Your Creative Autobiography. Twyla Tharp your creative DNA

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.

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