"Why does our house have a basement?
Underground is underwater...
This is where the Great Plains end
in the Gulf of Mexico...."
-Noah in Caroline, or Change
I am, and always have been, a waterbaby. H2O is my native element. I love living so near it and I love getting to take a ferry to work every day. The only thing that would make my commute more awesome is if I could get a powerboat and boat to the marina near CW every day, then take my car into work. This plan would work perfectly, except we have no dock here where I could tie up a boat. Also, while the ferry saves me twenty minutes of gas every day, a powerboat's consumption would have the exact opposite effect.
I thought I would try to do something interesting with my ferry time--about fifteen minutes each way--but so far it's mostly been sleeping in the morning and reading in the afternoon. So I'm starting another blog which will feature updates every day that I take the boat. (Sometimes working evenings I take the bridge home...it's a longer drive for me, but shorter timewise since I don't have to wait for the ferry) I am going to try to upload raw material: whatever I've written that day, unedited (let me repeat that for interested parties: unedited) and unexplained. Sometimes it might be chunks from things I'm working on, sometimes just some prose or poetry that occurs to me as I'm hoppin' across the water. I'm hoping that creatively writing every day will get me jumpstarted, as well as giving me a little discipline. I've become horribly lax since i haven't had the internets in four months. Also I can't find my journal...
But, anyway. Pen, Ink & Ferry is now open for business. Enjoy!
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Monday, April 05, 2010
Monday Night Lights
I had to work tonight, but they sent me home early...something about a school group booking more tickets than they needed, so only three tours went out instead of four at eight-thirty. I thought--I could do a re-write on my play! Except that, in order to hang on to my sanity, what with working two/three jobs, plus militia, I imposed a limit of a thirteen hour workday. So now I am casting about for something to write about.
The play is going well. Quite a few people have seen it and commented on it and occasionally...changed some of my words...without asking me...but overall, things are going well. This is about as unusual a situation you can get for a playwright. Usually you have to beg on bended knee and promise all sorts of sordid favors to get anyone to read your work. I appreciate all the comments, I really do, especially when someone who knows slaps me on the wrist (metaphorically) and says DO NOT UPHOLD THIS COMMON MISCONCEPTION. Okay, fine. But the changing my words--even though it is done with enthusiasm and the best of intentions--rankles a little. Granted, we are only on draft two. I get to take the changes and either keep them, toss them or make them better. If I don't agree, I get to dig in my little dramatic heels and say "look, we ARE going to make fun of Jefferson, even if it's not correct, because people know who Jefferson is and IT'S FUNNY." I have spoken to other writers connected to the Foundation, and they warned me this was a problem. Too many people trying to make sure that everything is absolutely one hundred percent historically accurate. I want that, I really do. I also want to entertain the hell out of people and make them laugh. And if it's a choice between bending the historical record or having a boring show, I choose to toss history out of the window. I have done my research. And I choose to blithely ignore it.
Speaking of defenestration, isn't that a funny word? and isn't it funny that we HAVE A WORD for throwing things out of a window? I could say "I totally defrenestrated him!" and people would know I tossed someone out a window. Isn't that weird?
Back to historical interpreting...we historical interpreters/reenactors tend to fall into two groups. The daytrippers, who will use their sewing machines to make Simplicity patters with quilter's cotton, buy a mob cap and call it a day, and the hardcore or "progressive" re-enactors who spend far, FAR too much time and money on "authentic" fabrics and handsewing. No prizes for guessing which category I'm in. But this leads to some hysterical situations where grown men are openly admiring each other's clothing and accoutrements...a situation which this eBay ad perfectly captures:
thirty seconds of hilarity.
...for the record that coat is pretty authentic, as is the gorget he is wearing and the gun, but the wig? Sigh. Farby as hell.
The play is going well. Quite a few people have seen it and commented on it and occasionally...changed some of my words...without asking me...but overall, things are going well. This is about as unusual a situation you can get for a playwright. Usually you have to beg on bended knee and promise all sorts of sordid favors to get anyone to read your work. I appreciate all the comments, I really do, especially when someone who knows slaps me on the wrist (metaphorically) and says DO NOT UPHOLD THIS COMMON MISCONCEPTION. Okay, fine. But the changing my words--even though it is done with enthusiasm and the best of intentions--rankles a little. Granted, we are only on draft two. I get to take the changes and either keep them, toss them or make them better. If I don't agree, I get to dig in my little dramatic heels and say "look, we ARE going to make fun of Jefferson, even if it's not correct, because people know who Jefferson is and IT'S FUNNY." I have spoken to other writers connected to the Foundation, and they warned me this was a problem. Too many people trying to make sure that everything is absolutely one hundred percent historically accurate. I want that, I really do. I also want to entertain the hell out of people and make them laugh. And if it's a choice between bending the historical record or having a boring show, I choose to toss history out of the window. I have done my research. And I choose to blithely ignore it.
Speaking of defenestration, isn't that a funny word? and isn't it funny that we HAVE A WORD for throwing things out of a window? I could say "I totally defrenestrated him!" and people would know I tossed someone out a window. Isn't that weird?
Back to historical interpreting...we historical interpreters/reenactors tend to fall into two groups. The daytrippers, who will use their sewing machines to make Simplicity patters with quilter's cotton, buy a mob cap and call it a day, and the hardcore or "progressive" re-enactors who spend far, FAR too much time and money on "authentic" fabrics and handsewing. No prizes for guessing which category I'm in. But this leads to some hysterical situations where grown men are openly admiring each other's clothing and accoutrements...a situation which this eBay ad perfectly captures:
thirty seconds of hilarity.
...for the record that coat is pretty authentic, as is the gorget he is wearing and the gun, but the wig? Sigh. Farby as hell.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
A Month of Sundays
OH MY GOSH I HAVE FINALLY GOTTEN MY SCHEDULE WHERE I LIKE IT:
All the Time: Spend With Boyfriend (putting off important things)
REWRITING THE PLAY (and trying not to dally since I am getting paiiid to reviiise...YESSS)
Creating a Workshop. On Pockets, Workbags and Market Wallets. All of which I have made, all of which I currently own and am pretty much in complete understand of UNTIL...I start doing research on them and realise that once again: Everything that can be said. Has been said. It's Hamlet all over again.
Beagle: Walked enough.
Car: Needing some tire balancing. SCREW YOU POTHOLES!!! Tomorrow morning I will be sober and you will be ASPHALT'D!!! HAHAHAHAHA
Re-enacting. We're going next weekend, but first I have to figure out where exactly it is we're going. North Carolina...somewhere.
Working Evenings! I love getting the overtime pay until I have to actually, you know, work evenings.
Blogging in my roommate's room. Because one roommate moved out and another one moved in and we don't have a wireless router yet.
Sewing a bedgown. All the best sewing projects start at seven PM on a Sunday night.
New resolve to be a vegetarian. Thank you Paul Watson for saving baby seals. Have you ever seen a seal being clubbed to death? I don't recommend Googling it.
And Oh yes, singing in choir. I may never be less busy enough to go to church, but by God I'm going to make it to rehearsals.
And that is my life.
Also there is rioting in Greece. Part of me supports the protestors, part of me wonders if maybe they're a bit too much government run. It's like my socialist and my capitalist selves are fighting within my soul. Who will win? Well, both of them feel they need to do some more research before coming to a decision. Preferrably on a Greek island somewhere...
All the Time: Spend With Boyfriend (putting off important things)
REWRITING THE PLAY (and trying not to dally since I am getting paiiid to reviiise...YESSS)
Creating a Workshop. On Pockets, Workbags and Market Wallets. All of which I have made, all of which I currently own and am pretty much in complete understand of UNTIL...I start doing research on them and realise that once again: Everything that can be said. Has been said. It's Hamlet all over again.
Beagle: Walked enough.
Car: Needing some tire balancing. SCREW YOU POTHOLES!!! Tomorrow morning I will be sober and you will be ASPHALT'D!!! HAHAHAHAHA
Re-enacting. We're going next weekend, but first I have to figure out where exactly it is we're going. North Carolina...somewhere.
Working Evenings! I love getting the overtime pay until I have to actually, you know, work evenings.
Blogging in my roommate's room. Because one roommate moved out and another one moved in and we don't have a wireless router yet.
Sewing a bedgown. All the best sewing projects start at seven PM on a Sunday night.
New resolve to be a vegetarian. Thank you Paul Watson for saving baby seals. Have you ever seen a seal being clubbed to death? I don't recommend Googling it.
And Oh yes, singing in choir. I may never be less busy enough to go to church, but by God I'm going to make it to rehearsals.
And that is my life.
Also there is rioting in Greece. Part of me supports the protestors, part of me wonders if maybe they're a bit too much government run. It's like my socialist and my capitalist selves are fighting within my soul. Who will win? Well, both of them feel they need to do some more research before coming to a decision. Preferrably on a Greek island somewhere...
Monday, February 22, 2010
New Article
Hello everyone...here's a link to my latest article for Examiner.com...it's an interview I did with Bill Chrystal, who will be interpreting John Adams this weekend at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts. Enjoy!
"Bill Chrystal: An interview with John Adams of "An Evening with John and Abigail Adams."
"Bill Chrystal: An interview with John Adams of "An Evening with John and Abigail Adams."
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Very Exciting Writing News
Wow, I could get used to this whole paid to write thing!
Several exciting projects on the horizon/happening now/happening soon.
Firstly, I am now the Norfolk Theater Examiner on Examiner.com! I see plays, write reviews about them, offer advice about upcoming plays, bash Ticketmaster whenever I get the chance, and occasionally get paid for my work. Mostly, this site is an opportunity to get my name out there, but also to put a little pressure on me to write every week. I'm supposed to submit 2-3 articles a week...I don't think there is that much theater in this area, but we'll see.
Secondly, a tour that I wrote for Visual Travel Tours about Colonial Williamsburg is now available (sort of)! Visual Travel Tours is a website where one can download pictures and audio onto a mobile phone and walk around while a person in the know (like me) narrates the things you are seeing, the stories behind the visual. You can download the text and photos now, the recorded version is coming soon. I am hoping to write more tours for this company, including a spring tour, focussing on all the plants and baby sheeps in the historical area.
And lastly--for everyone happy that I'm writing but sad that I am not writing theater--Colonial Williamsburg is going to produce a PLAY WHAT I WROTE, opening sometime in July. SQUEE. I wrote this play at the request of my boss after she heard the VP of the historical area say it might be a "good idea" to write a play "with clothes." Two weeks later the rough draft of "Fashion Before Ease" landed on her desk, and after two months in limbo, it got the green light to be included in the evening programs lineup. SQUEE PART DEUX. This show will be opening sometime in July, running one or two nights a week for a couple months...so there is definitely adequate time for everyone to see it...AND I KNOW YOU ALL WANT TO.
Very happy, very excited...and now you must excuse me, I'm off to IHOP for pancakes and working on the Billy Lee Project...we all know the muse needs coffee to keep going.
Several exciting projects on the horizon/happening now/happening soon.
Firstly, I am now the Norfolk Theater Examiner on Examiner.com! I see plays, write reviews about them, offer advice about upcoming plays, bash Ticketmaster whenever I get the chance, and occasionally get paid for my work. Mostly, this site is an opportunity to get my name out there, but also to put a little pressure on me to write every week. I'm supposed to submit 2-3 articles a week...I don't think there is that much theater in this area, but we'll see.
Secondly, a tour that I wrote for Visual Travel Tours about Colonial Williamsburg is now available (sort of)! Visual Travel Tours is a website where one can download pictures and audio onto a mobile phone and walk around while a person in the know (like me) narrates the things you are seeing, the stories behind the visual. You can download the text and photos now, the recorded version is coming soon. I am hoping to write more tours for this company, including a spring tour, focussing on all the plants and baby sheeps in the historical area.
And lastly--for everyone happy that I'm writing but sad that I am not writing theater--Colonial Williamsburg is going to produce a PLAY WHAT I WROTE, opening sometime in July. SQUEE. I wrote this play at the request of my boss after she heard the VP of the historical area say it might be a "good idea" to write a play "with clothes." Two weeks later the rough draft of "Fashion Before Ease" landed on her desk, and after two months in limbo, it got the green light to be included in the evening programs lineup. SQUEE PART DEUX. This show will be opening sometime in July, running one or two nights a week for a couple months...so there is definitely adequate time for everyone to see it...AND I KNOW YOU ALL WANT TO.
Very happy, very excited...and now you must excuse me, I'm off to IHOP for pancakes and working on the Billy Lee Project...we all know the muse needs coffee to keep going.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Pirates! Right behind you!
As a loyal member of His Most Imperial Majesty's Royal Navy, I, of course, abhor pirates, which is why I don't play pirates on Facebook. I'd rather wear a shiny blue uniform than a gold earring and parrot. Last Saturday Jeff took me to Nauticus, a huge maritime museum in Norfolk Virginia, where the USS Wisconsin is parked, to see the Real Pirates! exhibit. It was cold and windy and miserable, which are three of the best reasons I can think of for traipsing around a museum exhibit.
The Real Pirates! exhibit is hosted by the National Geographic Society. It is comprised solely of artifacts lifted from the Whydda (say it like a Southerner saying "widow" --widda) which went down in 1717. Originally built to be a slave ship, the Whydda was captured by Sam Bellamy of New England, an out of work sailor who turned pirate so he could earn enough money to marry his sweetheart. Unfortunately the ship sank on his way back to Cape Cod. I'll let you read about the rest of it on the website. Nauticus has actually hired some real pirates, the Moody Crewe, to come and set up their gear every other Saturday and explain things to guests, letting them touch original tools and guns. I was hard pressed not to point out the inaccuracies of their clothes (one guy was, I swear, wearing his Civil War shirt), but they did make me snigger.
What made me laugh the most though was Jeff's careful examination of a model of the ship: "Why does it have a British flag on it along with a Jolly Roger?" I replied, merrily, "Oh, to confuse the enemy. 'Hum, hum, hum, just a British ship, here we are, being British, just sailing---OH NOES, WE'RE REALLY PIRATES HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, GIVE US YOUR BOOTY.'"
I can see why people like pirates, just as long as you remember that pirates are not Johnny Depp in eyeliner. Pirates are apparently a very democratic crew, but they like to kill and pillage and drink far more than is good for anyone's health.
I'm in a better mood today...I came home to two emails about the Billy Lee project, one with an attachment that contained all the sources mentioning Lee. Love historians so much. You get someone who shares your passion, and you can geek out for hours. I also got an email from a person at CW, saying how the play what I wrote for them has a "sparkle we haven't seen in the evening programs before." Ooooh, I'm gonna print that out and put it in my journal. Little bit o' praise goes a long way.
The Real Pirates! exhibit is hosted by the National Geographic Society. It is comprised solely of artifacts lifted from the Whydda (say it like a Southerner saying "widow" --widda) which went down in 1717. Originally built to be a slave ship, the Whydda was captured by Sam Bellamy of New England, an out of work sailor who turned pirate so he could earn enough money to marry his sweetheart. Unfortunately the ship sank on his way back to Cape Cod. I'll let you read about the rest of it on the website. Nauticus has actually hired some real pirates, the Moody Crewe, to come and set up their gear every other Saturday and explain things to guests, letting them touch original tools and guns. I was hard pressed not to point out the inaccuracies of their clothes (one guy was, I swear, wearing his Civil War shirt), but they did make me snigger.
What made me laugh the most though was Jeff's careful examination of a model of the ship: "Why does it have a British flag on it along with a Jolly Roger?" I replied, merrily, "Oh, to confuse the enemy. 'Hum, hum, hum, just a British ship, here we are, being British, just sailing---OH NOES, WE'RE REALLY PIRATES HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, GIVE US YOUR BOOTY.'"
I can see why people like pirates, just as long as you remember that pirates are not Johnny Depp in eyeliner. Pirates are apparently a very democratic crew, but they like to kill and pillage and drink far more than is good for anyone's health.
I'm in a better mood today...I came home to two emails about the Billy Lee project, one with an attachment that contained all the sources mentioning Lee. Love historians so much. You get someone who shares your passion, and you can geek out for hours. I also got an email from a person at CW, saying how the play what I wrote for them has a "sparkle we haven't seen in the evening programs before." Ooooh, I'm gonna print that out and put it in my journal. Little bit o' praise goes a long way.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
le sigh...
Now that evening programs are over, I suddenly find myself with ungodly amounts of time on my hands. I thought that my room would be cleaner, projects would get finished, beagles would get marathon'd, but instead I find myself playing despondently with my new computer. I'm taking it to the Apple Store next weekend for a tutorial, and to have them transfer all my old files since I don't have a cord that will talk to my external hard drive. In the meantime, icanhascheesburger.com has never looked so good.
I'm slightly depressed tonight. I was filled with excitement about finally being able to devote some serious evening time to the Billy Lee Project, but after doing some research tonight I discovered not one but two plays dealing with that very man. One of them musicalized. Before you say it, I know--no one else has done it from my viewpoint, and that's true, but it's depressing nonetheless. So, beyond getting Office installed in preparation for beginning the Great Work, not much else has happened.
Well, that's not true. I walked Kismet and plunged the toilet and made hot cocoa. It's still thirty degrees out, and every time I have to go outside I shake uncontrollably. Until I remind myself it could be worse: it could be snowing.
I'm slightly depressed tonight. I was filled with excitement about finally being able to devote some serious evening time to the Billy Lee Project, but after doing some research tonight I discovered not one but two plays dealing with that very man. One of them musicalized. Before you say it, I know--no one else has done it from my viewpoint, and that's true, but it's depressing nonetheless. So, beyond getting Office installed in preparation for beginning the Great Work, not much else has happened.
Well, that's not true. I walked Kismet and plunged the toilet and made hot cocoa. It's still thirty degrees out, and every time I have to go outside I shake uncontrollably. Until I remind myself it could be worse: it could be snowing.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
happy dance!
Guess who just got hiiiired! To write a podcast walking tour of CW!!!!
And whooo is getting their script produced!!! Probably sometime next summer! In some kind of format, tho I don't doubt it might be slight unrecognizable!!!
hint hint
It's ME!!!!
I loove getting paid to write!
And whooo is getting their script produced!!! Probably sometime next summer! In some kind of format, tho I don't doubt it might be slight unrecognizable!!!
hint hint
It's ME!!!!
I loove getting paid to write!
Friday, November 13, 2009
Friday Night
Last week we had a nor'easter, which was pretty hellacious. Worse than Hurricane Hanna, with flood levels near Hurricane Isabel, although most places managed to hang on to their power. It hasn't stopped raining in three almost four days...I'm starting to feel like a character in a Don Bluth film.
Gosh, there's so much to write about. A few weeks ago we at the Costume Design Center had an open house, for the 75th anniversary of costume design at CW, and one of our VP's was so impressed he suggested we should do some kind of evening program based around costumes. Our manager asked me to write it since I am A) intimately acquainted with all of CW's clothes and the historical time periods B) It is a slow time and they could let me go read eighteenth-century Virginia Gazettes without work piling up C) I have a wicked sense of humor and --oh yeah, D) I am a trained playwright. Hyaaaah! Trained like a NINJA. It was so frickin' GREAT to write--and to do it while I was ON THE CLOCK--and barge into Linda Baumgarten's office like I was a professional and question her about stomachers--and let me tell you, the high I got last Friday as I finished that first draft and mailed it in was fantastic. I'd forgotten what that feels like. THIS is what I needed: a clearly defined goal, a deadline and someone who believes in me. The next step is seeing if we can do it..do we have the space, actors, budget, etc, but I will surely keep you posted.
That's the most exciting news...the reason I haven't been posting much is because I've been an overworked, stressed, cranky Nicki lately, and that doesn't make for exciting blogging. The evening programs are slowing down though--I'm getting cancelled more--which is both a blessing and a curse. It's bad, obviously, because it means less money, but it's a good thing because it means I can spend more time working on Christmas projects, walking Kismet and sleeping. Last night I actually got to bed by ten, and I can already feel the difference an extra hour of sleep makes. And I have time to make dinner tonight, so I'm making hotdish. Does anyone out there listen to Prairie Home Companion? I usually catch it Sundays after church...it makes me homesick, listening to all those Midwestern accents. Last time they were talking about hot dish, which got me hungry, even though mom never made it when I was growing up. I had to explain to my roommate that hot dish is a casserole made by a Midwesterner.
I'll try to post some pictures of some projects soon...but some of them are Christmas presents, so they may have to wait until after December 25th...
Gosh, there's so much to write about. A few weeks ago we at the Costume Design Center had an open house, for the 75th anniversary of costume design at CW, and one of our VP's was so impressed he suggested we should do some kind of evening program based around costumes. Our manager asked me to write it since I am A) intimately acquainted with all of CW's clothes and the historical time periods B) It is a slow time and they could let me go read eighteenth-century Virginia Gazettes without work piling up C) I have a wicked sense of humor and --oh yeah, D) I am a trained playwright. Hyaaaah! Trained like a NINJA. It was so frickin' GREAT to write--and to do it while I was ON THE CLOCK--and barge into Linda Baumgarten's office like I was a professional and question her about stomachers--and let me tell you, the high I got last Friday as I finished that first draft and mailed it in was fantastic. I'd forgotten what that feels like. THIS is what I needed: a clearly defined goal, a deadline and someone who believes in me. The next step is seeing if we can do it..do we have the space, actors, budget, etc, but I will surely keep you posted.
That's the most exciting news...the reason I haven't been posting much is because I've been an overworked, stressed, cranky Nicki lately, and that doesn't make for exciting blogging. The evening programs are slowing down though--I'm getting cancelled more--which is both a blessing and a curse. It's bad, obviously, because it means less money, but it's a good thing because it means I can spend more time working on Christmas projects, walking Kismet and sleeping. Last night I actually got to bed by ten, and I can already feel the difference an extra hour of sleep makes. And I have time to make dinner tonight, so I'm making hotdish. Does anyone out there listen to Prairie Home Companion? I usually catch it Sundays after church...it makes me homesick, listening to all those Midwestern accents. Last time they were talking about hot dish, which got me hungry, even though mom never made it when I was growing up. I had to explain to my roommate that hot dish is a casserole made by a Midwesterner.
I'll try to post some pictures of some projects soon...but some of them are Christmas presents, so they may have to wait until after December 25th...
Friday, July 03, 2009
The book I want to write starts like this:
"When people find out I work at Colonial Williamsburg, the first question they inevitably ask me is, do I get to work in costume? Usually they're disappointed when they find I'm actually behind the scenes, although they perk up again slightly when I tell them I get to make the costumes. I leave out the boring bits about hemming and buttons.
A couple times a week, however, I do get to work in costume. I throw on a lovely green linen gown and petticoat and go haunt the Randolph house, a storyteller for the ghost tours. One night I was standing in the doorway of the passage, enjoying a freshening breeze, when I noticed a guest (always 'guest,' never 'tourist') standing by the fence, looking at me with the "I have a question but I'm shy" face that any interpreter can spot a mile away. "Good evening!" I said, hands on hips, full of my eighteenth-century persona. "Hello," the woman said timidly, "Are you Eve?" "Oh, no," I cheerfully replied, happy to get some practise in as a first-person interpreter, "My name is Mrs. Peachy. This is my home. I live here with my husband and my young son." Then, my well of information about Mrs. Peach exhausted, I dropped the first-person act and came down the steps toward the woman. As I approached I saw that she was wearing a Teacher's Institute nametag, with her name and her hometown on it. Then, underneath that, another word: "Eve." And I instantly realised that this year the teacher's institute--an intensive weeklong historical immersion for teachers who are hoping to add a little pizazz to their social studies classes--must have assigned each person a historical figure to learn about. All this woman had was a name to go on. She had found herself the right house, all right, but had no clue who Eve was.
I walked up to the fence. "Eve was a slave," I explained. "She was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Randolph...after Peyton died, Eve and her son ran away and tried to join the British side, but they were captured and brought back. Eve was eventually sold." I am trying to be gentle, but I can see the teacher in front of me--a woman not much taller than me, middle-aged, wearing a white shirt under a fanny pack with sensible New Balance sneakers--is startled to find out that "her" person was actually an enslaved woman. "Was she--was she brought back by force?" she asks me.
The truth is, I don't know. In the ghost story I tell, Eve is "retaken." But I didn't write the script and I know that artistic licenses have been taken. "It's possible," I say slowly. "It's also possible that she returned under her own power, because her family was here, or she was unable to care for herself and her son, or the British kicked her out of their camp when they moved to Yorktown." Bits of historical fauna float to the surface of my brain, fascinating details about Americana I've tucked away. "Either way, Mrs. Randolph found it necessary to sell her because of her 'bad behavior' (this much I do know, I've read Betty Randolph's will, where she directs the executors to take the profits from Eve's sale and buy a slave for her niece, since the niece won't be inheriting Eve now.) so I guess we can assume that there was some bad blood there."
I am trying to be helpful, and I suggest to the woman that she really needs to come back during the day, when the Randolph House serves as an interpretive site for the African American programs. "The interpreters here would know a lot more than I would. I'm just the ghost." I can see though, that this friendly Kentuckian teacher is a little shook up. And who wouldn't be? You go on a treasure-hunt for the person on your nametag, and you end up confronting a dark, dirty secret of America's past.
This episode stuck with me because in some ways, I find myself performing the same task. My background is in theatre, in playwrighting, specifically, and for a long while now I have wanted to write a play about William Lee, George Washington's manservant. Slave, bought and owned by Washington until he died, but also one of the people closest to the Father of Our Country. Three steps behind Washington during his entire life and what do I know about him? Nothing. But for some reason--there's a play there, and I want to dig it out.
For all intents and purposes, I should be the last person who's interested in a play about Billy Lee. I am white. I am female. I am a Yankee--or at least, not from the South, which is how Southerners define "Yankee" although those of us from Wisconsin would probably check "other" on the great census sheet of union-vs.-confederacy. A rabid Anglophile, I can rattle off the British monarchy from Henry VIII all the way up to present day, but I peter out on American presidents somewhere around James Madison. To me, living in Virginia is almost like living in a foreign country with a history and a culture that should be learned and studied and appreciated.
This either makes me ideally suited for the task at hand, or in way, way over my head."
A couple times a week, however, I do get to work in costume. I throw on a lovely green linen gown and petticoat and go haunt the Randolph house, a storyteller for the ghost tours. One night I was standing in the doorway of the passage, enjoying a freshening breeze, when I noticed a guest (always 'guest,' never 'tourist') standing by the fence, looking at me with the "I have a question but I'm shy" face that any interpreter can spot a mile away. "Good evening!" I said, hands on hips, full of my eighteenth-century persona. "Hello," the woman said timidly, "Are you Eve?" "Oh, no," I cheerfully replied, happy to get some practise in as a first-person interpreter, "My name is Mrs. Peachy. This is my home. I live here with my husband and my young son." Then, my well of information about Mrs. Peach exhausted, I dropped the first-person act and came down the steps toward the woman. As I approached I saw that she was wearing a Teacher's Institute nametag, with her name and her hometown on it. Then, underneath that, another word: "Eve." And I instantly realised that this year the teacher's institute--an intensive weeklong historical immersion for teachers who are hoping to add a little pizazz to their social studies classes--must have assigned each person a historical figure to learn about. All this woman had was a name to go on. She had found herself the right house, all right, but had no clue who Eve was.
I walked up to the fence. "Eve was a slave," I explained. "She was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Randolph...after Peyton died, Eve and her son ran away and tried to join the British side, but they were captured and brought back. Eve was eventually sold." I am trying to be gentle, but I can see the teacher in front of me--a woman not much taller than me, middle-aged, wearing a white shirt under a fanny pack with sensible New Balance sneakers--is startled to find out that "her" person was actually an enslaved woman. "Was she--was she brought back by force?" she asks me.
The truth is, I don't know. In the ghost story I tell, Eve is "retaken." But I didn't write the script and I know that artistic licenses have been taken. "It's possible," I say slowly. "It's also possible that she returned under her own power, because her family was here, or she was unable to care for herself and her son, or the British kicked her out of their camp when they moved to Yorktown." Bits of historical fauna float to the surface of my brain, fascinating details about Americana I've tucked away. "Either way, Mrs. Randolph found it necessary to sell her because of her 'bad behavior' (this much I do know, I've read Betty Randolph's will, where she directs the executors to take the profits from Eve's sale and buy a slave for her niece, since the niece won't be inheriting Eve now.) so I guess we can assume that there was some bad blood there."
I am trying to be helpful, and I suggest to the woman that she really needs to come back during the day, when the Randolph House serves as an interpretive site for the African American programs. "The interpreters here would know a lot more than I would. I'm just the ghost." I can see though, that this friendly Kentuckian teacher is a little shook up. And who wouldn't be? You go on a treasure-hunt for the person on your nametag, and you end up confronting a dark, dirty secret of America's past.
This episode stuck with me because in some ways, I find myself performing the same task. My background is in theatre, in playwrighting, specifically, and for a long while now I have wanted to write a play about William Lee, George Washington's manservant. Slave, bought and owned by Washington until he died, but also one of the people closest to the Father of Our Country. Three steps behind Washington during his entire life and what do I know about him? Nothing. But for some reason--there's a play there, and I want to dig it out.
For all intents and purposes, I should be the last person who's interested in a play about Billy Lee. I am white. I am female. I am a Yankee--or at least, not from the South, which is how Southerners define "Yankee" although those of us from Wisconsin would probably check "other" on the great census sheet of union-vs.-confederacy. A rabid Anglophile, I can rattle off the British monarchy from Henry VIII all the way up to present day, but I peter out on American presidents somewhere around James Madison. To me, living in Virginia is almost like living in a foreign country with a history and a culture that should be learned and studied and appreciated.
This either makes me ideally suited for the task at hand, or in way, way over my head."
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The Charnal Ship
As a storyteller for the evening programs, I take the bare bones of a tale and pad it out into a proper story. Then I present it to the director of evening programs, and he gives feedback, and we work on it until my story is "cleared"--then I'm put into the schedule for evening rotation. I haven't been cleared yet, but I'm working on my story today, and I thought my loyal readers would like to read it. (yes, I recycled an old character, but he's such a good one...)
Enjoy!
THE CHARNAL SHIP
adapted by NM Lemery
It is true I married somewhat late in life. I had almost given up hope of ever finding a husband, when I met Mr. Clarke. It happened thusly: One day, while I was walking home from church with my six brothers, Mr. Clarke fell in alongside me and struck up a conversation about some land he had recently purchased in Virginia. This continued for many weeks, while he described in detail the school he wished to build, where pupils could work the land in exchange for their tuition. A splendid plan, I thought, and I told him so. He blushed and said—“Elizabeth, you’ve heard all about my plans, but what it’s really lacking is a wife. So what d’you say? Will you come to Virginia with me and make the experiment?”
Well! I tell you, for a man to propose an experiment where a marriage proposal is expected is very bold, but I confess that is the moment when I fell most deeply in love with my Mr. Clarke, and I accepted—both him and his experiment. We were married a month later, in the presence of my six brothers, and there was never a happier woman than I.
When we had been married for a month and some days, Mr. Clarke took his leave of me to sail to Virginia, to begin building his great scholastic experiment, promising to send for me—“as soon as I get a house built to suit you.” He wrote me faithfully nearly every day, and I lived through those letters, reading about the people and climates of Virginia, about the buildings he was constructing. I only wished to be by my husband’s side, to help him build our new lives together. I imagined myself inside these letters, safe in our new house in Virginia, surrounded with the family I so longed for. At last the long-awaited letter arrived: “The house is finished to my satisfaction, Liza, come home to me.”
I booked passage on a ship the very next day. As it happened, a merchant trader, the Windsong, was due west from Portsmouth in a few week’s time. Her captain, Andrew Hollee, was a youngish man, but very well respected by his crew and his business partners. I made the necessary arrangements, and embarked on a blustery day in early March.
If you have never been aboard a ship, you cannot imagine it. Everything is crammed together, folded and stacked to take up the least amount of room possible, for space is at a premium on a ship. The ship itself feels like a live being—the timbers under your feet constantly roll with the waves. The hull and masts creak in the wind, the rigging and sails groan with the strain. The first night I lay in my bunk listening to the sounds thinking I should go mad from them, but after the course of a few days they became familiar and dear to me. The crew was a diverse group of men from all over England, united only in their distrust of me. I had heard that some mariners considered it ill luck to have a woman on board, and so I took it upon myself to lay in a good supply of “trinkets” so that I might “make friends with the natives.” Accordingly I brought along numerous small cakes, and some traveling Bibles, which I distributed with goodwill. I never saw the Bibles again, though, I was assured by Captain Hollee that the crew had taken to reading them most assiduously before they turned in to their hammocks for the evening. After that we got along splendidly.
Yes, the voyage looked to be a rather unremarkable one. We cut through a stormy grey Atlantic, bound westward toward the setting sun day after day. Then one day, about two weeks out, I awoke to notice the air had grown considerably colder. I wrapped myself in my warmest clothes and came on deck. What I saw chilled me even more thoroughly than the wind had—in the night we had approached a field of icebergs. I cannot begin to attempt to describe them. They are so utterly massive, so devoid of life, yet so silent and terrifying, moving through the water without aim or intention, but capable of sinking a ship or crushing her. I wrapped my cloak more tightly around myself as Captain Hollee approached me. He touched his hat. “Mrs. Clarke, I’m afraid that we will be in for a bit of weather tonight—but you must trust me to bring you through safely.” I assured him I did so, but the sight of those icebergs terrified me. The smallest was easily five times the size of the Windsong, and an unexpected breeze could have dashed her upon that ice as if she were running aground upon the hardest rock.
The wind and the waves began to pick up, tossing the Windsong from side to side. The familiar comforting sounds of the ship began to pick up, moving into new territory that froze the blood in my veins. The rigging no longer sang, it screamed under the wind, the sails were like uncontrollable birds that flapped in the wind. The ship’s crew ran to and fro in an orderly fashion, bringing in the sails, tying down the items on deck, and generally preparing for the storm. I thought the worse had hit, but at nightfall—the storm increased.
Now, friends, you may have seen such a storm on land, but to ride through one on a ship, you cannot imagine. The very deck beneath your feet heaves and rolls so that you must cling on to something or you will be tossed overboard, into the churning waves. The waves roll over the deck so that every minute you are convinced you are swamped, only to have the ship rise again. The masts sway like the trees of the forest they once were.
I secured myself in my tiny cabin, falling to my knees and clinging to my bunk, gasping every prayer I had ever learned, seeking to God to save us. I was in mortal terror, thinking about the giant floes of ice that surrounded us, imagining each creak of the ship to be the sound that signaled her imminent destruction. The noise was unbelieveable. The friendly sounds of the ship’s timbers groaned and creaked like a dying creature. The wind pushed through the rigging like a banshee, the shouts of the crew sounded like the desperate cries of haunted souls. I thought I was going mad from the cacophony. Animal cries could be heard upon the wind, mad singing, and then—strangest of all—I heard a baby’s cry rising loud and clear above the din. It was so clear that I found myself rising to my feet, determined to find the source, before I remembered myself. It was only a trick of the wind, but oh how real it seemed…
Sheer exhaustion finally took me to sleep. I awoke to find myself huddled on the floor of my cabin, still dressed in my warmest clothes, clutching my blankets. The ship was still. I flew up to the deck to see what had happened. A sorry sight greeted my eyes—one of the masts had been swept away, and the ship’s crew was engaged in replacing it with a jury-rig, while others were sweeping debris or repairing the canvas on the remaining mast. They all looked exhausted, haunted, as I knew I myself must look. Captain Hollee himself was at the helm, grim and determined. And all around us were the silent icebergs, like sentinels on the side of a Pharoh’s tomb, waiting for their chance to send us to the bottom of the ocean.
Captain Hollee ordered one of the boats lowered, and several of the ship’s crew went into it and began to pull us through the field. It felt like walking through a graveyard. We were surrounded by flat, blue-black water, out of which thrust the white, utterly silent mountains, like the tombs of the long-dead where the names have been eroded away. It was very cold, and very quiet, the quieitude only magnified by the tumult we had gone through the night before. So very cold, and so very quiet. We moved past the silent mountains, hardly daring to breath, as though any noise would bring them down upon us.
Then suddenly, a black trail leading through the white jags, beyond which was the open sea and safety. Cheers greeted this sight, and the men in the boat pulled harder. We moved forward at a snail’s pace, eager to be free of this haunted place, when suddenly--we spied another ship! A ship which had not survived the storm, alas, but was wrecked upon one of the treacherous icebergs. Her masts and rigging were in sad disarray. There was not a soul in sight. Captain Hollee halloe’d them several times, but there was no reply. “I will go aboard,” he said “it is clear they are in need of whatever assistance we can give.”
At that moment I thought of the baby’s cry I had heard the night before—perhaps the wind had carried that cry from a child on board this wrecked ship! “Captain Hollee!” I said “I wish to go with you!” And I quickly explained what I had heard. “If there is a child on board that ship—or another woman—they will be grateful for the presence of another female.” Captain Hollee protested most strongly, but I insisted. I had survived the terrible storm, and I felt alive and invincible and determined.
We made the only noise that day, the oars cutting through the black water, the heavy breathing of the straining mariners. And the occasional halloo from Captain Hollee, which was never returned. When we came alongside that ship, Captain Hollee insisted on going first. He was followed by two of his sailors, and then I was handed up. The deck presented a strange sight—even I, who was only recently indoctrinated into that orderly world of the sea—could see that the deck was in total disarray. It was as if no attempt had been made to put to rights what the storm had torn asunder. Ropes and sails hung where they had fallen, barrels and boxes lay broken upon the deck. And all around us…that eerie silence.
We began to grow uneasy, and a pistol or two appeared. Captain Hollee bade me stay where I was, and advanced towards the captain’s cabin. The other sailors fanned out along the deck, searching for signs of life. The silence was so deafening I wanted to sing to break the tension—and then I heard it again. A baby’s cry. Fainter now than it had been when it first came to me in the storm, but there was no doubt in my mind that it came from belowdecks. I moved towards the hatchway, unobserved by any of the crew, and went down a flight of stairs.
Fainter and fainter that cry grew until it disappeared all together, but not before I could see where it came from. The air was so cold—that poor child, I thought, as I moved down the tiny hallway—to have survived such a storm and now this coldness! Something fearful must have happened to its mother, to leave it in such a dire situation. I pushed open the door to the cabin—a cabin not unlike my own aboard the Windsong--
There was a woman there, lying in a bunk that was not unlike my own aboard the Windsong. She was wearing a white shift and was quite asleep. Lying in the crook of her arm was the baby I had heard, one tiny hand clutching at a strand of her brown hair. Mother and baby were fast asleep, holding onto each other. My heart was softened at the sight of such a sweet image. But it was too cold by far for them in that room. It was clear that they were ill prepared for such cold weather—they must come onto the Windsong, where there would be warm food and blankets for them. I went forward to wake the woman and her exhausted child, to tell them that their delivery was at hand.
But when I touched her hand, I instantly knew something was wrong. It was cold, too cold by far for a living person…and that’s when I noticed the sunken attitude about her cheeks, her closed eyes. And the child as well, no baby ever lay so still in its mother’s arms. They were dead—dead! The baby—the slightest opening of an lid revealed a glitter of an eye, as though the tiny corpse were playing a joke on me and wanted to see my reaction. Dead in each other’s arms, the mother clinging to her baby in death as she must have in life. The brown curl which the baby clutched a cadaver’s curl, no comfort to be found there.
I screamed. I screamed and ran out of the room, back up the hallway. There were more shouts to greet me—the Windsong’s crew had discovered similar bodies in other places among the ship. “The ship’s boy is frozen, standing at the bottom of the stair!” I heard one cry, while another described the ship’s crew frozen in their hammocks, hands still clutching onto the mouldering canvas. We flooded onto the deck in a terror—my heart was pounding my chest worse than it had the night before. We had not stumbled onto a ship in need of rescue, but into a tomb, a frozen tomb, afloat in a frozen world.
Captain Hollee came out of the great cabin, and we quickly got into the boat and away from that horrible charnal ship. I could not stop thinking about what I had seen. The two pale, sunken faces, together in death, haunted my thoughts and my dreams for days and weeks to come. I took to my bunk aboard the ship and remained there for the rest of the voyage, where I would start out of sleep, shaken awake by a baby’s wail.
We reached Boston soon after, and finally Virginia, sweet Virginia, where spring had finally made its appearance, although the warmth of the sun did little to dispel the chill in my bones. On the last day of our trip, I brought the subject up to Captain Hollee, saying, “It is terrifying to think we might have suffered a similar fate, if Providence had not protected us.”
Captain Hollee looked disconcerted for a second, then he said, “Mrs. Clarke, before we left the ship, I took the liberty of taking away the ship’s log. The last entry was made twenty-five years ago!”
Friends, I had not yet made my appearance on this earth twenty-five years ago. And already that ship was afloat on the high seas with its terrible cargo. That woman and her ghastly baby—already dead and frozen, condemned to circle the north Atlantic unceasingly. They are there still. Waiting for someone to set them free—although I hope, friends, if you make a voyage, you will not suffer the sights I have seen. And still see, in my dreams, in my nightmares. I often pray that I will be able to put this disaster behind me…but then a dark night will arrive, a cold night, and a baby’s cry will come to me upon the wind. Then I must get me to bed with a pile of blankets and a bed warmer, and I shake and shake…I cannot get warm. I cannot get warm.
Enjoy!
THE CHARNAL SHIP
adapted by NM Lemery
It is true I married somewhat late in life. I had almost given up hope of ever finding a husband, when I met Mr. Clarke. It happened thusly: One day, while I was walking home from church with my six brothers, Mr. Clarke fell in alongside me and struck up a conversation about some land he had recently purchased in Virginia. This continued for many weeks, while he described in detail the school he wished to build, where pupils could work the land in exchange for their tuition. A splendid plan, I thought, and I told him so. He blushed and said—“Elizabeth, you’ve heard all about my plans, but what it’s really lacking is a wife. So what d’you say? Will you come to Virginia with me and make the experiment?”
Well! I tell you, for a man to propose an experiment where a marriage proposal is expected is very bold, but I confess that is the moment when I fell most deeply in love with my Mr. Clarke, and I accepted—both him and his experiment. We were married a month later, in the presence of my six brothers, and there was never a happier woman than I.
When we had been married for a month and some days, Mr. Clarke took his leave of me to sail to Virginia, to begin building his great scholastic experiment, promising to send for me—“as soon as I get a house built to suit you.” He wrote me faithfully nearly every day, and I lived through those letters, reading about the people and climates of Virginia, about the buildings he was constructing. I only wished to be by my husband’s side, to help him build our new lives together. I imagined myself inside these letters, safe in our new house in Virginia, surrounded with the family I so longed for. At last the long-awaited letter arrived: “The house is finished to my satisfaction, Liza, come home to me.”
I booked passage on a ship the very next day. As it happened, a merchant trader, the Windsong, was due west from Portsmouth in a few week’s time. Her captain, Andrew Hollee, was a youngish man, but very well respected by his crew and his business partners. I made the necessary arrangements, and embarked on a blustery day in early March.
If you have never been aboard a ship, you cannot imagine it. Everything is crammed together, folded and stacked to take up the least amount of room possible, for space is at a premium on a ship. The ship itself feels like a live being—the timbers under your feet constantly roll with the waves. The hull and masts creak in the wind, the rigging and sails groan with the strain. The first night I lay in my bunk listening to the sounds thinking I should go mad from them, but after the course of a few days they became familiar and dear to me. The crew was a diverse group of men from all over England, united only in their distrust of me. I had heard that some mariners considered it ill luck to have a woman on board, and so I took it upon myself to lay in a good supply of “trinkets” so that I might “make friends with the natives.” Accordingly I brought along numerous small cakes, and some traveling Bibles, which I distributed with goodwill. I never saw the Bibles again, though, I was assured by Captain Hollee that the crew had taken to reading them most assiduously before they turned in to their hammocks for the evening. After that we got along splendidly.
Yes, the voyage looked to be a rather unremarkable one. We cut through a stormy grey Atlantic, bound westward toward the setting sun day after day. Then one day, about two weeks out, I awoke to notice the air had grown considerably colder. I wrapped myself in my warmest clothes and came on deck. What I saw chilled me even more thoroughly than the wind had—in the night we had approached a field of icebergs. I cannot begin to attempt to describe them. They are so utterly massive, so devoid of life, yet so silent and terrifying, moving through the water without aim or intention, but capable of sinking a ship or crushing her. I wrapped my cloak more tightly around myself as Captain Hollee approached me. He touched his hat. “Mrs. Clarke, I’m afraid that we will be in for a bit of weather tonight—but you must trust me to bring you through safely.” I assured him I did so, but the sight of those icebergs terrified me. The smallest was easily five times the size of the Windsong, and an unexpected breeze could have dashed her upon that ice as if she were running aground upon the hardest rock.
The wind and the waves began to pick up, tossing the Windsong from side to side. The familiar comforting sounds of the ship began to pick up, moving into new territory that froze the blood in my veins. The rigging no longer sang, it screamed under the wind, the sails were like uncontrollable birds that flapped in the wind. The ship’s crew ran to and fro in an orderly fashion, bringing in the sails, tying down the items on deck, and generally preparing for the storm. I thought the worse had hit, but at nightfall—the storm increased.
Now, friends, you may have seen such a storm on land, but to ride through one on a ship, you cannot imagine. The very deck beneath your feet heaves and rolls so that you must cling on to something or you will be tossed overboard, into the churning waves. The waves roll over the deck so that every minute you are convinced you are swamped, only to have the ship rise again. The masts sway like the trees of the forest they once were.
I secured myself in my tiny cabin, falling to my knees and clinging to my bunk, gasping every prayer I had ever learned, seeking to God to save us. I was in mortal terror, thinking about the giant floes of ice that surrounded us, imagining each creak of the ship to be the sound that signaled her imminent destruction. The noise was unbelieveable. The friendly sounds of the ship’s timbers groaned and creaked like a dying creature. The wind pushed through the rigging like a banshee, the shouts of the crew sounded like the desperate cries of haunted souls. I thought I was going mad from the cacophony. Animal cries could be heard upon the wind, mad singing, and then—strangest of all—I heard a baby’s cry rising loud and clear above the din. It was so clear that I found myself rising to my feet, determined to find the source, before I remembered myself. It was only a trick of the wind, but oh how real it seemed…
Sheer exhaustion finally took me to sleep. I awoke to find myself huddled on the floor of my cabin, still dressed in my warmest clothes, clutching my blankets. The ship was still. I flew up to the deck to see what had happened. A sorry sight greeted my eyes—one of the masts had been swept away, and the ship’s crew was engaged in replacing it with a jury-rig, while others were sweeping debris or repairing the canvas on the remaining mast. They all looked exhausted, haunted, as I knew I myself must look. Captain Hollee himself was at the helm, grim and determined. And all around us were the silent icebergs, like sentinels on the side of a Pharoh’s tomb, waiting for their chance to send us to the bottom of the ocean.
Captain Hollee ordered one of the boats lowered, and several of the ship’s crew went into it and began to pull us through the field. It felt like walking through a graveyard. We were surrounded by flat, blue-black water, out of which thrust the white, utterly silent mountains, like the tombs of the long-dead where the names have been eroded away. It was very cold, and very quiet, the quieitude only magnified by the tumult we had gone through the night before. So very cold, and so very quiet. We moved past the silent mountains, hardly daring to breath, as though any noise would bring them down upon us.
Then suddenly, a black trail leading through the white jags, beyond which was the open sea and safety. Cheers greeted this sight, and the men in the boat pulled harder. We moved forward at a snail’s pace, eager to be free of this haunted place, when suddenly--we spied another ship! A ship which had not survived the storm, alas, but was wrecked upon one of the treacherous icebergs. Her masts and rigging were in sad disarray. There was not a soul in sight. Captain Hollee halloe’d them several times, but there was no reply. “I will go aboard,” he said “it is clear they are in need of whatever assistance we can give.”
At that moment I thought of the baby’s cry I had heard the night before—perhaps the wind had carried that cry from a child on board this wrecked ship! “Captain Hollee!” I said “I wish to go with you!” And I quickly explained what I had heard. “If there is a child on board that ship—or another woman—they will be grateful for the presence of another female.” Captain Hollee protested most strongly, but I insisted. I had survived the terrible storm, and I felt alive and invincible and determined.
We made the only noise that day, the oars cutting through the black water, the heavy breathing of the straining mariners. And the occasional halloo from Captain Hollee, which was never returned. When we came alongside that ship, Captain Hollee insisted on going first. He was followed by two of his sailors, and then I was handed up. The deck presented a strange sight—even I, who was only recently indoctrinated into that orderly world of the sea—could see that the deck was in total disarray. It was as if no attempt had been made to put to rights what the storm had torn asunder. Ropes and sails hung where they had fallen, barrels and boxes lay broken upon the deck. And all around us…that eerie silence.
We began to grow uneasy, and a pistol or two appeared. Captain Hollee bade me stay where I was, and advanced towards the captain’s cabin. The other sailors fanned out along the deck, searching for signs of life. The silence was so deafening I wanted to sing to break the tension—and then I heard it again. A baby’s cry. Fainter now than it had been when it first came to me in the storm, but there was no doubt in my mind that it came from belowdecks. I moved towards the hatchway, unobserved by any of the crew, and went down a flight of stairs.
Fainter and fainter that cry grew until it disappeared all together, but not before I could see where it came from. The air was so cold—that poor child, I thought, as I moved down the tiny hallway—to have survived such a storm and now this coldness! Something fearful must have happened to its mother, to leave it in such a dire situation. I pushed open the door to the cabin—a cabin not unlike my own aboard the Windsong--
There was a woman there, lying in a bunk that was not unlike my own aboard the Windsong. She was wearing a white shift and was quite asleep. Lying in the crook of her arm was the baby I had heard, one tiny hand clutching at a strand of her brown hair. Mother and baby were fast asleep, holding onto each other. My heart was softened at the sight of such a sweet image. But it was too cold by far for them in that room. It was clear that they were ill prepared for such cold weather—they must come onto the Windsong, where there would be warm food and blankets for them. I went forward to wake the woman and her exhausted child, to tell them that their delivery was at hand.
But when I touched her hand, I instantly knew something was wrong. It was cold, too cold by far for a living person…and that’s when I noticed the sunken attitude about her cheeks, her closed eyes. And the child as well, no baby ever lay so still in its mother’s arms. They were dead—dead! The baby—the slightest opening of an lid revealed a glitter of an eye, as though the tiny corpse were playing a joke on me and wanted to see my reaction. Dead in each other’s arms, the mother clinging to her baby in death as she must have in life. The brown curl which the baby clutched a cadaver’s curl, no comfort to be found there.
I screamed. I screamed and ran out of the room, back up the hallway. There were more shouts to greet me—the Windsong’s crew had discovered similar bodies in other places among the ship. “The ship’s boy is frozen, standing at the bottom of the stair!” I heard one cry, while another described the ship’s crew frozen in their hammocks, hands still clutching onto the mouldering canvas. We flooded onto the deck in a terror—my heart was pounding my chest worse than it had the night before. We had not stumbled onto a ship in need of rescue, but into a tomb, a frozen tomb, afloat in a frozen world.
Captain Hollee came out of the great cabin, and we quickly got into the boat and away from that horrible charnal ship. I could not stop thinking about what I had seen. The two pale, sunken faces, together in death, haunted my thoughts and my dreams for days and weeks to come. I took to my bunk aboard the ship and remained there for the rest of the voyage, where I would start out of sleep, shaken awake by a baby’s wail.
We reached Boston soon after, and finally Virginia, sweet Virginia, where spring had finally made its appearance, although the warmth of the sun did little to dispel the chill in my bones. On the last day of our trip, I brought the subject up to Captain Hollee, saying, “It is terrifying to think we might have suffered a similar fate, if Providence had not protected us.”
Captain Hollee looked disconcerted for a second, then he said, “Mrs. Clarke, before we left the ship, I took the liberty of taking away the ship’s log. The last entry was made twenty-five years ago!”
Friends, I had not yet made my appearance on this earth twenty-five years ago. And already that ship was afloat on the high seas with its terrible cargo. That woman and her ghastly baby—already dead and frozen, condemned to circle the north Atlantic unceasingly. They are there still. Waiting for someone to set them free—although I hope, friends, if you make a voyage, you will not suffer the sights I have seen. And still see, in my dreams, in my nightmares. I often pray that I will be able to put this disaster behind me…but then a dark night will arrive, a cold night, and a baby’s cry will come to me upon the wind. Then I must get me to bed with a pile of blankets and a bed warmer, and I shake and shake…I cannot get warm. I cannot get warm.
Monday, August 04, 2008
so much for Less TV
Spent all afternoon watching telly and nursing a headache which turned out to be from wearing my hair up in a ponytail--it's getting heavy again because I'm growing it out in the eighteenth century fashion. But, I did write a follow-up email to the person who has my portfolio...which is a writerly thing, and therefore totally counts.
"Dear Sir. Polite noises masking a desperate query: namely: DIDJA READ IT YET? More polite noises, some flattery, gentle enthusiasm, a dignified Sincerely, Me."
Doesn't exactly cancel out two hours of Animal Cops, but...at least it's something.
"Dear Sir. Polite noises masking a desperate query: namely: DIDJA READ IT YET? More polite noises, some flattery, gentle enthusiasm, a dignified Sincerely, Me."
Doesn't exactly cancel out two hours of Animal Cops, but...at least it's something.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Good Steward, also, Less TV
My Day Off yesterday was a rousing success...I got through several movies and cut out the pattern for my suit of clothes. Today when I came home from church, I contemplated the long hours ahead of me before militia, thinking about how I was going to resume my TV watching, maybe, ya know, surf the Internet...
Then I realised that I would be totally wasting three or four uninterrupted hours of potential writing time and felt embarassed. My writing time has gone down to nothing and my TV-watching time has gone up exponentially for some reason. I come home hot and exhausted no matter what, and instantly collapse into the sofa with a glass of water. And don't move for several hours. This is bad. This is a habit that needs breaking.
So instead of watching telly today I'm writing. First I'm blogging, then I'm writing. Then there will be cheese.
As I wandered through Blogland, I stumbled across a blog about a man who lives in NYC, and who's gone green: No Impact Man. Some of the things he talks about is difficult for an apartment dweller, but some of the ideas he has for going green hit home. Prime example: there's no recycling at our apartment. Nothing. This contributes to the riches that the dumpster continues to yield, but it makes for very, very bad earth-stewardship. At the base level, the very beginning level, the easiest damme thing you can do is recycle. I know there are people out there who say it doesn't work well--it doesn't work if you don't participate. In Chicago, the city reported an 80% increase in the number of people who recycled once they instituted bin collection.
And I go out of my way to use recyclables: before "The Dark Knight" there was an advertisment for a Bertolli product that comes in a plastic pouch. "How lazy," I said, "do you have to be to use one of these pouches? They're so bad for the environment! Hello--glass jar?! Which you can recycle?" (That question, btw, was quickly answered when my companion turned, glared, and said to me--"hey, I use the Bertolli pouches, they're good!" Oops.) My point is. Recycling is second nature to me, and it kills me that there's no recycling here at my apartment.
I'm trying to be a better steward of the earth. I had an idea for a book that was about a group of people who went digging through old landfills for materials they could sell to companies. And that could be our planet. The amount of stuff I throw away--just me, myself--is embarassing. Do I really need to put tomatoes in a plastic bag so I can put them in another plastic bag and carry them home?
So my goal for next week--my "no impact" goal for next week--is to call the landlord, call the recycling center here in Williamsburg, and see if I can get something set up. I'm sure if there was a recycling bin at my apartment, the spotty college students would be more than willing to fill it up with their malt-beverages and their Admiral Nelson's Rum bottles.
And if that won't work, I'll just have to surreptiously toss my recyclables into someone's green bin on a Wednesday, when they're not looking.
Then I realised that I would be totally wasting three or four uninterrupted hours of potential writing time and felt embarassed. My writing time has gone down to nothing and my TV-watching time has gone up exponentially for some reason. I come home hot and exhausted no matter what, and instantly collapse into the sofa with a glass of water. And don't move for several hours. This is bad. This is a habit that needs breaking.
So instead of watching telly today I'm writing. First I'm blogging, then I'm writing. Then there will be cheese.
As I wandered through Blogland, I stumbled across a blog about a man who lives in NYC, and who's gone green: No Impact Man. Some of the things he talks about is difficult for an apartment dweller, but some of the ideas he has for going green hit home. Prime example: there's no recycling at our apartment. Nothing. This contributes to the riches that the dumpster continues to yield, but it makes for very, very bad earth-stewardship. At the base level, the very beginning level, the easiest damme thing you can do is recycle. I know there are people out there who say it doesn't work well--it doesn't work if you don't participate. In Chicago, the city reported an 80% increase in the number of people who recycled once they instituted bin collection.
And I go out of my way to use recyclables: before "The Dark Knight" there was an advertisment for a Bertolli product that comes in a plastic pouch. "How lazy," I said, "do you have to be to use one of these pouches? They're so bad for the environment! Hello--glass jar?! Which you can recycle?" (That question, btw, was quickly answered when my companion turned, glared, and said to me--"hey, I use the Bertolli pouches, they're good!" Oops.) My point is. Recycling is second nature to me, and it kills me that there's no recycling here at my apartment.
I'm trying to be a better steward of the earth. I had an idea for a book that was about a group of people who went digging through old landfills for materials they could sell to companies. And that could be our planet. The amount of stuff I throw away--just me, myself--is embarassing. Do I really need to put tomatoes in a plastic bag so I can put them in another plastic bag and carry them home?
So my goal for next week--my "no impact" goal for next week--is to call the landlord, call the recycling center here in Williamsburg, and see if I can get something set up. I'm sure if there was a recycling bin at my apartment, the spotty college students would be more than willing to fill it up with their malt-beverages and their Admiral Nelson's Rum bottles.
And if that won't work, I'll just have to surreptiously toss my recyclables into someone's green bin on a Wednesday, when they're not looking.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Huh. Wow.
Or: Better Than I Remembered.
Or: Why I Now Own a Laser Printer.
My boss's boss asked me to come into her office today...nervously, I complied, only to find that she had a copy of my resume open on her computer. She asked me to sit down and then said, "You have a master's degree in playwrighting?" in a somewhat incredulous tone. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise, but--you have a master's degree? In playwrighting?"
Um. Yes, I was aware of that fact, but really it's....
"You do realise you're grossly overqualified for this position, don't you?"
Weeeell...actually, yes.
I tried to explain that I knew when I came to Williamsburg that this was going to be my "day job" not the sum total of my career, that this was merely a way to see a new part of the world and pay the bills, until Broadway came a'knockin'... In the back of my mind I'm desperately trying to quell the part of my brain that's shouting "Aha, and how much have you written lately? Really written? I mean--written down on PAPER?!"
Then my boss's boss started talking about other departments. Departments where they write things down. Things which get said in front of other people--sometimes even memorized!--and occasionally these other people applaud. She mentioned several areas where the words which had been written down might need a titch of improvement. She wondered if I could bring in samples of my work.
Could I!!!
First though, I had to buy a printer. And even though I was hoping to find a version of my old faithful HP, what I electrocuted in London, in the end I went with a low-end version of a laser printer. No color, no picture capabilities, no, this baby is all about black and white and pages and pages and pages of glorious text.
Kinda like a professional writer might have.
The next step was wading through all of the scripts I have. Half-finished scripts. Scripts which are not appropriate for mixed company. Scripts that have two stories haphazardly sewn together. I pulled out six scenes, a couple of my favourites and some new ones, a few essays (I swear, I've gotten more real estate out of that Assassins essay...) and finally I decide to "sacrifice" one of my Goldsmith's books. The printed, bound "professional" books they gave each of us a stack of at graduation. I have four left--one is going to CW. The scenes and essays got three hole-punched and stuck into a binder, the book was carefully bookmarked with a London postcard. Prayers are currently on the wing.
But before I finish my "portfolio," I read Unexpected City for the first time in, oh, at least a year and a half. And I surprised myself. It's good. I mean, it's really freaking good. I can't believe how good it is. I'm SHOCKED at how good it is. I'm actually tearing up slightly, disbelieving. Could it be? After years of shrugging off heartfelt praise from other people, I suddenly Believe that I'm just as damme good as everyone says I am. Better, even. This ain't ego talking, this is...the proof is in the print, people.
I'm amazing!
Or: Why I Now Own a Laser Printer.
My boss's boss asked me to come into her office today...nervously, I complied, only to find that she had a copy of my resume open on her computer. She asked me to sit down and then said, "You have a master's degree in playwrighting?" in a somewhat incredulous tone. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise, but--you have a master's degree? In playwrighting?"
Um. Yes, I was aware of that fact, but really it's....
"You do realise you're grossly overqualified for this position, don't you?"
Weeeell...actually, yes.
I tried to explain that I knew when I came to Williamsburg that this was going to be my "day job" not the sum total of my career, that this was merely a way to see a new part of the world and pay the bills, until Broadway came a'knockin'... In the back of my mind I'm desperately trying to quell the part of my brain that's shouting "Aha, and how much have you written lately? Really written? I mean--written down on PAPER?!"
Then my boss's boss started talking about other departments. Departments where they write things down. Things which get said in front of other people--sometimes even memorized!--and occasionally these other people applaud. She mentioned several areas where the words which had been written down might need a titch of improvement. She wondered if I could bring in samples of my work.
Could I!!!
First though, I had to buy a printer. And even though I was hoping to find a version of my old faithful HP, what I electrocuted in London, in the end I went with a low-end version of a laser printer. No color, no picture capabilities, no, this baby is all about black and white and pages and pages and pages of glorious text.
Kinda like a professional writer might have.
The next step was wading through all of the scripts I have. Half-finished scripts. Scripts which are not appropriate for mixed company. Scripts that have two stories haphazardly sewn together. I pulled out six scenes, a couple of my favourites and some new ones, a few essays (I swear, I've gotten more real estate out of that Assassins essay...) and finally I decide to "sacrifice" one of my Goldsmith's books. The printed, bound "professional" books they gave each of us a stack of at graduation. I have four left--one is going to CW. The scenes and essays got three hole-punched and stuck into a binder, the book was carefully bookmarked with a London postcard. Prayers are currently on the wing.
But before I finish my "portfolio," I read Unexpected City for the first time in, oh, at least a year and a half. And I surprised myself. It's good. I mean, it's really freaking good. I can't believe how good it is. I'm SHOCKED at how good it is. I'm actually tearing up slightly, disbelieving. Could it be? After years of shrugging off heartfelt praise from other people, I suddenly Believe that I'm just as damme good as everyone says I am. Better, even. This ain't ego talking, this is...the proof is in the print, people.
I'm amazing!
Monday, July 07, 2008
nightmare
Most of you know I blog, some of you know I journal, a few of you have read my plays and only rarely have I inflicted poetry or art on people I love. Last night I had a nightmare that the books and notebooks I journal in were filling the rooms of my house, spilling out of boxes, off of shelves and pushing out the windows. That my whole life, neatly writ down in black and white was taking over my REAL life, lived in vivid technicolor. It was quite alarming.
I woke up thinking I must write the play that's been knocking around in my head for awhile. I want to write what I know, namely, a play about Me. How to stop it from being narcissistic I have no idea, but that seems to be the story that wants to come out. Everyone has a past, and mine is better documented than most. So why not a play about my life, my thoughts, my fears and dreams?
The history of me is a history of Me in Love, of being Hurt and making myself Strong again. Maybe I'm afraid that if I write the script people who love me will look at me askance, will worry and ask if that's what I really think. That they'll get upset or angry or even refuse to love me anymore, a fate I could not bear. But then again, the idea of finally opening up--of truly freewriting, a freewheeling historic sprawl across super-sized paper--is sort of liberating. I have the outline here and ready, the characters in the wing, I just have to see if I'm brave enough to write it down.
And if I am, if I'm brave enough to let anyone read it. A life recorded and locked away for Posterity is safe, but a life uponstage feels more dangerous than a thin cord stretched across Niagara.
I woke up thinking I must write the play that's been knocking around in my head for awhile. I want to write what I know, namely, a play about Me. How to stop it from being narcissistic I have no idea, but that seems to be the story that wants to come out. Everyone has a past, and mine is better documented than most. So why not a play about my life, my thoughts, my fears and dreams?
The history of me is a history of Me in Love, of being Hurt and making myself Strong again. Maybe I'm afraid that if I write the script people who love me will look at me askance, will worry and ask if that's what I really think. That they'll get upset or angry or even refuse to love me anymore, a fate I could not bear. But then again, the idea of finally opening up--of truly freewriting, a freewheeling historic sprawl across super-sized paper--is sort of liberating. I have the outline here and ready, the characters in the wing, I just have to see if I'm brave enough to write it down.
And if I am, if I'm brave enough to let anyone read it. A life recorded and locked away for Posterity is safe, but a life uponstage feels more dangerous than a thin cord stretched across Niagara.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
aw, how does it feeeeel?!
I am listening to Bob Dylan—not one of his anthems of the sixties, but “Mr. Tamborine Man” which I have fond memories of, since it was (is?) one of the few songs I could (can?) play on the piano. I was planning on going to lunch as soon as I finished the list of schools in North Carolina only…there are a lot of schools in North Carolina. So I will blog.
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for today!
After posting last night I realized that I did not have to work at Job B, so instead I headed down to “A Taste of Heaven,” ate strawberry shortcake and worked on the bell hollee project. For two hours. I think I begin to understand what authors mean when they say they are “pregnant” with a story, because, even though I was trepidatious about the party scene, it came easily enough once I shifted locations. And the scene after that is there, and the one after that and so on. And I don’t even mind that it’s terrible, because—well, a story like this requires a shipful of research, so of course it will be terrible until I manage to get some grant money to do some “research” down in Nevis.
Having said that, I’m still antsy and anxious. Perhaps something to do with the fact I’m cooped up inside all day (hello, five-pound weight gain, where did that come from?!) staring at my dirty floors. Then last night when I was journaling I realized that I will probably be gone from this place in two weeks and THEN I started fretting about packing. Having made the decision to leave Chicago, I’m ready to go. Had it not been for this last temp job, I think I would have been gone by now. The whole situation is just—I’m ready to leave. Ready and willing.
Today is also Valentine’s Day, and I thought I would avoid the hype by sitting at home, but even NPR conspires against me, using cutesy phrases like “There’s no love lost between Obama and Hillary!” and doing in-depth reports on how much roses cost this year. I’m not as upset about Valentine’s Day as I usually am. Sure, I’m single, but, eh, what else is new? I’m working out my new attitude of singular poetess, in the tradition of mediveal nuns who gave up men for the ability to read. I could go lusting after a lifestyle that clearly I’m clearly unsuited to (i.e., dating) or I could work within the “limitations” of the lifestyle I’m already leading, and instead of moping about after the unattainable sit down and bang out the next great American play. The only thing I’m lusting after right now is a Puppy, and, being the self-sustaining woman of the new millennium that I am, I can very well buy one for myself. Heck with you, V-Day, I’m going back to work.
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for today!
After posting last night I realized that I did not have to work at Job B, so instead I headed down to “A Taste of Heaven,” ate strawberry shortcake and worked on the bell hollee project. For two hours. I think I begin to understand what authors mean when they say they are “pregnant” with a story, because, even though I was trepidatious about the party scene, it came easily enough once I shifted locations. And the scene after that is there, and the one after that and so on. And I don’t even mind that it’s terrible, because—well, a story like this requires a shipful of research, so of course it will be terrible until I manage to get some grant money to do some “research” down in Nevis.
Having said that, I’m still antsy and anxious. Perhaps something to do with the fact I’m cooped up inside all day (hello, five-pound weight gain, where did that come from?!) staring at my dirty floors. Then last night when I was journaling I realized that I will probably be gone from this place in two weeks and THEN I started fretting about packing. Having made the decision to leave Chicago, I’m ready to go. Had it not been for this last temp job, I think I would have been gone by now. The whole situation is just—I’m ready to leave. Ready and willing.
Today is also Valentine’s Day, and I thought I would avoid the hype by sitting at home, but even NPR conspires against me, using cutesy phrases like “There’s no love lost between Obama and Hillary!” and doing in-depth reports on how much roses cost this year. I’m not as upset about Valentine’s Day as I usually am. Sure, I’m single, but, eh, what else is new? I’m working out my new attitude of singular poetess, in the tradition of mediveal nuns who gave up men for the ability to read. I could go lusting after a lifestyle that clearly I’m clearly unsuited to (i.e., dating) or I could work within the “limitations” of the lifestyle I’m already leading, and instead of moping about after the unattainable sit down and bang out the next great American play. The only thing I’m lusting after right now is a Puppy, and, being the self-sustaining woman of the new millennium that I am, I can very well buy one for myself. Heck with you, V-Day, I’m going back to work.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
More Sunday
This morning I was awoken at eight-thirty (eight-thirty!!!) by the BOM BOM BOM of horrible tweenage music. As I lay there, a war broke out within my soul. Part of me, the old, crochety twenty-six year old swore up and down we were going to go down there and kick in the door and break whatever CD was in the machine THAT INSTANT. Then the twelve-year old part of me reminded me how annoying we used to be when we were twelve and listened to "Phantom of the Opera" over and over and over again at top volume and how no one had ever threatened to take our cassette and pull the threads out until there was nothing left but a shining pile of innards. Yes, I said, but did we listen to Phantom at EIGHT THIRTY IN THE BLOODY MORNING?! Luckily for all involved, sanity prevailed and no doors were kicked in. But I have a sneaking suspicion today's music may have been something along the lines of "High School Musical" in which case it might have been kinder to commence door kicking/CD shattering, etc. Arg.
So, fully awake at eight thirty I proceeded to:
A. Finish my jacket (yay! It looks really cool!)
B. Watch some more "Boondocks"
C. Do yoga.
D. Make pancakes and coffee from beans (and this time I think I got the amount right so my coffee was merely "strong" as opposed to "espresso injected directly into your soul")
E. Work on "Bell Hollee" for four hours, pausing briefly to discover that the house where Nelson got married to Frances is now a destination for honeymooners.*
And now it's quarter to four and I think it's time I got out of my pajamas and braved the shattering cold to get some quesadilla stuff. I has a craving.
I love Sunday.
*Ow! Historical irony brick! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
So, fully awake at eight thirty I proceeded to:
A. Finish my jacket (yay! It looks really cool!)
B. Watch some more "Boondocks"
C. Do yoga.
D. Make pancakes and coffee from beans (and this time I think I got the amount right so my coffee was merely "strong" as opposed to "espresso injected directly into your soul")
E. Work on "Bell Hollee" for four hours, pausing briefly to discover that the house where Nelson got married to Frances is now a destination for honeymooners.*
And now it's quarter to four and I think it's time I got out of my pajamas and braved the shattering cold to get some quesadilla stuff. I has a craving.
I love Sunday.
*Ow! Historical irony brick! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Saturday, February 09, 2008
I'm a Writer!
Okay--first off, is everyone okay? I had a really disturbing dream last night and I woke up afraid I was going to get a Phone Call or read that Barack Obama had been shot (something else I've also dreamed about). Everyone okay? All limbs accounted for? Yes, yes, except for you, Admiral, anyone else? No? Good.
Secondly--tada! I'm a writer! Films 4 Two finally put up my articles about Sweeney Todd and Hairspray. I'm so thrilled! I wasn't sure if they'd be published since I didn't do any more revision, but here they are. yayy! And I even have my own section now--"Nicki Loves Adaptations." Yayyy! I'm a writer!
Okay--off to do writerly stuff like write query letters and figure out my taxes. Yay!
Secondly--tada! I'm a writer! Films 4 Two finally put up my articles about Sweeney Todd and Hairspray. I'm so thrilled! I wasn't sure if they'd be published since I didn't do any more revision, but here they are. yayy! And I even have my own section now--"Nicki Loves Adaptations." Yayyy! I'm a writer!
Okay--off to do writerly stuff like write query letters and figure out my taxes. Yay!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
hug void
Lately I've noticed that I'm desperate for any kind of physical contact. Nothing that's not G-rated, mind you, but holding hands, leaning on other people, hugging, ruffling hair, patting on the back, things like that. I don't think I've touched another person since Christmas. At least, that's what it feels like. I'm starved for affection. I become one of those salespeople who plucks at your sleeve as they're trying to extoll the benefits of this or that bra, annoying the hell out of you. I just want a hug! Is that so much to ask?
Anyway, I'm off today to write for awhile. There's a few short plays I want to get down before they fly the coop.
Anyway, I'm off today to write for awhile. There's a few short plays I want to get down before they fly the coop.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Nobody here is interested in Nelson, including my therapist
I can barely be excited about the fact that I am now a published author. Not one, but TWO of my sparkling gems now reside on the internet:
Everything was Ragtime A review of the book, the movie, the play.
and
On the Beach A scene for two that happens on a beach. Maybe.
Grrrr.
Right--off now. I heard a rumor that there are Turners at the place with the art.
Everything was Ragtime A review of the book, the movie, the play.
and
On the Beach A scene for two that happens on a beach. Maybe.
Grrrr.
Right--off now. I heard a rumor that there are Turners at the place with the art.
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