Out Into The Cool Of The Evening Strolls The Pretender
If you're reading this, you probably already know that my Gmail account has hacked sometime early this morning and used to send out a Spam message saying I was stranded in London and please, please call the listed number to arrange to send me money to get home.
Would that I could fly to London for the weekend on a whim, but unfortunately, it's just some scammer in Nigeria "phishing" for a bit of cash from you-all.
My Gmail account is back up, but also unfortunately, the scammers stripped out all of my contact information, as well all the emails in my inbox. So, if you sent me an invite to a show or a social event recently, my apologies for the unsolicited spams.
So, if you get the chance email me with your current address.
Drivin' Home This Evening I Thought We Had It All Worked Out
Spent Sunday at the theatre helping to decide our next season of productions. This is an annual event that, over the years has come to be known euphemistically as "The Afternoon of The Long Knives" (which, despite the unsavory connotation, is actually a much older term than many might realize.
But, the desription is nevertheless fairly apt: after receiving and reviewing some two dozen proposals for productions, we go through a series of "pitch sessions" wherein the proposers are interviewed in-person, and at the end of that process members of the Company lock ourselves in a room for an afternoon and don't come out until we've reached a consensus on what shows we want to do. At times, it can get brutal - the first thing we do is scratch off the roughly 50% of the projects we pretty much know we DON'T want to do - and it can also be somewhat emotional, particularly for members of the Company submitting proposals for the first time. The end result, though, is that, by the time we're done, we not only have mutual agreement, but generally the shows that are selected are ones for which either the entire Company, or at least a significant majority, have some outright enthusiasm for doing.
Of course, this is no guarantee that the actual productions that result from these proposals will always meet our expectations; frequently, they don't. But, taking risks is quite literally part of our Mission Statement ("creating bold new work in an environment of improbability, resourcefulness and risk"), and it's one of the things that separates us from most of the other "fringe theatres" (and some would argue, successfully IMO, from most other theatres, period) around here: the willingness to take chances, to embrace uncertainty, and to nurture the new, the weird, and the unconventional. In short, it's what makes Annex, Annex.
"E" Is The Ensign, The Red, White, And Blue, "F" Is The Fo'c'sle, Holds The Ship's Crew
Took a couple extra days off to bookend the already extra-long weekend to get some very needed boat cleaning accomplished. I've been rather neglectful over the winter and things had gotten to the state that, well, three full days were required just to get the basics accomplished. But, she's now yare topside and below decks, replaced one battery, got the bilge pump switch problem figured out, and ordered a new hatch cover, among other things. Have to bring in a mechanic in a couple of weeks to suss out a recurring engine problem (which I hope won't be too costly), and then in a couple of months I'm hoping to get her hauled out and have some serious cleaning & maintenance done below the water line.
On the plus side, it was nice to spend a few days - and nights - aboard, something I really haven't had time to do recently. And who knows? Maybe I'll even find time to get her away from the dock a bit this summer.
Old Man Take A Look At My Life, I'm A Lot Like You
I've been thinking about aging a lot lately. My grandmother's recent passing was a major catalyst of course, but a few other events have kept the subject bubbling in the front part of my brain recently as well.
When my grandmother's memorial mass was scheduled, I got an email from my aunt informing me that I had been "selected by my cousins to represent the 'younger generation'." I'm turning 50 this year, and "younger" is not a term I would have used to describe my position within the familial hierarchy. I have younger cousins, I have younger nephews, nieces, second and third cousins. When your genetic heredity allows for five generations to occupy the room at the same time, you get a pretty clear sense of where you fit in age-wise.
Still, I got the point. We sometimes tend to perceive ourselves, not as occupying a present space, but in terms of occupying some former space, particularly as it relates to a significant individual or period in our lives, and for my cousins and myself Grandma was always the center of our family universe for so many years that it's natural to contextualize that relationship in terms of our formative years. So, okay, younger generation, got it.
But, I have to say, standing in front of a couple hundred people, roughly a quarter of whom were clearly younger than myself, brought home what should be perhaps an obvious point: every day I'm moving closer and closer to the older end of the spectrum. There are still quite few family members who, thankfully, continue to occupy the late middle-aged and elderly bracket, but I now find myself much closer to them than I do to the youngest on the other end; I'm somewhere just past the peak of the bell-curve and am looking at the downhill slide. I've got another 50 years, maybe more, based on genetics, health and whatever advances are made in the field of medical technology in that time, but the simple fact is that I'm on a cusp: at some point it will be an unavoidable circumstance that more of my life will be behind me than ahead of me. Which is not to say there isn't plenty more to look forward too (a half century is still a pretty long time!), but you can't ignore the reality, either.
This was brought home to me again just recently, when the son of a friend requested my presence at an "Elder's Tea" at his private elementary school. Meaghan and Ron have been friends of mine for more than 10 years, although I haven't really had much contact with their kids during that time. But, it turns out I'm probably one of the oldest people Owen knows aside from his grandparents, and since I'm more-or-less in the neighborhood, through some process my name came up to the top of the list of "elders" to invite.
Elder. I still can't quite wrap my brain around the concept.
A few days later I was chatting with my friend Molly about this, still trying to mentally reconcile myself to this inevitability. We'd got to talking about people moving away or traveling abroad for extended periods, and what sort of impulses compel people make such huge life-changing alterations in their circumstances, and I said I really couldn't envision myself living anywhere else but where I am. Travelling would be one thing, but I simply don't have any desire to pull up stakes at this point in my life and start anew in some strange place. After all, I said, everything - and just about everyone - I care about is right here; why would I ever want to leave that behind? Then I said something that resonated back to all this aging stuff: "I'm actually starting to look forward to being 70 or 80 years old," I said, "and since most of the people I know now will be in their 60's by then, that 10 or 15 or more years age difference won't seem very significant."
It wasn't so much the idea of being 70 or 80 that appealed to me as much as it was the idea that these people with whom I've chosen to associate would still be around, still together in some fashion, and that it was the security and stability of those relationships that attracted me more than anything. I suppose that's a very simplistic notion, but one I would imagine most people could embrace; the desire to maintain friendships over time, especially since so many of us seem to have had our lives uprooted in so many other ways.
My friend Stephen once said his dream was to make enough money to buy a huge house where all his best friends could live together. A few of my friends already live in similar group settings. But, it occurred to me that we're all already doing that right now - only the house is a city, and we can stay in it for as long as we choose.
I think I'm going to choose to stick around for a while...
Presented April 24, 2010, St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, Portland Oregon
When I was informed of my participation in today’s celebration I was given two specific instructions: One. Prepare something – which, as you can see, I have done - and; Two. Keep it short. I will leave it to your own judgment to decide whether I have accomplished the latter. If you find this too long, I hope you will at least not find it interminable. The words, except where noted, are my own. If they spark some glimmer of recognition within you, then I will have successfully completed my task; if they do not, then the fault is mine alone.
We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Justine McMenamin Comte. As the oldest child of the oldest child of Grandma Justine, who was herself an oldest child, I have been asked to speak as a representative of the “younger generation”. You will pardon me I hope, if I take note of the irony of this.
The task is a daunting one, for in her nearly 95 years of life, Grandma Justine was many things to many people: child, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, great-great grandmother, colleague, acquaintance and friend. How can a mere handful of words possibly quantify such a life? The simple truth is they cannot, and so I will not presume to do so here today. At best, I can only offer a paltry sketch of how I saw her, and hope that will suffice.
The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once said: “We do not stop laughing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop laughing.” In this regard it must be said that Grandma Justine was never truly old. For in my mind, laughter was at the core of her being and the key to her personality. Those of you not fortunate enough to have experienced that laugh have truly been deprived of something special. I will attempt, as best I can in these few words, to convey to you some small sense of what you have missed.
As a child, the sound of her laughter helped me in large measure to chart my way amidst the hazardous rocks and shoals of grown-up relations. That sound: high and brilliant, like the beam of a lighthouse piercing the dark fog of adult conversation. And despite whatever fears or uncertainties I might otherwise experience, her laughter reassured me that, for the moment at least, all was right with the world.
As I grew older, her laughter also became a sound of welcome, and over time I began to hear it in the way I’m sure many of you experienced it. For, if ever there was a person whose fundamental nature embodied the qualities of fellowship, goodwill, and hospitality, it was Grandma Justine. Whether at a large family gathering, or a one-on-one visit, she would welcome you with open arms, a gracious smile and that unabashedly joyful laugh. Her sense of taste and style was simple, but impeccable; never a hair on that radiant silver mane was ever out of place; dressed at least to the eights, if not always to the nines; the table groaning with food, whether it was an Easter rack-of-lamb or a bucket of chicken from “The Speck”. Friends were always welcome; family, from the oldest to the smallest, always had a place. Her love was unconditional, and her embrace of everyone who came within her sphere knew no bounds. She was a fixture of the northeast Portland neighborhood she and my grandfather called home for so many years, known as much for her gregarious nature as for her impressive memory: there was not a shopkeeper, cook, grocer, counterperson, waitress or customer from her many years working at the Rose City and Hollywood Fred Meyers whose name she did not know, and who in turn did not seem glad to see her. Anyone to whom you introduced her instantly became her friend. She was unselfconsciously sociable, a woman who loved the company of other people, and who naturally, effortlessly endeared herself to everyone she met.
But above even these admirable traits, Grandma Justine was a woman of fierce strength, conviction and optimism. When I last visited with her this past Christmas, she expressed a desire to see her 100th birthday, even despite the numerous recent close-calls, the increasingly frequent trips to hospital and the dire pronouncements of the doctors. She admitted to being frustrated that her body was slowly, inexorably breaking down, but the sheer force of her will was sufficient, for a time at least, to overcome the inevitable dissolution. A few weeks ago, when once again she was hospitalized and we were informed she was not expected to recover, she somehow found a final burst of strength, and her condition improved enough to persuade her doctors to send her home. No one could ever say “no” to Grandma Justine once her mind was set. And set it was. She was going home, and that was that. She died a few days later, peacefully, without pain, in her own bed and on her own terms. I can only speculate, but I can imagine that must have delighted her; she’d got the last laugh on them, after all.
I will miss hearing that laugh, but I am also heartened, because I do not believe it has gone from us entirely. I believe it still reverberates around us, echoing through our memories, resonating in the deepest spaces of our beings. One theory of Quantum Physics posits that everything we can perceive: from clusters of galaxies, to the smallest of sub-atomic particles, are created from the vibrations of infinitesimally small filaments of energy. These filaments in turn give substance to all matter, from quarks and muons, to atoms, to cells, to living beings, to stars; they form, in the most simplistic of terms, the basic, underlying fibers from which the entire cloth of the cosmos is woven.
If this theory is correct, then surely laughter is a vital thread in this perdurable garment, for what is laughter in its most fundamental aspect, but a vibration? Waves of sound we feel in our chests and hear with our ears and experience in our minds. But, I believe its influence goes farther even than this: all those joyful vibrations emanating from a single source for so long must needs resonate ever deeper into the unperceived weave of time-and-space. The thread of her laughter not only connects her to us, but to each other and from each other to all things; it sews us stitch by stitch, into the very fabric of the universe.
This is the gift Grandma Justine has given us. And it is the reason our memories of her will not be burdened with sadness and regret, but will be exalted by joy and hope. Because, so long as we remember, so long as that delightful sound still rings in our hearts and minds, we will be reminded that we are never truly alone, and once again all will be right with the world..
And so, at the end, this is all I am able to give you by way of perspective: a small, personal and imprecise accounting of the value of a single human life amidst an infinite cosmology. If my poor attempt at taking its measure has proven unsatisfactory, then let me leave you with the words of someone more capable than myself of expressing them.
The American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson described the successful life thusly:
"To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one's self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - this is to have succeeded."
And so, we gather today to celebrate this successful life. It is my hope each of us will leave this place committed to achieving the same success in our own lives she achieved in living hers. For that would be her greatest legacy: each of us harmonizing our own laughter with hers, encouraging others to do likewise, weaving together these threads of our own love and hope and joy binding us more closely to each other, and through each other to the very weft and warp of the universe itself. We can do her no greater honor.
