<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Thanks, Ana.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Your story of the 80 year-old prompts
me to reply.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">My small family lived with my parents
in separate buildings on the same property. The kids grew up
through their aging and dying. I had the privilege of nursing both
my parents until their deaths. But it is a mistake to call it a
privilege. I recall a family friend telling me what an important
time it was, a rich experience, to be nursing my dying father. I
actually spent my time fighting the doctors' drug regimes. This
was like when I had to commit my closest friend, section him, they
call it in some places. The attendant would not believe he was
psychotic. He's just acting, the doctor said. And he was, he had
been an actor. And in the waiting room at the mental institution
he had taken off all his clothes and was performing the best Fool
from Lear I had ever seen, dancing on the backs of the chairs. But
having been an actor without work first led him into depression.
Then when he went looking to find himself a place in the world he
found only psychosis. I could not convince the doctors my father
had been drugged into psychosis. He had been a director. The
medical professions enjoyed the suppression of his rage, when I
could not stand it. Like those lines beginning Herbert Blau's book
<i>Impossible Theater</i>: <i>The purpose of this book is to talk
up a revolution. Where there are rumblings already, I want to
cheer them on. I intend to be incendiary and subversive, maybe
even un-American. I shall probably hurt some people
unintentionally; there are some I want to hurt. I may as well
confess right now the full extent of my animus: there are times
when, confronted with the despicable behavior of people in the
American theater, I feel like the lunatic Lear on the heath,
wanting to "kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!"</i></div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><i><br>
</i></div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">My mother died two within two years of
my father. I remember her saying about his loss, <i>I feel like
half my body has been cut off.</i></div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><i><br>
</i></div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Belonging to an earlier generation, my
honorary grandmother, came to New Zealand in the 1950s. An
actress, she upstaged Christmas by dying on that day in 2000.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Three things: Most importantly, she
wanted to go to the home in England that is set up for theatre
people, mainly actors and actresses. Maybe directors, like Herb,
like my Dad, would not be able to stand it. She couldn't go and in
New Zealand there is nothing like that respect for the second
oldest profession.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">So she planned for dying, aging, saying
that she did not want anyone to have to look after her, or to feel
they must. With great pragmatism she arranged everything. All she
insisted on was that we visit her regularly in the nursing home
where she ended up--surrounded by people with whom she had not the
slightest thing in common.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">My friend and I went and stayed with
her when I was a student. Our bedroom was next to hers. We tried
to be quiet. But in the morning we rose late to find she had a
friend visiting. She introduced us to the visitor, saying about
me, <i>He learnt to walk here. He learnt to talk here. Now he's
learning to **** here. </i>Not that she was modest about the
word. It was simply funnier not saying it.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Best,</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Simon</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://squarewhiteworld.com">http://squarewhiteworld.com</a><br>
</div>
</body>
</html>