Here we are at another Mannequin Monday. Dressing the page this week with words of yearning, searching. Homesick for our place in the world. “If I knew the way, I would take you home.”
Homesickness
1. This Week’s Reading:
I read Sarah Ruhl’s poem “Homesickness” in Narrative magazine.
2. Discussion:
Sarah Ruhl’s poem touches a nerve. She moves us beyond the usual understanding of homesickness. The yearning for a place I once inhabited. She takes it to another dimension. “The endless desire to be at home in the world.” To belong somewhere. To fit in. To find my place. My tribe. My community.
It reminds me of several quotes. One from Moby-Dick: “It is not down on any map; True places never are.”
And another from The Grateful Dead: “If I knew the way, I would take you home.”
And a third quote from Twyla Tharp’s new book, Keep It Moving. Talking about auditioning for the Radio City Rockettes early in her dance career, she says: “What it came down to with me and the Rockettes was my unwillingness to join the line. The line is where you lose your identity and your independence.”
Yearning. If I knew the way…the line is where you lose…
3. This Week’s Reading/interview:
In the Adobe Create online magazine there is an interview with photographer Joe Pugliese, titled “On the Edge of Failure.” Pugliese is another person who did not “join the line.”
For a time Pugliese took photos for a newspaper. “Photojournalists are very creative, but I wanted to do more experimental things, and with the deadline of a daily newspaper there was no time and I didn’t have any kind of lighting support or anything. It showed me that I liked photography, but I didn’t want it to be a news-gathering device. I wanted it to be an interpersonal experience.”
“When I started in photography, some of my most satisfying results were because I was 100% screwing up. I didn’t have any formal training—I didn’t have a single class—so it was all about book learning and trial and error, and the trial and error was so exciting. I keep that in my mind when I’m shooting and am tempted to say, “We need to stop and fix this.” Instead, I keep going just another minute to see what the mistake looks like. I find excitement in the fact that I don’t really know how it will come out.”
Pugliese is an avid bike rider. “In mobile photography… it’s pure joy. It’s color, it’s graphic elements, it’s the way the light looks. I’m not sure how it informs my portrait work, but it certainly informs the graphic design part of my brain that I want to keep honed. And it reminds me that there’s joy in photography. I have a sense of joy when I’m doing a portrait session, but it’s a serious joy, it’s an endeavor.”
On the edge of failure: “I do a lot of things as a hobby where I have knowledge of the upper echelon of that thing, but I can’t achieve it; for example, I do a lot of amateur baking, things like French macarons and soufflés that are absolutely fail-heavy. But there is redemption in that failure, of thinking I knew how to do it but even following directions I can’t do it. It makes me practice self-kindness. It’s okay. You’ll make another batch and it’ll probably be better. I have to take that feeling into all creative jobs because if you feel like you can’t fail, then you’re probably not really pushing yourself. You really should feel that you’re on the edge of failure all the time. Because that’s where progress is made.”
And isn’t that a motivation for good writing, to feel we are on the edge of failure all the time.
4. My Current Writing:
I’m sharing one of my stories from an online course I took at the University of Iowa.
Sawdust
Bob Gillen
I have no words, no words, no words. I cannot speak… of this….of anything. No speaking. No words.
I sit on the floor, with my back against the wall. A wall painted black. Black wall. My eyes see it all. The stage. A wood floor. A stool lying on its side. A bottle of water tipped over. Spilled on the floor. Water. Wet floor. The men stand around Maurice. Not Maurice. Not anymore. Dead Maurice. Dead, dead. Not moving. Gone.
I can see them. See them touch him. One, the theater manager, looks around. No one but a policeman standing there. He goes through pockets. Maurice’s pockets. Fingers pull out folded bills. Maurice got paid before we went on for this last show. Paid in cash. The fingers thumb the bills. Some into the manager’s pocket. No. No. That’s our money. He slips bills to the cop. The cop nods, glances around. Money. Gone.
I was talking when Maurice fell over. Fell off the stool. My eyes were fixed on him. He was sweating. Dripping from his brow. Maurice never sweat. No stage light was hot enough to make him sweat. He sweat enough for it to fall on my leg tonight. And then he was gone. I saw the light go out in his eyes. Dead eyes. Dead. What will I do now? Do now? No more words.
I hear the cop speak. Does he have any family here? The manager shakes his head. Maybe upstate New York. I’m not sure.
That’s right. Ithaca. The college town. That’s where we live. Maurice and me. Used to live. There’s no one else there. She left three years ago. If the theater manager had listened to Maurice’s act, he’d know. Maurice talked about it constantly. Only in the act. Only on stage. Never anywhere else. She was gone. Just a joke now. Good for laughs.
I’m not laughing. Not now. No laughs from my lips. My lips. I can never speak of this. Can never find the right words. Any words.
The policeman asks, pointing at the sign on the stage wall, which one was he? Maurice or Milo? The manager says, Maurice. If the cop was observant, he’d have known. Maurice. Dressed in a tuxedo. French cuffs. A black bow tie. Pearl buttons on his shirt. Maurice. What else could he be named?
The cop continues. So that’s Milo? He points at me. A finger pointing down at me. He wags his finger at me. I sit and stare back. Me in my navy pants, black and white striped shirt, black beret. The manager nods. Sawdust for brains? Yeah, that’s Milo.
What do you want to do with him? The cop points, points, at Maurice. At the body. The manager shakes his head. Him dying on stage cleared the house, I hear him say. I guess you can call an undertaker.
Yeah, the cop says. As soon as the coroner shows up, they can take him. Get him out of here. Let you close up. Tough night, huh?
You have no idea, he says. This cornball act brought in a lot of folks. Who bought a lot of drinks. They were good for that.
Good for that. Good. Get the room filled up. Push drinks. Drinks. Maurice didn’t drink. That made it easier for me. Easier to do my part of the act. Easy for me to say what he was thinking. Easy for me. Easy. Not any more. What do I do now? Where do I go? With Maurice? There’s no Maurice and Milo, with Maurice dead.
The manager throws a soiled tablecloth over Maurice’s body. I can’t see his face now. His face. The face I worked off of almost every night. We worked steady. Like the manager just said, we are, were, a real cornball duo. But we pulled them in. Just about everywhere. Rare when we didn’t fill a club.
Tomorrow night we’ll be in Phoenix. No we won’t. Not now. Decent club. Played it a dozen times in the six years we’ve been working together. Working together. No more. Milo. Who will come to see Milo. Who will feed me the words? Cue me? Set me up for the killer line, the punch line, the big joke. With his tux and tie, some reviewers called Maurice a Dean Martin. The straight man. The man with the cigarette. The glass. Maurice’s glass held iced tea. He checked it every night before we went on. No mistakes. No slip ups. Tea. Every night, tea.
Maurice is dead. I saw him go. In a moment. Not even the blink of an eye. Looking at me. Dead on the floor. Gone. Over. It’s over. Where are my words? I have no words. No words. My mouth is still. I am numb. I can’t speak of this. What will I do? Will someone take me in? Take me in, in, somewhere. A place to go.
The cop points at me again. What about him? Send him with the undertaker, the manager says. I have no use for him. Let the undertaker figure it out. If he wants to get paid, he’ll try to find a relative to cover the funeral. The burial.
The cop steps toward me. Leave me alone. Don’t touch me. Bring Maurice back. Back. Reverse it. Tonight will be a do-over. Can’t we do that?
The cop picks me up. Dumps me next to the dirty tablecloth. Next to Maurice. Not Maurice. Pretty heavy for a dummy, the cop says. He looks at me. Nothing to say now, huh?
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