A Warrior of Whimsy

     It all began almost twenty years ago when I came home from a work conference. It started with one of those plastic name tags. The kind that had the pin cheaply and barely attached on the back. You know, those plastic nametags with the safety pins that put large holes in your shirt when you remove them. The ones that make you say “Damn” after you realize you have yet again ruined another shirt, all for the professional save of wearing a culturally required piece of conference jewelry. This was all a time somewhere before the clip, elastic or lanyard, and in the era of the Apple IMac G3 colors. This is when my husband began hiding left over nametags in obscure places in our home for me to find. The possibilities were endless, the creativity profound and every one of them caught me off guard. He loved to make me laugh.

     Sometimes they’d show up on the milk carton in the refrigerator. Or in the butter. Other times they’d be posted on the bathroom mirror. Or in the shower, on the toilet, in the book I was reading or found weeks later in the pocket of my coat or in my sock drawer. One single nametag could bring weeks or even months of finds.

     By the new millennium it became a game we shared and I took his lead. We’d use any nametag ever received, anywhere. In any way, shape or form. Any event was open game. Nametags were brought home from having been on committees, at programs, in conferences, events, plays or even at an occasional funeral. It became a full court press as each one of us tried to distract and outwit the other with our play. In time, the nametag was replaced by anything silly. And that is where my husband is King. The King of Comedy. A Warrior for Whimsy. He is one of the funniest people I know and it is one of his most natural gifts. He is an endless genius for creating.

     A year ago he found two very tiny, left over Star War figures on the floor in our dining room. They came from a toy which had fallen out of a box of old toys we had donated to Goodwill. One early morning I was barely awake and found the figures in a face off in our bathroom. Darth Vadar was in one corner of the tile, above the toothbrushes facing Luke Skywalker who was in the other corner, three feet away by the Listerine. Clearly Luke was winning, as he was placed on a shelf a tad higher for the advantage. It was a good day in the universe, and I left for work, smiling.

     The figures stayed there helping me fight tooth decay, until last fall. That was when I found they had moved on. Sir Jeff of Comedy had now placed them as the alter egos in our kitschy salt and pepper set. He had moved them into the bathroom for a more pure comedic set up. It was brilliant. Bizarre, strange, funny and everything one needs to start their day right.

     

Today it occurred to me that most people don’t have this live, fluid art show going on in their home like we do. That made me laugh out loud all over again. Caught off guard, for the lifetime win of making me laugh.

Flight of the Feather

 “What would happen if the entire world were silent at the same time? For like, twelve minutes or so,” was the line that woke me up in a reading someone was sharing to begin the Days of Awe.  I was stunned by its simplicity and yet piqued by its power.  Everyone? Everywhere?  In every corner of the world, and every way of being human? Diverse people of all shapes, sizes and colors stopping what they are doing, and silently embracing quiet together, while the planet still spins.  It’s a distracting thought for someone literal, and especially when considering the logistics.

Silenced radios, phones and TVs; quieted cars, planes, boats, tractors and escalators; hushed villages,  cruise ships, stores, stadiums, trains, movie theatres, Ferris wheels, subways; people perfectly still in offices, airports, and on mountains, islands, motorcycles, buses and streets.  Quietly feeding chickens.  Silently birthing babies.  An entire human race muted while making love.  Muffled mid-crime, in war and as terrorists.  Twelve minutes of a world completely quiet in the universe because all its people agree to give it a try, and seek out its unknown result.

It seemed a compelling and yet ridiculous thought.

 

It was then I remembered him.

   

Something about the silence, and overwhelming ridiculousness of it all at once, and the way my mind wanders seeking patterns, is when he came back to me:  Peter.  A man I never met but to whom I was connected in silence, for three years.

His memory floated in front of me, suddenly out of nowhere after forty years. Caught somewhere between one moment of listening and the next in memory.  Disconnected from its source and out of place with its purpose. Like a feather, simply falling from the sky. Mesmerizing me with its flutter and gentle dance downward from the past.  Teasing me to pluck it out of the air, remember and take it home.  For safe keeping.

Peter Shoeffel.  The man I never met who was in a war I barely understood.

Cmdr. Peter V. Shoeffel, the name I was randomly given when I ordered my Vietnam POW bracelet to wear in 1970. 

It’s entirely possible I read this Navy commander’s name on my wrist a hundred times a day, for those three years:                                                                                                                                                                     Glancing down while grabbing things, getting dressed, driving, reading, eating, and gesticulating my way freely through everyday life. Feeling the engraved letters absent mindedly when I was bored.  Being in silence a few minutes every night before slept:                                                                                                            

Reflecting in earnest to let him know he was not alone. Always asking the universe to keep him alive, the Vietcong to spare him, and this war to end soon.

Life went on and my bracelet never came off.  I graduated high school and wore it into college.  After a good while it was a regular part of me.  No one noticed anymore.

Until March, 1973 when the POW in the Hoa Lo were set free.  Peter had been in what was cryptically known as the Hanoi Hotel or Heartbreak Hotel.  It was announced on the evening news that newspapers would publish the names of these POW survivors soon.  I checked the paper every day until I finally found it.  The Boston Globe simply posted it on the flip side of the obituary page in an ironic reflective placement. Today my old, yellowed original copy creates a surreal, macabre reflection of content.  The article simply states, “the 108 to go free tomorrow” in lower case and underneath is a modest list of names in very small font. They were in alphabetical order from Andrews to Zuhoski, with a civilian named Bobby Kneesee thrown in as 108. At the time I skipped right over the unfamiliar name John McCain who was number 58 on the list.

I stopped cold on number 70:  Peter vanRuyter Schoeffel.  He was alive, and now free.

The intention of my three year silent support and our national vigil of hope for their survival were finally over.  But I hadn’t a clue what I was supposed to do next, except simply take some jewelry off. These men had been tortured prisoners for over five years and the ridiculous reality was I had worn what seemed a stupid bracelet, thinking it would help.  I began to imagine them coming home, reuniting with family, carrying the pain of war and horror they endured.  His courage and survival in silence were mindboggling.  It left me feeling inadequate with a gaping, humble hole of helplessness and rage at the atrocities of war.  I was lost.

But it was the silence that carried me and brought me home.  The three years had taught me something I couldn’t put in words and yet could feel.  I hold immeasurable gratitude for Cmdr. Shoeffel’s sacrifice of silence which connected him to us all. In reality, this silent vigil with a bracelet and a name had marked my own coming of age in a time of war and into the human race. 

“What would happen if the entire world were silent at the same time? For like, twelve minutes or so.” I am simply in awe of its endless possibility for peace.

"In bitter times a whisper came,

That seemed an easy thing to say,

But was to us a guiding flame

To light a long and weary way:

"Have faith, hold fast..."

Excerpt from "The Creed," by Peter vanRuyter Schoeffel

(Creed source:  Matt Soergel, Florida Times Union, 3.23.08)

"Pete Schoeffel wrote poems, tales of home and hope and despair that, for years, existed only in his head."

Photo:  Don Farrall

93 Miles

Ninety-three miles.  That’s it.  Cuba is only ninety-three miles away from the United States.  If we were on land, you could drive there in an hour and a half.  Why, some people drive that long in this country just to get to work every day. 

Ninety-three miles. That is virtually the same distance as a round trip between Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod.  

Ninety-three miles and fifty-four years of two countries being a world apart.  Until now.  This week Secretary of State John Kerry went to Cuba to raise the American flag above the U.S. Embassy for the first time in 54 years.  History just shifted, an embargo was lifted and we all came back into view.

My own lack of knowledge about Cuba and its history is astounding. I learned about the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro and the Missile Crisis as glibly as I absorbed Life magazine photos of Cuban cars and cigars.  Back then we were a nation of children watching adults watch the news, in a world of black and white. I was seven years old.  Parents talked late into the night in hushed tones about the Cold War, Kennedy and Castro. Children were to be seen and not heard.

I lived in the state that bred the Kennedy monarchy, in a time determined to sell us a post war bliss.  We were fed a new normal surrounded by TV dinners, potatoes flakes in a box, Soupy Sales, PF Flyers, Romper Room, puppets and clowns.  Dads were meant to go off to work in the tall buildings in the city and Moms could stay home in the burbs, wearing pearls.  There were cocktail parties, convertibles and terraces in a time when magazines had full page ads for Winstons and whiskey.  It was a world right before stereo, plastic, pill box hats and pantyhose.  Meanwhile, in Cuba, a mere ninety-three miles away, there was a revolution, a dictator and families were being torn apart.  Children were seen but some never heard from again. 

My understanding of the Cuban people and its rich, beautiful culture was never in my history books.  I can’t remember one course in school that chose to dive deep into it.  There were no people of Cuban descent in my world and no stories shared. A plethora of Cuban talent and important people never made it to my privileged, packaged, political world.  The Cuban culture came to me only through the stereotype of Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy.  And that Havana scene in Guys and Dolls.   Ninety-three miles away became out of this world, merely forgotten and forbidden.  

Flash forward to the custody and immigration status battle of Elian Gonzalez in 2000 in Miami, Florida and that about covered my deep dive into experiencing the politics of Cuba.  Sprinkle in a few vacations to Miami for some Cuban culture and that was about it. 

Until last year.

Last spring I got cast in the play Sonia Flew by Melinda Lopez.  We were a cast transported back to Cuba 1961 as seen through the fictional family experiencing Castro’s Cuba.  I played teenage Sonia’s mother, Pilar.

Researching and preparing for this role became a Cuban crash course in the history I never received.  The political pain and fear from which I was protected was at the heart of these characters and the world in which they survived.  But truth be told:  Sonia Flew was the first time I had ever heard of Operation Pedro Pan.  It was nothing like the Peter Pan from which it translates.  It seems Never, Never land lasted 54 years.

“Operation Pedro Pan was the largest recorded exodus of unaccompanied minors in the Western Hemisphere…a joint operation by the U.S. government and the Catholic Welfare Bureau, Pedro Pan secretly airlifted to the United States more than 14,000 children after warnings began to surface that Fidel Castro’s government would soon be taking children, against the wishes of their parents, to military schools and to Soviet labor camps.  Once in the U.S. some children were united with family members who had immigrated earlier to the U.S. but others were sent to live with foster families, to boarding schools or orphanages in as many as 35 states.   Parents who made the decision to send their children to Operation Pedro Pan probably figured that the Castro regime wouldn’t last long and their children would soon be home.”  (Source: JTB program) 

However, many never saw their parents again. Like Sonia in the play when she is ripped from her parents to suddenly leave for America in the dark of night.  It’s was a final scene in a beautiful script that implores us to remember and never forget.  The children, the parents.  The beautiful country, its culture and people.  

Ninety three miles away this week two countries met again in the middle, and raised their flags in peace.  

I watched it on the TV news, in color and wept.  

Holding the Prescription

"How ARE you?" I asked the familiar woman in the aisle while shopping at Target. Several life chapters ago, this woman used to be a fixture in my life. Today, we were merely anonymous consumers, discreetly holding our obvious purchases. I was trying to carry all mine but they kept inadvertently slipping out of my hands as I spoke, one by one and onto the floor. Over and over again, up and down, as I swung to catch one and then grab another from falling. It was like Cirque du Soleil for Bathroom Supplies. It was ridiculous, and I was regretting not getting a cart.

While I was busy juggling, it seemed she was clutching. The pharmacist had just handed her several prescriptions, and she grabbed them tightly in a fist and then held them all extremely close to herself. They seemed a confidential shield between us, despite the fact that all the labels were facing out. The conversation began as normal, but when combined with the props and staging it was all teetering on being oddly discordant.

"Wow, it's been like ten years since I've seen you - how is your family?" she asked kindly. I caught her up quickly, and pulled out my Smartphone for the quintessential photos. There were ooo’s and ahh’s as well as both of us reflecting on how we were now older, and aging.

I was trying to remember her daughter’s name. "How's your daughter? She went to medical school, right?"
“Yes.”
There was not one brain cell that could recall this child’s name, but I could picture her vividly. As a young girl, she seemed extremely shy, quiet and very studious. She had skipped a grade and was always into academic pursuits, as were her parents. She had been destined for a PhD or more. “She’s a doctor, now, right?”

"Well, actually, not anymore. She just left the profession, after all that training and all those years in practice.”
“OH. Really? Wow...Well, what does she do now?”
“She’s a country singer.” Thud went the toilet paper.

"I'm sorry? What?" I said as I tried to hold it all together.

"A country singer."

This seemed the very last thing one would ever, ever, ever, ever have thought this quiet, reserved child would choose to become, or genre of music I would imagine they might ever have played at home. This news immediately made me irrational. I fixated on the stage personas of Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Winona Judd and Faith Hill and placed them onto this young woman I knew. Like a virtual paper doll in my head. None of them fit.

“Wow…" I said to myself but realized it was out loud.
I eventually rallied with, "Is she happy?"

"Happier than we ever imagined! Who knew she could sing?!!!!!" She gesticulated freely now every time she spoke, with her bags of prescriptions sounding like medicinal maracas.

“Yeah, really. Huh. Who knew…”
The Noxema now fell from my grasp, and was rolling away so I skipped around the corner to pick it up. "Have you actually heard her sing?" I said while on the other side.

"Nope, not yet."

I was regrouping my purchases as well as my reaction. "So…a country singer…Huh. Well, I guess she moved to Nashville, Tennessee then?"

"No, no, no, she still lives in New York with her husband."

“Oh. Well, I suppose New York City is a really good choice for a singer, too!”

"Actually, they live in Scarsdale. Scarsdale, New York.” She shuffled the white bags of prescriptions as if she were putting them in order. I shuffled my feet.

“Is there a lot of work for country singers in Scarsdale?" And just as I began to slip into judging, her words guided me back.

"I don't know, good question! All we know is she is very happy and finding her way. We are so proud of her.”

“Well, that’s beautiful. She must feel, well, so free now. It sounds like she has a new calling. Good for her!” At this point I finally had a good handle on what I was holding.

“I just knew you would understand! After all, both of your adult children chose to be artists!”

“Yes, indeed. They sure did. Right. ”

A few minutes later, we hugged goodbye, holding the basics between us. My old friend seemed at peace as we stood between the hedgerows of feminine products, incontinence pads and hemorrhoid ointments. It seemed an important place to honestly bear the truth and reckon with all that keeps us humble and real.

This may be the creepiest photograph I have ever taken.  It surely is the oddest.  Definitely creepy.  Might even the weirdest.  It’s downright artistic, though, and for that reason I love it.  It was a one in a million shot taken in my office in a moment of complete serendipity. All I really know is I will forever need to explain it.

At face value, you may have figured out who it is.  Was.  Is.  Or isn’t.  Yeah, he’s dead now. Well, not dead in this photo, but died after this plaster face mold was made.  Well, he didn’t die from the making of this mold.  He died in 1993, the plaster mask was made in 1990 and I shot the photo in 2014.  Hell, this really will be about explaining forever.

This is a plaster face mold of the famous actor Vincent Price. 

It’s not mine, but one morning suddenly it was in my office.  I was merely doing e-mail from my computer seconds before and sitting quietly at my desk.  The disconnect was palpable.  TV Land, cue: “Lucy, you’ve got some ‘splaining to do!”

Ok, let me rewind just a bit.  Vincent Price was famous for a career starring in campy horror movies, many of which were directed by Roger Corman.  I have since learned from my cheap late-night date, Mr. Wiki Pedia that “Roger was an American independent film producer, director and actor. From 1960-1965, Roger Corman released eight films that were billed as being based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe and all but one of them starred Vincent Price.”

So now go ahead, take a closer look at the photo. It’s ok, he won’t mind, he’s dead. Yup, that is Roger Corman’s autograph signed on the forehead of Vincent Price, done years after he died.  A downright macabre autograph decision which Vincent himself probably would have loved.  If you top it off with the fact that I think this face mold was made during the filming of Edward Scissorshands, which was directed by Tim Burton and not Roger, then it makes this an art mystery of myriad proportions.

It seem my colleague Joel Washington bought this gem from a famous Hollywood make-up artist named Tom Savini when he was in Louisville, Kentucky.  One day Joel came into my office and ever so casually took it out of a small, plastic bag to show me, which then scared the bejeezus out of me. Just another work day in paradise.  And people wonder why I never get bored at work.

So, on this early morning Joel had gone out of his way to find my office which is not typical to our daily routine as we do very different jobs, have overlapping hours and just work in the same building, floors apart. Joel is a well-known freelance painter for whom I have much respect.  His works are commissioned all over, even by dignitaries, half way around the world.   For almost twenty years we have had an early morning chit chat routine, crossing paths downstairs.  We often pause to talk about painting, theatre, family and photography.  We check in with each other to learn what the other is working on these days, or what shows we might have coming up.  Sometimes we talk so much the elevator opens and closes several times before I ever get on it.  Joel and I have a concentric respect for all things art and all souls artistic.  But this moment was different as it wasn’t about his work.   He wanted me to see this piece as he knew I’d really appreciate it, and all the theatrical layers it held.  He was right.

It seems that holding a replica of a dead man’s face conjures up a lot.  It has depth, and way too much realism. It’s a new way to see art, and a ghastly reality check.  A moment that seems too intimate, almost a violation of some kind and yet draws you in with how it is so tremendously accurate.   There are wrinkles and sagging skin, eyes not opened and words not coming out. It’s mesmerizing and magnetic.  Repulsive and seemingly wrong.  Artistic and amazing.  Deathly, ghoulish, chilling.  In a way it seems to have an artistic life of its own.

With Vincent in hand, it occurred to me that I never met this world famous man and yet now “knew” parts of him in ways most never will.  What do you do with that sort of cognitive dissonance?  I just stared and stared, in quiet.  After a bit, I gingerly placed him down on the table between us.  It seemed the least I could do.  His eyes were closed so it was like he was napping, sans the body.

All three of us quietly were together as the morning sun streamed in.  The work day was now here and staff outside my office were beginning to clatter into place.   Joel and I chatted about Vincent’s face and the artistic intricacies of it all as he shared the story of how he bought it.  I kept glancing down at Vincent, as if at any moment he might open his eyes or have a cryptic line to share.  I began to remember his distinct voice from movies and its melodious, smooth delivery and low register. 

Then I saw it.  The sunlight coming in and forming shadows onto the table. Slowly they moved, ever so slowly.  I kept watching in fascination and meditation. It was changing form in every new second and yet we kept talking.  Then I realized what I saw.  Vincent was now perfectly framed in a shadow that looked like a window frame.  The most cogent moment of art imitating life.  Vincent was in the window as if from another dimension while we were sitting here.

I leapt up and apologized to Joel as I stopped the conversation, while rushing to find my phone camera as my 35mm was at home.  “I’m so sorry, just a second… sorry, this’ll just take a minute…” I began taking several shots as the light changed with each one.  Joel understood.  “I see an amazing photograph here and just have to take it! Keep talking Joel, I’m listening, but I just have to get this shot or I’ll regret it.”  A photographer’s forever lament.  Then moment passed as quickly as it came.  Vincent was put back in the bag, and we casually went back to work.  Three artists took a break that day and one forever changed.

That’s a wrap.  Thanks, Vincent.  Got it.

“The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?” Edgar Allan Poe

 

Leaping From Buildings Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

As I watched the last episode of Mad Men I kept thinking about my generation's real life version of all these pieces of the puzzle we watched unfold around Don Draper. The series left off where we caught up in real life as young adults. In 1971 we were burgeoning into a world filled with the Vietnam war, and having survived way too many assassinations. It was a time of trying to desperately shift anew. Thank you, Mad Men for making it so real. It's been a poignant ride, to... say the least.

Peace and love, not war and product. This final episode wove in the hippie commune, yoga, meditation, the EST-like group therapy movement (look it up!), women's rights and even that famous Coca Cola commercial. The origins of so much we forget didn't start today. What on earth is it like to see that last episode when you don't remember these things? Did it even make sense? Did it seem trite and comical? Fake and ridiculous? All I know is that for me it was tactile. I could feel it all over again.

Watching Mad Men all these years has been a bizarre way to do time travel. A place where I could see, touch, feel and relive my younger life, down to the every little set piece, outfit, décor, mindset, political snafu and shaping trend. A time of Yoga and meditation: brought to us purely by Paramahansa Yogananda, not marketed en masse by Lululemon.

This may have been an entertaining show for some to learn history through fictional characters, or dissect its art form but for others of us - well, it felt like home. It was the life perspective lens from which our generation formed our values and chose the path of our future. The 50-60-70's. Painful, dysfunctional, naïve, oppressive, simple, hopeful, horrible, thrilling. A post-war juggernaut speeding us forward to the unknown.

The unknown better known as Now. What a ride.

Coming and Going

"Swimming with dolphins! That is definitely one of them.” I was flipping through the pages of a magazine and dreaming out loud in response to seeing a dolphin in an ad. “If I made a Bucket List, I think swimming with dolphins would be near the top."

“Huh.” said my husband who smiled at me, but seemed to be half listening. I know that place. It's possible I perfected it. The I-am-not-listening-to-one-word-you-are-really-saying-as-you-have-said-all-this-so-many-times-in-40 years- I-know-all-the-details-already, sort of listening. It’s an art actually. Couples who have been together for decades often master the technique. We just need to hear the topic, vocalize a sound, and let the other know we have all the details, on file. Merely indicate we are still here. Still here, 40 years later listening to all those dreams and catching each other with casual conversation.

“Swimming with dolphins. Going on a whale watch. Seeing horses run wild. ..”

“….Going on an African safari…”

“YES! Going on an African safari!!! Right?! That has always been my number one, thanks. Huh. I don’t think I ever realized 'til right now just how many of my dreams involve animals.” My mind began to wander as I flipped the pages of the magazine and saw another ad.

I paused on a photo of a woman doctor, in her white uniform holding a stethoscope and talking to a patient with gray hair. A young doctor serving an elderly patient. It was an ad for some kind of heart medicine but before I cared to learn more, my mind had begun to think differently about what I saw.
“Now there something I’ll never do. Be a doctor. I am finally too old to think I’ll ever have time to be a doctor.” I said emphatically as I turned the photo for my husband to see. As if seeing it made it personal.

“You never wanted to be a doctor! How can that be upsetting?!”
“Well, it’s not upsetting. I’m just sayin. Even if I wanted to do it, at this age - it’s now officially off the list. It’s not even possible. Like .. playing tennis professionally. Becoming a French chef. Or biologically having more babies.” These disparate choices sounded so bizarre that even I began to recalibrate toward finding a point. “Ok, there are things you just can’t even pretend are possible anymore. Know what I mean? You age out, or your body can’t do it. People may have Bucket Lists of dreams they still want to do but no one talks a lot about the list you suddenly can't do anymore. They just start fading away as being anything remotely possible. Maybe that's why we create Bucket Lists."

My husband gently put his book down and turned his body a wee bit to his left, to face me. It seemed I was wading in murky territory now and he may need to throw me a line sometime soon. If I’m not careful I might get all melancholy or cynical about dreams lost and careers never crafted.
I decided using him as an example might help my point. “It would be like you becoming a professional baseball player. Right? Or being in the Olympics! Or walking the Appalachian trail!!"
"I did walk the Appalachian trail!!!"
 
"Oh. Yeah. Well, you know what I mean. Ya know? All that kind of fantasy stuff that keeps you thinking you might someday, even though you never really could, or would even want to."
We both quietly paused and looked away. Far away into that safe place where older people meet their younger selves and take a wistful look around. It was a short trip, as now I saw the comparison.
 
“Ok, so:
If all those dreams you still want to do before you die is called A Bucket List, then what do you think THIS list is called? The opposite of a A Bucket List is called…”

“A F*ck It List.”

Yes!!! Love this man.