MOVING OBJECTS DEUX

Tuesday, 6:00 p.m.
Karen arrives home after tutoring at the library.
Parking in the street, she gets out of the car, in the dark, ready to take the trash barrel from the back yard to the curb.
As she crosses the street, she notices a dark sinister shape standing on the curb in front of the house...

Karen retreats to her car, starting the engine and pulling into the driveway, to park for the night.

Tuesday, still, 6:03 p.m.
Karen enters the livingroom. The six o'clock evening news is blaring at full-force. Mom and Dad don't even hear her enter.

Mom turns from the t.v. and clutches her heart, giving a little "yip".

Mom: You scared me! We didn't even hear you come in the house!

Karen: I told you I would be back by six p.m.

Dad: We didn't hear the door and the dog didn't bark...

(Dog is smiling, on the floor, wagging her tail, looking up at me.)

Karen: Dad, who put the trash on the curb? I told you I would do it after I got home, tonight!

Dad: Well, it was still in the backyard and I wasn't doing anything, so I just took it down.

Mom: Jim, I don't want you going down the steep driveway with the trash--the girls can take it down!

Dad: I didn't want to wait...

They both redirect attention to the blaring newscast: TEMPERATURES RISING TO THE FIFTIES, TOMORROW, THIRTY DEGREE RISE FROM MONDAY, ACCOMPANIED BY INCREASING FOG....

Wednesday, 7:30 a.m., Fogbank in back yard.

Karen comes down for breakfast.
Dad is watching morning news in livingroom.
Mom is upstairs in her bedroom, getting ready for the day.
Dog is sitting by the kitchen table, waiting for Karen, wagging her tail.

Karen reads  morning news. Feeds dog biscuits. Drinks coffee.
Dad comes in for more coffee and cookies for himself. Mom turns on shower, upstairs.
No one says a thing about trash, cars, weather, etc.
Karen goes back to newspaper.

Mail arrives.
Karen sorts mail for family, leaving various piles on the kitchen table.
All is quiet. Karen finishes paper.
Dad meanders into kitchen for more cookies. Comments on squirrels in backyard and rising puddles on the unfrozen lawn.
Dog begs to go outside.
Karen takes dog out; waits for dog. Dad watches from pantry window, smiling.
Karen takes dog in; wipes four paws, belly, tail and replenishes dog bowl.
Still no sign or word from mother, upstairs.
It is now 10:30 a.m.

Karen rises from table.
Goes down cellar to take up laundry from laundry room.
Passes mother on stairs, says "Good morning".

Karen goes upstairs to put laundry away.
Karen turns on computer to begin writing.
Suddenly, there is much hollaring and screaming of her name from downstairs.
Karen opens bedroom door and asks" What?!!!"

Mother: (Screaming), I'm leaving right now!!! You have to move your car!! I've got to leave right this minute!!! You are parked in front of the garage doors!!!!

Karen rushes downstairs, grabs keys (amid screams and shouts). Dog is barking. Karen runs into wet fog.

(And so it goes.) 

  

MOVING OBJECTS

9:oo p.m.  Monday Night

Dad: Tomorrow, take the trash out to the curb, okay?
Karen: Why don't I do it, now? I'm dressed and I have to move the car, anyway...
Dad: No! It's too early. It goes out tomorrow!
Karen: Okay.

(Outside, the snow is coming down in tiny bits and pieces, hard, like broken glass.)

Karen: It's starting to storm...I should take the trash out, now, before it is covered in ice...
Dad: Tomorrow! Take it to the curb, tomorrow!
Karen: sigh...

5:30 a.m. Tuesday Morning

t.v. weather-station comes on: Storming till this afternoon; freezing rain; icey conditions...

Karen pulls on warm clothes. Brushes teeth. Puts on snowboots, parka, hat and gloves. She is about to go out to get the trash barrel unstuck from the ice, when her mother enters the kitchen.

Mom: What are you up so early for?
Karen: I have to take the trash to the curb--last week I got up too late and Dad had a fit because the trash guys arrived early...
Mom: For God's Sake, the trash doesn't go out till tomorrow!
Karen: Dad said it goes today...
Mom: Wednesday!
Karen: Isn't that for re-cycling and--
Mom: Yes, every other week, but the trash goes out on Wednesday morning EVERY week...how long have you been back here?
Karen: Well, I should move my car, then....
Mom: Why? Your sister isn't coming home today...and we aren't going out in this weather. Leave it. If there's an emergency, you can always pull it into the street, later.

Karen takes off hat, boots, parka, etc. Returns to her bedroom.

7:30 a.m. A sound of a car pulling into the driveway rises to Karen's room. It is her little brother, arriving to snowblow the one inch of snow that has managed to coat the driveway.

Karen knows she must move her car, immediately, out of the driveway, so he can pull out the snowblower and get around where she was parked.
Karen puts on hat, parka, boots, gloves, etc.
Karen goes out to greet brother and move car.

Brother: (shouting over snowblower) Just move it halfway down the drive, then pull into Ann's spot. She's not coming home today, right?
Karen nods. Gets into her car. Starts it. Warms it up. Moves it fifty feet, down the driveway.
Brother finishes snow blow.
Karen moves car BACK to sister's spot, in driveway.
Brother pulls his car behind her.
Brother: I'm coming in for coffee, before I go to work.

9:45 a.m.
Phone rings.
Mom: (To Karen and Brother and Dad.) It's your sister. She's calling from Burger King. Do you want anything? She's on her way home, from work.
Karen rises. She pulls on parka, boots, hat, gloves. She grabs her keys.
Brother: I gotta go, too. Thanks for the coffee, Ma! He exits.
Karen waits till he pulls out of the driveway, then follows him.
She parks her car in the street, just as a snowplow pushes up a banking of slush around the outside of her vehicle.

10:30 a.m.
Phone rings.
Sister Ann wants to know if we need anything from the store.
Mom: No! I'm going out later, anyway.
Mom hangs up phone.
Mom: Your sister is coming from the grocery; I'm leaving in a few minutes, but she says that tomorrow and Thursday you can park in her space because she will stay at Work those nights.
Did you move your car yet, so I can get out of the garage?
Dad: (entering the kitchen) The trash goes out tonight, to the curb. Not yet, though. It's too early.
When do you leave to tutor?
Karen: At three p.m.
Dad: Can you put the trash out when you get home?  Or when you leave?
Karen: I can do it now...
Dad: It's too early. Do it later.
Mom: You can park in your sister's spot when you get back--she isn't coming home again until Friday morning.
Dad: I thought she wasn't coming home, today!
Mom: No, no, no. She checks on her friend, Sarah, on Tuesdays, and then comes home. Today's Tuesday! No wonder I'm crazy--you all expect me to keep your calendar's straight and I've got enough of my own to worry about!
Dad: You can park in your sister's spot when you get home, after tutoring, tonight. And don't forget to put the trash out...

(It' s times like these that I truly appreciate the notion of " a room of one's own, with a lock on the door, privacy, and five hundred pounds free and clear..."    


9:  

WHOSE AFRAID OF VIRGINIA?

As I pass Virginia Woolf's birthday, I remain stunned by her words about women and writing: the fear of it; the fear without it; the trick of it; the treats; the triumphs and the tragedies after those triumphs. Though not my favorite writer, per se, (that position will always remain with John Steinbeck), she is my favorite female writer.

It was the pure audacity of her work--its breadth as well as depth--which pulls me in, still. Essays, both political and personal, short fiction, autobiography, biography, history, journals, newspaper articles, criticisms, and of course, the bounty of novels which pushed the boundaries of what novels were "supposed to look like"...all the while struggling with mental illness and aware of the ravages it would wage inside her. This kind of artistic courage didn't come from outside, though she was bolstered by family and a stellar grouping of colleagues. It came from a heart of a lion who needed to roar.

Whenever I get depressed about my own life's journeys, or the irony that I am a writer who has always written and always wanted to say what I see around me, though not always a writer with a stage or a printing press from which to launch those observations, I grasp the image of Virginia, literally, and just "write on". One can realize one's limitations, be they monetary or spiritual or even simply talent, but one doesn't always realize that the way to overcome those limits is simply TO WRITE. Virginia taught me this--speaking from the hallways of her diaries, when I was in High School. Later, with guides to show me different paths through the novels, I took to heart what she was illustrating. She not only thought about what it took for a woman to write the truth (or what that woman saw as the truth),but followed her own insights. She wrote what she was experiencing, no matter how out of step, or out of line, it was for its time. Gender bending, insanity, incest, independence, a room of one's own, WWII and the corruption of politics across the globe, the pure heartstrings of pets or the loss of one's soul-mate, these were subjects she investigated through the lens of her own experience. Her bravery astonishes me, still.

The issues have not greatly changed. The world remains at war with itself. Women are still not in power or wealthy in any great numbers. Slavery and prostitution and child abuse and poverty are the biggest employers on a planet that seems as mad as she worried she was becoming. And the human heart is as easily fractured as it ever was. Today, though, we don't have the beauty of the Muse of her mind--the elegant phrasings, the watercolor exteriors. Ours is a harsher time. A time which moves too hurriedly to appreciate novels of extraordinary construction or experimental boundaries of language. Today, instead of visiting each other for lengthy conversation and tea, we text. Or Skype. Or forego physical visits, altogether, and hope we will "meet up" at those events no one can escape: funerals, parent-teacher meetings, The Holidays...

Virginia understood the constant watering needed in the garden of the human heart. She attended to those around her, as best she could, even when she shouldn't have. In the end, not wanting to take advantage of the kindness of her clan, she put rocks in her pockets and walked into a fast river, knowing yet another bout of madness was sweeping her away. Unlike many who studied the Bloomsbury Group in college, in the 1970's , Virginia Woolf''s suicide was not the clarion call I heeded. No. It was Virginia Woolf's robust external and internal life--her blending of both into her art. She remains, for me, one of my own Muses.

Unlike the past, when I would have gathered my own Group up and spent the night in toasts to the writer (and to each other, as fledgling writers to be), I am long time clean and sober, so I will, instead, let Virginia's own words stand in as a toast, shared among friends across this planet, tonight. Happy Birthday, belatedly, Ms. Woolf, wherever you are!

"If a woman is to write,she has to have 500 a year and a room with a lock on the door, a sacred space where Shakespeare's sister, Judith, might have equaled his prodigious gift or not. She might have simply floated there, set loose in the privilege of privacy, her self unwritten, under no one else's eyes..."

Virginia Woolf, "A Room Of One's Own"