DIED 2008
SHE WAS NOT A woman one ever saw with a computer or a cell phone, a curly-haired earth goddess in fringed scarves and jingly jewelry, a devotee of travels in India and rain dances, of storytelling and Kathakali. She liked her art forms as old as fire. Yet when I summon her via internet mumbo jumbo, she appears. One site lists ten plays she wrote, among them this Obie winner from 1971: A panel of two blacks and two whites is brought together, representing four points of view on America’s racial problem, but before the discussion is concluded, a riot breaks out in the theatre. And look, here she is on YouTube, singing with her composer husband the year she died. He smiles at her encouragingly, playing his guitar. She is a wasted husk of herself, two days after surgery. This thin, off-key sound is not her real voice. Okay, enough of this séance.
Have you heard the story of how she got that husband? Once upon a time, a hippie playwright who had won a theater prize in New York decided it was time to get married. There were five men in the running. She went and visited all of them. One was too fat, one was too thin, one was too rich, one was too poor. One was just right: a musician, a man who loved women, a man who lived in the shadow of the Blue Ridge. Instead of children, they had followers and protégées. They gave workshops and made records and put on shows.
What happens when an earth goddess gets uterine cancer? Eastern medicine, Western medicine, no medicine. If I had been her daughter, I might have fought her on these decisions. But I would have been wrong, because she lived as long as anyone can reasonably stand under the circumstances. Just as useful as any toxic treatment was the flock of white origami birds the followers hung in her house. She wrote her own ending, in her own bed, with her own hair. The End.