Lynn Ruth Miller Blog

Some people play with footballs and hockey sticks.  Others play with recipes or computers. There are some who only play with each other.  I have no interest in those kinds of games.  I play with words.

I am a word-a-holic.  I write sentences, notes and observations on paper, on a computer and in my head 24 hours a day.  I do it when I walk my dogs, when I sit at my desk and when I dream….especially when I dream.   Sometimes, the words I write are published but more often they are not.  Occasionally, I get paid, but I never can remember the amount I receive because my real compensation is what my words have created.  My sister telephoned me many years ago and asked,” What are you doing?”

I said, “Writing stories no one reads.”

She was amazed.  Why would I work so hard on such a thankless task?   She didn’t realize that I figure out life by putting it on paper.  That is how I understand the meaningless, hurtful things that I cannot control and the marvelous gifts that fall in my lap.  Someone asked me “Why do you write?” and I answered, “Why do you breathe?”

The first time my mother read me a story, I composed another for her, one so real it made me laugh and cry a lot harder than I ever laughed when she taught me how to bounce a ball or cried when she forced me to finish my milk.  I live in my imagination because that is where I feel at home. The real world with traffic jams and angry policeman, frustrated projects and nine-to-five jobs cannot touch me there.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I could ramble on forever, but if my words didn’t SAY something to someone else, they only nourished me.   Anyone who is a real writer knows that is the stuff of journals, reminders on the fridge and verbal meanderings, but it is not communication.   I want… No… I need every sentence I write to be a bridge into someone else’s mind.  That kind of composition takes work…a lot of revising, a lot of deep thinking, and a lot of painful cutting.    My first poem was published when I was ten years old.  It was about a lamp post.  But it told my readers a lot more than that.  It told them we shared a human need to cast a light on where we are in our world.  That is why it was put into a book.

As the years went on (and there have been over seventy-five of them) I wrote for anyone who would read my thoughts and understand what they meant.  I sent out millions of messages to the world in the form of features, reviews, letters, columns, entertainments, greeting cards, short stories and finally novels.  I have written eleven of those. I sent one of them to every publisher in this country three times under three different titles and not one company bothered to send me anything more than an impersonal rejection slip.  When I finally published it myself and called it STARVING HEARTS, I thought it was a waste of time and money.  To my surprise, it has sold over 6,000 copies and still sells today.

These days, I still write in all those forms and I have added comedy routines and song parodies to the mix.  People call me a performer now, but I am no such thing.  I am a writer.  That is who I will always be.

This is what I have learned from all these years of putting words together, all the millions of rejection slips and the tears they bring, the joys of that one acceptance that spurred me on:  You can be paid a million dollars for words that came from your head instead of your heart and that money is dross.  But when you are walking on the beach and someone takes your hand and says “I read your book and it was me,” you have succeeded.

When someone says, “Your words gave me the courage to live MY dream.”

That is when you have discovered heaven.

SO YOU WANT TO BE PART OF THE EDINBURGH FRINGE FESTIVAL?

You have a great show that you love. Perhaps it is a one person show (the kind I always do) or maybe you are part of a terrific, dynamic group that does top notch drama, a musical or sketch comedy. All your friends rave about the production and tell you how much better it is than the garbage on TV or the local stages. You KNOW that if someone important saw your show, it could be REALLY BIG (although you are not exactly sure what BIG involves).

If that is the scenario going on in your mind, you should explore the plethora of fringe festivals throughout the world to showcase your work. These festivals offer emerging artists an opportunity to showcase their stellar talent for a relatively small investment and attract an audience of anywhere from two people who want to rest their feet to a packed house filled with fans who cannot wait to see what you can do. These events take place throughout the world and most are cheap, simple ways to give your project immense exposure for a concentrated period of time.

However, if you think YOUR show is so special it deserves international notice and if you believe that the plebian audiences you have attracted so far don’t fully appreciate a gem when they see one, it is time to consider the Edinburgh Fringe, THE Fringe festival that sets the pattern and raises the bar for all the rest.

Let me tell you about that festival:

Fringe 2008 featured 31,320 performances of 2,088 shows in 247 venues and
350 shows at Fringe 2008 are absolutely free.

In 1947, the Edinburgh International Festival was launched as an initiative to re-unite post-war Europe through arts and culture but too many companies wanted to participate. Of the performers that could not be accommodated in the first program, eight companies decided to perform anyway and found venues to perform in, using buildings unoccupied by the festival, not all of which were entirely suitable for theatrical productions.

There were three defining features of the first Fringe that still hold true today - the performers were not invited to take part, they used unconventional theatre spaces and they took their own financial risks, surviving or sinking according to public demand.

The average audience size at a Fringe show in 2007 was 55 people and average ticket price was £9.38. Bear in mind that this includes all the large venue shows and that there are a couple of companies who only get a few people in the audience for the whole run

The attention span of the Fringe audience is short. Most shows run from 50 minutes to 1 hour and 10 minutes. Mine have always been 45-50 minutes with 10 minutes to get set up and 10 to clear out.

If you have done any research at all you know that getting to Edinburgh is NOT cheap, paying for a venue costs big time and even registering your show in the fringe office is expensive. Getting anyone in the immense press corps to notice your baby when there are over 1500 others competing for their attention is a major risk and the likelihood that you can charge enough for tickets to cover even a part of your costs, is a pipe dream.

BUT you know YOUR show is so good it will shine not matter what all those lesser 2087 producers think and your instinct tells you that your diamond is only in the rough because no one with money or connections has seen it. If that is what has been going on your mind for longer than you care to admit, you are the right person to apply to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

The question for you then is no longer “should I?” but rather “What do I do to come out alive?” You want to survive the experience…not make a profit, mind you…just come out smiling after three and a half weeks of the most intense, concentrated theater experience you have ever had.

I think your first consideration MUST be how much you believe in your own talent. Albert Einstein said it best: Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. You must KNOW yours is a great idea yet to bloom even if no one else has figured that out yet.

When you decide to bring your show to any Fringe festival, your goal must be to share that great idea of yours with the world. It cannot be to make a profit, get noticed by a huge producer, make the headlines or get on the Broadway or West End stage…even though, in the back of your mind you are absolutely sure you deserve all that recognition and more because you are that talented. I have seen so many people decline this exciting opportunity because they are afraid of financial loss or wasting three weeks of their lives with nothing but debt at the end of it and I need to tell you those people took the plunge for all the wrong reasons. Anything as exciting, exhilarating, mind boggling and inspiring as performing at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is worth anything it costs.

Really.

I live on a pension so low I qualify for food stamps in the United States and yet I have never let that stop me from spewing forth my talent to a resistant world…because I don’t care if they want what I have to offer. I LOVE GIVING IT.

So that is your second rule: You have to need to do your show so much you forget about profit, press coverage, or audience. I love MY shows that much. When I was doing AN AUDIENCE WITH LYNN RUTH MILLER (stories) for Club West in 2007, one bleak Sunday afternoon only one person came to hear me perform and that person had a comp ticket. Kevin Williams, the venue owner, wanted to cancel the show because as he said, ”There were more people running the show than in the audience.” If you consider your show a business, he was absolutely justified.

However, I really ENJOY doing my shows and so I refused. I had bought the time and if one person wanted to hear my stories, I was determined to tell them and tell them I did. That one person returned to my new storytelling show this year and enjoyed this one even more than his private performance last year. In MY terms, the gig paid off. I got a fan. . . and all it takes is 199,999 like him to hit a million.

Your third rule is to ignore the “big picture” and live one glorious day at a time. Let me tell you about one day for me (and each one is very different): I manage to drag myself out of bed because I didn’t get in until after 4 in the morning the night before. I tart up and pack up all the props, costumes and gimmicks I need for the day in a cart I drag behind me wherever I go. I open the front door of my flat and step into what appears to be an immense bathtub of drenched pedestrians, wind and rain. I square my shoulders, drag my drag-it along the main road into the Meadows, splashing past the golf links to a little red caboose that will sell me a coffee I can drink while I try to manipulate the umbrella (I managed to extricate it from under my high heels, my make up, my props and the sing-a-long signs I need for my performance) the drag it, my purse and the 278 flyers that were thrust in my soggy fist as I made my way toward my first venue.

My first show this year, GRANNY’S GONE WILD was in The Cowgate, a place that was once the path farmers used to herd their cows to market. My venue was one of the best and most exciting of the 247, Holyrood Too @ Faith run by Vicky de Lacey, herself an amazingly talented performer who knows how be make both audiences and performers love the moment. I had nine performances scheduled there at 1 in the afternoon and of those nine, only three had any kind of audience at all. No matter. I changed into my glittering Granny costume, did my comedy for the tech crew, for myself and for the four people who came into the theater to dry out from the rain.

At two pm, I splashed and spattered to the Fringe Office where I used the computer, sought comfort from Amanda and Chloe and whoever else had fought off the attack of germs, viruses and ennui that are the by-products of 21 days of incessant rain. At 2:45, I sloshed back across the Meadows, stopped for lunch in a tiny café one block from my venue and then entered the magic world of The Free Fringe.

Alex Petty is responsible for that group of 158 venues that presented 2626 shows absolutely free of charge and my afternoon show, ANOTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR was one of them. It was at The Argyle Bar, peopled by THE most helpful and accommodating staff at The Fringe. Nothing was too much for Dave Anderson, David McNeill and their crew of gorgeous bar maids from places to store props to teas, coffees, hugs and encouragement every single day. I got into my costume and with the help of my publicist, Brooke Laing set out my props and told nine stories to audiences that ranged from 4 people to 20. At the end of the show, each member of the audience contributed what he felt was appropriate and I was thrilled with whatever I received. (Remember, the one o’clock show…I made nothing there at all.)

At 4:00 pm after talking to the audience members who remained behind, I hurried off to my first open mike slot at The Espionage at 6:00 pm, another of Alex Petty’s delightful venues, this one hosted by the prince of all compere’s: Rick Molland. His Pravda Room was always filled with people eager to laugh and I did my part to tickle a few funny bones. My pay was all that laughter and I lapped it up.

I left Espionage, put the umbrella up once more and waded through flooded Edinburgh Streets to the Southside Zoo Venue for Fred Anderson’s show: ALL STAR MAGIC AND COMEDY. This show was a delightful combination of magic, comedy and song featuring the versatile Fred Anderson and a combination of San Franciscan and local performers. My job was to tell a sweet story if the audience included youngsters, and do some mild comedy of only adults were present. I complied.

I gathered up my props stuffed them in the drag-it, ran to Susie’s for vegetarian take out covered with plastic to shield it from the downpour and hurried to my own show, AGING IS AMAZING at 10:55 at The Argyle Bar. Here my audiences were better than those in the afternoon because of extensive newspaper coverage and I performed to 20-50 enthusiastic, cheering people each night. Several people returned to see the show twice and bring their friends. What could possibly be better than that? Well something could: I sing about doing your dream no matter what you think might hold you back and one woman who walked with a cane, sat in the front row for two shows. Another wonderful human being quit her job to go help orphans in Cambodia because I had inspired her to ignore her doubts and follow her star…I cannot think of any amount of cash that could possibly be more thrilling than that.

When that show was over I either sat with audience members, ate that dinner, drank some wine and went home, or, more often, ran to another gig, often The Meadows Bar to do a midnight show for Nic Coppin called Shaggers.

At 1:30-2 a.m. the day (or night) is over, I walk home filled with memories of laughter, good friends and confirmation that I AM indeed the most adorable, cutest, cleverest, talented, energetic (and slightly tipsy) 75 year old at this year’s Fringe.

Now YOU tell me what on earth can be better than that?

The atmosphere of the fringe festival is very difficult to capture in words. I think the kindness, love and caring of both performers for one another and for audiences to us all is nothing short of amazing. In fact, When I think of my Edinburgh Festival Fringe experience for 2008, I think of incredible acts of kindness and love.  The Fringe office is always helpful and willing to listen but this year, three people, Amanda, Chloe and Rino who work in that office night and day took the time to come to my shows despite the intense time crunch we all felt.

And they were not alone in their attention to all of us who perform. That first soggy week, I staggered into the office, wet and discouraged and everyone there united to dry me out, encourage me and send me out feeling human once more.

Not long after that, I was splashing along the Cowgate when a car blocked my way. As I pondered how to get to my venue without rushing into the oncoming traffic, the driver got out of her car and escorted me to safety.

And that is not even the beginning of the love that has been lavished on me as I galloped from one show to the next.

The rain was a major challenge this year and I had a huge opportunity to be part of a major show during one of the drenching storms we have endured.  Charlotte Morgan, the bartender at my venue, called me a cab but failed to get one because everyone in the world wanted a cab that night.  She telephoned her partner Allan and he came to drive me to the venue so I could arrive dry and ready for my performance.

One more incident of the many that have peppered these past three and a half weeks: I was living in a flat miles from the center of town with no hot water or heat.  I told a member of the audience at one of my shows about my predicament and she, her husband and her friend worked together to find me a new place to stay that was closer, cleaner and warmer. Within the hour I was re-settled in a B&B across the way where I am bathed, warmed and happy as an American clam.

This has been by far the sweetest year of the four I have performed here at the Fringe from people treating me to lunches, cab rides and teas to others thronging to my shows and hearing my message.

The beautiful thing about all this is that I am not the only one that has experienced this incredible outpouring of devotion, interest and caring.  It is the hallmark of this wet, intense and very exciting experience all of us have had here this year.

So the truth is I did more than survive 2008 and I have no doubt I will perform at this fringe festival for more years than anyone will believe. How can you resist an experience like this that feels as if everyone in Edinburgh were there just to love me.  That is why I am all primed to do the entire rigmarole again…. Well maybe not EXACTLY the way I did this year. I am thinking of adding one or two other shows to the program.

Almost five years ago, when I was 70 years old, I became a stand-up comic and I discovered that everyone aches to believe that when THEY are over seventy they can go on stage and make people laugh. My best audience is not my peers…they are where I am and know how great it can be. My supporters are people from twenty to sixty who love to hear me make fun of all the things they are afraid will happen to them.Most comedy springs from anger and it is ageism that infuriates me. My routines attack the notion that old people do not remember who they are, cannot walk up a stair and have to wear diapers. It pokes fun at people who need face lifts and Botox to shore up their self image and pills to make them think they want to do what they did when they were twenty. I stand before my audience proof that old can be a lot of fun.

I talk about the independence my age gives me when I tell people my last date took me to a coffee house and gave me $20.00. He said, “Get what ever you want.” And I got a cab and went home.

What I am really saying is you can have dates at any age if you want them and when you go out you can be yourself.

I talk about the old days when one bar of soap cleaned your body, your hair and your language and drive-in theaters where you lost everything in the back seat of a car: your keys, your wallet and your principles. Those jokes remind everyone of the days when our language got us in trouble and our principles trapped us. Now anything goes and we can choose the kind of person we want to be.

Every day gets better for me because of what I learned the day before. When I joke about my wrinkles, my drooping body and driving habits, I am showing those youngsters under seventy that when you are my age, you are so happy to be able to live your life your way, you don’t even think about winning a drag race or snagging a hot one. You are too excited to have finally figured out what you want to be now that you are grown up.

I HAVE A NEW LOVE EVERY DAY

By Lynn Ruth Miller

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life for which the first was made.
Robert Browning

         I fall madly in love every day: exciting, buoyant and daring passion that overwhelms me. I love the intensity; I cherish the thrill. I never tire of it. Ever. I am almost seventy five years old. I have no husband, no partner, no children, no family. Yet I am showered with affection, covered with hugs and kisses. I give away my favors freely and often because I know these romances are the kind only an old woman can enjoy.

I am desperately in love with Leo. He visits me every day and gives me sweet kisses. He changes light bulbs and he fixes my front gate. He feeds my puppies and takes me for rides past his old haunts to tell me stories about the days when he was young and I wasn’t around. And what do I do to deserve this love?

I exist. Evidently that is all he wants from me and so I am determined to keep existing for a very long time. I don’t want to lose all that wonderful attention.

Leo is at least twelve years younger than I and has a superb, gentle, giving wife. Her name is Carol and I love her, too. She sends me little cakes at Easter and platters of food on special holidays. How could I NOT love her?

She gives me knitting advice and has shared not just her husband but her son with me. He helps me with my computer and laughs at all my jokes…even when they aren’t funny. The fact is that Carol loves me too. She loves that I make her guys feel important when she is too busy at the office or out with her own friends to worry about the state of their emotions.

My dearest sweetie pie is James. He is an engineer at my television station who sees to it that my program set is ready and perfect for filming every single month. James is as loyal to me as any human being can be. When I give a party he is there. When I present a show at our local coffee house, there is James, listening, applauding, encouraging… very, very there.

Whenever we have a spare moment in our busy single lives, we go out for a drink …soft drink that is, because James is a recovered alcoholic and does not want to go back where he once was. We talk about nothing much and we hold hands because we love the safety of being with each other. James is 76 years old and has been through several wives. I have discarded a few husbands in my day and we both remember how messy those broken commitments can be. We hug, we kiss, we hold hands and we laugh together, but neither of us would dream of sharing a bed or greeting one another over the breakfast table. We have been there and we have done that with other people in other places. We have had our fill of commitment. We know that the freedom we two have is our lucky charm.

My most adorable and funny love is a guy named Mickey who makes me laugh and treats me to dinners even when he could have a sexy little hottie to take home to bed. He gives up these evenings because he knows how comfortable it is to be with someone who doesn’t want him to prove a thing. He is a perfect person to me and I do not want him to change. I want him to be exactly who he is. When Mickey and I go out, he gives away clothing and money to the homeless on street corners. He is not rich, but he always has coins and cash to give to a fellow entertainer in need and he doesn’t want thank yous. He has brought up his son and daughter alone and has done such a marvelous job that they feel proud and happy to be themselves. I think he is a saint. I treasure Mickey for what he teaches me, although I am the one who is supposed to be showering wisdom on him. I learn from his giving, his compassion and his selflessness; he profits from my persistence, my optimism and my proof that if you live long enough, your happiness can only multiply.

I have a toy boy, too and I am proud of him. His name is Steve and he is not yet thirty. He surfs; he loves women; he once did drugs and struggles not to return to them. He wants to have adventures, become a millionaire, go to the moon. When he goes out with women his age, they make demands he can’t fill. They want physical proof that he will adore them forever. They demand, they have tantrums and they weep. They forget to notice how wonderfully perfect he is because of his flaws. Steve walks his dog with mine and we discuss stuff. We don’t always agree but we laugh a lot and we care. We differ in our politics and in our definition of the good life, but so what? When our walk is over we kiss goodbye and we each go our own way. When we meet again, each of us has grown a little and has added something new to who we are. And that is an exciting thing.

When I was in my teens, I could never get the guy I liked to like me. I was too worried about the pimple on my face, the sag to my bottom and the condition of my page boy bob. When I finally landed a husband, I was consumed with the desire to be the best wife in the universe. I cooked elaborate meals; I cleaned every inch of our apartment. I entertained his friends. I had sex whenever he wanted even if I was in the midst of scrubbing a floor. I even served him breakfast in bed.

And then he left. I was too much for him and I understand that now. During that horrible, tense and mildly hysterical time of my life, I never once asked myself if I wanted to cook those dinners, scrub those floors or have sex with this guy who burst into tears when he failed a test and threw things at me when we disagreed. I was too young, too insecure, too …too needy.

There were other failed marriages, other shattered romances and I never knew why they didn’t work. I wanted love more than anything in the world. I didn’t realize that I was putting that well known cart before the horse. First, you meet the person, then you make a friend. Then you fall in love. I cannot repair my unhappy, unfulfilled twenties and thirties…and I wouldn’t want to try. I know that I was not in the right place for real romance. I didn’t love myself enough to be loved.

Now, I am delighted with me. Lovers flock to my door and I receive them with open arms. Love after seventy is the best kind of bargain because nothing you give feels like it costs. I have never cooked a meal for Leo or James. Mickey and Steve take ME out for dinner. I had Gordon over for a birthday dinner and he walked out without helping me do the dishes! I never invited him back. When my first husband did that, I didn’t have the self respect to say,”Hey buster! I cooked…you clean.”

When Bob asked me to mend his shirts, I handed them back and told him to buy new ones. I don’t need to do that for anyone unless I WANT to.

Lucky me.

I admit it. My loves come and go like buses on a schedule. I greet them, I adore them and I kiss them good-by at my front door. Then I return to my own quiet bed with my puppies to cuddle and a book to read. Even so, I can barely sleep for excitement. What new Romeo will I discover on my walk through town? What adorable sweetheart will I capture when I open my e-mail?

When you are my age, lovers love loving you because they know you can show them the secret of happiness.

I’ve told all of my darlings what it is and now I will tell you. The secret of contentment is to find someone new every day and offer him a piece of yourself. It is to tell a stranger how much you admire him; to treasure every human you encounter and make him a friend.

All mankind love a lover.

Emerson

I think each of us knows the direction our life should take but so many outside influences divert us that we often wake up one morning and say, “How did I land in THIS mess?”

To me, Inez, your first priority is to nurture the two lives you and Jon have created.  They are your legacy; they are the gifts you are giving to the world and to yourselves.   I suppose I am overly idealistic about children because I never had any and I wanted them even more than I wanted what you do to get them.  I can think of no other mission more important than to give your children the weapons they need to become all they can become.

I teach piano to Lisa’s Chloe and last Tuesday she showed me a book her teacher asked her to write about herself.  The essay was entitled ME, and she wrote, “I am wonderful, amazing and very, very special….” I looked at Lisa and I said, “You have succeeded.”

Your two youngsters must not just HEAR that they are magnificent gifts to you and Jon, they must see and feel their value if they are to venture out into an impersonal often rocky world and make the mark they need to make.

As you know, I never had that sense of personal value and it has taken me years and years to establish the self love we all need to move forward with confidence knowing that our direction is the right one.

Let me also point out that no one knows what another needs.  You as a parent can only give your children  tools to explore their potential. You cannot and must not tell them what it is they must do or should want.   When they are not given proper resources, they will take twice as long to accomplish half as much. And to waste time in our lives is an unforgivable crime …..because time is all we have.

I firmly believe that my first book would have been published when I was 30, not when I was 68 if I had not had to first overcome all the negativity smothering me in my world.

We must always take responsibility for who we are and once we do that that we can take pride in what we become.  But children are ahead of the game of life if they are given a solid foundation of love and encouragement.  Those of us who first had to force our way up through the sands of insecurity, had a longer road to follow before we could get to level ground.  In many ways I believe that battle made me strong, but in others far too vulnerable and sensitive to the judgment of others.

Don’t let any task interfere with giving your children that stolid stepping stone to their own definition of happiness.  In doing so you will find your own mission in life and that includes your writing, your marriage and your teaching will blossom even more fully because you have nurtured the very reasons that you do need to move forward in your life.  Those children define who you are. They cannot keep you from accomplishing your goals because they are the stimulus for you want to become.

I often wonder why I push myself to become more of what I am and I know it is only for me.  If I can offer what I have learned about the endless possibilities in us all, then perhaps I have given a small gift to humanity.  You, on the other hand can multiply that gift by more than three.  What a marvelous opportunity!  So stop whatever else you are doing and be a mother to your youngsters.  You cannot do a better thing for them or for yourself.

My heart breaks when I realize how little I have learned about human communication and true understanding.  I have been trying lately to HEAR the people I deal with and love them for what they actually are, not what I think they should be.  The challenge here is that so many of my connections are cross generational.  The conduct I believe is to be expected is well mannered…yes that is the word…well mannered because I believe we should treat one another with good manners and remember that every human is as fragile as a wisp of smoke that one word can destroy.  When I married the first time, a doctor said to me, “Always be polite to your husband.” and I thought he was over the top.  Be kind, be loving, be sweet, be sexy….but polite?  Once we were married was that not an unnecessary affectation?

Well, I was wrong.  I needed to be far more than polite.  I needed to see and believe in what was hurting him instead of building up armor to protect me from what he did to hurt ME.

That was so many years ago that I believed that I am mature enoug now  to listen…to have a conversation that  gives and shares…to sense when I had hit a sore spot and to see when I was dealing with a fragile, injured human being and love that person all the more because life had wounded him

And I failed.

I failed because I was too wrapped up in my own excitement at discovering a kindred spirit, a like mind and a delightful friend.  And so I forged ahead believing that he would love and accept who I was because I adored who he was trying to be.

And now I weep because words are indeed like feathers.  Once they are said you cannot take them back.

I weep because I lost  a love I never had.

I weep because no apology (and I apologized several times) no reparation can ever convince this lovely  human being that HE was not a fault.

Because when you injure someone who has just been wounded, he begins to believe that his own flaws encourage the hurt.  He begins to be wary.  He begins to hurt others before they can hurt him.

I did not see that, because I didn’t hear what was not said.

And so I weep.

One of the hardest things for me to understand is that other people’s opinions are valid to them even though they seem ridiculous or out of proportion to me. Their standards of conduct may seem primitive or savage to me but to them they make perfect sense. I have a teen-aged neighbor, Kevin Michael Kavanaugh who has decided to hate me for absolutely no reason that I can tell. He has determined that I am an evil, malicious old woman and not only does my every action inadvertently reinforce that opinion, but the very sight of me escalates his anger. My first thought when this boy verbally attacked me and threw things at me was to defend myself; to retaliate with words as angry as his. But it occurred to me that the source of his anger probably had nothing to do with me. He was looking for a target for his fury at the lousy way his own life is turning out for him. I am it. I am old. I am Jewish. I am not in a position to strike him or hurt him physically. Hitting at me costs him nothing and makes him feel better. I can do absolutely nothing to dilute his hatred of me and you must know that at first, I tried. I spoke to him several times praising him and telling him how much I love his uncles as I do but the very tone of my voice, my stature, my demeanor angers him. He needs someone he can hit at that cannot or will not hit back.

I keep harping on Renee Villanueva and Richard Romanski and the judgment against me when I had a contract to prove I was reasonable in my request for money for my car. Again, Richard Romanski (the judge) firmly believes that someone my age and of my ethnic background does not deserve to get the money she asked for because she was being greedy and unfair. He believes this and thought he would do a kind thing by ignoring my evidence even though it had been accepted in a lower court and giving someone LIKE HIM a judgment in her favor despite concrete written proof that I had a right to the 1600 dollars Renee owed me. It has been a year since that judgment was made and I still cannot believe that man was allowed to do something as evil and unfair as violating the established rules of justice.

But what I DO believe is that both he and Rene Villanueva are congratulating themselves on “getting back” at a greedy, old Jewish woman who didn’t deserve what she demanded, just as Kevin Kavanaugh congratulates himself on his courage to badger that pest who lives next door because her very presence, her dogs, her lights on late at night, her HAPPINESS offends him.

As the target of these people I must realize that IN THEIR MINDS they not only feel justified, they feel that they are doing the whole world a service. My job is to let my own anger and sense of injustice go and get on with the positive aspects of my life. If I dwell on their cruelty to me, they have won the battle they are fighting. If I ignore them, I have deprived them of their battlefield.

I hate the blahs. I like to feel happy, sad, hysterical, excited…but I cannot stand being blah. It is so …so nothing. It isn’t strong enough to be grief. It isn’t positive enough to be anger. It is ennui at its worst. The moment I sense that my life is going nowhere and every day is a repeat of the day before, I take strong, positive and colorful steps to remedy the situation. People less creative than I, go to a bar and buy a drink to lift their spirits. They call a friend. They buy a new outfit. They go to bed with someone kinky. None of those things do the trick for me. I need to paint my life in vivid, shocking colors and get rid of all that negative black and white. That is how I roll.

When I lived in a western suburb of Oklahoma City I awoke to the smell of cow manure each morning because the stockyards are in the center of the city and the wind was always due west. The aroma ruined my breakfast. Try inhaling the heady aroma of your morning coffee diluted with the fumes of fresh dung and you will understand how depressing it was. Even with the windows shut, I felt submerged in a gray cloud that smothered me well into the evening. What a tragedy!

At the time, I was well over forty and I refused to spend such a large unending chunk of the second half of my life inhaling cattle refuse. It was a waste..in every sense of the word.

The stench of my life was far more than olfactory. It spread like an inkblot into my occupation and colored my response to the tasks I did daily to pay my way in the world. I had just started a job with a local newspaper called THE DOWNTOWNER and I worked for a questionable human being named Eldegaard. Now it is my opinion that if you are publishing a newspaper in Oklahoma City your name should be something appropriate like Hannah, or Bridgett. Eldegaard just doesn’t cut it.

So it was that once I managed to survive the unpleasant perfume of the morning I had to enter an office run by a misfit who had not the faintest notion how to communicate with her readers. If you think evil smells are depressing, try thickening them with the horrifying aroma of a sickening job. I was caught in an unescapable downhill spiral. I could not breathe; I could not create; and I could not move forward into what was supposed to be the beginning of my life. (In the seventies people believed that life began at forty…instead of when menopause was over and you could love without fear…. it was a different world back then).

There I was at what was supposed to be the brink of new happiness and personal fulfillment holding my nose and writing trash. Something had to change. I am not one to rely on prayer or other people. I take responsibility for the negative factors in my life and I get out there and DO something about them.

The trouble is that what I DO tends to be a trifle extreme.

There are many solutions sensible people would have taken for this negative situation. I could have moved to the East side of town. I could have changed jobs. I could have purchased nose plugs. None of these answers occurred to me because I am an original thinker. I use my imagination. I would never stoop to common sense. It is far too plebian.

I had just finished reading John Steinbeck’s interesting little book, TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY and I found it fascinating. Here was a man (and I knew I could do anything a MAN could do better and more efficiently in high heels and a girdle…I did it all the time) who took ONE poodle in a camper around the United States recording the people and events he experienced into a small, easy to carry little book. He got the book published and was actually MAKING MONEY from those experiences.

Well! I had TWO dogs, a cat and ennui. IT was time to show the guys in this world I could do better. It did not occur to me that John Steinbeck had several successful novels to his credit, or that his dog was well behaved and flexible OR that he knew how to drive a truck. I had published nothing but feature articles in The Toledo Blade and some nonsense in a Volkswagen Magazine. My dogs were spoiled prima donnas who expected plush cushions, forced air heating and meals served with some imagination. My cat…well you KNOW about cats…her name was Eileen and she ignored me. That is how SHE rolled.

I spent the next six months testing out campers and deciding on the type I wanted to buy. This was a challenging situation since I had no money other than the salary Eldegaard provided ONLY if I wrote the garbage she insisted I write. I refused to be reduced to her brand of verbiage and lost the job within two months of acquiring it. After all I have standards. I went to Stanford. (Even had I gone to Berkeley, I would not have written the tripe she demanded.)

By that time I was so involved in launching this brand new adventure of mine I didn’t notice that I had no cash to purchase my own groceries or the type of dog food my two had grown to expect. Eileen made it very clear that no matter what my situation had become she was entitled to her Meow Mix not to mention some fresh fish now and again, moistened with Tasty Treats.

After consulting with several strong chauvinistic men who sold cars, roped cattle and believed in a good cigar and some Jack Daniels with a beer chase, I was convinced that if I traded in my Pontiac Station Wagon for a fifth wheel trailer and sold all my furniture I could manage to buy a decent used truck and get a little mobile home that would give me comfort, movability and a new lease on my boring, aromatic life.

Every morning I practiced driving the fifth wheel around town, backing it up, parking it, making u turns, trying to fill its gas tank and check the oil which it seemed to absorb like a thirsty blotter. This turned out to be one of my biggest challenges. I am five feet tall. The GMC truck I found stood taller than I and when I lifted its hood I had to jump on the bumper to see inside. I pulled out the dipstick, wiped it with a towel and then…..and then….I couldn’t see where I was supposed to replace it. Filling the truck with gasoline wasn’t easy either since the rig had an auxiliary tank resting under the engine. I had to crawl on my belly between the front wheels to unscrew the cap. Figuring out how to insert the gas pump was tricky as well and I was thankful that I had become adept at inserting tampax in awkward situations and keys in rusty locks. I never realized the skills those projects prepared me for in my life after forty.

I took the rig out camping several times to learn how to fill the holding tank, how to live economically on a quart of water and a flickering flame from the propane heater. This was called “roughing it” and took so much energy and creative thought I had no time for blahs. In fact at night after I had maneuvered the fifth wheel into a camping area that was the size of a bicycle stall, had managed to cook a delectable meal for the two dogs and the cat, snacked on peanut butter and jelly and tried to bathe in a glass of water, scrubbing down with a paper towel, I would have traded the whole adventure for a comfy little blah to remind me of why I started this whole fiasco in the first place.

No matter. I was off on my greatest adventure. I managed to back out of the driveway one bright October morning with several men helping me shouting directions and encouragement. I pulled forward and broke all the brake cables but I refused to let that little glitch stop me. I was a liberated woman after all and I could do this…with the help of a few macho cowboys who just who fed their masculinity by rescuing. Little Women. I pulled forward and looked at the dangling cables. “Did I hurt anything?” I asked. “No, no,” said one of my rescuers. “You just nicked that little tree over there and ruined Mrs. Farley’s out house. Trouble is you busted them cables and you won’t be able to get out of any tight spots. Just remember no matter what you do DON’T BACK UP.”

‘I won’t!” I said. “I planned this thing so I could move forward …didn’t I?“

So it was that I set out for California home of fruits, nuts and creative people just like me. I waved goodbye to the blahs and my old life.

The good news is that neither ever returned.

Everyone’s life is his work of art. The way you dress, the conversation you create, the space you live in…all are visible evidence of your unique take on life. I think of creativity as a continuum and we are all at different places on that scale at different stages of our lives. And at each period, we use our ingenuity to take control of our lives without creating chaos in those who rule us. As babies, we need to get our mother’s attention to get fed and as adults we need to figure out how to navigate the establishment to accomplish our own goals and get swallowed up by their rules and restrictions if we are to move ahead in life toward our own goals. That is what it is all about.

I am one of those people who is always at the high end of that continuum. This can cause immense problems because I cannot seem to keep myself inside the box…any box for that matter and I must admit those around me would love to just take me down to a packing store and get me contained as fast as possible.

I like to think these imaginative solutions I create are the result of being a repressed fifties woman. When I was a child, little girls never spoke unless spoken to. You had to be really original to get your needs expressed or you were simply forgotten sitting down at the end of the dinner table sucking your thumb because there was nothing left on the platter when it got to you or watching your skin get all wrinkled because your mother forgot you in the bath tub.

And I always was very clever. I think one of my most ingenious solutions was breaking out in hives. If I sat at the dinner table and felt smothered by all the lively conversation drowning out my own observations about butterflies of nipping puppies, I would start to wiggle and scratch and jump around as if possessed.

This always re-focused all the adult attention on me and I usually got a second helping of chocolate pie to calm my nerves after my mother smeared me with calamine lotion.

As I got older, I refined my creative solutions but always they were original and very unsettling. I am not very belligerent. As a child I preferred reading Betsy-Tacey books to getting out there and playing tag. In the first place you sweat when you play tag and that would have made my mother furious. My mother would dress me to go outside in a starched pinafore, a white ruffled blouse, long white socks and Mary Jane shoes. “You cannot sit in the house reading books all day,” she would scream (She was usually very frustrated by all the things women had to do in those days before THEY could get out of the house like scrub floors on their hands and knees and wring out the laundry by hand, cook dinner on a conventional stove with no food processor and wash windows.)

SO she would always scream at me instead of society because society wouldn’t listen to her. I always did. “GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY” she would shout. “YOU LOOK PALE. ”

She would shove me out the door, grab my book and hide it in her apron pocket and say,” NOW HAVE FUN…BUT DON’T GET DIRTY.”

So there I was looking like a cut-out from a child’s fashion magazine staring into space while all the grubby conventional children did what grubby conventional children did to keep themselves amused. They tossed each other around, threw things at one another, chased each other and kicked things.

I stood on the front porch and watched carefully brushing the detritus from their romping exuberance off my Mary Jane shoes.

One little bully whose IQ was obviously three points below that of a demented snail couldn’t seem to understand why I stood on our back porch observing him and scratching my mosquito bites. Instead of inviting me to join the group, he marched up the steps of the porch and smacked me in my tummy. “You wrinkled my dress,” I said and I backed away.

He looked at me with all the rage that little boys need to learn to carry them into successful manhood when they are confronted with the women who scorn them and he spit in my face.

My neighbor was watching this little interplay from her window and she could stand no more of this blatant chauvinistic behavior. ‘Spit back, Lynn Ruth!” she screamed.

Now my tears were so copious I could barely talk, my dress was ruined, and my shoes were spattered. My mother would be furious and I was defeated. I looked at that woman and I said the words that would be my excuse for every failure I ever had from that day forward. “I can’t spit straight!” I said.

This is not a very creative solution, you are thinking and you are wrong. I immediately became the center of attention. All the neighbors who saw the scene were scandalized. The little girls who witnessed my humiliation immediately rushed up to me and dried my tears and smoothed my ruffled pinafore. They looked at that nasty bully with hate and rejection. “Go away,” they said. “We never want to play with you again.”

Which, in the forties, was rejection worse than being denied your x box or trashing your skate board in the twenty-first century.

And then the loveliest, best- looking, kindest sweetest boy on the block took my hand and said, “ Come with me Lynnie Ruth. I will teach you to spit straight. “

I looked up at his sweet, caring face and realized that I had won the game. “I love you,” I said.

Which is another way we used to control men….in those days of course…and win the game.

As a child, I was taught to give to others and to share what I have with those less fortunate. That philosophy has faded in our “Me first” world and that is not totally a bad thing. My determination to be selfless results in a lot of passive-aggressive behavior that sends double messages to people and creates anger and stress in me. I find myself furious at friends who are only taking me up on what I offered to them. For instance, I live very near the San Francisco Airport. I have told innumerable people to let me know if they need me to pick them up at the airport. I tell them I would be happy to take them home. My assumption is that considerate people who care about me would never ask me to drive them farther than a few miles from where I live. They would respect my hours and my commitments. This is a wrong assumption. The first violation of this concept happened when a dear, dear friend asked me to pick him up at 10 pm and drive him in to San Francisco. I hated to say no so I got in the car, arrived on time and waited a half hour for him to get to the pick-up area, another 15 minutes while he gabbed on his cell phone, and then drove him home. I got back to my house well after midnight. He never offered to pay for gasoline and he didn’t even say thank you. All he said was good night.

His was the model of considerate behavior compared to the next woman who not only insisted I pick her up when she returned from Italy ( a trip I could never afford) after I had once refused. She wanted me to drive her to Half Moon Bay However, her plane was delayed and she arrived at ten pm. I encouraged her to take the shuttle to MY house because I never dreamed she would really do it. She did. She waited until I returned from a comedy gig and expected me to drive her home through the fog …an hour’s drive now that Devil’s Slide is closed. I could hardly believe she would ask anyone, much less a woman of my age to do this for her. It occurred to me than that it is I who made these people believe I have nothing better to do with my time than chauffeur them from one place to another. I berated myself for inability to say, “No. You have money. I do not. I can afford neither the gasoline nor the time nor the energy to take people twenty years my junior all over the peninsula. How can you ask me to do this?” even though the trip is now a very long one clogged with traffic.

The answer is because I offered to help them out.

My neighbor down the street heard that I have extra room in my freezer. I had told her she was welcome to store food there assuming that she would put in a chicken, or a few boxes of frozen veggies, no more. I believed she would respect the fact that my own food had priority over hers. How wrong I was! This morning I awoke to find my freezer completely re-organized to make room for a large box of shrimp, several chickens and God only knows what else in what was now a packed freezer running on overtime to keep its contents cold. I could find nothing I wanted to use for supper; I could not even move the box and bags she had packed in there because they were so heavy.

All three of these people are kind, giving, lovely human beings . The miscommunication has to do with my basic philosophy being totally out of date. I have always believed my first obligation is to others in society…this means that I neglect the very pressing needs I have to write, paint and create on a variety of levels. These three people believe that their first obligation is to themselves as human beings to take care of their own needs no matter how shallow and irrelevant they may seem to others. My first buddy believed that his saving shuttle fare was more important than my getting a story done for my magazine or writing a blog like this. My Italian traveler thought that saving $98.00 she could easily afford was well worth making me forget my fatigue at the end of a very long day of performing, writing and doing my own chores. The fact that I was tired, had not eaten and could not afford the gasoline she wanted me to use to drive her to Half Moon Bay did not even occur to her. She is kind and giving in a multitude of ways but never when it inconveniences her. The freezer lady has done innumerable lovely things for me. Yet, she is always very quick to tell me when she is too busy to help. I owe her freezer room if she uses discretion in how much she takes, but she will not. I owe that young man endless favors for kindnesses he has done for me but I cannot assume he will respect MY time as I respect his. The Italian traveler is as loving and kind a friend as I could ever want. All three are living the Me First philosophy to their advantage. I am very tempted to do as they do…not try to help someone in need…not try to sacrifice myself for someone else in small, comfortable ways …not care that a person is stranded at an airport, wants to take advantage of a sale, needs my help delivering for her. But I DO care because of who I am. When I deal with people IN MY GENERATION I never feel abused. Gwen O’Neill asked me to deliver magazines for her when she could not because of her replaced knee. BUT as soon as she was able, she took over the job. She let me choose my own time and my own pace because she is in MY generation and knows when something is too much to ask. My darling friend Kerry has asked my help her out but she more than repays me for every favor I do for her WITHOUT MY EVEN ASKING. She is not in my generation but still she cares and is sensitive to others in a beautiful, delightful and refreshing way.

What is my conclusion here? I think it is this: Once I get the measure of the person, it is I who must set the limits of how much time or effort I can give away without sacrificing myself. It is obvious that not one of the three people I described would give one minute to me if it were not easy for them Since I cannot ignore a need when I see it, I must learn to force myself to prioritize my own time. When I make an offer, I must not expect people to be sensitive to my needs or who I am. It is I who must announce the parameters of my favors because I live in this world now and it is a selfish one. It is a place where people are determined first and foremost to make their own dreams come true. I certainly cannot say that is a bad thing. It is my job to adapt my priorities to the attitudes that prevail now, not those that I learned them when I was a child.

FROM INEZ
Though life ails just a day faster than art allays
Though age rots out before it can learn to sing true
Sing anyhow. Continue.