The Quiet

Sister Sandra thinks I am too hard on myself.  She says I have had too many successes in life to beat myself up so badly about my weight loss failures.  I tell her I will write about some of my successes, to which she responds, "Don't pat yourself too much on the back now."  You can't win.

I don't have to go far Sister Sandra.  Right here, right now during these COVID  times, I begun Corona Chronicles.  This is my 19th post and I haven't missed a beat or a day.  Success!

Illness, it seems, brings out the best in me.  In 2013, when I was afflicted with Shingles. I swore it was something about the Shingles that opened up my brain cells during my two week quarantine (sounds familiar!!).  I was to become the president of a social organization in July of that year and had been given three years to prepare for the role.  Up to that point, I had done absolutely nothing.  By the end of my Shingles house arrest, having worked with a brain that was in overdrive, I was more than ready for July 1st.  I was named President of the Year for the region, all thanks to Shingles.  Success!

I discovered I had writing skills in college. A professor recommended my move from her beginner's level English class to a Creative Writing class.  What joy when I met Professor Joy (his actual name) who took me through the creative process.  Week after week, I turned in A (there was one B+) papers.  People often comment on my writing ability.  A history professor told me I could write.  I responded that I knew because I had been an elementary school teacher and had a lot of practice writing on the chalkboard, to which she said, "I am not talking about penmanship."    Success!

In 2018, I formed a senior theatre workshop as part of a senior drop in center I started the year prior.  It was my entre into the world of performance.  I acted in my first role in the play And The Beat Goes On, dramatically telling stories about my father, a rolling stone who is reined in by my no nonsense mother.  I take the audience through laughter and tears.  I had no idea there was any humor in me or drama for that matter.  I give them moments of pause as I address the Me Too Movement through the telling of how an associate of my father touched me in a place he had no business.  I tell them it's their father's friends, the men we call "Uncle," and sometimes the real uncle who are the perpetrators.  I urge them to believe the children, girls and boys alike, when they tell their stories of molestation.  I tell the story of how my father saved me from drowning when he wasn't even there; that he was a non swimmer, but knew how to backstroke and taught me how.  The day I drifted into the deep end of a pool and bobbed up and down, his lesson kicked in at the last moment, of that I am sure.  I thank my late father as Luther Vandros' Dance With My Father plays and I dance with a photo of my father.  The play can be viewed at:  http://wpcommunitymedia.org/community-events/06262018-1833  Watch the entire play, but if not, catch me at 40:40  Success!

In a self-imposed quiet, I wrote the second play for our production.  I forced myself some quiet time and a quiet space in my home to do it.  I became writer/actor/director of Fire And No Desire, a play which addresses the issues of menopause and aging.  It tells the story of a beleaguered wife, who is experiencing symptoms of menopause and a cheating husband who doesn't understand what his wife is going through.  I play the off-screen mom who advises her daughter.   It was quiet moments which allowed me to rework and rewrite the script.  It was a quiet moment in the shower where I added to the wife's dialogue with her mother, where the mother asks, "Did you use the KY Jelly I gave you?" The audience guffawed.  And they did when the wife throws the fact that her husband has E.D., to which he repeats "ED," as though he doesn't know what she is talking about, and she says, "Erectile Dysfunction, fool."   The play received rave reviews and had two encore performances. See Fire and No Desire at http://wpcommunitymedia.org/slater-center-presents/10292018-937  Success!

Shingles, it wasn't you and Corona it's definitely not you.  It's the quiet.

And The Beat Goes On

Thanking Our Father

Dancing With My Father

Fire and No Desire