"Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
I heard this quotation off-hand on a t.v. show, and it brought Max to my mind. Max is the writer we worked with on The Telling Project. Max writes heroes' stories. Max writes tragedies. Max takes our words - words we spill out with tears, words we choke out with anger, words we chortle out with joy or surprise - and he turns them into cohesive stories. Max makes me sound funny. I am funny, but I can't write funny and I'm confused about how Max makes it so that when I tell my story, I am funny. I'd like to take credit for delivery, but Max knew what was funny before I took the words back into my mouth.
I did take the words back into my mouth. They were all my words. I read them and I memorized them and sometimes I kept them. There were things I had said that I needed to keep - words I used to describe my love for my husband, too precious for public consumption - and there were other words that needed out - words I choked out during our first performance because I hadn't prepared them during rehearsals, describing the pain of thinking my husband might not come home from Iraq.
During our week of rehearsals, I heard one woman recite over and over that her wedding was in September 2007. On our last day of rehearsals, I asked her what her wedding date was. The day she married her husband, who died from wounds sustained in Iraq, was exactly six days after I married my husband, who lives with wounds sustained in Iraq. She and I both started using our full wedding dates in our monologues, because we felt the impact of that.
I felt the impact as my husband described several of the most horrible moments of his life, one after the other, just the way they played out. I sat on stage with him, so that if he forgot his words, because he has a brain injury or because they are terrifying, I could hand them back to him, one by one, until he could remember them. I sat on stage for Karl and waited for him to come back from Iraq, like I do every day.
In many ways, he will never come back.
In some ways, he comes back every day.
In some ways, he comes back, bit by bit, as he lets his stories out, as he tells people where he has been, what he has done, and who he is. Karl carries war with him and as he lets pieces of his war out, as other people carry small bits of it for him, his war becomes easier to carry.
I am not a veteran. I am a witness. As I share my stories, I make witnesses of everyone around me. I alone cannot carry Karl's war, but if I can share it, we can carry it together and that makes it easier for me to carry too. This is why I write and why I participated in The Telling Project, so that I do not have to be alone... because I couldn't do this alone.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Monday, October 27, 2014
Fright or Flight
As we stood backstage, I listened to Karl's breathing. Then I pulled him to me for a hug. I was sitting and he stood in front of me as I laid my head on his chest and listened to his heart race. I started thinking "What are we doing? How are we going to get out of this if he starts to panic?"
He pulled away from me and sat in a chair beside me. I watched him regulate his breathing and thought about the advice we'd been given to make what happens, to make his issues, a part of the performance. I wondered if him having a full blown panic attack, something that hasn't happened in six months, would be part of the performance or if me talking him down and removing him would be.
When it was time to start, when we were cued onstage, he was fine. I heard his breathing a few times, but he didn't panic, even when he forgot his lines and I cued him. I wasn't nervous about being onstage because instead I was nervous about Karl and also chagrined because he has asked me several times throughout our rehearsals if we could take a break from performing for awhile. Last year we did the commercial for WWP (which they never used) and now we're doing The Telling Project.
The Telling Project requires more from us than filming a commercial for WWP because we did rehearsals and memorized a script (culled from interviews we gave) and then performed in front of actual people. The commercial was just us, at home, talking to two people who worked for WWP and a cameraman. Regardless, after going along with me saying yes, Karl is finally saying no. He wants a break. So we will take a break.
He did so well with the rehearsals that I didn't realize how much I was asking of him until the moment before that first performance when I was really seriously thinking about how I could get him out of there if I needed to.... which is funny because Karl always has an escape plan for if people start shooting at him. It's one of those "the caller is inside the house" moments though - it isn't a shooter that's sending him into fight or flight, it's his own silly brain, reacting to nothing. My nerves of being on stage are such miniscule twinges compared with Karl's panic of telling someone about the one of the worst moments of his life, while coping with PTSD and TBI that makes it impossible to actually memorize a script.
I am proud of Karl. I know I'm a force and I love that he has taken a stand and said he's done for a while. I'm also proud of him for sharing his stories when they pull him to the brink of panic. I know he knows it's important for people to hear what war is like and I know what a struggle and challenge it is for him to share his war with others. I admire the way he works through his panic to stand onstage and be vulnerable.
He pulled away from me and sat in a chair beside me. I watched him regulate his breathing and thought about the advice we'd been given to make what happens, to make his issues, a part of the performance. I wondered if him having a full blown panic attack, something that hasn't happened in six months, would be part of the performance or if me talking him down and removing him would be.
When it was time to start, when we were cued onstage, he was fine. I heard his breathing a few times, but he didn't panic, even when he forgot his lines and I cued him. I wasn't nervous about being onstage because instead I was nervous about Karl and also chagrined because he has asked me several times throughout our rehearsals if we could take a break from performing for awhile. Last year we did the commercial for WWP (which they never used) and now we're doing The Telling Project.
The Telling Project requires more from us than filming a commercial for WWP because we did rehearsals and memorized a script (culled from interviews we gave) and then performed in front of actual people. The commercial was just us, at home, talking to two people who worked for WWP and a cameraman. Regardless, after going along with me saying yes, Karl is finally saying no. He wants a break. So we will take a break.
He did so well with the rehearsals that I didn't realize how much I was asking of him until the moment before that first performance when I was really seriously thinking about how I could get him out of there if I needed to.... which is funny because Karl always has an escape plan for if people start shooting at him. It's one of those "the caller is inside the house" moments though - it isn't a shooter that's sending him into fight or flight, it's his own silly brain, reacting to nothing. My nerves of being on stage are such miniscule twinges compared with Karl's panic of telling someone about the one of the worst moments of his life, while coping with PTSD and TBI that makes it impossible to actually memorize a script.
I am proud of Karl. I know I'm a force and I love that he has taken a stand and said he's done for a while. I'm also proud of him for sharing his stories when they pull him to the brink of panic. I know he knows it's important for people to hear what war is like and I know what a struggle and challenge it is for him to share his war with others. I admire the way he works through his panic to stand onstage and be vulnerable.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
soul food
I am in Tucson on my best friend's couch. She woke me up before she left for work because today I fly home to my husband and my daughter and my eldest, who asked the day before I left if I thought it was a good idea to leave Daddy home alone with the kids.
Everything will be fine, I told them. We are now back in a place with lots of people to call if he needs help with something. Everything will be fine, I told them, after all, I haven't been at the house for more than 24 hours at a time since we moved in. Karl has been handling everything because my brother is in the ICU.
My brother is doing better, everyone expects him to live now. They're calling it miraculous, if that gives any indication of how bad things were.
On my birthday, they gave my brother a paralytic and put him in a medically induced coma.
So I spent my birthday in the ICU waiting room, eating chocolate cake a nurse who knows my mom bought for me. I offered a piece to everyone who walked by, but I made sure they sang Happy Birthday to me before they ate their cake.
On Sunday, on my way home from sleeping at the hospital again (I spent the first week straight we were in Texas at the hospital), I thought "I need something."
I went over a list with myself, sleep? church? food? Elle. I needed to go see my best friend. So I called her and then I told Karl and then I told my mom. Karl said, "have fun," and my mom said "when was the last time I asked myself what I need?"
It is a survival skill, asking myself what I need to recharge, to make it through the day, then giving it to myself. I haven't always been in a position to just get on a plane the next day, but I had the resources, so I came to Tucson.
My brother will hopefully be moved out of the ICU in the next day or two. My husband even remembered to make our kids take a bath... which he usually doesn't do when I'm out of town, but it's something I can let slide. So the kids might be dirty for a few days? It is a small price to pay to feed my soul. This time though, he even remembered to tell the kids take a bath and we are in a place where telling people that feels like bragging a little.
Everything will be fine, I told them. We are now back in a place with lots of people to call if he needs help with something. Everything will be fine, I told them, after all, I haven't been at the house for more than 24 hours at a time since we moved in. Karl has been handling everything because my brother is in the ICU.
My brother is doing better, everyone expects him to live now. They're calling it miraculous, if that gives any indication of how bad things were.
On my birthday, they gave my brother a paralytic and put him in a medically induced coma.
So I spent my birthday in the ICU waiting room, eating chocolate cake a nurse who knows my mom bought for me. I offered a piece to everyone who walked by, but I made sure they sang Happy Birthday to me before they ate their cake.
On Sunday, on my way home from sleeping at the hospital again (I spent the first week straight we were in Texas at the hospital), I thought "I need something."
I went over a list with myself, sleep? church? food? Elle. I needed to go see my best friend. So I called her and then I told Karl and then I told my mom. Karl said, "have fun," and my mom said "when was the last time I asked myself what I need?"
It is a survival skill, asking myself what I need to recharge, to make it through the day, then giving it to myself. I haven't always been in a position to just get on a plane the next day, but I had the resources, so I came to Tucson.
My brother will hopefully be moved out of the ICU in the next day or two. My husband even remembered to make our kids take a bath... which he usually doesn't do when I'm out of town, but it's something I can let slide. So the kids might be dirty for a few days? It is a small price to pay to feed my soul. This time though, he even remembered to tell the kids take a bath and we are in a place where telling people that feels like bragging a little.
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