actingclass@aol.com
January
11 was a dark, very cold night—one of many of the longest, coldest winters I can
remember, but I felt good. I was basking in the experience of having seen my
friends, Jed Wolf and Patrice Blue Maltas, perform. They had sung and played
their own music beautifully. I felt happy about the contribution my classes had
made to them. Their beautiful voices and songs lingered in my head as I drove
up the empty, curving road near my house. The headlights swung through the
sleeping trees. The cold had drained the landscape of all color. Nothing
stirred. It was late. I felt tired but peaceful.
Then,
a voice in my head spoke, “Katherine. There is something more mysterious and
wonderful going on here than you can imagine.” I wasn’t talking to myself.
Something was speaking to me. It used the sound of my own voice, so
perhaps that’s why I didn’t find it so startling, but I did find it surprising.
The voice repeated. “There is something more mysterious and wonderful going on
here than you can imagine.” I knew it was speaking about everything: the
woods, the winter, Patrice and Jed, my classes, my life, even my sister’s cancer
and Iraq and the troubles all over the world. What surprised me was the word
“wonderful.” Mysterious I have thought before—many times. Yes, life is
mysterious to me—getting more so the longer I live. But “wonderful?” I hadn’t
thought of life that way. But, the voice calmly repeated this sentence like a
mantra as I drove up the narrow road. “There is something more mysterious and
wonderful going on here than you can imagine.” It was not loud. It was not
emphatic, it just kept repeating those words over an over again slowly with
certainty. The voice was calm yet filled with conviction. Whoever spoke these
words wanted me to absorb them as truth. The voice clearly wanted me to “get
it.”
I
parked the car in the barn, went into the house and saw my life—my whole
life—through this perception as being more mysterious and wonderful than I had
ever imagined—could ever imagine. For a moment I felt deeply calmed and
reassured. I stood awed by the fact that no matter how terrifying or awful
the circumstances might seem, underneath it all there is something mysterious and
wonderful. The voice stopped speaking when I got it.
This
winter has been hard—even harrowing—personally and for the world. I have made
three trips back and forth to Florida to be with my sister during her many
ordeals involving lung cancer. Everything was in turmoil—nothing seemed to go
smoothly. The hospital seemed terribly disorganized with many
miscommunications. Eloise would be scheduled for tests, eating nothing in
preparation for them, only to have them delayed and rescheduled. She went
nearly three days without food once. Maybe they were in a crisis mode because
Maurice Gibb had died of heart failure there a few days before. Either because
of the excessive caution triggered by his death or the result of her stress
test, her doctor ordered an angioplasty. Scheduled at 9 am, it didn’t happen
until 9 pm. Doctors were scheduling heart tests for so many patients. To our
surprise, they did find a clogged artery near her heart—another result of
smoking. That had to be tended to before she could undergo a long and painful
lobectomy. Otherwise, she, like Maurice could have died from heart failure.
The lobectomy would have to be delayed for three weeks. Of course, I had become
upset and frightened at times, but often, there was this reminder, “Katherine.
There is something more mysterious and wonderful going on here than you can
imagine.”
Eloise
came home and was mending nicely from the stent procedure. She didn’t really
need me, so I was able to go back to New York to do a staged revisit of
Laughing Wild with Christopher Durang. It was part of a celebration to open
the newly renovated studio theatre at Playwright’s Horizons—so new, in fact,
they were hanging doors and laying carpet on the dressing room floor the day we
opened. It was a sensational experience. Doing Laughing Wild years ago
had been the scariest thing I had ever done in my life. This time it was a
blessed relief.
Afterwards,
I rushed back to Florida the day Eloise finally had her lobectomy. It was
successful. No more cancer was found—no further treatment required. As hard as
all that was for Eloise— giving up cigarettes created more fear and dread in her
than the heart and cancer operations. A month or so before, she had set a goal
to quit smoking on the stroke of midnight New Year’s Eve. I was there. As the
fatal hour approached, she said, “I feel like I’m going to my execution.” When
she went to bed, I called to her back, “Dead woman walking. Dead woman
walking.” She laughed, but she was serious.
As
often as she had tried, she had not been able to give up this addiction. It
took lung cancer to do it.
It
was when she finally got home from all the hospital trips that the effects of
giving up this addiction began to kick in. She began to panic. I was very
aware of the psychic battle she was in between choosing life or choosing death.
The real demonic purpose of addiction to cigarettes became very clear: smoking
is all about death. It really does kill. It deadens our feelings until it
eventually does what it really wants to do and kills our bodies. Smoking
endeadens us. Smoking stifles the fire of life and power within us. A
cigarette not only gives us cancer, it smothers our life, our true power, our
feelings. It expresses thanatos—a desire for death. The devil loves
cigarettes. The stupid little white stick is his most beloved instrument. I
really got it. I could see its hold on Eloise. The devil did not want to let
her go. What that addiction is all about was never so clear to me.
In
the midst of all the pain and upset, I often remembered those words: something
more mysterious and wonderful is going on here than you can imagine. I did get
to spend time in warm, clean air and could feel my lungs heal from what I now
suspect was SARS (when I came home so desperately ill from China). I was able
to go to the Dolphin Research Center and spend time with my beloved, mysterious
and wonderful dolphin friends. I got a chance to spend time with Ian Hersey who
let me stay at his place so much of the time I was in Miami Beach while Eloise
was in Mt. Sinai hospital saving me so much money had I had to stay in a hotel—and
his apartment was only five minutes from the hospital—easy to get to and on
the very same street—a straight shot. I even got to see Ian do a wonderful role
in a play while I was there. And best of all, Eloise has stopped smoking. Now,
when I talk with her on the phone, I can hear more life and spirit in her voice
than I have heard for years.
I
was exhausted when it was all over and knew Eloise was going to be okay. I came
home and crawled into my living room hammock unable to unpack my suitcase or
deal with the mail. For four days I lay in a kind of psychic and physical
exhaustion—napping frequently—letting my body take the lead. On the fifth day I
was able to get up, unpack and clean the house. Just as I recovered, I got
called to do another play at Playwright’s Horizons. I read the script, loved it
and was challenged by the dual role I had been asked to do (at the end of the
play my characters have a scene with each other). She Stoops to Comedy
written, directed and starring David Greenspan is a blessing to do at this
time. It has been one of the most challenging roles I have ever done and has
kept my mind thoroughly occupied and off the war.
“More
mysterious and wonderful….” These words keep coming back to me. What about
destruction and pain and heartbreak? I don’t know. Like my character in
Laughing Wild said, “I don’t know the answer to that question. Ask me
another one.” I guess if it really is mysterious, then there is no way of
knowing the answer. There are so many points of view about this war—about the
world and what is going on now. One thing that concerns me is the
polarization. In the world, in relationships, polarization is a brutal stopping
place. Nothing moves when things become polarized. More mysterious and
wonderful. How wonderful it is that I play two women lovers who are polarized
and speak the hard truth to one another. I have felt, in doing this
extraordinary piece, that I am healing some polarization in myself—coming to
love two parts of myself. Communication—continuing to communicate—is the only
possible way to end polarization.
I
have noticed something very strange and wonderful. For some reason, in the last
few months, I seem to be compelled to look at the clock just at the moment it
registers 11:11—during the day and at night. It just seems to happen so
frequently that I can’t help but notice it. I’ve noticed it in my car, on my
cable box—so many times that it makes me laugh. The other night I was in the
car with Jed Wolf coming home from class. “Look at that!” I said. “The clock
says 11:11. I don’t know why, but I’m seeing that a lot these last few
months.” There was a brief pause.
“Me,
too,” he said quietly.
I
laughed in disbelief. “Come on. You’re kidding.”
“No,”
he said. “I’ve been noticing it a lot.”
I
was speechless. It’s one of those things that one might never mention to another
person, but I did. We marveled over it for a while even though we didn’t know
what to make of it. Then, and I am not making this up, I mentioned it to my
friend, Babs Winn, on the phone the next day and she said it had been happening
to her, too. “You’re seeing the clock at 11:11?!”
“Yes,”
she said.
“No!
No! Come on!” I fairly yelled.
“Yes,
I have been noticing it, too. My eyes just seem drawn to the clock when it is
11:11.”
Since
I know Babs does not lie, I had to take her at her word. What is that
synchronicity all about? I know that when I see the clock at 11:11, I am
strangely reassured. It delights me. This morning it occurred to me that
11:11 is a reminder—sort of a mnemonic device from the Universe. Looking back
in my journal, I found that it was January 11—1/11 when I was told “There is
something going on here that is more mysterious and wonderful than you can
imagine.” Looking back, it is even possible that it was 11:11 pm.
I
wonder how many of you who read this will start seeing the clock at 11:11 and
remember that there is something more mysterious and wonderful going on here
than you can imagine.
Addendum:
A friend,
Maureen Tracy, read this newsletter and sent me the following email: "I'm not
sure from your newsletter that you understand the significance of 11:11. Forgive
me if I'm wrong. But if I'm not, you must Google 11:11. I have long known that
it had a mystical significance and had forgotten exactly what. A doctor and
good friend of mine has a wellness center that he named Eleven Eleven. If you
aren't already familiar with this, please check it out!"
So, I Googled 11:11 and saw that there are thousands of people who are
communicating about the 11:11 phenomena. I was stunned. I thought, "Oh, god,
here I go spinning out into the orbit of the New Age flakes. Move over,
Shirley. I'm going to end up in some damned cornfield waiting for the aliens."
However, I contacted one 11:11 postee and he seems quite a normal guy who sings
in a band, whose wife is a fantastic artist/craftsperson using gourds as a base
for humorous and beautiful dolls. That was reassuring. I'm still pretty stunned.
Google yourself if you are interested just to see how many sites do exist. If
you'd like to link to Google, click here:
http://www.google.com
Love, K.
