How not to make tortilla soup.

A few days ago, I was planning to make tortilla soup for a friend who was coming over. I had just gotten home with five bags full of ingredients from my neighborhood Mexican supermarket. I’d hit traffic, my stomach was empty, and the idea of making this soup was stressing me out in a way I couldn’t understand. I felt like I didn’t know how to cook. I’d always been scared to cook, for reasons I wrote off as being too busy, or prioritizing other things in life, but this seemed like something deeper. What if my friend hated the soup? How did I know I was even making it right? I once dated someone whose family equated careful food preparation with love; as such, I always felt judged by him about how I prepared and regarded food. Did the fact that I’d forgotten the avocado, or that I wasn’t going to hand-roast the garlic, mean that I loved my friend less?

I actually started crying, right into the broth, and didn’t stop for fifteen minutes. During which I realized why: I’d never had a mother who was able to show me how to cook. Never mind that, according to my older siblings, her cooking had never been earth-shattering; or that my father cooked more during my upbringing because Mom was sick. But I never learned from him, either, because he was busy taking care of Mom and I was busy being a teenager. We ate a lot of meals that friends brought over. Dad thanked them each by name in Mom’s eulogy.

I started adding ingredients and texted my friend so he wouldn’t worry when he opened the door to find me all puffy-eyed. He was lovely about it. It felt good to talk about it. And the soup turned out to be amazing, actually. But when I want to communicate to others what it’s like to grow up without a Mom, I want to point to this, and say: see, this, here. This is what it’s like. Sometimes, just out of the blue, you suddenly doubt that you have any ability or license to function as a normal human being. ”No one showed me how.”

Rite of spring.

Adapted from my morning pages, April 3rd, 2012:

While driving to Melleray, I saw a turtle in the middle of the road. I cooed and turned around to go pick it up and deposit it safely on the other side of the road. Just as I pulled up beside it, a huge truck—passing wide so as to miss me—ran right over the turtle. The turtle exploded. I heard its shell crack. Then it was not a turtle anymore, but a Picasso of a turtle. Its limbs had been forced out of its shell by the impact and were shivering in the heat. A pool of blood was expanding around the turtle, very bright, almost fluorescent red in the sun. I stayed where I was, trying to breathe, to salvage the situation, to do over the last sixty seconds so that things had gone differently. I wanted to get out and tell the disassembled turtle that I’d tried. The pool of blood had developed a long finger that was pouring towards me.

I went on to Melleray, where I shared a snack of ginger snaps with my baby nephew Niko. He is on the verge of forming his first full sentences. Mama aquí. Abuelo aquí. Tia aquí.

Cover girls.

The postcard art for WHAT EVERY GIRL SHOULD KNOW is up. I think it turned out rather well : )

Baby in the deep end.

Lucius Robinson, my director, and I were talking over on the phone recently. I said, “I’m leaving you my baby!” and he said, “We’ll take very good care of it!” and I blurted, “No! Throw her in the deep end!”

For NIGHTWORK, I was present at every single rehearsal—if for no other reason than it gave me so much pleasure to be around people I loved and take delight in their inventiveness. This time, for WHAT EVERY GIRL SHOULD KNOW, I’m going to be on call, but not present (like a patroness, dare I say?), one of the reasons being that I have so much other stuff to do, like write another play.

I was there at the first read-through last night, and if I was at all nervous about leaving my baby, I’m not now. They get it. They not only get everything I’m trying to do, they see things I could never have seen. I think that’s another one of the deepest pleasures of theater—letting go.

The fate of the universe.

I saw this picture floating around Facebook today. I liked it.

How’s this for a dream gig: I’m commissioned to write a play about the CalTech physics department going on retreat and getting lost in a redwood forest and pondering the fate of the universe. To help me, I’m paired with a physicist at Fermilab who will be very nice and answer all my weird questions about “the void,” “the nature of existence” and “the Big Freeze.” In July, I’m flown to Chicago for a public staged reading of the play at Fox Valley Repertory.

Yaaahhhh I’ll take it.

P.S. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

The far shore.

Last night I dreamt I was back in Belize. I could tell because the air was warmer, the ground was softer, and the greens were more bright. I walked barefoot along the Macal River.

This is a recurring dream. The place I come back to changes—Ethiopia, Rarotonga, Kerala—but my thoughts are always the same:

I’m back. 

Why did I hesitate?

There was never anything to fear.

Gonna kick tomorrow.

All hail to Meredith Sause, the multivalent artist who produced the amazing trailer for my upcoming play What Every Girl Should Know. There is headbanging and hand games. T-minus five weeks to the premiere…

My fantasy MFA.

When I first started writing plays, I considered graduate school. The consensus seemed to be that you had to get an MFA in order to be considered a serious playwright, or even to consider yourself one. I don’t think that anymore. But a few weeks ago, when I was walking from Santa Elena to Monteverde—a VERY arduous, windy walk—I amused myself by thinking of what my ideal MFA program would look like. Here’s what I came up with (and needless to say, tuition is paid for by a university program that values art and artists):

YEAR 1.

Fall Semester.

ART 120. Making a Map of the World. Jorge Luis Borges. With laboratory.

ENG 303. Nature Journaling. Annie Dillard. With monthly field trips.

ANTH 101. Introduction to Anthropology. Norman Rush. Includes 2 weeks in Botswana.

THST 400. How To Win a Bar Fight. Martin McDonagh. Practicum.

Spring Semester.

ENG 110. Integration of Profoundly Unlikely Elements. Haruki Murakami. Practicum.

DAN 306. Physicality. Pina Bausch. With laboratory.

LING 301. The Soul of a Language: Three Case Studies. J. R. R. Tolkien.

ENG 200. Pleasure in Literature. Laura Miller. 

Summer.

ART 500. Theater and Culture in Kerala, India. Anuradha Sarang. (Malayalam immersion.)

YEAR 2.

Fall Semester.

HIST 204. Medieval Cosmogony. C. S. Lewis. 

THST 115. Revenge. Quentin Tarantino. Practicum.

PHYS 400. Fremen Calisthenics. Frank Herbert. Physical Education.

ART/MATH 304. The Topology of Blown Glass. Erik and Martin Demaine. With laboratory.

Spring Semester.

ART 422. Writing As Irreducibly Perfectly As I Do. Mary Renault. With laboratory.

CST 218. The Future. Kim Stanley Robinson.

ENG/MUS 303. Rhythm. Ursula K. Le Guin and Paul Simon. With drums.

ENG 316. Nonstandard Novel Structure: The Tendril, the Spiral. Arundhati Roy. 

Summer.

ART 500. Cave Diving in Western Belize. Gonzalo Pleitez. (Spanish immersion.)

YEAR 3.

Fall Semester.

ENG 440. Writing the Other. Toni Morrison. 

HIST 410. Worldbuilding. J. R. R. Tolkien. With laboratory.

ART 301. How To Win A Staring Contest. Ursula K. Le Guin. Practicum.

PSYC 215. Writing On Motherfucking Deadline. J. K. Rowling. Practicum.

Spring Semester.

THST 480/490. Improvisation (Stephen Colbert) and Stand-Up (Jon Stewart). Practicum.

MUS 409. Album Birthing. Amanda Palmer. Practicum.

AST 101. Introduction to Astronomy. Carl Sagan. 

ENG 500. The Dark Arts. Donna Tartt. 

POST-GRADUATE INTERNSHIPS.

Six months at the table with David Milch.

Six weeks in the ashram with David Lynch.

Six months on set with Peter Jackson.

Six weeks in the studio with/at the feet of Meshell Ndegeocello.

…also, there’s no need for “independent study,” because it’s assumed that you’re writing all the time anyway. Every course requires at least one complete work, ready for publication or production or distribution, at semester’s end.

One more thing: somewhere in all of this, I go backpacking through Israel with Sarah Silverman reenacting famous scenes from the Bible and we film/tweet/blog the entire thing.

Can anyone put this together for me? Thanks.

Companions on the journey.

(If you were raised Catholic, I just gave you an earworm. You’re welcome.)

I got a lot of reading done while traveling. And then when I remember reading them, they have the distinct flavor of exactly where and when I read them. Thank you to all of you who were my companions on the journey:

Harvest by Mathieu Perron, on the Amtrak to D.C.

“Massacre at Frost Mountain Picnic” by Seth Fried, on the Amtrak to D.C.

“Life Among the Terranauts” by Caitlin Horrocks, on the Amtrak to D.C.

“Safe Passage” by Ramona Ausubel, on the Amtrak to D.C.

“The Scent of Cinnamon” by Charles Lambert, on the Amtrak to D.C.

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi, on the plane to Belize

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith, on the balcony at Belcove Hotel in Belize City

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, while waiting till 3am for the bass to turn off in the club next door, in San Ignacio

Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat, in the lobby of the San Ignacio Resort Hotel, before the iguana tour began

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, on the balcony at Martha’s Guesthouse in San Ignacio

Forever Never Comes by Enrique Urueta, at Ko-Ox Hanna in San Ignacio

Paper Cranes by Kari Bentley-Quinn, at Yoli’s Pizza in San Ignacio

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, on my bed at Martha’s Guesthouse in San Ignacio

Neutrino by Unlimited Theatre, at Erva’s Restaurant in San Ignacio

The Garden of Pure Sensation by Elizabeth Phillips, at the espresso shop in the town center, San Ignacio

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown…funny how I don’t remember a thing; must have been in San Ignacio

Hound by John Patrick Bray, at Ko-Ox Hanna in San Ignacio

Open City by Teju Cole, on the beach north of San Pedro Town

Jane the Plain by Gus Schulenberg, in my hotel room at Treetops on Caye Caulker

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach, on the beach in Caye Caulker

“The Life Cycle of Software Objects” by Ted Chiang, at a granite table in a public square in San Jose

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, at The Common Cup in Monteverde

The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton, on my bed at Sunset Hotel in Monteverde

The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia by Laura Miller, being unadventurous in Santa Elena Town

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, in a hammock by a pool at Ylang Ylang Resort in Montezuma

Gabby by Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly, grumbling to myself about another overpriced meal in Montezuma

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, on my balcony at Tico Adventure Lodge in Playa Samara

Fiction Ruined My Family by Jeanne Darst, on my balcony at Tico Adventure Lodge in Playa Samara

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach, on the plane ride home

Aphasia.

One of the books I read while traveling was Gabby, a memoir co-authored by Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly. They describe how difficult it is for her to regain speech after the shooting. It’s called aphasia, common in brain injured patients. Meanwhile, as Mark was taking care of Gabby night and day, he was also preparing to pilot the penultimate space shuttle mission, STS-134. I wonder how on earth he held all of that in his head…and at the same time, I know, because I’ve done things like that too.

I’m home now. Before I even unpacked, I started looking up rental cottages in San Ignacio. I’m going back to start a new novel set in the caves of Cayo. And to immerse myself in Spanish, of which, ideally, I’ll have already gotten the basics by then. (And to hang out with all the survival-trained, machete-wielding, bare-chested adventure guides….but I digress.) But before all that, I landed in Washington to spend a few days with my friend Christian; we went to the Air and Space Museum, where I watched footage of fighter jets landing on aircraft carriers, over and over. I knew how to fly once. I could learn again. Landing on an aircraft carrier didn’t even look that hard.

I’ve lived long enough that I’m beginning to remember all the things I’ve forgotten.

Aphasia strikes me as a useful way to think of learning a new language. That is, you already know the language, and you’re just recovering it. Quiero hablar…y escribir…y vivir…