Week 37 - This American Life

As I wrote last week, my grandmother died on September 8.  The last time someone close to me died, I was a teenager.  And I forgot how strange grief can be.  I have a "day job" working retail.  I worked a long day Saturday.  The store was busy.  We were having a big sale.  Lots of people, lots of money being spent, lots of tempers frayed.  I thought I had been doing okay.  When I left work on Saturday night, I quite unexpectedly burst into tears as soon as I walked out the door.  I had to go sit on a bench in the town center and compose myself.  I didn't know why I was crying.  The customers had been difficult but no more so than they usually are.  I sat there and tried to examine why I was feeling the way I was.  I was suddenly angry.  I was angry at these customers, wasting a beautiful Saturday inside, buying clothing, complaining, badgering the staff.  My grandmother loved to garden.  This week has been full of days that she would have been happily gardening.  She didn't waste her life shopping.  She was a lovely person.  And now she was dead.  And I guess I was crying because it just seemed so unfair.

After I composed myself enough to drive myself home, I put my sunglasses on (to hide my red, weepy eyes.)  As I walked to my car, I passed by groups of people.  Young, old, children.  And I really looked at them.  I tried to meet their eyes, search for the humanity.  No one engaged with me.  No one engaged with each other.  Even the kids had smartphones that they were glued to.  No one smiled.

And I realized that my grandmother wasn't like those people.  She loved and appreciated life and people and dogs and flowers.  And I made a promise to myself, that I didn't want to be one of those people.

We talk a lot about having a "game face" in retail.  Smiling big, not letting the customers see you sweat, not getting angry even when people are making insane requests.  Keep smiling. The customer is always right. As I help people in my job, I would say 90% of the people can't even look me in the eye. When did we stop engaging with each other?  Week 37's play is about those people and is called This American Life.

Week 36 - Gramercy

This week, my grandmother died of complications from Alzheimer's disease.  She was 90.  It was expected. But, you never really do expect these things.  It's always a punch to the gut.  This week also happens to coincide with the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks in the USA.  I lived in New York City in 2001.  I watched the attacks happen from the roof of the apartment I was subletting in Williamsburg.  I've gotten to the point where I don't think about those strange days, but with all the media coverage every year around this time, it's kind of hard not to.  I've spent a lot of time this past week thinking about loss.  And memories.  And legacy.

This week's play is titled Gramercy and is a two-hander that takes place in Gramercy Park, in downtown Manhattan.  It's a private park that is only accessible by key, and it seemed a good place to set a play that is about the privacy (and primacy) of loss.

Week 35 - $7.47

This week's play was a hard one for me to get going on.  I have been finding that I have more difficulty getting started the week after I've written a play that I think is good.  I feel like I broke a lot of new creative ground with Triangle: 1911.  This week, in some ways, I felt like I was back to square one, back to trying to squeeze inspiration out of a small, already juiced orange.

I had actually been mulling over the idea for this week's play, $7.47, for a while now.  Prices are going up everywhere, on everything.  This week's play is the story of how one woman's revolt against the prices of personal products inspires those around her.