I knew I was going to be a writer at a young age. I didn’t actually become one until many years later, when at 23 I spent a summer writing what would become my own personal myth.
I can remember the moment I found my voice. It seemed to arise unbidden from within, as if it had always been there…
I can remember the moment I found my voice. It seemed to arise unbidden from within, as if it had always been there until I was willing to listen. What a marvelous feeling it was; so easy, like I was just taking dictation.
It had its own repetitive style, like the train song opening in the Music Man. Meredith Wilson had used that song to establish the structure for all the subsequent songs he wrote for his incredibly influential musical comedy. It resounded in my head from the moment I first saw Robert Preston board that train, to this very day. I lived the trouble in River City. Some say I was the trouble, but that was as much a way of being as it was an influence. I once sat through the movie three times in a row at a movie theater, absolutely enthralled by Professor Harold Hill and his alter ego, Robert Preston. He was my model of what it was to be a man: suave, roguish, clever, quick witted and someone who could charm his way into and out of any situation through the grace of his smooth-talking self. I knew, instinctively, that was how I would properly woo the world I would encounter, with words.
My first writing attempts were embarrassingly bad. In trying to be profound, they were trite, and as Annie Dillard painfully pronounced in a letter after my writing to her proclaiming my desire for profundity, it was sophomoric. Ouch. That hurt for a while. Nonetheless, I kept at it. I knew it was just a matter of time, but it wasn’t just time. It was about sitting down and doing it. But even more importantly, I needed someone to write to, my Marian the Librarian.
As I grew-up, and began reading more and more Carl Jung, I realized I had always felt a strong connection to my anima, that ultimate female archetype that I knew would guide my life. The truth is, she has done so ever since I first heard her voice. Yes, she speaks directly to me. When her voice emerged and I began to trust and believe in her, everything changed. It wasn’t a matter of honing my listening skills, she spoke to me clearly, lovingly and deeply. She was my guide, and I trusted her voice. It was as Bob Dylan described her; she was my shelter from the storm, and she has never not been there.
It was one thing to trust the voice and an entirely other to find a benefactor, a patron or in my case, a patrona. Throughout the ages, artists have always benefited from the generosity of patronage. What an amazing kindness that word is. It’s not just the money. It’s the recognition, the support, the kindness, and most importantly the love.
Patrona was not my first take on meeting Laura. My first wholly unconscious take of her as she stopped to pick me up hitchhiking was as an angel of mercy. She was far more. She was an embodiment of Winged Victory come to life and then my lover, my wife, my inspiration and, of course, my shelter.
Patrona was not my first take on meeting Laura. My first wholly unconscious take of her as she stopped to pick me up hitchhiking was as an angel of mercy. She was far more. She was an embodiment of Winged Victory come to life and then my lover, my wife, my inspiration and, of course, my shelter.
But I need to take a full pause, here, and stop lying to myself and the world at large. None of what I have done in this life would have taken place without Laura. None of it. It seems her sideline, her other job, was to be my executive producer. And as everyone who knows us will tell you she, deserves the EGOT for what she has done.
It was not always easy. Our first project together nearly ended our still fledgling three years of living together. It was an eleven-episode cable TV series of 22 poets reading their works I had conceived of in a moment of madness. It was called, The Poet’s Voice.
Our first pre-production meeting, which took place at our Los Feliz apartment, was well attended by many of the Los Angeles poets we planned to include. A few of them showed up with their partners, one of whom decided our bathroom medicine cabinet was his for the taking. It was 1979, and what pain relievers that remained from an errant tooth issue, were surreptitiously donated to the cause. We knew who it was, but his partner was one of our stars, and we weren’t really using the oxy any way.
With no budget and a volunteer staff and crew, we found an old, unused studio space at the then crumbling Gower Studios, and proceeded, over a two-weekend shooting schedule, to tape 20 of the 22 poets reading their work. We also recorded our host, Macdonald Carey, of Days of Our Lives, fame, who had volunteered his services and his name.
We fed the poets deli cold cuts, pickles, potato salad and coleslaw. all purchased with funds supplied by my now formally-credited executive producer, Laura. The highlight of the taping was just before the late poet Kate Braverman was set to do her reading, she finished off a huge sandwich, and then insecurely asked one of our two cameramen if she now looked fat. Without losing a beat our volunteer cameraman told her not to worry, we had a special compressor lens. To which Kate hopefully asked, “You do?” Confident that our compressor lens would save the day, she proceeded on set, and read unfettered by the huge corned beef sandwich she had just consumed. We laughed about that for years.
But that series very nearly was the end of Laura and my collaboration. In our Los Feliz apartment, I had stacked the boxes of video tapes on which we had made these recordings, against an archway leading from our dining room to our living room. We had invested, though that word usually implies an expectation of return, everything we had into that tower of tape. Everything we had being relative, since I was unemployed.
As she eyed this pylon of poets, Laura came to the end of her patience with it all, figuratively grabbing me by the throat and yelling into my face that I needed to get a job.
As she eyed this pylon of poets, Laura came to the end of her patience with it all, figuratively grabbing me by the throat and yelling into my face that I needed to get a job.
When she finally released her grip, it was not because she had expended her anger, but because she had become even more incensed by my indifference to the situation. As if to drive her anger home, she walked over to the tapes fueled by her anger, and kicked them. In doing so, she let out a scream, because she had hurt her foot.
Being the rather unconscious fool I was, at the time, I did the worst and most unconscionable thing possible. I laughed. To my eye, it was right out of a slapstick routine. To hers, it was something far greater. This was real, and we were done. Ooops.
Within five minutes, and in utter panic, I was out the door, and had found a job three blocks away from our house, at the Los Feliz Inn, as a prep cook. We survived that moment, barely.
I have to catch myself when I remember that scene unfurl, because I still find the look on her face when she kicked those videos funny. It should be noted that even today, she still doesn’t find it so.
My cooking gig ultimately gave me the time to edit and get the poetry series on the air, courtesy of a local cable TV station’s public access channel. It never soothed the hurt toe my actions had caused, and those other feelings that were hurt beyond her toe.
I was able to leave that cooking job, in a much stronger place with Laura than I had entered it. For one, I was trained by a wonderful head chef – a French maestro – in the art of preparing sauces. Needless to say, we’ve all benefited from that teaching over the years.
I left the restaurant only because I had landed a well-paying job as a Location Manager on a network TV series. But just before we were to begin production, the Writer’s Strike of 1981 hit. As a member of the Writer’s Guild, myself, I was not only on strike, I was out of a job, again. My hopes of selling any of my projects making their rounds through the Hollywood gauntlet, ended as well. The strike closed down all production, and the flood of layoffs gushed down to all the development folks, too. Before we could descend into crises again, Laura suggested, perhaps I should write something other than TV. It was, of course, the observation that changed my life and hers, completely.
One hopes life changing events are rare, that you don’t have to go through them as a matter of course, but unfortunately, as a writer they arrive in unexpected places. It was not long into the strike I found myself in the offices of East/West Network, the publisher of ten different airline magazines, including PSA, Pacific Southwest Airlines. The very first magazine article I sold was to PSA and its editor, John Johns. It was appropriately called, Portrait of the Artist as a Partner.
One couple I interviewed for that piece was Ray Bradbury and his wife Maggie. Bradbury, of course, was one of the most celebrated writers of the 20th century with works including Fahrenheit 541, the Martian Chronicles, and many others. As he explained it, throughout their marriage, Maggie was always the first to read his works. “She has a fantastic education, ten times that of mine, with vast interests and a huge knowledge of history,” he said. “She can be very objective about my work, and she knows when I’m not.”
Laura is also the first to read anything I write, and I have learned to trust her criticism. It wasn’t always that way. At first, I fought every critique she offered. And then one day that changed. I handed her something to read, hot off the Selectric, obviously before word processors, and she said, looking straight into my eyes, “Do you want criticism, or do you want me to tell you I love you.”
she said, looking straight into my eyes, “Do you want criticism, or do you want me to tell you I love you.”
Of course, she could only say “I love you” for two or three years following that. But I eventually got to the place where I could take her suggestions, and I’ve listened ever since… mostly.
The extraordinary poet, Philip Levine, and his wife Franny agreed. “There are three things I tell my students a writer needs,” Levine said. Talent, hard work and luck. And by luck I mean if you fall in love with the wrong person, you’re screwed. If you fall in love and try to live with someone who doesn’t honor what you do, you’re not going to do it. I’ve been with someone who honors it, and it begins and ends there. Having the kind of patience that, say, I have waiting for poems to come. She has the patience to wait while I wait.”
It is no secret among our friends how remarkable it is having a partner that has been willing to executive produce – work and support – this creative life. Am I lucky? Damn lucky. I could never have done it alone. I could never have lived this life without Laura. And yes, I am forever grateful she took me in from the storm. In this life, and invariably, some to come.
Here is a recent anniversary poem, my gift to her:
You lead me thru the path of ruins to the well
Its lip crumbling into past vision and sorcery
But there are no Delphic vapors prophetically arising
Only the remnants of elixir slowly dripping off your cheek.
Without hesitation, my tongue greedily laps the moisture
And the potion enters me, coursing directly to my heart
I hear the voice “there is no return, no resistance, no destination.
There is here beside me, with me, transmuting our breath into
The light of our love, more alive than any artifact of silver or gold,
Melded, like married metals, into this life we live together.”
My eyes open and we meet not for the first time, but every time
And as the smile we share grows, we know. We simply know.
If you liked this essay, you can purchase a collection of my essays called The Complex Buddhist – Doing Good in a Challenging World by clicking this link:
https://www.amazon.com/Complex-Buddhist-Doing-Challenging-World/dp/1938158164