The title here today is . . . ironic? Rhetorical? Honest?
It’s been a hard year for the arts. All of them, but particularly live arts. But even people who are painting in their safe studio or writers at their safe desk are reporting how hard it is this year. The weight of the situations—-all of them—-is paralyzing and stifling.
Or maybe I’m just talking about me.
I’ve tried to set in motion an outdoor performance, socially distanced, etc. It fell apart due to some things out of my control and not fully known, but I’m also a little relieved about it. I had an anxiety dream about it with the key moment being when I said, “What are we doing? The Rose Garden event was outdoors and dozens of those people now have the virus.”
As for live streaming—-honestly, I just don’t have the tech skills, equipment, or desire to do it. Even watching these events can be tiring to me. Bless everyone doing them. With a few exceptions (usually from groups or people I really admire and follow but not even always then), I can’t do a regular diet of them. And I’m sorry.
So let me tell you about writing projects. That’s where I’m committing my energy going forward.
I have a pretty solid draft of a new novella, Cora. It takes place in the spring of 1993, literally the day in the life of a solitary farm woman in central Texas. Another pass of edits and tweaks and I think I’ll start pestering my trusted friends who are good first readers. Then searching for a publisher, the hardest part of all with novellas. It may even be a chapbook. Or I might go through my other published works and see if I have enough short stories to fit the tone and themes of this novella for a “novella and stories” package. I can’t see the future.
I’ve also been making progress on a full length play, something I’ve started and abandoned a few times over the last 3 years. I’m getting close to a shitty first draft. (Did Anne Lamott trademark that phrase? She should have.) The weird thing about writing a play in a pandemic is that, 1.) how long before it even has a chance of being produced? 2.) the pandemic and maybe the political winds of change (?) sets this piece that started as in the present, now definitely in the past, definitely no later than 2018, probably. It’s about a married gay couple who had adopted a child but lost him in tragic circumstances. The repercussions among the people of their church community is central to the story. I finally have a working title that 'I’m not 100% sold on, but it’s helping me focus forward movement on it. Jacob’s People.
And finally, I’ve set in motion a non-fiction . . . something. One live streaming thing I’ve been able to enjoy on a weekly basis is the Kitchen Covid Concerts by singer/songwriter Jonatha Brooke. Every Monday, she live streams an hour concert and her joy in performing (which I’ve experienced live, too) carries the day.
Anyway, once day, she told the story behind one of her songs, “Grace in Gravity.” The inspiration was a dancer/choreographer, Barry Martin, with whom Jonatha briefly worked when she was a dancer. As a young dancer with England’s Hot Gossip dance company, he toured South Africa during apartheid. While there, he and a friend were in a terrible car accident. Barry was black, the other dancer was white. The ambulance was “whites only.” Barry had to be transported by passersby to two different hospitals before he received treatment. By that time, his spinal cord was damaged enough to leave him quadriplegic for the rest of his life.
This story fascinated me and I googled around for more information. There are bits here and there, but the whole story hasn’t been pulled together into one place, so I’ve begun contacting people who knew him (he died in 2006 at the age of 44). The accident is only the beginning of the story. Barry went on to form his own dance company, choreograph for other companies (including a piece of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater), and taught dance in NYC public schools. More, it seems he became a force for integrating some arts and disabilities organizations. I’m just at the beginning of uncovering that part of his legacy. He went on to do some acting and was generally not stopped by his circumstances. Several places that have mentioned him talk about how positive and cheerful he remained. He pursued higher education in disability and the arts and opened doors for other disabled artists.
I don’t know what I’m doing with the information I’m gathering. The magazines I’ve queried have turned it down—-and honestly, I get it, it’s not a current story but definitely has resonances with current events. Maybe it’s a book—-I’ve never thought about doing a biography of anyone before, but I’m a little obsessed by this right now. I feel out of my depth, but I’m pushing forward with gratitude to the people who are agreeing to talk to me about him. People seem glad to know someone has an interest in his story.
So, anyway, that’s what’s going on right now, in this 8th month of pandemic. I continue to have my day job, mostly working from home, but have made some trips in to the office as needed. Everything is hard and heavy right now, but we push on. What else is there? And maybe I can draw some encouragement and strength from the story of Barry Martin—-and eventually pass it on to others.