I also thought about others with impaired speech, in particular a friend whose speech is just a bit easier to understand than mine but isn’t shy at all about talking to anyone – and almost with an attitude of “I dare you not to understand me!”

   In thinking about all this, I realized that, in addition to feeling sad and frustrated, I was angry.  This was something new. 

   I realized that I’m angry that I wasn’t encouraged as a child to speak, that I wasn’t encouraged to not be shy or embarrassed about my speech.  I’m also angry that the children I grew up with weren’t encouraged to try to understand or to be open to trying to understand my speech. 

   It was almost like I was a deaf child and only my immediate family and my teachers and a few others (baby-sitters, friends) could communicate with me. 

   I am not sure if there’s anyone I can be angry at or fairly be angry at.  I am pretty certain that my parents thought they were doing the right thing.  After all, it was the 1960’s, and there wasn’t much help, besides medically, for the disabled or for the parents of disabled children. It was years before the disabled being integrated and mainstreamed into society and schools with non-disabled students.  There was little if any advocacy and no talk of disability rights. 

   By the time I started attending school with non-disabled students in my teens – at a junior high, not exactly a friendly setting – I had bought into the notion that it was better, safer, more comfortable not to speak outside of a small group of people (attendants, friends). I have, of course, learned more to communicate with others, but the emphasis has been on doing so with the assistance of others or a variety of devices (from the lowest to very high tech). My non-attendant friends who understand my speech have taken time and effort to do so. 

   I don’t know if I can blame anyone, but I am, yes, angry that I ended up being embarrassed about my speech. It sure would have been nice if I had been more comfortable talking and perhaps with helping others be comfortable with my talking. It would have been nice if I had been able to more easily connect and perhaps bond with more of the interesting, cool people that I have encountered in my life. That includes those I grew up with who I’m now seeing again, more often under sad circumstances.

In my mind, I'm going to Santa Cruz

 (with apologies to James Taylor)

   I went downtown, and I was in Santa Cruz. 

   It was Saturday morning.  It had rained all day Friday and all night, and the sky was grey and drippy.  I went downtown – “the Village,” as Claremont calls it – to buy a ticket for a concert that night at the Folk Music Center, a well-known and beloved music store and hub of the local music (the grandson of its founders is Ben Harper, and there was a tribute to the recently deceased Claremont-based David Lindley in the front window).

   The sidewalks were stained a dark grey after an unusual amount of rain over the last few months, looking as if they would sprout at any time.  The people who were out, noticeably fewer than on a typical weekend, had on wool sweaters and beanies.  The guy at the store, who sold me the ticket and said he was glad to see me back, was similarly dressed. 

   I looked around the store, with its walls lined with guitars, banjos, violins, drums and with baskets of stickers, friendship bracelets, Guatemalan coin purses.  I looked down the street, with the small, independent shops, like the Eye of Budha and the Himalayan Collections. 

   And I was in Santa Cruz. 

   Many of the shops in the Village are more fru-fru and chic, almost Orange County, but enough, like the Folk Music Center, are funky and “homemade” enough to remind me of Santa Cruz on the coast an hour or two south of San Francisco.  It is one of my favorite places, where I spent a lot of time, including when I attended a year-end retreat for years in the nearby redwoods, another place I cherish, before my surgery.  When I was there in the days leading up to the new year, it would rain and rain, and I fondly remember going to downtown Santa Cruz, specifically Pacific Avenue with its small shops (where I bought some of my used and new overalls) and buskers (more so before an apparent gentrification), and the pier and the Sunset Cliffs walk on afternoons when it wasn’t too wet.  I did the same a number of times on summer trips.

   It has become, in recent years, more and more difficult, if not impossible, for me to travel, to make these trips. (Look at all the trips I made in just the year before my surgery, as I describe in two recent posts.) This is because of my increasing needs (equipment, attendants, etc.), and it is one of the hardest things I’ve had to face.  Traveling was always very important to me, something that I loved, and it devastates me, it breaks my heart, that I can’t really do it anymore, at least not like I used to. 

   I have had to shift my mindset in order to adjust to this new reality, so that it doesn’t make me crazy or drive me into complete despair.  I’ve realized that, strangely enough, the pandemic has helped me with this.  When we all had to stay at home or not go far, I learned how to be satisfied with what I have right here at home or in this immediate area. (I’ve wondered how I would have handled this if I had not had the surgery and become more disabled and was as active as I had been.)

   It has been getting harder now that things are picking up again, if not going back to normal, and many people are doing what they used to do, including traveling.  Although I’m thinking about planning a short trip up the coast, but not as far as the Bay Area or even Santa Cruz, later this year, I’m wrestling with whether I should just be satisfied, happy, content with what I have right here.  I’m wondering if I shouldn’t bother with traveling, which, as much as I love it and as much as I miss the redwoods and seeing family and friends and eating at my favorite restaurants in the Bay Area, has gotten all the harder and more exhausting. 

   I am learning to appreciate Claremont even more.  I am trying to enjoy the concerts, plays and lectures at the colleges even more.  I am trying harder to see that the Village is unique, with its little shops, including one that fills with people to see well-known folk musicians and bands, and an unusual number of artists and musicians who hang out there.  I am trying to see and to keep seeing that Claremont is not that unlike many places I love and miss and, what’s more, I am known and appreciated here (as with the guy at the Folk Music Center). 

   Also, day trips, such as the one I took recently to see two friends (not to mention the creepy huge statue of Marilyn Monroe, panties exposed) in Palm Springs, help.  It might also help to find a few restaurants here that I enjoy as much as my faves in the Bay Area, San Luis Obispo and San Diego.

Climate conflict

 

   The new year is always difficult for me.  I don’t like thinking about the next 12 months, like looking at a cold pool before diving into it.  I’m much better at one day at a time.  No, I don’t attend AA, but as a friend once said, I don’t do new year’s. 

   This new year was particularly difficult, coming with loads of anxiety.  Part of the anxiety had to do with the weather, as mundane and crazy as that sounds.  Despite the deluges in the first half of January, I worried that Winter would end any day and that the heat and dry weather would come all too soon.  For the last several years, New Year’s Day turned balmy, right in time for the Rose Parade, and it just got warmer and dryer after that.  Last year, there was no rain, no rain at all, in January, February and March – the rainy months here. 

   My sister was down from the Bay Area this week and drove home yesterday, a day earlier than she planned, because she didn’t want to drive back in the storm, another storm, that was coming.  This morning, a friend who dropped by in the rain after spending a few months up north commented on the “record-breaking weather California is having.”

   The change in the weather has been dramatic and leaves me with mixed feelings – hopefully not more anxiety! - as I explored, literally, in my latest Claremont Courier column, which came out a week ago. 

           A CHANGE IN THE CLIMATE AND IN PERSPECTIVE

   It was only a month or so ago, in January and even February, that I was complaining that there was never any snow below Baldy Village.  Or that there was barely any in the village. 

   At least not for a long time. 

   I was telling friends about the time I went up Baldy Road, and there was no snow, or barely any, until I went into one of the tunnels and came out, suddenly, into a white wonderland. I couldn’t remember if it happened 15 years ago or if I remembered 15 years ago that it had happened years earlier. 

   In any case, it was years since there was snow in the village or much below the Icehouse Canyon turn-off. I would often go up when it looked from here in town like the snow was low only to find no snow in the village, much less at the tunnels.  I would feel like Charlie Brown fooled again by Lucy with the football. (At least it was nice up there. Going up there is never a waste of time.)

   It was something like 10 years ago that a friend and I had breakfast at the Baldy Lodge, enjoying the freshly made cinnamon buns, when there was snow melting outside.  It has been at least that long since there was a thin layer of snow covering the field at the school at the entrance of the Village. 

   What a difference a storm makes.

   Or at least the unusual, record-breaking, cold storm that ushered in the last weekend of February. I had been reading about it and hearing friends talk about it snowing in Upland and Montclair, but then I saw glimpses of the hills between the low covered in white – not just for the morning but for two, three, four days.  Then, I knew it wasn’t just hype. 

   On that Monday morning – it was not only not crowded but also turned out to be between storms if not between raindrops – I ventured up Baldy Road to Baldy Village, wanting to see what I used to see.

   Well, I got what I wanted – and then some.  And then some. 

   There were patches of snow soon after the incline began. By the time we were at the Shin Road turn-off, quite a bit below the tunnels,          the snow was all-present.  In fact, traffic was being stopped to let a snow plow pass.  So much for just wishing there was snow at the tunnels like I remembered.  This was serious.

   Very serious, as was evident when the village came into view.  The field wasn’t covered with a pretty layer of white, as I pictured in my head from years past.  The field was gone, lost, buried in more than a few inches of snow.  I thought of having heard that the school was closed for snow days – snow days near Claremont! – and knew it wasn’t all fun and games. 

   This was all the more clear further into the village.  Snow was piled in all-too-perfect formation on top of cars, many of which were trapped, so to speak, with piles snow blocking their way out of driveways.  I wondered if these people were stuck in their houses partially hidden by snow. 

   For all my fond memories of snow in Baldy Village and even at the tunnel, I had never seen snow quite like this, at least not up there. Maybe the snow, if there was this much, had always been shoveled or was melting away when I went up. This wasn’t exactly the stuff of fond memories. This was, again, serious, even alarming.  I understood why a couple I know who live in Baldy Village were “camping out” in Claremont. 

   I had seen enough, and rain was starting to fall again upon arriving back in Claremont. I wanted some change in the weather but perhaps not this much change. Indeed, “climate change” is a better term than “global warming.” At least it stops the deniers in their tracks. 

   All I wanted was a bit of rain now and then, for the heat and dry weather to hold off for two or three months, until April or maybe even May. This wasn’t quite what I had in mind.