Writing & Art

When I facilitated a writing class at the Roarke Center in downtown Troy I posed the question: ‘How would it feel to be young again?’

Here is my answer.

It depends upon how young? I always say I would never want to be in my 20’s again even though my health was the best then and I was fearless and inquisitive and knew everything about life there was to know. The downside was the uncertainty of where my life was headed, the heartaches over devastating breakups, the worry about how I dressed, talked, wore my hair. I was always worried about what others thought of me – ugh!

My childhood was pretty great. It was fun growing up on a farm with animals, a pond with a raft on it, the woods to play in. We all had chores to do but when they were done life was carefree.

As I grow older I look back with fondness on days gone by.

I think with nostalgia of being 60 again.

Another short fiction topic we wrote about was: ‘Who was Dorian Gray?’

My answer:

Dorian Gray was the penultimate ‘bad boy.’ He cared naught but for the pursuit of his own pleasure. It was an exciting, fun-filled life, in the beginning at least. With no purpose to his existence other than seeking what pleased him in the moment, Dorian’s life was losing its ‘punch.’

He had to keep seeking new ways to feel excited: drugs, alcohol, visiting brothels, dating stage actresses with questionable reputations and finally having his portrait painted by a famous artist so he could stare lovingly at his young, handsome countenance.

But, as inevitably happens, life caught up with Dorian. He aged. The young starlets no longer found him handsome and alluring. The drugs and alcohol ravaged  his face and body and finally his very soul. Even his painted self gazed back at him with dark circles under his eyes and sunken cheeks.

He killed the artist thinking it was he who made him look ugly. He killed the actress who no longer found him handsome. With each murder he became less and less human and more crazy.

Finally, he sought to end his anguished, downward slide by plunging a knife into the offending portrait thinking he would then return to his youthful self. However, the knife struck the solid steel frame, flipped end over end and stuck into his own chest.

As he lay dying in a puddle of melting ice cream he hit on his way down to the floor, his portrait-self wagged a finger at him and admonished:

‘Bad boy. You got your just desserts.’

In July 2019 I attended a Women’s Writing Retreat at Pyramid Life Center for a few serene, pristine, delightfully free-ing days in the Adirondacks.

A group of women writers, singers, performers, playwrights, educators, yoga and Tai Chi instructors, gathered together to share experiences and learn new ‘techniques of the trade’ in whatever form that took during the week. We shared our stories and songs and poetry each evening.

I took two classes: Art Journaling and learning to write Flash Fiction. The journaling class helped me unleash my creative side in words and form while Flash Fiction was a new genre for me.The idea was to write a complete story including plot, character development, scenes and resolution in 200 words or less! We began by just writing what came into our heads on a subject then spent the rest of the session editing it down and down again.

Following is a short story (although not under 200 words!) and collage I created during the week.

‘Fugue’

She sits at the piano letting her fingers flicker over the keys of ebony and ivory the word pianoforte coming into her mind. A few of the notes combine to sound like something she almost remembers..but no, the Cs,Ds and F sharps float away, unrecognizable, into space.

Her gaze shifts down to her clothes. Pink satin robe cinched tightly over a corset. She hates pink – or thinks she does. As she twirls on the little piano stool she catches sight of a face in the wavy glass of the floor-to-ceiling window. She feels suddenly dizzy and fizzy and is frightened by the image of the auburn-haired woman she does not recognize peering back at her. As she slows her panicky breathing and racing heart the questions come flooding in: ‘Where am I?’ which leads to ‘Who am I?’ which, because of the strangeness of her surroundings, inevitably leads to ‘When am I?’

As these thoughts race and tumble one upon another a young man steps through another floor-to-ceiling window and cries: ‘There you are! I was so worried when you did not return from your walk into town.’

She whispers back, not trusting what her voice will sound like: ‘I lost track of the time and am just recently returned.’

To herself she thinks: Hah! I have lost track of everything – time, place, names – except for Victor here. Ah! his name is Victor!

She does not know who she is to him. Sister, wife, lover? so she treads lightly with her next question. ‘Victor do we have plans this evening?’

‘Oh Emily, my sweet, lovely, disappearing sister, how can you have forgotten we dine with Alistair and Mims at 8?’

Emily gives her head a shake trying to clear her brain of the fuzziness she feels. Who are Alistair and Mims?

Looking around again at the room which is decorated in heavy fabrics and huge gilded picture frames, and at the clothing she and Victor are wearing, she surmises she has awoken from her 2019 stupefying sleep into the world of Edith Wharton.

What was it her 20th century psychiatrist called this ‘time traveling’ she keeps obsessing about each session?

A Fugue state brought on by a traumatic, heart-wrenching event she does not want to remember.

Better to live in the past, in someone else’s present time. Emily’s time.

She rises from the stool and gives safe, reliable Victor her hand.