It's Barbara Emily's birthday today, the magical 18. As I hear her speak and read her messages, I see a lot of similarities in her generation with what was happening in mine. There is talk of the prom, majors for college, getting loans, and meeting for movies. I don't have that take on the years that I see often in the Forwards about the good old days being better. I like the good new days myself. However, when Lucille and I were talking about fan letters, I was brought up short and had a reality check. Things are not the same. I told her my first fan letter was to Chad Mitchell. He replied in a handwritten note. I answered it with a poem and he sent a reply, "From a fan of a fan." I have those letters still in a book of Dylan Thomas poems. I also have letters and cards from Robert Lansing, Richard Thomas, Fred Rogers, James Ogle, and Winston Graham. Lucille said it wouldn't happen today as movie stars are advised not to reply because of legal issues, most of them involving later stalking. How sad. One of my fan letters resulted in, not a stalking but a taking. I took a class taught by a writer I had sent a note to. I came across one of the essays I wrote at that time. I'm very glad that in those days, the recipient of praise did not feel obligated to keep silent. This homework piece is called Report Card and it tells of the class:
"My Hungarian friend came by.
'Vhere's your report cart?' she asked.
I began to explain that at the Village there are no report cards and a good thing, too.
'Don give me song and dance. Give me report cart. You make vonn up. I see how you does.'
'All rightee. I give myself an A.'
She looked at me in Hungarian, the kind of look that demands immediate reappraisal.
'How about 3 A's in the fun stuff and a D in what counts?'
'You donna goot.'
Yes, I think I have. Let me explain.
I first came to the Village under, for me, a special set of circumstances: I came alone. I came incognito because my project wouldn't work otherwise.
Before I came, I picked out a name, something lighthearted and snappy but with a serious turn: I adopted an accent, which I had to practice for three weeks, and I polished what I called my tough act, a term borrowed from Raymond Chandler. The essential elements of my character I covered ever so gently. Why did I to this?
Well, as a child, my role was easy. I was the daughter. My father was a respected man: my mother, untiring and winsome. My brother was in charge. My reading was tenderly guided. My opinions examined closely. The friends I had were sifted down from the people they knew. I was never without a friend who was 'just right for Christine.' I went to cloistered schools. I never faced rejection. My only sadness was the death of friends, which I grieved over long and quietly. My only fear was separation. Rebellion, independence, power were strange ideologies to me. I wanted simply to stay with the people I cherished; to please them was my one concern.
Looking back on it, it seems incredible, but there it is: I lived in a wildly isolated, stimulating, supportive atmosphere. However, there was always an unquestioned reservation that, needless to say, in the larger scheme of things, I couldn't survive. When I married, my nomadship continued; I was led from one small circle to another in which my music took up most of my time. There seemed to be a reassuring ringing in my ears that all was well as long as I stayed within the walls, like a patient in a sanitarium. But I came to a point where I felt I'd have to change, to assume charge of myself. I thought perhaps before attempting something so major, I needed a test, a little toe in the wide, cold sea.
Burt's poll column provided the idea. What if I were to go someplace as someone else, where my reputation, my family, my feelings were an unknown? How would I do? The Village seemed a good choice for judgment.
That first morning I came, I made several mistakes.The worst, the largest mistake was during the opening remarks that Burt made. I became spell-bound, entranced with this representative from the outside world. How could I help it? He didn't have to practice his accent for three weeks and his tough act looked as though it had been a part of him since he was eight years old. In those brief opening moments, I placed the matter of passing or failing squarely on him. The next largest mistake was to come back at all under the terms of the test. I loved the class very much; it should have been an outing, nothing more. It was wrong to put it into the framework of survival, as valid as assuming I don't know my magic because I can't hire out as rainmaker. I shouldn't have bothered about what I couldn't handle. And there was a great deal I couldn't handle: I pined over the vanity. I fidgeted over the 'bad words;' bad words I've always thought to be lacking in imagination, repetitive, cliche, and in the case of such a phrase as 'all f*cked up,' just plain distracting--it makes me want to be away somewhere with automatic locks that shut softly. I hated the thoughtlessness, the generalities, the preoccupation with trivia. I felt that people were skimming over the tops of their lives and I wanted to cry.
So we come to the A's and D. I think I deserve an A that only twice I simply couldn't go on. I think sticking with it was foolish; the end result was inevitable, but sticking with it was tremendously rewarding. I think my accent deserves an A. I only stuttered once, just last week. And my name deserves an A because it seems so natural to hear it.
I feel like the D in Geometry all over again, though, because I failed. I failed to make a dent; my philosophy amounts to no more than snobbism to many. And I failed because it's true. I can't survive in the world at large. There's a curious whirring about it that in some way wounds me.
My conclusion is that although I could never keep up in the real world, I do enjoy the visit. I think it's possible for me to sally forth once in awhile to see how things are doing, to preach my little pronouncements and scurry home.
I wonder, does it work the other way? Can you do the same? Is it possible for you to leave the hum and drama and step back for an hour? I would like to hope so. I'd like to wish that one lingering evening you might come to see me. It's easy enough to find--it's the place where very tiny fish swim in a very tiny pond and Hungarians set you reminiscing about things that might have been."
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....the blessings of finding your place and praising whom you will be yours....
