This week, I finished an audio book from one of my favorite authors, [Edna Ferber]. I wondered which of my other writing friends may fancy her work, and having recently purposed to walk more on the writing treadmill, I decided to make up one of those little alliterative things we like to do- you know, Taco Tuesdays, Thirsty Thursdays, Freaky Fridays and Moonlight Madness sales.
I would write about my favorite authors on Wednesdays - until I had a hall of fame, or at least a top ten.
I thought I would start with the most recent ending -author of the book I just finished- but then I remembered what today is and switched to someone I find more fitting:
Thornton Wilder
He gave us [The Bridge of St. Luis Rey] - a story where one monk dedicates what remains of his life investigating whether a sudden disaster was caused or allowed by God, whether the people who lost their lives had been punished or granted deliverance from their circumstances. He conducts interviews and tackles all the angles of "why" and "what if" in the face of tragedy.
[read it here] or [listen via LibriVox]
But he also gave us [Our Town] (coming back soon to Broadway!) and The Matchmaker (Hello!Dolly) which ties in with [my full circle Monday] and the Island Player's production that firstly disappointed Riley because it wasn't about making matches and went on to disappoint her a second time because there were also no dolls at all.
Wilder gave us the Indian burian grounds in The Long Christmas Dinner - an all time favorite - you can watch it as a short film [here]
It took me longer to catch the rhythm in [The Skin of Our Teeth] - but once I did, I love it as much as the Fractured Fairy Tales of Bullwinkle Moose or Monty Python's circus.
I rode through time and space on [Pullman Car Hiawatha] (and learned what a Pullman Car was) and journeyed happily to Trenton and Camden with a family, tender as my own in times of tribulation.
There are still a handful of his titles I am working toward or through, the delay due to my tendency to read through my favorite titles again and again.
I always close books by Wilder thinking "He knew."
He saw people well - clear through to their soul. He was able to put into words the ephemeral experience of being alive, the new-Creation-nakedness of being human.
And I love his insistence on simplicity - perfect contrast to the complexity of life itself.
Twenty three years ago, I was 21 and living in a hotel room in Jacksonville, Florida.
When the news broke of America's unexpected tragedy on 9/11, my two children - both under the age of two - were on a pallet bed, asleep on the floor.
The next few hours held shock, fear, grief and a sudden solidarity like I'd never experienced before.
I don't know where all the American flags came from that next day and stretching into the months to come- they simply multiplied.
We pledged then to never, ever forget
What was it we wanted to remember?
The frailty of life?
The unpredictability of a day?
The unity of our nation?
That [life goes on and on and on... ] ?
All that and then some, I know.
Today, I am 44. My children have doubled and (hopefully) none are forced to sleep on the floor. One son is the same age now as I was then, one daughter, even younger.
They came after the cleared debris, and once those flags, one by one, got quietly tucked away.
We do not know what they may face, anymore than we know for ourselves, but they will draw from the wells of wisdom we dig- let us ensure that they run deep.
As Thornton Wilder said, first in "Our Town" and then again, in "The Skin of Our Teeth" :
“We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”
― Our Town
“Each new child that’s born…seems to them to be sufficient reason for the whole universe’s being set in motion; and each new child that dies seems to them to have been spared a whole world of sorrow, and what the end of it will be is still very much an open question.”
― The Skin of Our Teeth: A Play
