Mensamom’s Musings

I recently attended a production of “The King & I,” mounted by one of our local theater companies.  While seeing the play, I found myself thinking, “This makes me want to go home and watch the movie.”  Not that the play was bad – on the contrary – I thought the theater company had done an outstanding job.  I think it lies more in the storytelling approach – same story, different format.  Not necessarily better, just different.

It is kind of like books vs. movies.  Reading a particular book for the first time is wonderful.  You soak up the story, internalize it and envision it for yourself.  If you want Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise to be the hero in your personal mental version, so be it.  When Hollywood decides to make a movie out of your beloved story, and you find out that Jim Carrey is playing the lead, it puts a damper on your mental version.  And then there are the omissions.  There has never been a movie made from a book that includes every single aspect of the book, unless you include some of the recent movies made from children’s literature.  It is hard to leave anything out of an hour-and-a-half long movie that is based upon a 32-page children’s story.  No, I am talking about the Gone With the Winds, the Hunt For Red Octobers or any of the Harry Potters or the Twilights.  Any time you read a book, and then later go see the movie, you walk out of the movie with a list of things excluded from the story, whether it is additional characters, side- or sub-plots, or any other such details that the filmmakers omitted for time purposes.  It is impossible to take any book that falls into the 400 – 800 page category and winnow it down to 90 minutes and include everything.  Something has got to give, and when details are left out, we take it to heart.

The same is true when you make the film vs. live theater comparison.  Live theater is wonderful.  It has evolved from the ancient times when, rather than being a form of entertainment, it was a way to communicate the latest news or stories to the masses.  It became a form of storytelling in the oral tradition, recounting heroic or tragic battles, and continued to evolve to the creative storytelling format it is today – a combination of new and old stories, along with pieces that explore the human condition and, without making judgments, leave it to us to decide what is good or bad, right or wrong.  I love live theater, and will continue to do so until my dying day, but movies do have some advantages.  Movies can tell the same story that plays do, but they can do it with close-ups and vastly more orchestrated scores.  It is one thing to watch Anna and the King waltzing around the stage in my local theater.  They seem to be having a lot of fun.  It is quite another to see Yul Brenner and Deborah Kerr dancing away, only to be followed by those close-ups, where the sexual tension is palpable.  You feel it dripping in the air, and you want to shout out from your couch, “Go ahead and kiss her, already!”  Of course, they never will, but there it is.  Movies also have the advantage when it comes to location.  During a theater production, it is easy to imagine the Maine woods and the old road where the berries  grow, but On Golden Pond, the movie, showed us the lake, the woods, and the frightening confusion felt by Norman when he went looking for those berries.  In a movie, you can bounce from the south of France to Rio de Janero to the North Pole, if you choose.  In theater, you can only suggest those locations.  The rest must be left to the audience’s imaginations.  And when you come right down to it, imagination is the key point.

In books and live theater, your own imagination is part of the storytelling.  You might have a few illustrations or references to point you in a direction, but the rest of the pictures are all in your head.  The set designer can place a screen door upstage, and the dialog will tell you the lake is just outside the door and down the hill, but your imagination tells you what the lake looks like, how big it is, and what the shoreline looks like on the other side.  It is precisely that inclusiveness that draws us to books and live theater.  Watching a movie is passive. We sit, we watch, maybe eat a snack.  Books and theater are active.  The pleasure that comes from reading is not scanning and interpreting the words on the page.  It is the mental image conjured by those words.  It is the texture and smell of the paper.  Sometimes it is even the margin notes left from the last time we read the book.  Seeing a play is interactive.  The actors perform and the audience laughs, or cries, or applauds, or gasps, and the actors feed upon that collective energy and use it to give us even more in the next moment.  It is a symbiotic relationship.  We actively participate when we read or attend live theater.  Art can be defined as “The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful.”  And it is this arrangements in our own heads that make books and theater Art.

Some people buy cars.  Others have affairs, get tattoos, or color their hair.  Whatever it is, at some point everyone goes through their own “mid-life crisis”.  The good news is all in the word “through”.  Just like a tunnel, sooner or later you will come out on the other side.  The issue is whether it will fundamentally change you, and if so, how.

My own mid-life crisis was not so much of a crisis as it was a circumstance.  I didn’t do anything crazy, like a tattoo, or destructive, like an affair.  I did color my hair, but that had more to do with strangers calling me “Grandma” when I was at the store with the toddler than with wanting to “spice up my life”.  No, I made a leap of faith that I am hoping will pay off in the long run.  I started my own business.  Now I know what you are thinking.  This is not the economy to be starting a new business in.  I had taken that into consideration when I made my decision, but I went ahead and took the plunge.  I had my initial start-up costs covered and I have an investor who has a vested interest in helping my business succeed.  And now that I am up and running, I am being fairly conservative in my approach to my business so that I don’t get all wacky.

Ironically, while all of this was going on, my husband and I had some long talks and came to an understanding regarding our relationship.  While I know that he is unable to participate in some of the activities that I enjoy, I had been holding myself back for a while, not participating myself, out of deference to him.  When we talked about it, he agreed that I should not stop what I wanted to do just because of him, and whenever possible he would join me in what I was doing.  Feeling more secure than ever in my home life helped spur my decision regarding the business, but meanwhile, back at the ranch . . . my mother-in-law called, out of the blue, to ask my husband if our marriage was on the rocks!  She had been seeing me go and do without my hubby, and to her mind that spells DOOM. It took me some time to stop laughing when my husband told me about the phone call.  Even now I am smiling thinking about the whole thing.  So, in a way, my mother-in-law is having my mid-life crisis for me.  After all, if she didn’t have anything to worry about, she would worry, so this is perfect for her.  Now all I have to do is put a little effort into my business, sit back, and soon I will buy that new car . . . .

I am home from my mini-vacation.  I didn’t think it was possible, but I now understand how some of these “Reality TV” shows do what they do.  I am talking about the ones where the celebrity/host shows up at the target’s home and gives them a week to change their life.  Whether it is how much stuff they have, their diet and exercise program, the spending/hoarding issues, or the horrible decorating, these professionals can create change in one week.  In my naiveté, I assumed that the unseen production crew and army of assistants did most of the heavy lifting in these situations, and the hapless family just stood by and watched their lives being completely rearranged to the extent that, when they are finally returned to their homes, they have no option but to accept the changes that have been wrought on their behalf.  I know now that the changes are not that drastic – it just takes the proper approach and presentation.

Find a place that makes you happy and go there.

Years ago, I bought a poster with this quote on it and hung it in my bedroom.  I thought the quote was pithy.  It had a picture of a quiet lane in a forest heading toward nowhere in particular.  As I got a little older, I began to feel that the quote was trite, overrated and cliché. I left the poster up because I liked the picture, but the quote no longer had any meaning for me.  I would look at it and think, “Yeah, whatever.”  I wasn’t old enough to appreciate what real happiness was or what it meant when you found it.  I certainly had never had the experience of “finding” a happy place, either within or without.  I was a stupid teenager and didn’t think about much other than the fun I would be having in the coming weekend.  When I left for college, I packed up my room.  I took the poster down, probably intending to hang it in my dorm room, but somewhere along the line, the poster disappeared.  I have looked for that poster since, and have found a few that have the same quote, but not THE poster.  But I also discovered I didn’t need to have the poster hanging on my wall to be happy.


This quote came to mind last night as I was driving home.  Not my house where I live with my family, but my “home”.  I am “on vacation” in North Carolina and I could feel it as I crossed the state line.  The tension began to drain from my body as came down through the mountains onto the piedmont.  My senses came alive as I drove through Winston-Salem and drank in the sweet, sticky aroma of the cut tobacco.  I was cruising along at 70 mph, crooning to Trace Adkins and felt that wave of joy wash over me.  I thought about the quote, and actually had tears come to my eyes.  Apparently, as I get older, I am becoming a sentimental old fool, but so be it.  Seeing the Carolina pines swaying in the morning breeze cements it.  I am here.


As I write this, I am sitting in my friend’s guest house, watching a deer graze outside the living room window.  He bends down, nibbles at the grass, looks up and sees me watching him.  I reach for my camera, and he freezes.  Our eyes lock, and I focus.  He stares straight at me, daring me to take his picture, and I do.  I get ready to take another and he breaks our gaze, looks around, looks back at me as if to say, “I don’t think so, you’ve had your chance for today,” and gracefully turns and lopes back into the wood.  In a little while, the rest of the world will be waking up and my activities for the day will begin, but for the next two minute and fifteen seconds, I am going to sit and listen to Dean Martin singing “Carolina In The Morning”.  Welcome Home.

This whole change of seasons thing is really screwing me up.  I keep forgetting that, the closer we get to the end of June, the longer the days are getting, and as a result, I keep thinking it is earlier in the day than it really is.  Case in point, I did not even begin to think about fixing dinner last night until it started getting dark outside.  6:30, right?  Yeah, maybe four months ago . . .

I keep going back to Ironman.  It is times like these that I really do believe that life would be so much easier if I had a Jarvis.  I would have “someone” who could look things up on the internet for me while I am driving down the road and then report back.  I would never have to worry about texing while driving or any of that because I could do it all through voice commands.  Jarvis could read my texts to me and I could dictate to him.  He could also make my calls for me and remind me of appointments – like the haircut I missed this afternoon.

My point is, while I am expected to keep everyone else on track, I need an assistant to keep me on track.  A housekeeper to do the laundry and a cook would be nice, as well, but I don’t want to push it.  And if I am going to round out my list of household dream staff, it would have to include a gardener, a chauffeur, and a personal trainer and fitness coach to get me working out on a regular basis.  If I just didn’t have to worry about going to work, I would have loads more free time to get everything done.  I would finally get all the stuff that needs to go to charity out of the house.  Of course, my house would be empty then, and I would need to go shopping to get more stuff to fill it back up, but the point is I WOULD HAVE THE TIME.

At some point, my husband will be reading this, and I will know from the thunderous, echoing laughter coming from the vicinity of his workstation.  He looks at me, when I make these complaints in person, and just rolls his eyes and shakes his head.  The idea of me having an assistant (let alone a sentient computer designed to be able to anticipate all my needs and fulfill them) will be enough to make him fall off his chair laughing.  Of course, then I will be blamed for his sore ribs (from laughing) and his sore bottom (from falling).

But back to me and my (non-existent) free time.  It seems like there are more and more things in the world creating distractions for me.  And unfortunately, when it comes to distractions, I am weak.  I have no spine.  After all, it is way more fun to sit and watch TV or play a video game than it is to do housework, like the aforementioned laundry.  I am getting ready for a trip next week, and I am still trying to get all the laundry done and put away so that I can pack.  I also know that, no matter how much laundry I get done, someone is going to want something out of the one load I didn’t get done.  It just sort of works that way around here!

Someday, I know I will get caught up.  The laundry will all be done.  The dishes will all be washed and put away.  The living room will be dusted and vacuumed.  There will not be toys strewn all over the floor.  The boxes in the garage that haven’t been unpacked since our last move will be emptied and gone.  And all of these things will happen after the last child leaves home, and I have nothing else to do.  And that will be a sad day, indeed.  And it is coming way too soon.