Your Creative Autobiography
Twyla Tharp your creative DNA
1. What is the first creative moment you remember?
The first creative moment I remember having was playing with my friend, Mimi, whose small yard was boxed in by various evergreen shrubs. There were unexpected little steps, some that led somewhere but the most fun were those that didn’t. Together we vividly imagined a most original and charming house, very modern with different spaces into which we placed imaginary furnishings. A branch that had to be held back in order to pass was a lovely green hanging room divider, a curtain. What seemed almost uncanny to us both was the way we imagined the exact same layout, the purpose of each space, and each time we returned to it, there was the exact same layout, same decorative details, visible to our imaginations only yet I could describe them today as I’m sure Mimi could.
2. No one else witnessed our creation, probably because we held it as sacred space and never invited any of our other friends to join us, possibly because we were sure the magic, all the glamour we envisioned would be lost on them.
3. I believe ever more strongly as the forty years since 1971 have passed that the greatest idea I ever had was to travel across the country, just me and the four kids, ages 13 down to 7. We departed from our house on the Cape, heading toward and eventually reaching California in a new Toyota Crown wagon (think Japanese Volvo).
4. What now seems so great about taking the trip at that particular point in the twentieth century was the phenomenally cheap gas; Holiday Inns where we most often bedded down five to a room were just starting to spread across the land. It was a distinctly low-tech period when small Southern towns were still small Southern towns, when there was but one Disneyland, the one in Anaheim. When people saw our Mass plates and would ask where we lived in Mass we told them Cape Cod. The consistent and excited reaction always was--do you know the Kennedy’s? Sort of, we truthfully replied. We not only excited their interest but unfailingly engendered such kindness, eager help whenever we needed it. My greatest regret is that I don’t think I even kept a diary; if I did it’s long lost now. I may have to do it again, the 2012 version. Wow! What a difference.
5. The dumbest idea I had, prompted by an overzealous attempt at conserving fuel was when I decided to get rid of a Chevy Nova I bought for $200 dollars from an elderly man who was giving up driving. It was a gem of a car but so boring, beige. This was just a year or so after the “fuel embargo of the ‘70’s” which left a permanent impression. About a year after I made this sensible choice a young brother-in-law offered us his ancient decrepit Fiat, about half the size of the Nova. Now that he was graduating from college he could afford a nice new Toyota or Honda.
6. One of my dumber ideas, based on not a whit of research, mileage comparisons, not to mention comparison between the two different auto bodies which was glaring. Perhaps the best example was the fact that you could actually see the pavement beneath you through the holes rusted through the FIAT’s floor while the Nova’s solid floor was even carpeted. I think I saw the FIAT, for some obscure reason, as somehow being sexier than the stodgy, solid Nova which I promptly sold for too low a price. I happened to learn that a neighbor across the street whose yard always had at least three cars other than his own sitting around in various states of repair was a mechanic. What could be more appropriate than to have an Italian-born guy with a heavy Italian accent do the work on the FIAT. I think I assumed that it would be cheaply done, as well. To the best of my recollection I think he charged me $75 dollars to make no noticeable changes or improvements with the end result that less than a month later someone’s foot went right through the floor on the passenger’s side, the strips of rusted metal dragging along the road sending out sparks, the miracle being that they didn’t set the gas tank ablaze. Then I was left carless, $75 the poorer.
7. The obvious dots to be connected in this tale of folly was, first, the horror at skyrocketing gas prices related to the fact that I was always broke. I’m not sure how the aesthetics of a rusted, rotted out old FIAT, a very compact Italian car compared to a solid beige sedan that for all I knew was more fuel efficient than the FIAT. I just made that assumption or left that particular dot disconnected.
8. My creative ambition is to get to write about all the different things I’ve started, then to make use of the copious notes I’ve compiled, a nice word for the bushels of paper and stacks of half-filled notebooks on all these subjects, and then write about them. It took little encouragement, for the first time in my life, to set me on a writing rampage.
9. The only obstacle I see to living up to this ambition, other than not living long enough, is to lose confidence in myself as a writer. I hope and pray this never happens. It took me long enough to gain whatever I have.
10. The vital steps to achieving this ambition is to live an orderly life, rising early to perform the ordinary tasks I set myself, get them out of the way, then blocking off a sufficient chunk of time, say three to five hours, depending on the day of the week. In the afternoon I can do errands or cook, drink tea and read, then usually eat while watching the New Hour. The early evening is the time I have to read. Every so often I don’t write at all but just read books on writing, or poetry that I love and want to emulate, an immersion in other people’s writing that I especially admire.
11. What I’m always striving to do but these days seldom manage is to get up with the alarm at 5:15AM, say my prayers then hurriedly make breakfast, for me and kitty, get dressed and try to leave the house at 6:30 to drive to Gloucester for a meeting. If I’m feeling especially heroic I then take the 20, 25 minute ride to Danvers to go to the gym for just under an hour. My noble aspiration is to do this at least three mornings a week, and a few months back I did it, feeling saintly as I headed home by @ 10:00AM, to then settle down to write till approximately 2:00PM.
12. I’ve just described the habits I’m always striving to perform, wanting so much to do this three days a week for I’ve learned that not only do I need to maintain physical fitness but working out at the gym is essential for me, especially as I age, to maintain my mental fitness. And the third golden aim if I am to be completely balanced is to devote a half hour or so to meditation. If I succeed in pulling this off I end my day around 10:00, 10:30 PM on my knees with a prayer of gratitude that I was able to do all this. It’s an ideal that I achieve only sporadically because I have evolved into an insomniac, falling asleep immediately then after an hour or so, being wide awake for hours, on a bad night, or morning, never really getting back to sleep unless I turn off the alarm and roll over, often then sleeping as late as 9:00AM. And my day is ruined; it goes by in a flash, a flash of frustration that the day ends without my fulfilling my desired goals.
13. After failing math and Latin in my sophomore year of high school, followed by summer school, I transferred, very happily, to a small girls Catholic school, considered by most to be a finishing school but in fact, was a good little school. My mother had died in January of my freshman year and I can now see why I didn’t do very well for the rest of the year and the year following.. So I was happier than I had been for a long time in my junior year at this posh little school, in the midst of some old friends and wonderful new ones. With fewer nuns to teach us lay teachers were hired to teach us. Young, inexperienced, bright, fresh out of college, that year our English class was taught by Mr. Kenney. We pretended to look down on him because, though good looking he was very short. We clustered around him giggling and chattering, showing off that despite our ugly brown uniforms we were special. I was one of the new girls so I guess I set out to make my mark. My first work was a poem:
….and Then Rigormortis Set In
Red
Head Sped, Bled, Dead.
Big hit. I was a star. Later that year in Mr. Kenney’s class I wrote a real classic though I can only remember the title of the poem, sort of a romantic poem titled Melvin the Mellifluous, about a love sick honey bee who performed great and daring acrobatic feats to impress his love. My star rose a bit higher, especially with Mr. Kenney, I hoped. What now strikes me as sad is that I never even considered writing poetry again, except perhaps little love poems in birthday cards to my children and grandchildren, not until I’d been part of the Salem Writers group at the Salem Athenaeum for some months and heard such wonderful poetry from the other members of the group, when I was well into my sixties did I attempt poetry, an epic poem I wrote for my kids, Ode to Bo, I, II, III, IV ostensibly about our Springer spaniel, Mr. Bojangles but really it was about the family as much as the dog.
14. I hadn’t thought of this when I began answering these many questions in the Creative Autobiography but starting pretty young, maybe pre-teens, then from my teen years on for at least 20 years I was, dare I say, a consummate letter writer. I loved to write letters. I loved to write but for many, many years until just about five years ago, I’d say, I really didn’t believe I had the right to aspire to be a writer. To be honest, I never got much encouragement from family, from my husband, and still, don’t get much reaction, such a blankness that in itself is a reaction, not a good one, from my children. Except for my letters. I loved writing letters, especially to people were like minded and of whom I was fond. I’d say my favorite correspondents were my friend Susan, starting when she went away to college in South Hadley, and then when she and another friend actually took the monumental step (probably with some family help) of moving to Manhattan, renting an apartment—I still remember the address, East 78th Street, not far from the Frick Collection, (you can imagine what we made of that grand museum name). I had a cousin quite a bit older than I was and on whom I always had a mild cousinly crush because he was not only handsome but funny. He’d moved to Southern California and he and I exchanged letters for a long time. His were hilarious and I’d read them aloud to my husband and friends. But I was like one of those men in India who have stalls in the bazaar and illiterate people go to them to write important letters. I’d be asked by my mother-in-law to write to her sons when they were in the service; she’d say, send him ‘one of your letters’. One was in a sort of youth detention center (????) and kindly I wrote to him. I had a friend from early childhood, Diana, who died a long time ago in her early 30’s. After she graduated from college she went to live, poor, poor missionary that she was, in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She had joined the Lay Apostolate, a sort of Catholic Peace Corps. I loved writing to her especially in hopes of her answering my letters. But she was too busy having such a blast, so much wild fun such as I never knew went on. A good example: several of her new friends in Jamaica were Chinese. That was when I first heard that Chinese are inveterate gamblers. So one of their favorite sports to bet on was turtle races in which the turtles would have names, be painted sort of in team colors, etc. Very silly, much quaffing of rum drinks. And I’m sure there was more that she never shared with us but she had such a fabulous time, little missionary that she was (not) that she signed up for a second stint. She wasn’t a very consistent correspondent but her letters in her horrible hand writing though few and far between were worth waiting for and, of course, would be read aloud among us over tea. I really don’t remember who else I wrote to but that was me, The Letter Writer. And I can only say, modestly, people loved my letters. No surprise, they tended to be very long.
15. Perhaps the easiest comparison between these relative creative successes is that I enjoyed writing and especially enjoyed how much other people loved getting my letters.
16. Attitude: money: an ideal amount of money, to me, is: enough, with perhaps a bit extra for occasional travel or for special occasions. Power: I don’t seek power over anyone, not children, or (long ex) husband. If I feel wanting in power for myself I just say a prayer. Praise: all my life I’ve gotten little praise, as a child, a wife, and certainly not from siblings. In recent years I have been so pleased and gratified for the praise I’ve gotten from my writers group. That sent me out the door walking on air. Rivals: I’m pretty uncompetitive and I’d say I stand away from any rival. Work: I work pretty hard so if all goes well I feel gratified. I’m willing to work hard in order to produce good results that please me no end. Play: play is good though I can’t say I’ve done much playing except for music, perhaps the greatest joy. In recent years I’ve been more resting and relaxing.
17. Assuming the question is about artists, visual artists, I made a list sure that I’ve left out some that I dearly love, as well. The ones I think of immediately are: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Matisse, Chagall, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Picasso, Juan Miro, John Singer Sargent, Whistler, Prendergast, Winslow Homer
18. This is a hard question to answer because all these artists, as well as the writers I love the most I presume to have been to a certain degree bold and self confident. Although the writer I probably love the most and who I emulate is Elizabeth Taylor. From all I’ve read about her she lived a very ordinary life as a ‘suburban’ wife and mother. She wrote by hand in pencil in a school notebook, often sitting on the floor in front of the fire. For that reason, I suppose, I most particularly love the way she describes the small, daily, commonplace things like the way a baby lying in a carriage when starting to fuss turns his fat little wrists. Or her description of birds in cold, rainy weather the way they disconsolately stab the bare ground with their beaks. Or the midges that form a cloud of perpetual motion on a summer night. Then there’s my beloved V. S. Pritchett who uses such pungent, unexpected, yet perfect words to describe characters like: “an old, handsome, stupid bartender”.
19. What I would like to think I have in common with them is the ability to see and then describe the behavior of ordinary people, either the poignancy of them, their lives, their beauty or courage, or the outrageousness, the truth-stranger-than-fiction behaviors.
20. I’ve gotten to know a woman, the house mother of a homeless woman’s shelter that I volunteer at. A dear friend of mine who passed away and gave of herself greatly to this place, loved it, especially this woman who is largely responsible for starting it quite a few years ago, before the need has grown so great for shelter for homeless women. When the time came that I could offer my services I called to see if she needed volunteers and of course they always do. So I met with her and we spoke fondly of our late friend, who was the inspiration for my going there. This woman, like my friend but not me, so much, is very devout. But it’s her faith that I so admire and try to emulate instead of being fearful or angry as I so often used to be. Sometimes I repeat to myself, remember what Mary always says, “the good Lord will provide” or “Our Blessed Lady will take care of us” which may sound smarmy or trite. But I know she believes it and often will tell with a laugh of contributions people make, just when some need has arisen. She knows, not even believes, that things will work out for the best. And they do seem to. But I would say, the quality I first noticed and that I so admire her for is her reasonableness, not a commonplace quality. The way she treats the women who come to the house (all of whom adore her) but some of whom can be tough customers, is with utter reasonableness. She is always calm and reasonable, perhaps because of her beautiful faith. If one of the guests does something that’s against the rules she’ll simply say, “Well, so-and-so, if you’re going to do that you can’t come back to Sancta Maria House.” That’s all they need and say, “Okay, Sister Mary, (she is not a nun but many think of her as one)”, and that’s the end of it.
21. I don’t seem to have a muse. My favorite muse that I wish was mine is Bernadette Peters, muse to Alice (Mia Farrow) in the Woody Allen movie of that name. I’d like a muse like her that tells it like it is.
22. I’m not sure but I think of a muse as a being who can guide and inspire one, a being who you were certain was absolutely right, whatever she advised you to do. I would love that! What a gift. Sometimes I do pray to the goddesses Lakshmi or Saraswati. My dear friend in question 20 wouldn’t approve, I’m sure. Though I do sometimes pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe, too.
23. I get so excited by superior intelligence, and I might add, I usually am certain that we, the superior one and me, are of the exact same mind. Occasionally I go to the JFK Library to hear different speakers that I admire, (though not since I moved to Beverly, a longer trek than from East Boston). Mostly it’s a journalist or author, people I see on Charlie Rose, who I adore. Up until about a year ago I lived for Friday night, the hour with Bill Moyers and his guests, all the best minds of all persuasions. But as seems to be the trend in these horrid times, Bill Moyers, who I can say I worshipped. He was a truth-teller. Some nights I’d weep at what I would hear about what was going on in the world, in our country and so horrified would I be that I would ask myself why I watched it so faithfully because there were things I heard from him and from his guests that were painful to realize, and I did and do believe what I heard. Now the latest blow is the loss of Frank Rich’s column in the Sunday New York Times. Frank Rich is another teller of the truth, and some of the harshest truths he could write about and make you laugh, no matter how dire, something utterly ridiculous and outrageous. He is a writer I totally emulate. I just found out about this because the Sunday that was his last column my rotten, lousy newspaper delivery service never brought me the Sunday NYTimes because there were two inches of snow on the ground. I’ll get the piece on-line. But I am not being extravagant in saying I am deeply saddened by this loss. He will be writing a column in New York magazine, once a month so I’ll have to look out for that. These are people I need to tell me what I believe is the truth. No doubt Newt Gingrich doesn’t quite see it that way. But there you go, Newt and I never did see eye-to-eye.
24. Well, this is a well-placed question, coming on the heels of mention of Newt. I confess to being intemperate, immoderate, impatient, outraged, often profane when I hear or read views that seem to me stupid, selfish, callous, hostile, bigoted, uncaring. Laziness, that doesn’t bother me so much, seems mild in comparison to these more outrageous qualities. Oh, I forgot greedy. Greed is the disease of the 21st century. And what’s most galling is that the greediest seem to be hugely successful in satisfying their greed to the peril of the rest of us in the bottom 80 percent of the population.
25. That’s hard to answer for if failure seems impending I think I’d really try hard to avert it. If success is looming, I guess it depends on what kind of success. I sure would love to have the success of having a book or two or three published. We shall have to see. I would grin and preen and strut and keep saying prayers of thanks over and over.
26. These days what I guess I consider ‘work’ is doing things I have to, should do and yet most of the things I should do, I enjoy doing, even things that I sort of accept I don’t want to do, once I get doing it, I find it satisfying, especially when it’s done. That would be things like vacuuming and washing the floor, etc. Or ironing, things that once I’m into it, I get satisfaction from. A lot of what I do that would be considered work is sewing and I get great satisfaction from that, especially if I’m working with fabric that I love. Now what should become my major order of Work is writing. I confess that some tasks, and writing is sometimes a task, I have a bad habit of DT’s, delay tactics where I circle around doing other things, even cleaning an over, just to put off zeroing in on what it is I have to write. But that’s fear. And once I hold my nose and plunge in, I am immersed and I love it. Typing the answers to all these questions is long overdue, largely due to a case of the DT’s. And I’ve been out of sorts, last week. But now that I’m doing it (I wrote out the answers by hand weeks ago but in typing them, I’ve rewritten a great deal which is a good thing) I can’t stop and it’s gotten very late and I should not stay up so late because then I tend to be awake all night until just an hour before the alarm goes off, unless I switch it off and roll over.
27. I’m not sure if this answer is appropriate to the question but if reach exceeding grasp means having big ideas, dreams, ambitions, yes, I’ve experienced that. I’ve had that in the past, and lately it’s been aroused: my first full-time job was as a cash manager for an institutional investment firm. I held that job for eight years and I loved it, the job itself. It was a brand new world for me, involving managing cash for various institutional accounts of all kinds. It involved a great deal of contact, mostly by phone with brokers and dealers and banks all over the country. It demanded accuracy and good judgment. I loved it and I dove right into that world of money and investing and banking. But what I loved and took pride in was that it required what is now referred to as “people skills”. Most of the time this was easy and pleasant for me, but there were times when it wasn’t easy. The gift was in knowing how best to deal with certain people, to be cooperative and to conform to their wishes and standards. If there wasn’t clear understanding and cooperation it could mean a loss of money, usually a lot of money. And I was good at that. I learned how to deal with people who could be difficult, to understand what they required. I left that job mostly because I felt undervalued by my bosses, even though I had a lot of respect and cooperation from brokers and dealers of investment vehicles. And the job changed at that time because the whole investment field changed, first because of wild inflation, then when the hero, Paul Volcker fixed that it went in a different, kind of boring direction. But I’ve retained a lot that I learned then but then, a lot of the changes that took place are the very things that have landed not just our country but the world in the horrific mess that we’re in now. Anyway, when I was working to get a Masters degree in management I chose as a subject for my thesis to write a business plan for publishing a financial newsletter dedicated to what, in the early ‘90’s was a big deal, Emerging Markets. But I couldn’t just let it go as a business plan; I had to write, design, set up such a newsletter myself. I loved, still love what I did. I published two of them only. My tragic flaw or inadequacy was, and this is true of other things I’ve created and failed at, marketing. I’m no good at it. At my own expense, not to mention hours and hours, days, weeks, months dedicated to this creation of mine. I gave it to some people to read and got some good feedback. But I couldn’t get anybody to subscribe to it. I have in my closet some cartons with many copies of these two issues of NeWorlds, what at the time I felt was a really catchy, edgy title for a newsletter about emerging economies. So I lug these cartons along, once in a while lovingly take a copy out to admire. Well, guess what? I’m thinking about it again, want to see if I can find, not in this country but somewhere in the new worlds that are emerging around the Indian Ocean, some financial or economic journalist who would be interested in such an idea. Crazy but there it is. The dream just won’t die.
28. Well, the answer to 27 is part of my ideal. But of course, my most ideal creative activity is writing the books I want to write, finishing the couple I’ve started and then writing the others that I’ve kept notes on. I hope I can do all of it. We’ll see.
29. I don’t really have any great fear. If I have a fear, and it would be about the well-being of myself or ones I love, I pray. That’s about the only control I feel I have, is my good relations with my Higher Power, my favorite saints and spirits. And just living a day at a time, doing the best I can, and always striving to get better and better which is why I enrolled in this wonderful Creative Writing course.
30. Oh, shucks, I don’t know. I’ll just soldier on, happy to do so.
31. I did change some of my early answers. But now I want to finish so I’ll leave what I’ve written be.
32. My idea of mastery is learning from the writers I love. I read them over and over and over, trying to imprint their beautiful style on my brain. Twyla recommends that and other writers I respect and admire have as well. And I do believe and strive to do it sufficiently and that is to revise and revise and revise. My tragic flaw is talking/writing too much, too voluminously. I’m trying harder now to whittle down. It can be done. I must be done, certainly by me.
33. My greatest dream, other than that all the people I love are okay, is to keep on writing the stories I want to write and to someday have someone appreciate them enough to publish them. I have one silly little adjunct dream of when/if I get published, I want to go the Edinburg Book Fair.
Your Creative Autobiography
Twyla Tharp your creative DNA
1. What is the first creative moment you remember?
The first creative moment I remember having was playing with my friend, Mimi, whose small yard was boxed in by various evergreen shrubs. There were unexpected little steps, some that led somewhere but the most fun were those that didn’t. Together we vividly imagined a most original and charming house, very modern with different spaces into which we placed imaginary furnishings. A branch that had to be held back in order to pass was a lovely green hanging room divider, a curtain. What seemed almost uncanny to us both was the way we imagined the exact same layout, the purpose of each space, and each time we returned to it, there was the exact same layout, same decorative details, visible to our imaginations only yet I could describe them today as I’m sure Mimi could.
2. No one else witnessed our creation, probably because we held it as sacred space and never invited any of our other friends to join us, possibly because we were sure the magic, all the glamour we envisioned would be lost on them.
3. I believe ever more strongly as the forty years since 1971 have passed that the greatest idea I ever had was to travel across the country, just me and the four kids, ages 13 down to 7. We departed from our house on the Cape, heading toward and eventually reaching California in a new Toyota Crown wagon (think Japanese Volvo).
4. What now seems so great about taking the trip at that particular point in the twentieth century was the phenomenally cheap gas; Holiday Inns where we most often bedded down five to a room were just starting to spread across the land. It was a distinctly low-tech period when small Southern towns were still small Southern towns, when there was but one Disneyland, the one in Anaheim. When people saw our Mass plates and would ask where we lived in Mass we told them Cape Cod. The consistent and excited reaction always was--do you know the Kennedy’s? Sort of, we truthfully replied. We not only excited their interest but unfailingly engendered such kindness, eager help whenever we needed it. My greatest regret is that I don’t think I even kept a diary; if I did it’s long lost now. I may have to do it again, the 2012 version. Wow! What a difference.
5. The dumbest idea I had, prompted by an overzealous attempt at conserving fuel was when I decided to get rid of a Chevy Nova I bought for $200 dollars from an elderly man who was giving up driving. It was a gem of a car but so boring, beige. This was just a year or so after the “fuel embargo of the ‘70’s” which left a permanent impression. About a year after I made this sensible choice a young brother-in-law offered us his ancient decrepit Fiat, about half the size of the Nova. Now that he was graduating from college he could afford a nice new Toyota or Honda.
6. One of my dumber ideas, based on not a whit of research, mileage comparisons, not to mention comparison between the two different auto bodies which was glaring. Perhaps the best example was the fact that you could actually see the pavement beneath you through the holes rusted through the FIAT’s floor while the Nova’s solid floor was even carpeted. I think I saw the FIAT, for some obscure reason, as somehow being sexier than the stodgy, solid Nova which I promptly sold for too low a price. I happened to learn that a neighbor across the street whose yard always had at least three cars other than his own sitting around in various states of repair was a mechanic. What could be more appropriate than to have an Italian-born guy with a heavy Italian accent do the work on the FIAT. I think I assumed that it would be cheaply done, as well. To the best of my recollection I think he charged me $75 dollars to make no noticeable changes or improvements with the end result that less than a month later someone’s foot went right through the floor on the passenger’s side, the strips of rusted metal dragging along the road sending out sparks, the miracle being that they didn’t set the gas tank ablaze. Then I was left carless, $75 the poorer.
7. The obvious dots to be connected in this tale of folly was, first, the horror at skyrocketing gas prices related to the fact that I was always broke. I’m not sure how the aesthetics of a rusted, rotted out old FIAT, a very compact Italian car compared to a solid beige sedan that for all I knew was more fuel efficient than the FIAT. I just made that assumption or left that particular dot disconnected.
8. My creative ambition is to get to write about all the different things I’ve started, then to make use of the copious notes I’ve compiled, a nice word for the bushels of paper and stacks of half-filled notebooks on all these subjects, and then write about them. It took little encouragement, for the first time in my life, to set me on a writing rampage.
9. The only obstacle I see to living up to this ambition, other than not living long enough, is to lose confidence in myself as a writer. I hope and pray this never happens. It took me long enough to gain whatever I have.
10. The vital steps to achieving this ambition is to live an orderly life, rising early to perform the ordinary tasks I set myself, get them out of the way, then blocking off a sufficient chunk of time, say three to five hours, depending on the day of the week. In the afternoon I can do errands or cook, drink tea and read, then usually eat while watching the New Hour. The early evening is the time I have to read. Every so often I don’t write at all but just read books on writing, or poetry that I love and want to emulate, an immersion in other people’s writing that I especially admire.
11. What I’m always striving to do but these days seldom manage is to get up with the alarm at 5:15AM, say my prayers then hurriedly make breakfast, for me and kitty, get dressed and try to leave the house at 6:30 to drive to Gloucester for a meeting. If I’m feeling especially heroic I then take the 20, 25 minute ride to Danvers to go to the gym for just under an hour. My noble aspiration is to do this at least three mornings a week, and a few months back I did it, feeling saintly as I headed home by @ 10:00AM, to then settle down to write till approximately 2:00PM.
12. I’ve just described the habits I’m always striving to perform, wanting so much to do this three days a week for I’ve learned that not only do I need to maintain physical fitness but working out at the gym is essential for me, especially as I age, to maintain my mental fitness. And the third golden aim if I am to be completely balanced is to devote a half hour or so to meditation. If I succeed in pulling this off I end my day around 10:00, 10:30 PM on my knees with a prayer of gratitude that I was able to do all this. It’s an ideal that I achieve only sporadically because I have evolved into an insomniac, falling asleep immediately then after an hour or so, being wide awake for hours, on a bad night, or morning, never really getting back to sleep unless I turn off the alarm and roll over, often then sleeping as late as 9:00AM. And my day is ruined; it goes by in a flash, a flash of frustration that the day ends without my fulfilling my desired goals.
13. After failing math and Latin in my sophomore year of high school, followed by summer school, I transferred, very happily, to a small girls Catholic school, considered by most to be a finishing school but in fact, was a good little school. My mother had died in January of my freshman year and I can now see why I didn’t do very well for the rest of the year and the year following.. So I was happier than I had been for a long time in my junior year at this posh little school, in the midst of some old friends and wonderful new ones. With fewer nuns to teach us lay teachers were hired to teach us. Young, inexperienced, bright, fresh out of college, that year our English class was taught by Mr. Kenney. We pretended to look down on him because, though good looking he was very short. We clustered around him giggling and chattering, showing off that despite our ugly brown uniforms we were special. I was one of the new girls so I guess I set out to make my mark. My first work was a poem:
….and Then Rigormortis Set In
Red
Head Sped, Bled, Dead.
Big hit. I was a star. Later that year in Mr. Kenney’s class I wrote a real classic though I can only remember the title of the poem, sort of a romantic poem titled Melvin the Mellifluous, about a love sick honey bee who performed great and daring acrobatic feats to impress his love. My star rose a bit higher, especially with Mr. Kenney, I hoped. What now strikes me as sad is that I never even considered writing poetry again, except perhaps little love poems in birthday cards to my children and grandchildren, not until I’d been part of the Salem Writers group at the Salem Athenaeum for some months and heard such wonderful poetry from the other members of the group, when I was well into my sixties did I attempt poetry, an epic poem I wrote for my kids, Ode to Bo, I, II, III, IV ostensibly about our Springer spaniel, Mr. Bojangles but really it was about the family as much as the dog.
14. I hadn’t thought of this when I began answering these many questions in the Creative Autobiography but starting pretty young, maybe pre-teens, then from my teen years on for at least 20 years I was, dare I say, a consummate letter writer. I loved to write letters. I loved to write but for many, many years until just about five years ago, I’d say, I really didn’t believe I had the right to aspire to be a writer. To be honest, I never got much encouragement from family, from my husband, and still, don’t get much reaction, such a blankness that in itself is a reaction, not a good one, from my children. Except for my letters. I loved writing letters, especially to people were like minded and of whom I was fond. I’d say my favorite correspondents were my friend Susan, starting when she went away to college in South Hadley, and then when she and another friend actually took the monumental step (probably with some family help) of moving to Manhattan, renting an apartment—I still remember the address, East 78th Street, not far from the Frick Collection, (you can imagine what we made of that grand museum name). I had a cousin quite a bit older than I was and on whom I always had a mild cousinly crush because he was not only handsome but funny. He’d moved to Southern California and he and I exchanged letters for a long time. His were hilarious and I’d read them aloud to my husband and friends. But I was like one of those men in India who have stalls in the bazaar and illiterate people go to them to write important letters. I’d be asked by my mother-in-law to write to her sons when they were in the service; she’d say, send him ‘one of your letters’. One was in a sort of youth detention center (????) and kindly I wrote to him. I had a friend from early childhood, Diana, who died a long time ago in her early 30’s. After she graduated from college she went to live, poor, poor missionary that she was, in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She had joined the Lay Apostolate, a sort of Catholic Peace Corps. I loved writing to her especially in hopes of her answering my letters. But she was too busy having such a blast, so much wild fun such as I never knew went on. A good example: several of her new friends in Jamaica were Chinese. That was when I first heard that Chinese are inveterate gamblers. So one of their favorite sports to bet on was turtle races in which the turtles would have names, be painted sort of in team colors, etc. Very silly, much quaffing of rum drinks. And I’m sure there was more that she never shared with us but she had such a fabulous time, little missionary that she was (not) that she signed up for a second stint. She wasn’t a very consistent correspondent but her letters in her horrible hand writing though few and far between were worth waiting for and, of course, would be read aloud among us over tea. I really don’t remember who else I wrote to but that was me, The Letter Writer. And I can only say, modestly, people loved my letters. No surprise, they tended to be very long.
15. Perhaps the easiest comparison between these relative creative successes is that I enjoyed writing and especially enjoyed how much other people loved getting my letters.
16. Attitude: money: an ideal amount of money, to me, is: enough, with perhaps a bit extra for occasional travel or for special occasions. Power: I don’t seek power over anyone, not children, or (long ex) husband. If I feel wanting in power for myself I just say a prayer. Praise: all my life I’ve gotten little praise, as a child, a wife, and certainly not from siblings. In recent years I have been so pleased and gratified for the praise I’ve gotten from my writers group. That sent me out the door walking on air. Rivals: I’m pretty uncompetitive and I’d say I stand away from any rival. Work: I work pretty hard so if all goes well I feel gratified. I’m willing to work hard in order to produce good results that please me no end. Play: play is good though I can’t say I’ve done much playing except for music, perhaps the greatest joy. In recent years I’ve been more resting and relaxing.
17. Assuming the question is about artists, visual artists, I made a list sure that I’ve left out some that I dearly love, as well. The ones I think of immediately are: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Matisse, Chagall, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Picasso, Juan Miro, John Singer Sargent, Whistler, Prendergast, Winslow Homer
18. This is a hard question to answer because all these artists, as well as the writers I love the most I presume to have been to a certain degree bold and self confident. Although the writer I probably love the most and who I emulate is Elizabeth Taylor. From all I’ve read about her she lived a very ordinary life as a ‘suburban’ wife and mother. She wrote by hand in pencil in a school notebook, often sitting on the floor in front of the fire. For that reason, I suppose, I most particularly love the way she describes the small, daily, commonplace things like the way a baby lying in a carriage when starting to fuss turns his fat little wrists. Or her description of birds in cold, rainy weather the way they disconsolately stab the bare ground with their beaks. Or the midges that form a cloud of perpetual motion on a summer night. Then there’s my beloved V. S. Pritchett who uses such pungent, unexpected, yet perfect words to describe characters like: “an old, handsome, stupid bartender”.
19. What I would like to think I have in common with them is the ability to see and then describe the behavior of ordinary people, either the poignancy of them, their lives, their beauty or courage, or the outrageousness, the truth-stranger-than-fiction behaviors.
20. I’ve gotten to know a woman, the house mother of a homeless woman’s shelter that I volunteer at. A dear friend of mine who passed away and gave of herself greatly to this place, loved it, especially this woman who is largely responsible for starting it quite a few years ago, before the need has grown so great for shelter for homeless women. When the time came that I could offer my services I called to see if she needed volunteers and of course they always do. So I met with her and we spoke fondly of our late friend, who was the inspiration for my going there. This woman, like my friend but not me, so much, is very devout. But it’s her faith that I so admire and try to emulate instead of being fearful or angry as I so often used to be. Sometimes I repeat to myself, remember what Mary always says, “the good Lord will provide” or “Our Blessed Lady will take care of us” which may sound smarmy or trite. But I know she believes it and often will tell with a laugh of contributions people make, just when some need has arisen. She knows, not even believes, that things will work out for the best. And they do seem to. But I would say, the quality I first noticed and that I so admire her for is her reasonableness, not a commonplace quality. The way she treats the women who come to the house (all of whom adore her) but some of whom can be tough customers, is with utter reasonableness. She is always calm and reasonable, perhaps because of her beautiful faith. If one of the guests does something that’s against the rules she’ll simply say, “Well, so-and-so, if you’re going to do that you can’t come back to Sancta Maria House.” That’s all they need and say, “Okay, Sister Mary, (she is not a nun but many think of her as one)”, and that’s the end of it.
21. I don’t seem to have a muse. My favorite muse that I wish was mine is Bernadette Peters, muse to Alice (Mia Farrow) in the Woody Allen movie of that name. I’d like a muse like her that tells it like it is.
22. I’m not sure but I think of a muse as a being who can guide and inspire one, a being who you were certain was absolutely right, whatever she advised you to do. I would love that! What a gift. Sometimes I do pray to the goddesses Lakshmi or Saraswati. My dear friend in question 20 wouldn’t approve, I’m sure. Though I do sometimes pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe, too.
23. I get so excited by superior intelligence, and I might add, I usually am certain that we, the superior one and me, are of the exact same mind. Occasionally I go to the JFK Library to hear different speakers that I admire, (though not since I moved to Beverly, a longer trek than from East Boston). Mostly it’s a journalist or author, people I see on Charlie Rose, who I adore. Up until about a year ago I lived for Friday night, the hour with Bill Moyers and his guests, all the best minds of all persuasions. But as seems to be the trend in these horrid times, Bill Moyers, who I can say I worshipped. He was a truth-teller. Some nights I’d weep at what I would hear about what was going on in the world, in our country and so horrified would I be that I would ask myself why I watched it so faithfully because there were things I heard from him and from his guests that were painful to realize, and I did and do believe what I heard. Now the latest blow is the loss of Frank Rich’s column in the Sunday New York Times. Frank Rich is another teller of the truth, and some of the harshest truths he could write about and make you laugh, no matter how dire, something utterly ridiculous and outrageous. He is a writer I totally emulate. I just found out about this because the Sunday that was his last column my rotten, lousy newspaper delivery service never brought me the Sunday NYTimes because there were two inches of snow on the ground. I’ll get the piece on-line. But I am not being extravagant in saying I am deeply saddened by this loss. He will be writing a column in New York magazine, once a month so I’ll have to look out for that. These are people I need to tell me what I believe is the truth. No doubt Newt Gingrich doesn’t quite see it that way. But there you go, Newt and I never did see eye-to-eye.
24. Well, this is a well-placed question, coming on the heels of mention of Newt. I confess to being intemperate, immoderate, impatient, outraged, often profane when I hear or read views that seem to me stupid, selfish, callous, hostile, bigoted, uncaring. Laziness, that doesn’t bother me so much, seems mild in comparison to these more outrageous qualities. Oh, I forgot greedy. Greed is the disease of the 21st century. And what’s most galling is that the greediest seem to be hugely successful in satisfying their greed to the peril of the rest of us in the bottom 80 percent of the population.
25. That’s hard to answer for if failure seems impending I think I’d really try hard to avert it. If success is looming, I guess it depends on what kind of success. I sure would love to have the success of having a book or two or three published. We shall have to see. I would grin and preen and strut and keep saying prayers of thanks over and over.
26. These days what I guess I consider ‘work’ is doing things I have to, should do and yet most of the things I should do, I enjoy doing, even things that I sort of accept I don’t want to do, once I get doing it, I find it satisfying, especially when it’s done. That would be things like vacuuming and washing the floor, etc. Or ironing, things that once I’m into it, I get satisfaction from. A lot of what I do that would be considered work is sewing and I get great satisfaction from that, especially if I’m working with fabric that I love. Now what should become my major order of Work is writing. I confess that some tasks, and writing is sometimes a task, I have a bad habit of DT’s, delay tactics where I circle around doing other things, even cleaning an over, just to put off zeroing in on what it is I have to write. But that’s fear. And once I hold my nose and plunge in, I am immersed and I love it. Typing the answers to all these questions is long overdue, largely due to a case of the DT’s. And I’ve been out of sorts, last week. But now that I’m doing it (I wrote out the answers by hand weeks ago but in typing them, I’ve rewritten a great deal which is a good thing) I can’t stop and it’s gotten very late and I should not stay up so late because then I tend to be awake all night until just an hour before the alarm goes off, unless I switch it off and roll over.
27. I’m not sure if this answer is appropriate to the question but if reach exceeding grasp means having big ideas, dreams, ambitions, yes, I’ve experienced that. I’ve had that in the past, and lately it’s been aroused: my first full-time job was as a cash manager for an institutional investment firm. I held that job for eight years and I loved it, the job itself. It was a brand new world for me, involving managing cash for various institutional accounts of all kinds. It involved a great deal of contact, mostly by phone with brokers and dealers and banks all over the country. It demanded accuracy and good judgment. I loved it and I dove right into that world of money and investing and banking. But what I loved and took pride in was that it required what is now referred to as “people skills”. Most of the time this was easy and pleasant for me, but there were times when it wasn’t easy. The gift was in knowing how best to deal with certain people, to be cooperative and to conform to their wishes and standards. If there wasn’t clear understanding and cooperation it could mean a loss of money, usually a lot of money. And I was good at that. I learned how to deal with people who could be difficult, to understand what they required. I left that job mostly because I felt undervalued by my bosses, even though I had a lot of respect and cooperation from brokers and dealers of investment vehicles. And the job changed at that time because the whole investment field changed, first because of wild inflation, then when the hero, Paul Volcker fixed that it went in a different, kind of boring direction. But I’ve retained a lot that I learned then but then, a lot of the changes that took place are the very things that have landed not just our country but the world in the horrific mess that we’re in now. Anyway, when I was working to get a Masters degree in management I chose as a subject for my thesis to write a business plan for publishing a financial newsletter dedicated to what, in the early ‘90’s was a big deal, Emerging Markets. But I couldn’t just let it go as a business plan; I had to write, design, set up such a newsletter myself. I loved, still love what I did. I published two of them only. My tragic flaw or inadequacy was, and this is true of other things I’ve created and failed at, marketing. I’m no good at it. At my own expense, not to mention hours and hours, days, weeks, months dedicated to this creation of mine. I gave it to some people to read and got some good feedback. But I couldn’t get anybody to subscribe to it. I have in my closet some cartons with many copies of these two issues of NeWorlds, what at the time I felt was a really catchy, edgy title for a newsletter about emerging economies. So I lug these cartons along, once in a while lovingly take a copy out to admire. Well, guess what? I’m thinking about it again, want to see if I can find, not in this country but somewhere in the new worlds that are emerging around the Indian Ocean, some financial or economic journalist who would be interested in such an idea. Crazy but there it is. The dream just won’t die.
28. Well, the answer to 27 is part of my ideal. But of course, my most ideal creative activity is writing the books I want to write, finishing the couple I’ve started and then writing the others that I’ve kept notes on. I hope I can do all of it. We’ll see.
29. I don’t really have any great fear. If I have a fear, and it would be about the well-being of myself or ones I love, I pray. That’s about the only control I feel I have, is my good relations with my Higher Power, my favorite saints and spirits. And just living a day at a time, doing the best I can, and always striving to get better and better which is why I enrolled in this wonderful Creative Writing course.
30. Oh, shucks, I don’t know. I’ll just soldier on, happy to do so.
31. I did change some of my early answers. But now I want to finish so I’ll leave what I’ve written be.
32. My idea of mastery is learning from the writers I love. I read them over and over and over, trying to imprint their beautiful style on my brain. Twyla recommends that and other writers I respect and admire have as well. And I do believe and strive to do it sufficiently and that is to revise and revise and revise. My tragic flaw is talking/writing too much, too voluminously. I’m trying harder now to whittle down. It can be done. I must be done, certainly by me.
33. My greatest dream, other than that all the people I love are okay, is to keep on writing the stories I want to write and to someday have someone appreciate them enough to publish them. I have one silly little adjunct dream of when/if I get published, I want to go the Edinburg Book Fair.
Your Creative Autobiography
Twyla Tharp your creative DNA
1. What is the first creative moment you remember?
The first creative moment I remember having was playing with my friend, Mimi, whose small yard was boxed in by various evergreen shrubs. There were unexpected little steps, some that led somewhere but the most fun were those that didn’t. Together we vividly imagined a most original and charming house, very modern with different spaces into which we placed imaginary furnishings. A branch that had to be held back in order to pass was a lovely green hanging room divider, a curtain. What seemed almost uncanny to us both was the way we imagined the exact same layout, the purpose of each space, and each time we returned to it, there was the exact same layout, same decorative details, visible to our imaginations only yet I could describe them today as I’m sure Mimi could.
2. No one else witnessed our creation, probably because we held it as sacred space and never invited any of our other friends to join us, possibly because we were sure the magic, all the glamour we envisioned would be lost on them.
3. I believe ever more strongly as the forty years since 1971 have passed that the greatest idea I ever had was to travel across the country, just me and the four kids, ages 13 down to 7. We departed from our house on the Cape, heading toward and eventually reaching California in a new Toyota Crown wagon (think Japanese Volvo).
4. What now seems so great about taking the trip at that particular point in the twentieth century was the phenomenally cheap gas; Holiday Inns where we most often bedded down five to a room were just starting to spread across the land. It was a distinctly low-tech period when small Southern towns were still small Southern towns, when there was but one Disneyland, the one in Anaheim. When people saw our Mass plates and would ask where we lived in Mass we told them Cape Cod. The consistent and excited reaction always was--do you know the Kennedy’s? Sort of, we truthfully replied. We not only excited their interest but unfailingly engendered such kindness, eager help whenever we needed it. My greatest regret is that I don’t think I even kept a diary; if I did it’s long lost now. I may have to do it again, the 2012 version. Wow! What a difference.
5. The dumbest idea I had, prompted by an overzealous attempt at conserving fuel was when I decided to get rid of a Chevy Nova I bought for $200 dollars from an elderly man who was giving up driving. It was a gem of a car but so boring, beige. This was just a year or so after the “fuel embargo of the ‘70’s” which left a permanent impression. About a year after I made this sensible choice a young brother-in-law offered us his ancient decrepit Fiat, about half the size of the Nova. Now that he was graduating from college he could afford a nice new Toyota or Honda.
6. One of my dumber ideas, based on not a whit of research, mileage comparisons, not to mention comparison between the two different auto bodies which was glaring. Perhaps the best example was the fact that you could actually see the pavement beneath you through the holes rusted through the FIAT’s floor while the Nova’s solid floor was even carpeted. I think I saw the FIAT, for some obscure reason, as somehow being sexier than the stodgy, solid Nova which I promptly sold for too low a price. I happened to learn that a neighbor across the street whose yard always had at least three cars other than his own sitting around in various states of repair was a mechanic. What could be more appropriate than to have an Italian-born guy with a heavy Italian accent do the work on the FIAT. I think I assumed that it would be cheaply done, as well. To the best of my recollection I think he charged me $75 dollars to make no noticeable changes or improvements with the end result that less than a month later someone’s foot went right through the floor on the passenger’s side, the strips of rusted metal dragging along the road sending out sparks, the miracle being that they didn’t set the gas tank ablaze. Then I was left carless, $75 the poorer.
7. The obvious dots to be connected in this tale of folly was, first, the horror at skyrocketing gas prices related to the fact that I was always broke. I’m not sure how the aesthetics of a rusted, rotted out old FIAT, a very compact Italian car compared to a solid beige sedan that for all I knew was more fuel efficient than the FIAT. I just made that assumption or left that particular dot disconnected.
8. My creative ambition is to get to write about all the different things I’ve started, then to make use of the copious notes I’ve compiled, a nice word for the bushels of paper and stacks of half-filled notebooks on all these subjects, and then write about them. It took little encouragement, for the first time in my life, to set me on a writing rampage.
9. The only obstacle I see to living up to this ambition, other than not living long enough, is to lose confidence in myself as a writer. I hope and pray this never happens. It took me long enough to gain whatever I have.
10. The vital steps to achieving this ambition is to live an orderly life, rising early to perform the ordinary tasks I set myself, get them out of the way, then blocking off a sufficient chunk of time, say three to five hours, depending on the day of the week. In the afternoon I can do errands or cook, drink tea and read, then usually eat while watching the New Hour. The early evening is the time I have to read. Every so often I don’t write at all but just read books on writing, or poetry that I love and want to emulate, an immersion in other people’s writing that I especially admire.
11. What I’m always striving to do but these days seldom manage is to get up with the alarm at 5:15AM, say my prayers then hurriedly make breakfast, for me and kitty, get dressed and try to leave the house at 6:30 to drive to Gloucester for a meeting. If I’m feeling especially heroic I then take the 20, 25 minute ride to Danvers to go to the gym for just under an hour. My noble aspiration is to do this at least three mornings a week, and a few months back I did it, feeling saintly as I headed home by @ 10:00AM, to then settle down to write till approximately 2:00PM.
12. I’ve just described the habits I’m always striving to perform, wanting so much to do this three days a week for I’ve learned that not only do I need to maintain physical fitness but working out at the gym is essential for me, especially as I age, to maintain my mental fitness. And the third golden aim if I am to be completely balanced is to devote a half hour or so to meditation. If I succeed in pulling this off I end my day around 10:00, 10:30 PM on my knees with a prayer of gratitude that I was able to do all this. It’s an ideal that I achieve only sporadically because I have evolved into an insomniac, falling asleep immediately then after an hour or so, being wide awake for hours, on a bad night, or morning, never really getting back to sleep unless I turn off the alarm and roll over, often then sleeping as late as 9:00AM. And my day is ruined; it goes by in a flash, a flash of frustration that the day ends without my fulfilling my desired goals.
13. After failing math and Latin in my sophomore year of high school, followed by summer school, I transferred, very happily, to a small girls Catholic school, considered by most to be a finishing school but in fact, was a good little school. My mother had died in January of my freshman year and I can now see why I didn’t do very well for the rest of the year and the year following.. So I was happier than I had been for a long time in my junior year at this posh little school, in the midst of some old friends and wonderful new ones. With fewer nuns to teach us lay teachers were hired to teach us. Young, inexperienced, bright, fresh out of college, that year our English class was taught by Mr. Kenney. We pretended to look down on him because, though good looking he was very short. We clustered around him giggling and chattering, showing off that despite our ugly brown uniforms we were special. I was one of the new girls so I guess I set out to make my mark. My first work was a poem:
….and Then Rigormortis Set In
Red
Head Sped, Bled, Dead.
Big hit. I was a star. Later that year in Mr. Kenney’s class I wrote a real classic though I can only remember the title of the poem, sort of a romantic poem titled Melvin the Mellifluous, about a love sick honey bee who performed great and daring acrobatic feats to impress his love. My star rose a bit higher, especially with Mr. Kenney, I hoped. What now strikes me as sad is that I never even considered writing poetry again, except perhaps little love poems in birthday cards to my children and grandchildren, not until I’d been part of the Salem Writers group at the Salem Athenaeum for some months and heard such wonderful poetry from the other members of the group, when I was well into my sixties did I attempt poetry, an epic poem I wrote for my kids, Ode to Bo, I, II, III, IV ostensibly about our Springer spaniel, Mr. Bojangles but really it was about the family as much as the dog.
14. I hadn’t thought of this when I began answering these many questions in the Creative Autobiography but starting pretty young, maybe pre-teens, then from my teen years on for at least 20 years I was, dare I say, a consummate letter writer. I loved to write letters. I loved to write but for many, many years until just about five years ago, I’d say, I really didn’t believe I had the right to aspire to be a writer. To be honest, I never got much encouragement from family, from my husband, and still, don’t get much reaction, such a blankness that in itself is a reaction, not a good one, from my children. Except for my letters. I loved writing letters, especially to people were like minded and of whom I was fond. I’d say my favorite correspondents were my friend Susan, starting when she went away to college in South Hadley, and then when she and another friend actually took the monumental step (probably with some family help) of moving to Manhattan, renting an apartment—I still remember the address, East 78th Street, not far from the Frick Collection, (you can imagine what we made of that grand museum name). I had a cousin quite a bit older than I was and on whom I always had a mild cousinly crush because he was not only handsome but funny. He’d moved to Southern California and he and I exchanged letters for a long time. His were hilarious and I’d read them aloud to my husband and friends. But I was like one of those men in India who have stalls in the bazaar and illiterate people go to them to write important letters. I’d be asked by my mother-in-law to write to her sons when they were in the service; she’d say, send him ‘one of your letters’. One was in a sort of youth detention center (????) and kindly I wrote to him. I had a friend from early childhood, Diana, who died a long time ago in her early 30’s. After she graduated from college she went to live, poor, poor missionary that she was, in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She had joined the Lay Apostolate, a sort of Catholic Peace Corps. I loved writing to her especially in hopes of her answering my letters. But she was too busy having such a blast, so much wild fun such as I never knew went on. A good example: several of her new friends in Jamaica were Chinese. That was when I first heard that Chinese are inveterate gamblers. So one of their favorite sports to bet on was turtle races in which the turtles would have names, be painted sort of in team colors, etc. Very silly, much quaffing of rum drinks. And I’m sure there was more that she never shared with us but she had such a fabulous time, little missionary that she was (not) that she signed up for a second stint. She wasn’t a very consistent correspondent but her letters in her horrible hand writing though few and far between were worth waiting for and, of course, would be read aloud among us over tea. I really don’t remember who else I wrote to but that was me, The Letter Writer. And I can only say, modestly, people loved my letters. No surprise, they tended to be very long.
15. Perhaps the easiest comparison between these relative creative successes is that I enjoyed writing and especially enjoyed how much other people loved getting my letters.
16. Attitude: money: an ideal amount of money, to me, is: enough, with perhaps a bit extra for occasional travel or for special occasions. Power: I don’t seek power over anyone, not children, or (long ex) husband. If I feel wanting in power for myself I just say a prayer. Praise: all my life I’ve gotten little praise, as a child, a wife, and certainly not from siblings. In recent years I have been so pleased and gratified for the praise I’ve gotten from my writers group. That sent me out the door walking on air. Rivals: I’m pretty uncompetitive and I’d say I stand away from any rival. Work: I work pretty hard so if all goes well I feel gratified. I’m willing to work hard in order to produce good results that please me no end. Play: play is good though I can’t say I’ve done much playing except for music, perhaps the greatest joy. In recent years I’ve been more resting and relaxing.
17. Assuming the question is about artists, visual artists, I made a list sure that I’ve left out some that I dearly love, as well. The ones I think of immediately are: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Matisse, Chagall, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Picasso, Juan Miro, John Singer Sargent, Whistler, Prendergast, Winslow Homer
18. This is a hard question to answer because all these artists, as well as the writers I love the most I presume to have been to a certain degree bold and self confident. Although the writer I probably love the most and who I emulate is Elizabeth Taylor. From all I’ve read about her she lived a very ordinary life as a ‘suburban’ wife and mother. She wrote by hand in pencil in a school notebook, often sitting on the floor in front of the fire. For that reason, I suppose, I most particularly love the way she describes the small, daily, commonplace things like the way a baby lying in a carriage when starting to fuss turns his fat little wrists. Or her description of birds in cold, rainy weather the way they disconsolately stab the bare ground with their beaks. Or the midges that form a cloud of perpetual motion on a summer night. Then there’s my beloved V. S. Pritchett who uses such pungent, unexpected, yet perfect words to describe characters like: “an old, handsome, stupid bartender”.
19. What I would like to think I have in common with them is the ability to see and then describe the behavior of ordinary people, either the poignancy of them, their lives, their beauty or courage, or the outrageousness, the truth-stranger-than-fiction behaviors.
20. I’ve gotten to know a woman, the house mother of a homeless woman’s shelter that I volunteer at. A dear friend of mine who passed away and gave of herself greatly to this place, loved it, especially this woman who is largely responsible for starting it quite a few years ago, before the need has grown so great for shelter for homeless women. When the time came that I could offer my services I called to see if she needed volunteers and of course they always do. So I met with her and we spoke fondly of our late friend, who was the inspiration for my going there. This woman, like my friend but not me, so much, is very devout. But it’s her faith that I so admire and try to emulate instead of being fearful or angry as I so often used to be. Sometimes I repeat to myself, remember what Mary always says, “the good Lord will provide” or “Our Blessed Lady will take care of us” which may sound smarmy or trite. But I know she believes it and often will tell with a laugh of contributions people make, just when some need has arisen. She knows, not even believes, that things will work out for the best. And they do seem to. But I would say, the quality I first noticed and that I so admire her for is her reasonableness, not a commonplace quality. The way she treats the women who come to the house (all of whom adore her) but some of whom can be tough customers, is with utter reasonableness. She is always calm and reasonable, perhaps because of her beautiful faith. If one of the guests does something that’s against the rules she’ll simply say, “Well, so-and-so, if you’re going to do that you can’t come back to Sancta Maria House.” That’s all they need and say, “Okay, Sister Mary, (she is not a nun but many think of her as one)”, and that’s the end of it.
21. I don’t seem to have a muse. My favorite muse that I wish was mine is Bernadette Peters, muse to Alice (Mia Farrow) in the Woody Allen movie of that name. I’d like a muse like her that tells it like it is.
22. I’m not sure but I think of a muse as a being who can guide and inspire one, a being who you were certain was absolutely right, whatever she advised you to do. I would love that! What a gift. Sometimes I do pray to the goddesses Lakshmi or Saraswati. My dear friend in question 20 wouldn’t approve, I’m sure. Though I do sometimes pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe, too.
23. I get so excited by superior intelligence, and I might add, I usually am certain that we, the superior one and me, are of the exact same mind. Occasionally I go to the JFK Library to hear different speakers that I admire, (though not since I moved to Beverly, a longer trek than from East Boston). Mostly it’s a journalist or author, people I see on Charlie Rose, who I adore. Up until about a year ago I lived for Friday night, the hour with Bill Moyers and his guests, all the best minds of all persuasions. But as seems to be the trend in these horrid times, Bill Moyers, who I can say I worshipped. He was a truth-teller. Some nights I’d weep at what I would hear about what was going on in the world, in our country and so horrified would I be that I would ask myself why I watched it so faithfully because there were things I heard from him and from his guests that were painful to realize, and I did and do believe what I heard. Now the latest blow is the loss of Frank Rich’s column in the Sunday New York Times. Frank Rich is another teller of the truth, and some of the harshest truths he could write about and make you laugh, no matter how dire, something utterly ridiculous and outrageous. He is a writer I totally emulate. I just found out about this because the Sunday that was his last column my rotten, lousy newspaper delivery service never brought me the Sunday NYTimes because there were two inches of snow on the ground. I’ll get the piece on-line. But I am not being extravagant in saying I am deeply saddened by this loss. He will be writing a column in New York magazine, once a month so I’ll have to look out for that. These are people I need to tell me what I believe is the truth. No doubt Newt Gingrich doesn’t quite see it that way. But there you go, Newt and I never did see eye-to-eye.
24. Well, this is a well-placed question, coming on the heels of mention of Newt. I confess to being intemperate, immoderate, impatient, outraged, often profane when I hear or read views that seem to me stupid, selfish, callous, hostile, bigoted, uncaring. Laziness, that doesn’t bother me so much, seems mild in comparison to these more outrageous qualities. Oh, I forgot greedy. Greed is the disease of the 21st century. And what’s most galling is that the greediest seem to be hugely successful in satisfying their greed to the peril of the rest of us in the bottom 80 percent of the population.
25. That’s hard to answer for if failure seems impending I think I’d really try hard to avert it. If success is looming, I guess it depends on what kind of success. I sure would love to have the success of having a book or two or three published. We shall have to see. I would grin and preen and strut and keep saying prayers of thanks over and over.
26. These days what I guess I consider ‘work’ is doing things I have to, should do and yet most of the things I should do, I enjoy doing, even things that I sort of accept I don’t want to do, once I get doing it, I find it satisfying, especially when it’s done. That would be things like vacuuming and washing the floor, etc. Or ironing, things that once I’m into it, I get satisfaction from. A lot of what I do that would be considered work is sewing and I get great satisfaction from that, especially if I’m working with fabric that I love. Now what should become my major order of Work is writing. I confess that some tasks, and writing is sometimes a task, I have a bad habit of DT’s, delay tactics where I circle around doing other things, even cleaning an over, just to put off zeroing in on what it is I have to write. But that’s fear. And once I hold my nose and plunge in, I am immersed and I love it. Typing the answers to all these questions is long overdue, largely due to a case of the DT’s. And I’ve been out of sorts, last week. But now that I’m doing it (I wrote out the answers by hand weeks ago but in typing them, I’ve rewritten a great deal which is a good thing) I can’t stop and it’s gotten very late and I should not stay up so late because then I tend to be awake all night until just an hour before the alarm goes off, unless I switch it off and roll over.
27. I’m not sure if this answer is appropriate to the question but if reach exceeding grasp means having big ideas, dreams, ambitions, yes, I’ve experienced that. I’ve had that in the past, and lately it’s been aroused: my first full-time job was as a cash manager for an institutional investment firm. I held that job for eight years and I loved it, the job itself. It was a brand new world for me, involving managing cash for various institutional accounts of all kinds. It involved a great deal of contact, mostly by phone with brokers and dealers and banks all over the country. It demanded accuracy and good judgment. I loved it and I dove right into that world of money and investing and banking. But what I loved and took pride in was that it required what is now referred to as “people skills”. Most of the time this was easy and pleasant for me, but there were times when it wasn’t easy. The gift was in knowing how best to deal with certain people, to be cooperative and to conform to their wishes and standards. If there wasn’t clear understanding and cooperation it could mean a loss of money, usually a lot of money. And I was good at that. I learned how to deal with people who could be difficult, to understand what they required. I left that job mostly because I felt undervalued by my bosses, even though I had a lot of respect and cooperation from brokers and dealers of investment vehicles. And the job changed at that time because the whole investment field changed, first because of wild inflation, then when the hero, Paul Volcker fixed that it went in a different, kind of boring direction. But I’ve retained a lot that I learned then but then, a lot of the changes that took place are the very things that have landed not just our country but the world in the horrific mess that we’re in now. Anyway, when I was working to get a Masters degree in management I chose as a subject for my thesis to write a business plan for publishing a financial newsletter dedicated to what, in the early ‘90’s was a big deal, Emerging Markets. But I couldn’t just let it go as a business plan; I had to write, design, set up such a newsletter myself. I loved, still love what I did. I published two of them only. My tragic flaw or inadequacy was, and this is true of other things I’ve created and failed at, marketing. I’m no good at it. At my own expense, not to mention hours and hours, days, weeks, months dedicated to this creation of mine. I gave it to some people to read and got some good feedback. But I couldn’t get anybody to subscribe to it. I have in my closet some cartons with many copies of these two issues of NeWorlds, what at the time I felt was a really catchy, edgy title for a newsletter about emerging economies. So I lug these cartons along, once in a while lovingly take a copy out to admire. Well, guess what? I’m thinking about it again, want to see if I can find, not in this country but somewhere in the new worlds that are emerging around the Indian Ocean, some financial or economic journalist who would be interested in such an idea. Crazy but there it is. The dream just won’t die.
28. Well, the answer to 27 is part of my ideal. But of course, my most ideal creative activity is writing the books I want to write, finishing the couple I’ve started and then writing the others that I’ve kept notes on. I hope I can do all of it. We’ll see.
29. I don’t really have any great fear. If I have a fear, and it would be about the well-being of myself or ones I love, I pray. That’s about the only control I feel I have, is my good relations with my Higher Power, my favorite saints and spirits. And just living a day at a time, doing the best I can, and always striving to get better and better which is why I enrolled in this wonderful Creative Writing course.
30. Oh, shucks, I don’t know. I’ll just soldier on, happy to do so.
31. I did change some of my early answers. But now I want to finish so I’ll leave what I’ve written be.
32. My idea of mastery is learning from the writers I love. I read them over and over and over, trying to imprint their beautiful style on my brain. Twyla recommends that and other writers I respect and admire have as well. And I do believe and strive to do it sufficiently and that is to revise and revise and revise. My tragic flaw is talking/writing too much, too voluminously. I’m trying harder now to whittle down. It can be done. I must be done, certainly by me.
33. My greatest dream, other than that all the people I love are okay, is to keep on writing the stories I want to write and to someday have someone appreciate them enough to publish them. I have one silly little adjunct dream of when/if I get published, I want to go the Edinburg Book Fair.
Your Creative Autobiography
Twyla Tharp your creative DNA
1. What is the first creative moment you remember?
The first creative moment I remember having was playing with my friend, Mimi, whose small yard was boxed in by various evergreen shrubs. There were unexpected little steps, some that led somewhere but the most fun were those that didn’t. Together we vividly imagined a most original and charming house, very modern with different spaces into which we placed imaginary furnishings. A branch that had to be held back in order to pass was a lovely green hanging room divider, a curtain. What seemed almost uncanny to us both was the way we imagined the exact same layout, the purpose of each space, and each time we returned to it, there was the exact same layout, same decorative details, visible to our imaginations only yet I could describe them today as I’m sure Mimi could.
2. No one else witnessed our creation, probably because we held it as sacred space and never invited any of our other friends to join us, possibly because we were sure the magic, all the glamour we envisioned would be lost on them.
3. I believe ever more strongly as the forty years since 1971 have passed that the greatest idea I ever had was to travel across the country, just me and the four kids, ages 13 down to 7. We departed from our house on the Cape, heading toward and eventually reaching California in a new Toyota Crown wagon (think Japanese Volvo).
4. What now seems so great about taking the trip at that particular point in the twentieth century was the phenomenally cheap gas; Holiday Inns where we most often bedded down five to a room were just starting to spread across the land. It was a distinctly low-tech period when small Southern towns were still small Southern towns, when there was but one Disneyland, the one in Anaheim. When people saw our Mass plates and would ask where we lived in Mass we told them Cape Cod. The consistent and excited reaction always was--do you know the Kennedy’s? Sort of, we truthfully replied. We not only excited their interest but unfailingly engendered such kindness, eager help whenever we needed it. My greatest regret is that I don’t think I even kept a diary; if I did it’s long lost now. I may have to do it again, the 2012 version. Wow! What a difference.
5. The dumbest idea I had, prompted by an overzealous attempt at conserving fuel was when I decided to get rid of a Chevy Nova I bought for $200 dollars from an elderly man who was giving up driving. It was a gem of a car but so boring, beige. This was just a year or so after the “fuel embargo of the ‘70’s” which left a permanent impression. About a year after I made this sensible choice a young brother-in-law offered us his ancient decrepit Fiat, about half the size of the Nova. Now that he was graduating from college he could afford a nice new Toyota or Honda.
6. One of my dumber ideas, based on not a whit of research, mileage comparisons, not to mention comparison between the two different auto bodies which was glaring. Perhaps the best example was the fact that you could actually see the pavement beneath you through the holes rusted through the FIAT’s floor while the Nova’s solid floor was even carpeted. I think I saw the FIAT, for some obscure reason, as somehow being sexier than the stodgy, solid Nova which I promptly sold for too low a price. I happened to learn that a neighbor across the street whose yard always had at least three cars other than his own sitting around in various states of repair was a mechanic. What could be more appropriate than to have an Italian-born guy with a heavy Italian accent do the work on the FIAT. I think I assumed that it would be cheaply done, as well. To the best of my recollection I think he charged me $75 dollars to make no noticeable changes or improvements with the end result that less than a month later someone’s foot went right through the floor on the passenger’s side, the strips of rusted metal dragging along the road sending out sparks, the miracle being that they didn’t set the gas tank ablaze. Then I was left carless, $75 the poorer.
7. The obvious dots to be connected in this tale of folly was, first, the horror at skyrocketing gas prices related to the fact that I was always broke. I’m not sure how the aesthetics of a rusted, rotted out old FIAT, a very compact Italian car compared to a solid beige sedan that for all I knew was more fuel efficient than the FIAT. I just made that assumption or left that particular dot disconnected.
8. My creative ambition is to get to write about all the different things I’ve started, then to make use of the copious notes I’ve compiled, a nice word for the bushels of paper and stacks of half-filled notebooks on all these subjects, and then write about them. It took little encouragement, for the first time in my life, to set me on a writing rampage.
9. The only obstacle I see to living up to this ambition, other than not living long enough, is to lose confidence in myself as a writer. I hope and pray this never happens. It took me long enough to gain whatever I have.
10. The vital steps to achieving this ambition is to live an orderly life, rising early to perform the ordinary tasks I set myself, get them out of the way, then blocking off a sufficient chunk of time, say three to five hours, depending on the day of the week. In the afternoon I can do errands or cook, drink tea and read, then usually eat while watching the New Hour. The early evening is the time I have to read. Every so often I don’t write at all but just read books on writing, or poetry that I love and want to emulate, an immersion in other people’s writing that I especially admire.
11. What I’m always striving to do but these days seldom manage is to get up with the alarm at 5:15AM, say my prayers then hurriedly make breakfast, for me and kitty, get dressed and try to leave the house at 6:30 to drive to Gloucester for a meeting. If I’m feeling especially heroic I then take the 20, 25 minute ride to Danvers to go to the gym for just under an hour. My noble aspiration is to do this at least three mornings a week, and a few months back I did it, feeling saintly as I headed home by @ 10:00AM, to then settle down to write till approximately 2:00PM.
12. I’ve just described the habits I’m always striving to perform, wanting so much to do this three days a week for I’ve learned that not only do I need to maintain physical fitness but working out at the gym is essential for me, especially as I age, to maintain my mental fitness. And the third golden aim if I am to be completely balanced is to devote a half hour or so to meditation. If I succeed in pulling this off I end my day around 10:00, 10:30 PM on my knees with a prayer of gratitude that I was able to do all this. It’s an ideal that I achieve only sporadically because I have evolved into an insomniac, falling asleep immediately then after an hour or so, being wide awake for hours, on a bad night, or morning, never really getting back to sleep unless I turn off the alarm and roll over, often then sleeping as late as 9:00AM. And my day is ruined; it goes by in a flash, a flash of frustration that the day ends without my fulfilling my desired goals.
13. After failing math and Latin in my sophomore year of high school, followed by summer school, I transferred, very happily, to a small girls Catholic school, considered by most to be a finishing school but in fact, was a good little school. My mother had died in January of my freshman year and I can now see why I didn’t do very well for the rest of the year and the year following.. So I was happier than I had been for a long time in my junior year at this posh little school, in the midst of some old friends and wonderful new ones. With fewer nuns to teach us lay teachers were hired to teach us. Young, inexperienced, bright, fresh out of college, that year our English class was taught by Mr. Kenney. We pretended to look down on him because, though good looking he was very short. We clustered around him giggling and chattering, showing off that despite our ugly brown uniforms we were special. I was one of the new girls so I guess I set out to make my mark. My first work was a poem:
….and Then Rigormortis Set In
Red
Head Sped, Bled, Dead.
Big hit. I was a star. Later that year in Mr. Kenney’s class I wrote a real classic though I can only remember the title of the poem, sort of a romantic poem titled Melvin the Mellifluous, about a love sick honey bee who performed great and daring acrobatic feats to impress his love. My star rose a bit higher, especially with Mr. Kenney, I hoped. What now strikes me as sad is that I never even considered writing poetry again, except perhaps little love poems in birthday cards to my children and grandchildren, not until I’d been part of the Salem Writers group at the Salem Athenaeum for some months and heard such wonderful poetry from the other members of the group, when I was well into my sixties did I attempt poetry, an epic poem I wrote for my kids, Ode to Bo, I, II, III, IV ostensibly about our Springer spaniel, Mr. Bojangles but really it was about the family as much as the dog.
14. I hadn’t thought of this when I began answering these many questions in the Creative Autobiography but starting pretty young, maybe pre-teens, then from my teen years on for at least 20 years I was, dare I say, a consummate letter writer. I loved to write letters. I loved to write but for many, many years until just about five years ago, I’d say, I really didn’t believe I had the right to aspire to be a writer. To be honest, I never got much encouragement from family, from my husband, and still, don’t get much reaction, such a blankness that in itself is a reaction, not a good one, from my children. Except for my letters. I loved writing letters, especially to people were like minded and of whom I was fond. I’d say my favorite correspondents were my friend Susan, starting when she went away to college in South Hadley, and then when she and another friend actually took the monumental step (probably with some family help) of moving to Manhattan, renting an apartment—I still remember the address, East 78th Street, not far from the Frick Collection, (you can imagine what we made of that grand museum name). I had a cousin quite a bit older than I was and on whom I always had a mild cousinly crush because he was not only handsome but funny. He’d moved to Southern California and he and I exchanged letters for a long time. His were hilarious and I’d read them aloud to my husband and friends. But I was like one of those men in India who have stalls in the bazaar and illiterate people go to them to write important letters. I’d be asked by my mother-in-law to write to her sons when they were in the service; she’d say, send him ‘one of your letters’. One was in a sort of youth detention center (????) and kindly I wrote to him. I had a friend from early childhood, Diana, who died a long time ago in her early 30’s. After she graduated from college she went to live, poor, poor missionary that she was, in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She had joined the Lay Apostolate, a sort of Catholic Peace Corps. I loved writing to her especially in hopes of her answering my letters. But she was too busy having such a blast, so much wild fun such as I never knew went on. A good example: several of her new friends in Jamaica were Chinese. That was when I first heard that Chinese are inveterate gamblers. So one of their favorite sports to bet on was turtle races in which the turtles would have names, be painted sort of in team colors, etc. Very silly, much quaffing of rum drinks. And I’m sure there was more that she never shared with us but she had such a fabulous time, little missionary that she was (not) that she signed up for a second stint. She wasn’t a very consistent correspondent but her letters in her horrible hand writing though few and far between were worth waiting for and, of course, would be read aloud among us over tea. I really don’t remember who else I wrote to but that was me, The Letter Writer. And I can only say, modestly, people loved my letters. No surprise, they tended to be very long.
15. Perhaps the easiest comparison between these relative creative successes is that I enjoyed writing and especially enjoyed how much other people loved getting my letters.
16. Attitude: money: an ideal amount of money, to me, is: enough, with perhaps a bit extra for occasional travel or for special occasions. Power: I don’t seek power over anyone, not children, or (long ex) husband. If I feel wanting in power for myself I just say a prayer. Praise: all my life I’ve gotten little praise, as a child, a wife, and certainly not from siblings. In recent years I have been so pleased and gratified for the praise I’ve gotten from my writers group. That sent me out the door walking on air. Rivals: I’m pretty uncompetitive and I’d say I stand away from any rival. Work: I work pretty hard so if all goes well I feel gratified. I’m willing to work hard in order to produce good results that please me no end. Play: play is good though I can’t say I’ve done much playing except for music, perhaps the greatest joy. In recent years I’ve been more resting and relaxing.
17. Assuming the question is about artists, visual artists, I made a list sure that I’ve left out some that I dearly love, as well. The ones I think of immediately are: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Matisse, Chagall, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Picasso, Juan Miro, John Singer Sargent, Whistler, Prendergast, Winslow Homer
18. This is a hard question to answer because all these artists, as well as the writers I love the most I presume to have been to a certain degree bold and self confident. Although the writer I probably love the most and who I emulate is Elizabeth Taylor. From all I’ve read about her she lived a very ordinary life as a ‘suburban’ wife and mother. She wrote by hand in pencil in a school notebook, often sitting on the floor in front of the fire. For that reason, I suppose, I most particularly love the way she describes the small, daily, commonplace things like the way a baby lying in a carriage when starting to fuss turns his fat little wrists. Or her description of birds in cold, rainy weather the way they disconsolately stab the bare ground with their beaks. Or the midges that form a cloud of perpetual motion on a summer night. Then there’s my beloved V. S. Pritchett who uses such pungent, unexpected, yet perfect words to describe characters like: “an old, handsome, stupid bartender”.
19. What I would like to think I have in common with them is the ability to see and then describe the behavior of ordinary people, either the poignancy of them, their lives, their beauty or courage, or the outrageousness, the truth-stranger-than-fiction behaviors.
20. I’ve gotten to know a woman, the house mother of a homeless woman’s shelter that I volunteer at. A dear friend of mine who passed away and gave of herself greatly to this place, loved it, especially this woman who is largely responsible for starting it quite a few years ago, before the need has grown so great for shelter for homeless women. When the time came that I could offer my services I called to see if she needed volunteers and of course they always do. So I met with her and we spoke fondly of our late friend, who was the inspiration for my going there. This woman, like my friend but not me, so much, is very devout. But it’s her faith that I so admire and try to emulate instead of being fearful or angry as I so often used to be. Sometimes I repeat to myself, remember what Mary always says, “the good Lord will provide” or “Our Blessed Lady will take care of us” which may sound smarmy or trite. But I know she believes it and often will tell with a laugh of contributions people make, just when some need has arisen. She knows, not even believes, that things will work out for the best. And they do seem to. But I would say, the quality I first noticed and that I so admire her for is her reasonableness, not a commonplace quality. The way she treats the women who come to the house (all of whom adore her) but some of whom can be tough customers, is with utter reasonableness. She is always calm and reasonable, perhaps because of her beautiful faith. If one of the guests does something that’s against the rules she’ll simply say, “Well, so-and-so, if you’re going to do that you can’t come back to Sancta Maria House.” That’s all they need and say, “Okay, Sister Mary, (she is not a nun but many think of her as one)”, and that’s the end of it.
21. I don’t seem to have a muse. My favorite muse that I wish was mine is Bernadette Peters, muse to Alice (Mia Farrow) in the Woody Allen movie of that name. I’d like a muse like her that tells it like it is.
22. I’m not sure but I think of a muse as a being who can guide and inspire one, a being who you were certain was absolutely right, whatever she advised you to do. I would love that! What a gift. Sometimes I do pray to the goddesses Lakshmi or Saraswati. My dear friend in question 20 wouldn’t approve, I’m sure. Though I do sometimes pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe, too.
23. I get so excited by superior intelligence, and I might add, I usually am certain that we, the superior one and me, are of the exact same mind. Occasionally I go to the JFK Library to hear different speakers that I admire, (though not since I moved to Beverly, a longer trek than from East Boston). Mostly it’s a journalist or author, people I see on Charlie Rose, who I adore. Up until about a year ago I lived for Friday night, the hour with Bill Moyers and his guests, all the best minds of all persuasions. But as seems to be the trend in these horrid times, Bill Moyers, who I can say I worshipped. He was a truth-teller. Some nights I’d weep at what I would hear about what was going on in the world, in our country and so horrified would I be that I would ask myself why I watched it so faithfully because there were things I heard from him and from his guests that were painful to realize, and I did and do believe what I heard. Now the latest blow is the loss of Frank Rich’s column in the Sunday New York Times. Frank Rich is another teller of the truth, and some of the harshest truths he could write about and make you laugh, no matter how dire, something utterly ridiculous and outrageous. He is a writer I totally emulate. I just found out about this because the Sunday that was his last column my rotten, lousy newspaper delivery service never brought me the Sunday NYTimes because there were two inches of snow on the ground. I’ll get the piece on-line. But I am not being extravagant in saying I am deeply saddened by this loss. He will be writing a column in New York magazine, once a month so I’ll have to look out for that. These are people I need to tell me what I believe is the truth. No doubt Newt Gingrich doesn’t quite see it that way. But there you go, Newt and I never did see eye-to-eye.
24. Well, this is a well-placed question, coming on the heels of mention of Newt. I confess to being intemperate, immoderate, impatient, outraged, often profane when I hear or read views that seem to me stupid, selfish, callous, hostile, bigoted, uncaring. Laziness, that doesn’t bother me so much, seems mild in comparison to these more outrageous qualities. Oh, I forgot greedy. Greed is the disease of the 21st century. And what’s most galling is that the greediest seem to be hugely successful in satisfying their greed to the peril of the rest of us in the bottom 80 percent of the population.
25. That’s hard to answer for if failure seems impending I think I’d really try hard to avert it. If success is looming, I guess it depends on what kind of success. I sure would love to have the success of having a book or two or three published. We shall have to see. I would grin and preen and strut and keep saying prayers of thanks over and over.
26. These days what I guess I consider ‘work’ is doing things I have to, should do and yet most of the things I should do, I enjoy doing, even things that I sort of accept I don’t want to do, once I get doing it, I find it satisfying, especially when it’s done. That would be things like vacuuming and washing the floor, etc. Or ironing, things that once I’m into it, I get satisfaction from. A lot of what I do that would be considered work is sewing and I get great satisfaction from that, especially if I’m working with fabric that I love. Now what should become my major order of Work is writing. I confess that some tasks, and writing is sometimes a task, I have a bad habit of DT’s, delay tactics where I circle around doing other things, even cleaning an over, just to put off zeroing in on what it is I have to write. But that’s fear. And once I hold my nose and plunge in, I am immersed and I love it. Typing the answers to all these questions is long overdue, largely due to a case of the DT’s. And I’ve been out of sorts, last week. But now that I’m doing it (I wrote out the answers by hand weeks ago but in typing them, I’ve rewritten a great deal which is a good thing) I can’t stop and it’s gotten very late and I should not stay up so late because then I tend to be awake all night until just an hour before the alarm goes off, unless I switch it off and roll over.
27. I’m not sure if this answer is appropriate to the question but if reach exceeding grasp means having big ideas, dreams, ambitions, yes, I’ve experienced that. I’ve had that in the past, and lately it’s been aroused: my first full-time job was as a cash manager for an institutional investment firm. I held that job for eight years and I loved it, the job itself. It was a brand new world for me, involving managing cash for various institutional accounts of all kinds. It involved a great deal of contact, mostly by phone with brokers and dealers and banks all over the country. It demanded accuracy and good judgment. I loved it and I dove right into that world of money and investing and banking. But what I loved and took pride in was that it required what is now referred to as “people skills”. Most of the time this was easy and pleasant for me, but there were times when it wasn’t easy. The gift was in knowing how best to deal with certain people, to be cooperative and to conform to their wishes and standards. If there wasn’t clear understanding and cooperation it could mean a loss of money, usually a lot of money. And I was good at that. I learned how to deal with people who could be difficult, to understand what they required. I left that job mostly because I felt undervalued by my bosses, even though I had a lot of respect and cooperation from brokers and dealers of investment vehicles. And the job changed at that time because the whole investment field changed, first because of wild inflation, then when the hero, Paul Volcker fixed that it went in a different, kind of boring direction. But I’ve retained a lot that I learned then but then, a lot of the changes that took place are the very things that have landed not just our country but the world in the horrific mess that we’re in now. Anyway, when I was working to get a Masters degree in management I chose as a subject for my thesis to write a business plan for publishing a financial newsletter dedicated to what, in the early ‘90’s was a big deal, Emerging Markets. But I couldn’t just let it go as a business plan; I had to write, design, set up such a newsletter myself. I loved, still love what I did. I published two of them only. My tragic flaw or inadequacy was, and this is true of other things I’ve created and failed at, marketing. I’m no good at it. At my own expense, not to mention hours and hours, days, weeks, months dedicated to this creation of mine. I gave it to some people to read and got some good feedback. But I couldn’t get anybody to subscribe to it. I have in my closet some cartons with many copies of these two issues of NeWorlds, what at the time I felt was a really catchy, edgy title for a newsletter about emerging economies. So I lug these cartons along, once in a while lovingly take a copy out to admire. Well, guess what? I’m thinking about it again, want to see if I can find, not in this country but somewhere in the new worlds that are emerging around the Indian Ocean, some financial or economic journalist who would be interested in such an idea. Crazy but there it is. The dream just won’t die.
28. Well, the answer to 27 is part of my ideal. But of course, my most ideal creative activity is writing the books I want to write, finishing the couple I’ve started and then writing the others that I’ve kept notes on. I hope I can do all of it. We’ll see.
29. I don’t really have any great fear. If I have a fear, and it would be about the well-being of myself or ones I love, I pray. That’s about the only control I feel I have, is my good relations with my Higher Power, my favorite saints and spirits. And just living a day at a time, doing the best I can, and always striving to get better and better which is why I enrolled in this wonderful Creative Writing course.
30. Oh, shucks, I don’t know. I’ll just soldier on, happy to do so.
31. I did change some of my early answers. But now I want to finish so I’ll leave what I’ve written be.
32. My idea of mastery is learning from the writers I love. I read them over and over and over, trying to imprint their beautiful style on my brain. Twyla recommends that and other writers I respect and admire have as well. And I do believe and strive to do it sufficiently and that is to revise and revise and revise. My tragic flaw is talking/writing too much, too voluminously. I’m trying harder now to whittle down. It can be done. I must be done, certainly by me.
33. My greatest dream, other than that all the people I love are okay, is to keep on writing the stories I want to write and to someday have someone appreciate them enough to publish them. I have one silly little adjunct dream of when/if I get published, I want to go the Edinburg Book Fair.
