It's Not All About Me

(It's going to be really long and ramble-y. Je m'excuse.)

This is about what happened during the rest of my weekend. And why I realized I was being petty on Friday.

Later Friday afternoon I watched a reading (and really, that meant just hearing the text aloud) of My Name is Rachel Corrie. I'm not going to get into the politics that are implicit to this piece because the whole Israeli-Palestinian question is one of the most difficult political terrains for me to navigate and I can discuss it in person but I'm not going to try to articulate those feelings here.

I will say this - it was much less political than I expected it to be based on the maelstrom that surrounded the planned NYTW production. And hearing a little bit more about the NYTW story (from people who heard it from Nicola himself) made me realize that a lot of the information that has been circulating, both in the press and within the blogging world, is not necessarily true. But I won't get into that either.

Nor will I discuss the play's worth from a theatrical perspective. Again, I have a lot of thoughts and they range from completely objective director things to totally visceral responses. And I'm not going to try to express them here. Because ultimately I'm not a writer and I won't do these feelings justice.

What I will say is this - what affected me most about this piece, what I am still thinking about four days later, was the distance I felt from Rachel Corrie. She was an idealistic twenty-four year old who thought she could change the world. I have somehow become a cynical thirty-year-old who often would rather stick my head in the proverbial sand. What happened?

I tell myself that I do what I can for the world in the realm that I feel comfortable in. I tell myself a lot of things to make me feel better. Maybe we all do.

Realizing that was not a comforting experience.

Other impressions: the exchanges in the play that derive from emails between Rachel and her parents were the scenes that actually moved me emotionally.

The Corrie's worried about the path she was taking. Of course they did.

But you made me this way! She countered.

I have the same debate with my parents. While, in comparison, I am living an extremely safe and mainstream life my mother and father still worry constantly about the insecurity of the path I have taken. They worry about whether I can pay my rent. They worry about whether I will have health insurance. They worry about me reaching thirty-one without... plans.

But you made me this way! I counter.

We have a joke in my house. I have a cousin who is an accountant for Price-Waterhouse- Whatever who has a house in Texas that is bigger than any house I ever lived in and more impressive than any house my parents have ever owned. I don't say this with any envy. I don't give a sh*t about that big house.

But one thanksgiving my mother brought up the big house with some sense of longing (sorry mom, but you did.) The big brick house in Texas.

And of course I jumped on it and got bent out of shape because I was suddenly convinced that my mom really wished I'd become an accountant instead of what I do. It's a ridiculous idea. I can barely balance my checkbook. It's about as likely that I'd become an accountant as it is that I'd try figure skating in the Olympics.

But my poor mother will never live that down.

When you step out of Grand Central station - which we do when we come in from Poughkeepsie - a gigantic branch of P-W-Whatever looms before us, bright and gleaming. I challenge her to point out my destined corner office. The first time I did it she laughed. Now she just rolls her eyes.

We are the sum of our parts. There is something inevitable about that.

But what defies inevitability, or logic or order for that matter, is when a child dies before the parent. It throws off the natural balance.

So I found myself crying for the Corrie's, politics aside.

And Saturday night I cried for Mejra. (Sorry - minor spoilers here). The Monument is about a mother's attempts to exact revenge on her child's murderer. The revenge is theatrical and complex, but at the root of it there is a mother's intense grief at having lost a child, again, politics aside.

What we know about the daughter is that she was idealistic, passionate - she believed she could make the world a better place. Until that world brought her down.

Kudos to all involved in the production.

So, when Mejra tumbled on top of Rachel Corrie in my brain it became very clear to me that what I needed more than anything last week was perspective. And I got it.

More enjoyable weekend stuff included margaritas at La Lomita and my first trip to Wonderland, which was totally tolerable until the patio closed and the place filled up with more NW hipsters than I could handle at one time. After that we followed Thoreau to a nearby party where my cousin had vaguely uncomfortable encounters with boys while he and I looked on.

Sunday was all about the fundraiser. But you know that already.