A FOURTH OF JULY VALENTINE TO MY NEIGHBORHOOD

This Fourth of July has gotten me thinking about Freedom. We have so many freedoms in this country that we tend to take them for granted. We have the freedom to worship as we wish or not to worship at all. We have the freedom to read everything that has ever been written or not to read anything. We may express our politics views boldly or have no views to express. With all of the many freedoms with have, also comes responsibility. In fact, I would say that the more freedoms we have, the more responsibility we have to use those freedoms wisely.

When I was not much more than a baby, my parents moved to a burgeoning new community. It was filled with apples orchards, farms, ranches, fresh air. It was a safer and healthier place to raise a family than in the cramped city where my family had previously lived. With his status as a veteran of World War II, my father took advantage of a provision of the old GI Bill which offered veterans a mortgage with no down payment. Using every penny of their savings for the move, my parents purchased a house. Then they set about turning it into a home.

Our community was a lovely place in which to grow up. We had huge amounts of land surrounding our cozy little cottage style houses. Many families had been neighbors in the city and had moved here for a better life. We city kids learned the joy of walking barefoot on the grass in the summertime and sledding safely down our hill in the winter. You could do that back then because everyone looked out for one another. Big kids looked after little kids, parents looked after everyone’s kids, our family dogs walked us to the bus stop in the morning and waiting faithfully to pick us up in the afternoon.

We grew and learned to ride bicycles. We rode everywhere in those days because it was safe. We explored our own neighborhood and ventured into neighboring towns and villages. We made new friends.

There was a wood surrounded our new neighborhood. We spent endless summers exploring the well worn paths that were said to be Indian trails. On one journey deep into the woods, we found an old Army Jeep. We hopped into its rusting hulk and pretended to be driving through the Ardennes or to the Russian front. We knew our history. Our fathers and mothers had lived it.

As the years went by, the inevitable suburban sprawl began to overtake our magical woods. A developer knocked down an old castle and built another development with larger houses. Some of our better-off friends moved into those newer, bigger houses. We were happy for them and went to birthday parties in those houses. For a while.

Towards the end of our elementary school days an even newer, larger development started to go up in our beloved woods. We formed a little-kid militia which we dubbed “The Cavalry,” and we rode through the new streets, shooting our water pistols at the construction workers and throwing a few rocks, too. Those were our woods. How could they keep building more houses? Soon there would be no land left.

By the time we got to high school, we had real grown-up responsibilities. The girls all became baby-sitters and the boys all had paper routes. When we learned to drive we took on even more responsibilities. We had to attend school, hold down an after-school job, look after our younger brothers and sisters. We had to start thinking about colleges. We had to start planning for our futures.

Our street had always been a dead end. They are called “No Outlet” streets today. My Dad had chosen the lot wisely with the eye of a former farmer. It was on the highest ground so there was never any basement flooding and we caught the cool breezes of a summer’s night. It also kept our little neighborhood very quiet.

One day, I noticed that there was construction at the end of our street. Developers were building more homes. These were the largest homes we had ever seen. They were so large that we couldn’t imagine who would live in them. These houses dwarfed the lots on which they rested. They seemed out of proportion. They seemed wrong. And then the unimaginable happened; they broke through our dead end street because they wanted egress to the neighboring towns.

The traffic on our quite street doubled, then tripled, then quadrupled, then we lost count. Shiny, expensive sports cars from these new houses roared through our street as if it were their private drag strip. Car radios blared late into the night. Drug deals started to go down on unlit corners in our neighborhood. We would find the paraphernalia the next day, along with garbage, cigarette butts and condoms. We called our local police and begged them to help. They explained that their job had been made very difficult by the fact that, at the end of our street, they no longer had jurisdiction. It was a different township. They tried. We all tried. Our safe, quite community became a memory.

I had moved into the upstairs of our tiny mother-daughter house after my grandparents died. I scrubbed and painted and laid flooring and turned the tiny apartment into a lovely space for myself. Of course I had to pay rent. That was the responsible thing to do.

Around this time I met my husband to be. We connected instantly and passionately. On our first date I knew that we would marry. He was living in another town at that time; a town in which I was working. I began to spend more and time at his apartment. I liked being in a town center. It had life and energy and I could walk to work. We became engaged. Then we had to decide where to live. His place was in a great location but it was a studio and was almost twice as expensive as my apartment upstairs in my parent’s house. It seemed the logical choice to temporarily move into my place and save for a place of our own. My mother doubled our rent.

The years went by and we settled into our tiny space. We kept saving but never quite got enough of a down payment together before the housing prices went up. The crash of 1987 happened and I lost a great job in the City. We had to cut back on expenses. We stayed.

Neighbors moved away. Many of their children bought their family homes and raised their own families in our neighborhood. It underwent a renaissance. It became integrated. We even had a gay couple down the street with adopted children. We adopted a dog and started walking around, learning the names of our new neighbors. Everyone had dogs. After a speeding car filled with drunken teenagers killed my parent’s dog one night, we knew it was no longer safe to let our dogs run free. Just another price to pay for breaking though our dead end street.

My Dad retired and developed emphysema. I started helping with the yard work, raking leaves in the fall and shoveling snow in the winter. I liked it. It was good exercise and I didn’t have to pay for a gym membership. Mostly I liked being out in the yard with my Dad. He was diagnosed with a partially blocked carotid artery in his neck. For the first time in his life, he had to go to the hospital. He was 75 years old.

Dad seemed to decline rapidly. He had several other surgeries over the next several years and his breathing worsened. One beautiful Spring day he went out into the yard with his oxygen tank strapped to his back to clear some fallen branches. A branch scratched his arm. Due to the massive steroids that he was on for his breathing, he had very little immune system left. The scratch became infected, the infection spread to his bloodstream and he died within a week.

When the shock wore off a little, I hired an estate planning attorney for my mother and insisted that she get her affairs in order. It was no small task, as I have come to learn that my mother suffered from a learning disability all of her life. I purchased the house from her and became her housekeeper and estate manager. She continued to insist that we pay her a monthly fee because she had so little income, so we did. It was the responsible thing to do. In time, she developed dementia and then Alzheimer’s disease and is now confined to a nursing home. For the first time on our married lives, my husband and I had our own house.

Being homeowners took some getting used to. I had to try to remember all of the household repairs which my father had taught me. I also undertook a complete, organic redesign of the yard. That’s an ongoing project.

About six weeks ago, a sign appeared at the end of our street. It read “This road will be closed. New traffic pattern.” We didn’t think much of it. There had been a tremendous amount of damage from a freak October ice storm and we assumed the road needed some repair. Perhaps there were underground cables that needed upgrading and we would have to take the long way around for a few weeks.

Four days ago, a barricade was erected at the end of our street. There was a sign which read “Road Closed.” I called our Village Hall. A meeting had been held in the neighboring township to address the increased traffic flowing from our street. They didn’t like it. They wanted a private community. Our mayor spoke out against it at this meeting. Leaders of our police, fire and ambulance crews said that it would create a safety hazard. Since emergency vehicles now had to go out of their way to reach our homes, that added detour of five to seven minutes could mean the difference between life and death. The people in the big houses didn’t care. They wanted their children to be able to ride their bicycles all over the street with no sense of responsibility that cars also drive on that public street.

The people in the big houses have a lot of money. They drive expensive cars, have lawn services, built-in swimming pools, fenced yards. They have clogged the street – a public street – with cars for parties for decades. Every Fourth of July, they set off so many illegal rockets that the air is choked with smoke and one cannot see to drive. They scowl and curse at us when we drive on their street. And now they want a private community.

This Fourth of July I will be watching as these people shoot off their rockets, causing a hazard to all. They will drive up and down their street, radios blaring. They will laugh at us in our little cottages and continue to throw garbage and condoms over the barricade. Human beings are not meant to live behind barricades. There is something in our nature that longs to be free. Free to walk our dogs and our children; to ride our bicycles. Free to think that we are all equal and have the same rights. We will fight for our rights but we will lose. They live in the big houses.

So time will pass. Our street will become a dead end again. It will become quiet and safer again. We will get to know our neighbors even better. It will become what it was always intended to be: a better place to live, with fresh air, where children can walk barefoot in the summer and sled down the hill in the winter. Maybe we’ll throw a block party for the Fourth of July next year. I’m looking forward to the future of our beautiful little neighborhood. Come visit us any time. And oh yes - Happy Independence Day.

Writing my Next Chapter

First the good news: I was cast in the Metropolitan Playhouse’s production of “House of Mirth.” The bad news? Halfway through rehearsal I injured my ankle and had to drop out. Yes. Ouch.

As a female actor of a certain age, I am well aware that there are not so many roles out there for me. Of course, I play all the “mom” roles in the smaller films, and do quite a bit of festival and workshop roles. And I have my teaching and coaching, my online business and my blog to keep me busy. But still. This was “House of Mirth.” At Metropolitan. Take a guess how often that happens.

And, let me tell you, I jumped through so many mental hoops, trying to come up with a way of staying with the show. I even considered, albeit fleetingly, trying to find an unscrupulous “sports doctor” to give me a shot of cortisone so that I could walk. Then I put my ankle on ice and did what any other self-respecting actor would do in the same circumstance: I whined.

“It’s not fair! This can’t be happening! I love this show. Who does Edith Wharton anymore? My costume shoes were so pretty! I’ll never work again.”


As I sat there in misery, flipping through my emails on my Droid, I came across this:


Weekly Tip for 3.23.12 March 2012


Weekly Tip for 3.23.12
THE 6 MAGIC WORDS TO MAKE IT IN OUR BUSINESS.
Where were these words before?!
We often get asked, What's the secret to succeed in this business? How do I make it? What are the magic words? We've always said, No such quick answer. BUT, after a recent "aha!" moment, there IS an answer. And it is:
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I subscribe to a newsletter from Scott Powers Studios. If you’re in this business, working in New York and you don’t know Scott, you should. It’s uncanny, but it seems that whenever I need a pick-me-up, whenever I need that edge of confidence to go into an audition or callback, Scott Powers Studios sends me their Weekly Tips Newsletter and it seems to have been written just for me. I read on.

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DO WHAT IS EXPECTED OF YOU.

No excuses. No "yeah-buts." No "extenuating circumstances." No nothin'
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“Do what is expected of me?” It’s really that simple?

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Simple? No, deceptively complex. It turns out, every "issue" or "challenge" or literally everything that occurs that is wrong, a disappointment, a letdown, not getting the job, getting fired or losing representation, revolves around if somebody has not done what is expected of them. That goes for actors, agents, casting directors, managers, you name it.
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I had won the role and, through no fault of my own, was now unable to play it. I could hear the exasperation in my director’s voice when I tried to tell him that it would all be fine. I’d rest my ankle, keep icing it, take anti-inflammatories. Then somehow, a miracle would happen, and I’d be able to go back to rehearsal, still wearing the ankle brace and somehow finding a period show that would fit over it. Yeah, right. He graciously, if trepidaciously, agreed to let me sit out two rehearsals. It would all work out. I’d be all better and still get to be in this incredible production. I fell asleep with my script in hand, dreaming about rehearsals.

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Can you do what is expected of you? If you can, we have seen those before you succeed, sometimes spectacularly.

If you can't do what is expected of you? We have seen those results, too.
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The next morning I could bear no weight on my foot. With Scott Powers’ words ringing in my ears, I gave myself permission to cry a little. Then, I called the director and asked to be replaced. Believe me, that hurt more than the ankle. In my desire to please (and to work!) I realized I was justifying like crazy, trying to come up with some way of continuing on when it really was hopeless. I could not do “what was expected of me,” which was to complete the rehearsal period and perform for a month. (Yep, an entire month. In New York. Doing Edith Wharton and Clyde Fitch.) And when that realization hit me, I knew I could not jeopardize the production for my own ego. With sincere regret and disappointment, my dear director, the wonderfully talented Alex Roe, agreed that it had to be done.

Am I happy about it? Not one bit. But it was the right thing to do. Sometimes doing what is expected means stepping down. With a little luck (and a lot of physical therapy ) I hope to be able to hobble in to see my now former cast mates. It will still hurt. And it will still have been the right thing to do.

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We all write our own books. And there's nothing wrong with starting a new chapter. Like right now.
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Go out there and write your next chapter. I’ve just written mine.


www.Metropolitanplayhouse.org

www.scottpowers.com

getworking@scottpowers.com