DON'T TEMPT FATE!

No, I wasn't one of the nine chosen ones and without feedback or a list of them it's hard to know what criteria was used to make the short list.  Perhaps I should have chosen contemporary Welsh characters? Who knows?
Apparently, there were a huge number of submissions.  I hope that one of the Pontadawe Script Cafe members got a place on the course.
The Sherman Theatre's script reading service is very slow so despite hopes of moving forward after winning Script Slam last year I'm feeing a bit stuck. So I've booked to do an Arvon course- writing for the theatre in November. I'm hoping that I will be able to get advice and guidance so that next time...

THE DOVE & THE FROG

I have just submitted a 10 minute play for a Wales writing competition linked to a National Theatre (UK) touring production of 'The Habit of Art,' by Alan Bennett.
My play is an imagined scene from the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Mexican muralists and communists, set in 1935. If I am successful, I would be one of nine writers allocated a place on a residential writing course in North Wales, given feedback and mentoring by NT staff and a rehearsed reading in Llandudno in October. How amazing would that be!
Wish me Luck!

LAMMAS AT LLWYNBWCH & THE COUNCIL OF ALL BEINGS

In the Celtic calendar Lammas is a time for celebration of the first corn harvest of the year. Rhys and I spent Lammas weekend camping at 'The Council of All Beings,' held at Llwynbwch in Mid Wales. The land is jointly owned by Sue Weaver and a friend, who conserve it for future generations. It is rich in wildlife with oaks, beech and other varieties of British trees, and a river runs through. Some of the land is lightly grazed to encourage wild flowers. At this time of year the perfume of meadowsweet pervades and the land is vibrant with purple thistles and yellow birds-foot trefoil.  We heard the frequent cry of buzzards, the tapping of woodpeckers, the zizzing of bees in the orchard and best of all, there was no traffic noise. This place feels ancient and sacred. 

In the last year I have been on three eco-psychology weekends that have explored the connections between us and our relationship to the rest of the natural world, considered the impact of the Copenhagen summit on climate change, and have been inspired to write poetry about the environment and become involved with Cardiff North Transition Group. The work that is lead by Sue, her partner Alan, and her colleague Rosie from Totnes Town in Transition is based on the work of Eco-Philosopher, Joanna Macy( http://www.joannamacy.net)

'The Council of All Beings is a communal ritual in which participants step aside from their human identity and speak on behalf of another life-form. . .the ritual serves to help us acknowledge and give voice to the suffering of our world. It also serves, in equal measure, to help us experience the beauty and power of our interconnectedness with all life'(JM)

There were thirteen of us who took part in our ritual. The river chose me to represent it and the owl chose Rhys. At the Council, held in a North American Indian teepee by the river, we wore the masks we had made to represent the life-forms that had chosen us. Present were Rainforest, Soil, Stream, Mole, Python, Snow Leopard, Squirrel, Slug, Cow, Bee, River, Salmon, Owl. We discussed our plight and the damage done to us by human beings. 

By the end of the weekend, as human beings, we all committed to action that we will take to raise awareness about the plight of endangered species, our environment and the planet Earth. Also, to seek opportunities to become greener, healthier and enjoy the power of nature in its many forms. 

The weekend for me was thought provoking, interesting, creative, exhausting, sensual, sad, uplifting and fun.!

For further information about eco-psychology workshops and rituals, contact

Sue Weaver at Llwynbwch, Llansadwrn, Carms, SA19 8LP. Tel: 01550 777402.

Outstandingly delicious veggie food was created and produced from home-grown produce by Creative cook, Sue Laker (email jonsuzi@btinternet.com)

14 ACTORS CREATE ANARCHY FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

Well, it happened, quickly, too quickly.
But I wasn't thinking that as I stood in line waiting to go on stage. Our play, a one night only production called, 'Nine Meals from Anarchy,'  explores what might happen in a local community when the oil runs out and food shortages start to happen.
My heart was pumping and thumping like Sigourney Weaver just before the Alien jumped out of her chest. This was the first time I'd acted since school days. That was when my phobia for forgetting lines started. It happened in 'The Importance of Being Ernest' and again in 'The Christmas Carol'. Mortification and embarressment for myself and regret at letting people down. I just hoped that this time I wouldn't be the one who messed up or forgot her cue.  Us 14 actors managed to get through the play, somehow, with a couple of scenes going awry and our supporters said the audience would never have known. They may have been kind but there were some really good performances, particularly those from my old school play mate, Jo, and Amanda, a new member of Peacock Vein's Script Cafe. How Derek, Emily and Sarah managed to pull together the script from our weekend of devising and manage the production in three and a half days is truly amazing.
Derek was also directing Sylvie Butterbach's play, 'White Goods', which explores the experiences of an African asylum seeker and his relationship with a charity worker (played by Emily). It is beautifully written, exploring how language and cultural differences can lead to tragedy. It was also very well received by the audience at Pontadawe Arts Centre.
So, what's next?   I'm off to our allotment, so when the oil runs out  . . .

THE LIVING IS EASY?

 It is said that time goes faster the older you get. That's not my experience this year. This summer seems to be going on forever. Like one of those that gets talked about from an idyllic childhood. False memory syndrome wasn't named that then but I often wonder if summers in the 50's really were that long and hot.  The summer for me started in April in Mexico and there's still a couple of months left. The past two months without much work have been spent idling in Pembrokeshire. Wonderful especially in the sunshine but good weather is bad for my writing.  I tend to avoid it.  So I'm willing a shower or two to water my creativity.
Rain or shine I've signed up for a weekend with Pontadawe Script Cafe, led by Derek Cobley and Emily Hinchelwood, devising a play about climate change with the working title, 'Nine meals from Anarchy' to be performed at the Arts Centre on 8 July along with a play called 'White Goods' written by Sylvie Butterbach, a member of the group. For further info contact Emily on 07522 076084 or contact Pontadawe Arts Centre 01792 863722.

40, 60, 51 & 57

Congratulations to Chris and Dave on their 40th wedding anniversary! We were among the sixty odd people who were invited to share the couple's celebrations at Manor Parc Hotel. It was a great evening, an intimate, elegant venue, excellent food and interesting company. One woman had last seen Chris and Dave on the day of their wedding. She remembered waving them off on a train to their honeymoon. Their lives taking different routes she hadn't heard from them again until through 'Friends Reunited' Chris tracked her down living in Ireland and invited her to the celebrations.
 Nowadays it would seem that you can re-connect with anyone you might wish to from your past. I did the same last year and met up with old College friends who I hadn't seen for nearly forty years. I've written a play, called 'The Reunion', loosely based on the event. I enjoyed meeting them again. I'd been unconsciously searching for one of them for years. Her look-a-likes appeared randomly on buses, at train stations and once even at Bangkok Airport. When I met her again I realised that I'd fossilised her in my imagination, a young skinny girl with a chestnut bob. Forty years on she's still very slim but her bob's pure white. I had been searching for the wrong person. After forty years, can you just pick up again or has too much life gone by for the historical connection to be enough to sustain a future relationship? In this case apart from one e-mail straight after the reunion we haven't been in touch.
On Monday we went to London to share Kate's 60th birthday celebrations in a special lunch held at The Exhibition Rooms in Crystal Palace. Kate had invited sixteen of her closest friends. Having heard a lot about some of these people over the past ten years since I first met Kate it was nice to meet them.
It made me think about how and why we choose people to be our friends, why we are chosen and why certain friendships endure?
We stayed with one of my oldest friends, Jane, who has been my friend for the past fifty-one years. We met at secondary school and became close friends from the start, encouraging each other to be wild, dramatic and in the eyes of the teachers so naughty that at one point we were separated.  Drama is still our passion and we went to see a play at the Young Vic, called 'Joe Turner's Come and Gone'. A very deep and complex play about the interplay of shamanism and slavery on the black person's psyche around 1914.
We met up with another school friend for lunch at LMNT, an Egyptian- themed restaurant in Hackney. I have known Sue since primary school, around fifty-seven years. I see her perhaps once or twice a year but she's been such a loyal and reliable friend I know that I could always go to her if I needed support or help. I hope she feels the same. This for me is the essence of true friendship. Everything else is a bonus.

Some names have been changed to protect identity.

NEW DAWN NEW DAY NEW WORLD

4.30am. I love that song by Nina Simone. Really captures the hopeful feeling of the candy-rock sky behind my screen and the baby black bird hopping after its parents across the patio. Joanna Macy's book, 'World as Lover, World as Self' didn't make me nod off, so after laying in bed for a couple of hours in the dark thinking about my future I got bored, and thought I'd bring you up to date with  what's been happening.  
We got back from Pembrokeshire last night. The hedgerows are teeming with white and pink hawthorn trees, sunny gorse, red campions, bluebells, garlic and those tall white umbellifers, that could be wild parsley or carrot. I'm not sure.
 On Monday we went to Broadhaven South Beach. Together with Barafundle Bay, a little way further along the coast, these have to be the best beaches in the world. Horseshoe bays backed by dunes, clean sand and turquoise water.  Despite the water being too cold for me even wearing a wet suit, brave souls were swimming in bikinis-not for very long mind you- the average time running into the water, thrashing around in a small circle and skipping out, was around 20 seconds.
I finally managed to complete my fifth full moon poem for April based on the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan outside Mexico City. Just in time as it's May full moon today. This is a project I have for 2010-to write a poem at each full moon. It's hard not to repeat oneself!  I thought that May's poem would be under the cut of the surgeon's moon-shaped light.  No such luck. Instead, I've written him a poem.

HIP OP

Please Mr Jones

Operate my hip

cos my hip aint hopping.

Like Chester after the Sherriff

I'm a limping and a-lopping.

I can stomp like Ian Dury

but aint got no rhythm stick

I aint got no rhythm.

Mr Jones

September is far too long to wait

It's a bore

Operate my hip

Make me tall and straight

Not crook'd no more.

Replace the chewed up bone

with your new ball and socket

Lock it Mr Jones

so I can jump, skip and run

walk miles, have fun.

Be Cool Mr Jones

Operate my hip!

Have a great bank holiday weekend.

HIP OP CANCELLED

It's May 18, the day I was supposed to go into hospital to have my left hip replaced, the day this year has been planned all around.  In the letter postponing the op until September there was mention of bed shortages, bed blocking and emergencies. However, the cynical side of me and a view confirmed by some NHS workers, is that this is where the cuts begin. One nurse friend even said,
'Don't believe otherwise.'
The Occupational Therapist came yesterday with her measuring tape and plastic elephant feet to do a rece of our home and furniture and to sus out if Rhys is up to what it takes to look after me post-op.
'He's been doing it all our married life', I said.
He said, 'I've had the op myself.'
They compared notes on equipment. Three years ago it was cheaper to give you all the equipment you needed new:-commode, extra-long shoe horn, grabber, sock-thingy that looks like a cotton bike saddle with long tapes, high chair, elephant feet etc, rather than loan them, collect after use and recycle.
The OT noticed the extra-long shoe horn with Rhys' name on hanging in our porch. Very useful for scratching your private parts and getting your boots on and off without bending down. Problem is you still have to bend down to do up your laces. It's where your walking partner's mobility and willingness to stoop that low is tested. If you are walking alone and can't face asking a random passerby then you may trip over your laces and you're back to square one. Waiting for another hip replacement operation.
'We did try to give the stuff back, honest!', we said in collective guilt, 'but nobody wanted them.'
'It's all different now,' she said.
She apologised that I was to have an inferior grabber to the one Rhys had-one without a magnate on the end. Cuts again. Not that I can think of a good reason why I would want to use my grabber as a metal detector, but Rhys assures me not having one is a distinct disadvantage.
Now I'm all measured up and perfectly fitted out with no party to go to. Today, I read an article by Barbara Ehrenreich in Therapy Today (May 2010), She says that positive thinking won't help me in my situation if it ignores the reality of my circumstances and inhibits action. Given I might reach September having not worked all summer (positive) and then be postponed again(realistic?)- potentially putting me out of business for even longer, I've put myself on the 'ready to go at a moment's notice' list just in case some other poor person is cancelled and I move up the queue.
So I've bought a new hoodie dressing gown. Steffan says my wearing it reminds him of the 'grim sleeper'. I couldn't find a cotton nightdress, so bought a dress that could double up. Oh, and some pink slippers with rubber soles-for grip. Very out of character. Now, all I need to do is pack my hospital bag. Bit like preparing to have a baby.
That house-sit in the jungle of Panama. . . How long would it take me to get home if I get that call and there's been a cancellation ?

'VIVA LA VIDA!' VIVA MEXICO!

'Viva la Vida' are Frida Kahlo's words. I think it means something like, 'Celebrate Life!'  'Long Live Life!' It's salutary that despite all her pain and suffering she was still able to say this at the end of her short life.
Tomorrow is our last day and given the problems I've had with the lap top I've decided to do a brief summing up of our Mexican experience tonight instead of waiting til after our visit to Teotihuacan tomorrow and the possibility that Dell boy may not want to cooperate.
Mexico is a fascinating country of contrasts; huge, diverse, complex, rich in history, custom, tradition, with many of the contemporary problems facing the rest of the world: rising unemployment and cost of living, climate change, diminishing resources etc. This year 2010 celebrates two hundred years of independence. At the demo supporting the strike by the Mexican Electricians' Union, we saw a poster which we think said something like,

Celebrate Mexico? What's there to celebrate?
Narcotic trafficking, Lack of Security, High Crime, Corrupt Politicians, Unemployment, Injustice...

Clearly, if workers are prepared to go on hunger strike then the situation for some must be desperate.
We have only been here for five weeks and our contact with Mexican people has been quite small. However, what's impressed us most is that despite the possible personal consequences there are those individuals and groups, like staff and volunteers at Natate, the Zapatistas and the Electricians, who are standing up for what they believe in.  One of our guides talking about environmental issues told us, 'In Mexico it's dangerous to be an activist. People who protest loudly can disappear. Get killed.'
In a video of Rufino Tamayo's work, a Mexican muralist of Rivera's generation, he says that in his view it's a myth to believe that Mexicans are all about fiestas and celebrations. He believes that the national Mexican personality is quite a tragic one. I guess if you consider the oppression that the people have been subjected to from the very earliest times this view is understandable. The Mexican, 'Day of the Dead' is a celebration of the lives of ancestors and sees death as part of the process of living.
We have felt safe here, even in Mexico City, where we've riden the metro, the train and the bus and where we've stood out as the only gringos seemingly taking public transport. There are obviously dangers, like in any big city, and maybe we've been lucky, but there is also a large police presence. Maybe that helps us feel safe too.
We find the people very helpful and friendly. To our surprise most Mexicans don't speak English and our appalling Spanish has caused some grins. We wish we'd come better prepared language-wise. 
We've learnt alot during this holiday. House-sitting for Larry was a great experience. He taught us to re-examine the place of trust in our lives.  He's truly an exceptional person. We look forward to getting to know him better when he comes over to Europe next year.
We'd love to get to know this interesting, colourful and vibrant country better. Hopefully we'll come back one day. In the meantime, VIVA MEXICO!


  

FRIDA, TROTSKY & MEXICAN ELECTRICIANS ON HUNGER STRIKE

It' s May 1st and it would seem that the whole of Mexico City is out on the streets enjoying La Vida. The streets are teeming with people, mostly young, arms and lips entwined. It's very very hot. In the 90s at least, maybe even the 100s. The streets are full of little stalls with tin baths of iced drinks, others selling mangos on sticks like lollies, cups of sliced tropical fruits, ice creams, hot and cold food wrapped in banana or corn leaves, that you can eat on the go. Or, you can sit by the stall, eat, chat and watch the world go by. We haven't done much of any of this as we've been cowardy custards fearing that some germ would get into our system and spoil our last few days in Mexico.
Today, we took the metro to Chapultepec to visit the park and the National Anthropological Museum. It's an impressive building, very spacious and airy and is said to be one of the best of its kind in the world. It tells the story of the indigenous people, their beliefs, myths and rituals and has rooms dedicated to different groups such as those who built the pyramids, like Teotihuacan, a massive site north of Mexico City and a contemporary with Imperial Rome. We're hoping to visit it tomorrow, our last day.
Yesterday, we visited the home of the great Mexican artist and communist, Frida Kahlo. Her home,where she was born and lived all her life including during her marriage to Rivera is in Coyoacan, a posh residential area of the city There's a small collection of her paintings: self portraits and narratives of key points of love and pain in her life. Some are a mixture of the literal and surreal. She uses the iconography of Mexican folk art. Rivero gets in on her act again, with a room displaying his paintings, portraits and landscapes. However, we get to see the bed ,where she spent so much of her time after the traffic accident that left her in so much pain. There's a canopy over it and on the underside is a huge mirror. She used it for her many self portraits. On the wall at the end of her bed there are pictures of Lenin, Trotsky, Marx and Stalin.  We also saw her studio with the wheelchair she used towards the end of her life after her leg was amputated. It sits against an empty easel and her paints, pastels and coloured inks are arranged on a table nearby. The room is also full of books in English and Spanish, including the history of art. I spied a book of Augustus John. There are also many books about communism.
It was very strange and probably totally psychological but when in her bedroom, I felt intense hot pain in my hip, dry bones rubbing against each other. I've been in pain with my hip over the holiday but this was different. 
I desperately wanted to see the larger collection of her work at the Museo Dolores Olmedo Patino, but before setting off for it, Rhys persuaded me that we might regret it if we didn't visit the nearby Trotsky Museum, the house where there were two attempts on his life and where he was assassinated by a Stalinist sympathiser. We did the tour led by a Mexican woman who'd done her masters at Sussex and spoke a Brighton English. She was clearly somewhat infatuated by Trotsky. On the tour was a Russian couple, who were n't able to throw much light on how Trotsky's role in the Russian Revolution is now taught in Russian schools. Given Trotsky's influence in revolutionary socialism in the UK, it is rather sad to see how politically sidelined he became with Stalin's rising popularity and influence. The Russian guy tried to tell the guide that when Trotsky was head of the Red Army, there were things he did and ordered that were n't good. But the guide didn't want to listen.
So, off to the Museo Dolores in a very hot taxi in a very crowded rush hour (Or is it rush hour all the time in Mexico City?)  only to find that the whole collection of Frida's work is in Europe (Where?) until December 2010. Grrr!
We took the overland train and metro (3pesos a single trip cf 70 pesos by taxi) back to the centre, the Zocalo, Constitution Square,supposedly the largest public square in the world after Tienamen Square. There we found a demonstration, speakers, banners, men in earnest conversation. We stopped several people to ask what was going on but could find no-one who spoke English. Eventually, someone we asked  found a school girl, who told us that some Mexican Electricians sitting under a canopy nearby were on hunger strike. The Union, SME are protesting about their rights and work opportunities. Her mother worked for the Union. Today, when we visited for the May Day celebrations, there was a large banner in English saying 'Famine Strike'. Everywhere, there were people in red shirts rattling tins to support the protest.
Trotsky would have been well pleased.