(no subject)
Wow.....it's been quite awhile since I've posted in here but it is all the same. Writing is not something that is supposed to be a choir but rather a quiet friend you come back to visit when you need some quiet contemplation.
During a Playwriting course I took when I was still in college, we had to watch Angels in America. It is one of the few that we studied that stayed with me. I can't say why and I am not even always sure I understand what is going on at times.
There is one clip in particular that I keep coming back to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DsIHFCNpAo
In it, Meryl Streep plays a Othodox Jewish rabbi giving the eulogy at a funeral. In this, I find something so profoundly American and yet also so strickingly personal to myself. It is the history of a nation on screen, told through the history of my own personal family experience has Jewish immigrants. The monologue acknowlowledges truths I could never put into words. In the US, we are citizens of this nation, but we also partially belong to our roots. This country is still so young that many of us are colored by the cultures of shores that were no left so long ago. And so I find myself returning this monologue. Something in it stirs a fire in me, a want for all the promise that was believed in when people first stepped off those boats.
Sparks such as that should be gone in the world gone bleak as this one has. So many people believe that America has lost sight of who she was or that all of it was one large lie to begin with. But when I watch that monologue I still get the same jolt of hope, passed down to me through three generations. The journey is still not yet complete. We are still moving, still changing. It is not yet time for me to stand still. There are problems in this world and so hope becomes even more important than ever. It is the only way things can change. In me, the journey still is and there is much still to be done. I will not lose sight of the future, even though it is a very distant horizon. While there is no definitive gatekeeper, no Statue of Liberty to mark the end of the journey, does not mean there is a reason to dream and to fight for it.
The great work begins.
During a Playwriting course I took when I was still in college, we had to watch Angels in America. It is one of the few that we studied that stayed with me. I can't say why and I am not even always sure I understand what is going on at times.
There is one clip in particular that I keep coming back to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DsIHFCNpAo
In it, Meryl Streep plays a Othodox Jewish rabbi giving the eulogy at a funeral. In this, I find something so profoundly American and yet also so strickingly personal to myself. It is the history of a nation on screen, told through the history of my own personal family experience has Jewish immigrants. The monologue acknowlowledges truths I could never put into words. In the US, we are citizens of this nation, but we also partially belong to our roots. This country is still so young that many of us are colored by the cultures of shores that were no left so long ago. And so I find myself returning this monologue. Something in it stirs a fire in me, a want for all the promise that was believed in when people first stepped off those boats.
Sparks such as that should be gone in the world gone bleak as this one has. So many people believe that America has lost sight of who she was or that all of it was one large lie to begin with. But when I watch that monologue I still get the same jolt of hope, passed down to me through three generations. The journey is still not yet complete. We are still moving, still changing. It is not yet time for me to stand still. There are problems in this world and so hope becomes even more important than ever. It is the only way things can change. In me, the journey still is and there is much still to be done. I will not lose sight of the future, even though it is a very distant horizon. While there is no definitive gatekeeper, no Statue of Liberty to mark the end of the journey, does not mean there is a reason to dream and to fight for it.
The great work begins.