In trying to recover from the dismay and depression that resulted from yesterday's meeting; and the sense that my work is going to be taken even more out of my control; and that as a result I'll never, ever get out of here...
perhaps it's worth copying in yet another writing exercise, this one from a different workshop, that had a very apposite result. It was a nice exercise – well worth doing; you may want to do it yourself, to get you through the full moon. It is also good to do near a birthday – as it is about time, age, and the future.
Proudwords was the annual Newcastle lesbian and gay literary festival; its funding disintegrated and the whole imploded over the past couple of years, but when I first arrived it was impressively healthy (mostly because of massive participation by women – there weren't ever many men, and they weren't central to its operations until the final year, as a sort of stopgap after the lesbians all left in an elaborately multi-directional huff).
In 2006 there was a Proudwords-sponsored series of evening writing workshops, where I met the lively and intelligent playwright Tess (who, incidentally, has been talking about creating some workshops of her own). She and I, among others, were at the final workshop of this series on March 28, 2006. The exercise was unusual....
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Part one: imagine a photograph of yourself in twenty to thirty years. Look at the photo, and answer these questions, in the present tense.
Where are you?
I am in San Francisco, in the garden behind a house, in the pale spring sunlight. I am looking relaxed and a bit weak, but in a comfortable enough way.
Is there anyone with you?
Although I'm alone in the photograph, there is another garden chair beside me. Someone has just left the chair....
Describe your face and expression.
My hair is completely gray, a sort of iron-white; the wrinkles around my eyes are relaxed. I look a bit sad, but calm enough.
What are you doing?
I am looking into the camera, amused and expectant. I can't seem to help posing a little bit, looking up from the book that is on my lap.
How are you dressed?
I'm wearing a worn denim shirt over a deep red t-shirt. I'm also wearing old-fashioned black jeans; but, in the spring sun, I'm barefoot, shoes carelessly pushed aside.
What is your hair like?
My hair is much as it's been for decades – brushed to the left, a traditional semi-military haircut that makes me look a bit like my father.
What is in the background?
A green, battered trellis and a few plants are behind me, one flowering plant climbing the trellis.
What are you holding in your hands?
I'm holding a book, an old hardcover book with irregularly cut pages, with a brown cover.
What single detail in the foreground is most interesting?
There is a mug of coffee on the arm of the other garden chair; it has a hand-painted, multi-colored sun on it.
One thing in this photo is surprising – what is it?
It is surprising that I am there....
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Part two: imagine that the photograph has been taken, and write about it, before and after....
Since I came back to San Francisco ten years ago, things have moved slowly, rather quietly. After the war years, shifting economies and climates left the city itself slower and quieter – as Reno and Santa Rosa boomed, San Francisco became a backwater, an archaically unfashionable refuge for a wave of aging gay men and women, hippies, and tattooed ex-punks, dreaming away the now warmer days. The rising waters took back large parts of the western suburbs, but the hills around the old, now mostly submerged Castro are still home to ramshackle Victorians, small boats moving from hillside dock to hillside dock.
It was a jump, at least a slight one, in the continuity of our lives when I came back here to find Paulo. It was after I'd heard that Christian had died; and after I rode out the war years in London, occasionally having to defend my legal status as an alien from one of the countries at war, flashing a tattered passport that seemed to protect me less and less. I'd become increasingly determined to return to San Francisco, and Paulo's loss galvanized me into action: I would indeed go home, where I hadn't lived for thirty years, and see if, by any luck, there was space in his life for me.
We had approached each other warily – years far from each other in different worlds, and without youthful sexuality to pull us together, made any close connection seem odd and almost unnecessary. But I had become more easy-going over the years; and, after we fell back into our shared enthusiasms, he invited me to stay with him indefinitely – at first as roommates....
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