Eternity Ahead

Rural America is abandoned.

Abandoned farms, abandoned houses, abandoned mom 'n pop stores. Drive through south central Pennsylvania, or West Virginia, yourself and you'll see what I mean. Beautiful rolling hills of farms dotted with falling down barns and empty houses. Shuttered grocery stores. Where are all the people, we wonder; and what do the ones who remain here, in the small towns and teetering buildings, do? It gives one a kind of Planet of the Apes sensation . . .

Yet there are two institutions much in evidence: Wal-Mart, and christianity.

The number of homemade religious bill boards, and sets of three crosses upon the hills, is striking; but perhaps no less so than the number of Wal-Marts huddled at the bottom of every other range. Since there are no other grocery stores in evidence for many miles, we venture into one to pick up some water and other items. Subjective reporting supports what hard evidence has already shown: the percentage of obese people in america is staggering; and the amount of cheap, bad food those of us with little money are able to buy in these ubiquitous Wal-Marts is equally so. It's difficult not to make the connection--and one wonders why all the other shoppers, with carts full of sucrose-enhanced food, don't? This is not so much the snob factor as the basic-common-sense-for-your-health factor, a switch that american food policy and advertising seem to have successfully turned off in the majority of our (remaining) rural population.

Why not then, depressed and under constant economic pressure to abandon these beautiful places and ancestral homes, hand it over to a high power. This hand-painted billboard, repeated twice across county lines, was our favorite:

"Eternity Ahead. You must accept Jesus as your PERSONAL savior."

Emptiness ahead. It all feels very sad; as if the dreams of the founding fathers and the pioneers who struggled and risked and lost their lives to get here warranted so much more, so much more, than this. It would be easy to be cynical, to say we expected no more than this; that what we are touching on is only the surface of thsee places, an easy stereotype. Probably at least part of this is true. Yet it is almost impossible to shake the feeling that we could all, somehow, do better.

Inspiring Theater Tales, Part I

Late Monday afternoon we fought our way, as always, out of New York City. It is a place that reluctantly lets one go. There were so many more things we wanted to do there that we might never have left; and it was not a pleasure navigating the van through the Holland Tunnel and up to Route 80 across Jersey and the Delaware Water Gap, along with the thousands of commuters who do the two-hour drive daily to Pennsylvania. We did arrive at Whispering Pines Campground, north of Bloomsburg, PA, after dark, and settled in for our first humble dinner of crackers and cheese and pickles and wine; and our first night in the van. The air was cold but hey: with the two of us plus Tosca and Jack, you can believe the van is warm!

All of this as preparation for the great pleasure, early Tuesday morning, of meeting with Jerry Stropnicky, the Ensemble Director at Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble (http://www.bte.org/). Jerry is a founding member of this 30-year-old theater company in rural Pennsylvania, founded out of love and respect for an amazing teacher, Alvina Krause (see photo of the theater exterior at top; and then Judith standing to the right of the ghost light on the stage), whom the founding members of the ensemble followed to PA from Chicago. BTE is an amazing and interesting artistic model for OHA: right up to the fact that they just had to re-engineer themselves to survive financially, on the eve of their 30th anniversary. Yikes. But they care about community-based theater in the same way we do, which is to say: making new work that reflects and moves the community in which we live. And they do it, with passion, and have done so for 30 years. Mazel tov to them; and thanks to Jerry for taking time out of his busy, between production schedule to have breakfast with us (at Perkins Steak and Cake, which was once a favorite of my dad's) and give us a tour of his lovely Art Deco theater in this humble little 'burg.

En Garde Performance

We were at Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant Saturday night in Bushwick--which is still, as Williamsburg was when I moved there in 1985, grungy and busy and poor. I navigated us there by driving along under the elevated rail tracks: the shadows, the posts, the uneven roadway, the way cars jut out from and into the under like moray eels attacking from their caves.

Conni's, for those of you who do not know, was founded in Stonington at our humble Opera House, by our Shakespeare actors who know how to eat, sing, and otherwise cavort. Learn more about it at http://www.avantgarderestaurant.com/. Our professional actors, as always, included several of our high school students in this cavorting: here's Galen, now in her first semester upstate at Skidmore College, helping to serve dinner at Saturday night's performance. The concept of the restaurant is one right after OHA's heart: dinner is performance, and we all do it--including bussing the tables!
But perhaps New York City's most marvelous performance each year is the NYC Marathon, held the first Sunday of November and my favorite day to be out in the streets. Here's Judith with some free "thunder sticks" cheering on the runners, with one of my god daughters, Elena. Most of the runners paint or otherwise wear their names on their sleeves, as it were, so you can cheer them on by name: and for 26 miles it seems all of NYC is out there doing just that for more than 13,000 runners--in specialized wheelchairs as well as clown suits--as they navigate the city from boro to boro.

All Saints' Day

On All Saints' Day this year, we're driving the back roads of Connecticut near where I grew up: back roads in beautiful foliage, back roads because we prefer them, and back roads because of a horrifying tanker truck accident on Interstate 95 that has left several cars crushed and many people dead. So we've headed a bit north, through Montville and Salem and Haddam, where we mail our absentee ballots and pick up postcard stamps; past the Goodspeed Opera House (shown below), a beautiful 19th century icon on the Connecticut River and a popular regional theater; and finally to my Gram's, Mary Endrich's, grave at St. Joseph's Church in Chester, CT. Seems a fitting visit for All Souls'/Saints' Day.

In 2004, we were in Paris for this Catholic holiday, which takes the place of Halloween in France. I wrote the following Letter from Paris at that time, and reprint portions of it here three years later:

November 1, 2004, Letter From Paris, All Saints and Election Days, 2004. Dear family and friends, This is a holiday week in Paris, dominated as it is by churches built hundreds of years ago, a week leading up to today, Tous Saints (All Saint’s) Day. Our own Halloween pays slender homage to this worldwide rite (Dia de las Muertas in Mexico). This week, the dead have been called forth and remembered, with their favorite foods and meditations. Here in France, it is a week for remembering that the joy of life is made possible by our embrace (not denial) of death. This has been a most welcome and meaningful time for Judith and for me. We light many candles for James, most recently departed, but also for my grandmothers, Signe and Mary Elizabeth, and for our many other friends and family members who have crossed over to the other side. We spend much time in the medieval churches lit by these candles, swaddled in incense and organ music, meditating on our own lives and the ways we make a difference in this world in which we are all, living and dying, connected.

We have cast our absentee ballots and await, with much of Europe, the results of tomorrow’s election. While it is easy to vilify Bush and the current administration, I find it more critical and interesting to consider why so many of our fellow citizens support such decisions, rhetoric, and actions: what are the characteristics of U.S. culture which allow us to reward and to applaud such empty leadership? From a distance, we are more acutely able to feel the repercussions of U.S. choices on the world, and to puzzle over the differences in socio-secular-religious cultures from which national politics, and our understanding of them, arise. Like a cold Maine wind on a blue sky January day—the wind that brings tears to your eyes—we have been buffeted by the seeming faithlessness with which we Americans operate in this world.


By “faith” I simply mean a belief that the world is bigger and more coherent than any one or any group (or nation, or company) of us; and, most importantly, that we each play a part in this bigger whole: a faith in and recognition of the beautiful spirit inherent to the world. . .

“What lies beyond the usual is diminished, it is regarded as wasteful and perverse,” states Rudolf Mittwisser, a 1930s professor of religion and German refugee to the U.S., in Cynthia Ozick’s new novel, Heir to the Glimmering World. “What was once valued there [in Europe] is not valued here. Here they lack the European mind, they are small.”

I move around Paris, watching the way Americans travel, carrying their language and customs and expectations with them like coins to be tossed to embittered others we have either rescued or vanquished. In Deer Isle we are also very aware of the way Americans bring our culture with us when we travel, very aware of the means by which many “from away” bring with us self-righteous, self-important beliefs (the best ways to do business, to communicate)—all with the best intentions. Colonialism lives and thrives in the American psyche, which takes pride in its individual prowess and refuses to prioritize or attend to its interconnections to others . . .


We are all connected, and the whole world is watching. I am not separate from my vote or my country, even when I am in opposition to it. And the U.S. is not separate from this world. It is time that we who want our country to make a positive difference in this world take back the language and ACTION of faith, hope, and charity and embue our daily lives with these beliefs. Other views, and our listening to them, matter; strength arises from generosity, and as Americans we are grateful to have so much to give. . .Faith allows us to embrace death and not to fear it; which in turn allows us to open our arms rather than putting up our dukes. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by acting generously.

Along with much of the rest of the world, I wonder: are enough individual Americans strong enough in our beliefs to make a difference tomorrow, in the ways our powerful nation affects the world we share with so many? May the Red Sox victory be an omen for change. Vive l’underdogs, vive l’esperance, vive la change! [2004]

Leaving the Rock

The Rock is not a very easy place to leave.
For all of my childhood, with a mother who never lived more than 25 miles from the house in which she was born, my family had trouble getting out of the house. My father and I used to sit in the car, buzzing and hissing and swearing with impatience, while my mother went around the house multiple times, checking the stove and generally patting the house.
Now I get it.
I am wrenching myself away from The Rock -- just to take a break.
I've always found it amusing to hear "our beautiful Island," as the welcome sign reads, called The Rock. Sounds like a prison, no? And in truth, maybe feels like that to many who, like my mother 40+ years ago, have a hard time getting away.
But I'm one of the privileged Americans who enjoy mobility; even as gas prices soar. Because in truth, mobility has little to do with the economy and everything to do with a state of mind: the same state of mind--about choice, about possibiliy--that brought me to this beloved island after 16 glorious years in New York City.
So here I am, standing in the driveway at the Opera House, looking up at its towering bulk--and patting it.
Patting the doors. Patting the stage. Patting the studio. Patting concessions. Patting the box office, the stairway, the deck, my desk.
Here I am, walking the dogs down our meadow and along Long Cove, patting it with my eyes: the shimmerescent black-green water, the pointed firs, the clammy mud, the rotting apples, the denuded maples, the kingfishers, the pink granite boulders dropped ashore out of a comic book.
And here I am, finally, the lucky bearer of both an awareness of the power of mobility and a sense of place, approaching the causeway, patting it with my eyes, loving it, willing myself to remember: the fragile green bridge in the near distance, the white teeth lining the slender causeway, the 18-wheelers loaded with multi-ton blocks of granite.
The Rock has always been here and will be here when I return, but it is still difficult not to whisper to it, as the traffic inches up and up, in single file, toward the crest of the bridge: don't go away.