Past Life

Recently, I met with my old college roommates up near Columbia University. I say college roommates.. but we stayed roommates long after college ended as the apartment was in Manhattan and rent controlled. So we stayed. And stayed. Long past our college days.

But still.. we all left. In my case, it was 15 years after graduation, when I met my future wife who ultimately was the one who pulled me from my Manhattan world and landed me in New Jersey where I had a dog, house, and a marriage that lasted roughly a decade before it became a divorce.

Now I live and work in New Jersey and walking in the old neighborhood felt like a dream. The desk clerk at my old building was still Ali and George still ran the building and the Hungarian Pastry Shop still had the same owner as well, if different waitresses. I recognized some of the patrons as well. An older man who was a bit older was in his same spot. He never said hello to me then so it felt right that he never acknowledged me now.

I miss the energy. The NJ town that comes the closest is Montclair but Montclair isn't Manhattan. No place I've been has that dynamism where every block has every kind of human imaginable. But I don't feel part of it now, not even as an observer. There was a time when I worked in Manhattan but now I'm a complete and total New Jerseysan and a New Jerseysan is not a foreigner, not even an out of towner really, just New Jersey.

I could tell that I was a New Jerseyan from the relief I felt seeing my car again. I am glad I saw my dear friends and I am glad I got back.

2009 RIP

The economy was bad and getting worse one year ago so I knew it was going to be a trying year. As it turned out, I still have the same job I had one year ago and seem relatively secure in my employment. But I don't feel it. We've lost roughly half the number of people at my small satellite office. One year ago, we were 60. Now we're 30. We once were 90.

This week we're all moving our offices to be closer together, emptying large sections. We're part of a huge multi-national (I don't actually work with the people at my office) and the huge multi-national hopes to rent out the emptied space, but the building is full of offices ready to be filled, all with company logos of companies that no longer are. So there isn't much hope, now anyway, that the space will be subleased.

I work long hours these days, exchanging emails with people I will never meet. Some of these people are on facebook. So I can attach photos of a person to the person with whom I interact, but then they disappear and are replaced and I look at their facebook page and wonder how this person I never really knew is doing.

Writing Groups

I just joined a group where playwrights bring in plays each week to be read each week by actors, which then is followed by a discussion of what is heard. There are at least one hundred of them in Manhattan. Because they become the playwright's first audience, writers speak of them in the same urgent tones that other folks reserve for lovers. Is it working out? Do they respect me? Should I continue or break it off?

I ran one of these groups myself for ten years, a non-profit organization that was producing four new plays a year. Then I had to take time off to deal with my divorce and, when I tried to get it going again last year, the space was gone and the people had moved on.

So I decided to join someone else’s group, to focus on being a writer rather than a leader. It is a totally different experience, however, being just a writer, especially a new writer. When people know my work, especially when they have seen my work succeed on stage, they start with a level of acceptance. However, when I am new to a group, especially when the group has been around, there is skepticism, sometimes to the point of hostility, even if the leader has invited me because he/she knows my work.

Which is probably good for me right now. Let myself write new material for a new group and see if I can form new bonds. Besides, there are two groups I'm joining, one weekly and one monthly. I haven't really tried to make friends so far. Everyone seems to know each other and, besides, it is about the work and I won't be bringing in my writing for a week or two. So I've been sitting in the back, a bit standoffish I suppose, but opportunities for conversations will arise down the line.

One danger that comes with not knowing another's work is that, if a piece isn't working, one can think that playwright doesn't know how to write when it is just that the particular piece isn't working yet. I caught myself doing this in one of my comments. I wasn't nasty, but I started talking more about how to write a play rather than just my reaction to what was happening or not happening in the scene. Because it should be about the work, always about the work.

Facing on Facebook

I joined facebook on an invitation of a friend maybe six months ago, but I didn't do much with it until two months ago when it seems everyone I knew was joining all at the same time.

Since then, it's been a window on my world, the only place where all of my world comes together. High school friends, college friends.. folks from work, folks who helped me get through my recent divorce.. theater friends from the past who know my work, theater friends from the present who don't..

Because of this, it has become a tool that has been more profound than I ever imagined. All of my compartments are becoming a whole... but what is that whole?

Time Machine

I'm obsessive when it comes to music. If I love a songwriter, I will want to listen to all of his or her work. If I love a song, I can listen to it over and over.

In recent months, the writer I most listen to is Lori Carson. (I will call her Lori even though we don't know each other.) I first discovered Lori's work from two CDs I found by happenstance in a Hoboken discount bin. Since then, I have purchased all her albums and, because most of the work had been already released, I discovered her work out of the order it was written.

Later, I discovered her blog at a time when she was just getting back into songwriting. Through the blog, I learned of her first public performance in years. The concert was free with just a handful of friends in attendance.

Since then, she’s been posting her new songs on her website.

It’s weird when people ask me who my favorite artist is, when my favorite artist right now is an artist very few know. (So I usually say Coldplay instead.) Furthermore, the songs that I am listening to now are songs that few of her fans know.

She is, I believe, writing the best songs she has ever written right now.

Her latest song is “Time Machine.” Lori Carson is a great story teller. I marvel at her opening lines. They always seem natural, conversational, but they are very precise. Likewise, the stories she tells are always specific in detail, yet metaphoric, and her details are always just enough and no more. She’s been writing a lot now in the second person, which makes “Time Machine” more of a story than previous songs like “Whole Heart” which were monologues.

I wish I could convey what attracts me to her work. Certainly, part of what I found compelling about “Time Machine” was how it related to my life:

And you can't ever know
The wrong turn, the mistake
Until they build a time machine
Don't look back

However, it is really the artistry. I feel compelled to try to figure out why I am compelled.

After the concert, I wrote on her blog that I was there and how I enjoyed the concert and she told me to introduce myself the next time I attend, but I’m reluctant to do so because right now it’s about the mystery of her art and I’m happy to have it just be about that.

No Middle Ground

Recently, someone emailed me regarding the situation in Gaza. I wrote back some thoughts of my own, which mostly expressed my sadness and frustration over how the situation had deteriorated. She has since stopped corresponding. While there may be other reasons for her not responding, I wonder whether it was because I expressed sympathy for those who have suffered on both sides. I don't know for sure, but given that she didn't respond to my inquiry it is what I suspect.

I am not saying what side she was on, because it doesn't matter really. I have friends who blame Israel and I have friends who blame Hamas. I have my own views on the subject, but frankly the more I learn, the less I feel I know. That doesn't cut it now, though. To express sympathy for the suffering on the other side is a sign of weakness, a sign that one has been co-opted or brainwashed. Peace activists in both countries, if they can stay alive, are feeling this. There is very little hope in the holy land, because both sides feel that they have tried peace and peace has failed.

Why Write Now?

I'm writing again, although the combination of too many ideas with too little time has kept me from achieving too much so far.

The question of why I write is a good one. First, I believe that the plays in my mind will make for good theater. More importantly, though, there is the healing nature of attending to one's gift, which is in my case I believe is the writing of plays. I need to see my gift through.

I am not worrying about selling. If the plays are worthy of an audience, they will find their audience.