A forgotten quest

I'm remembering it now. It was just about this time of year, forty-one years ago. My husband and I, with a couple of friends, left our home on the Sabine River and traveled about 300 miles westward to San Antonio. I had no idea, then, that this romantic city would one day be my home. I was on my way, along with the rest of our little group, to attend the Hemisfair, the first international fair ever held in the Southwestern United States. It would take pages to tell of all the adventures we had on that trip. Today, I am thinking of just one.

Professional live theater is not a thing you get to attend very often when you grow up in a small town. I would have been excited no matter what was being performed. I was aware that Man of La Mancha had run away with the top Tony Awards two years before our trip. I knew that it was a musical interpretation of Miguel Cervantes' tale of a knight errant traveling through Spain and battling windmills. I didn't know much more. Even now I have to admit that I've never studied Cervantes' work.

But that evening, as the actor Keith Andes first began to sing, "It is I, Don Quixote...," I became entranced. By that time, much of the music was familiar; I had heard "The Impossible Dream" fairly often on the radio, but that was nothing compared to hearing it live. We had lucked out with our seats. Usually, the first couple of rows behind the orchestra pit are not the best for seeing the stage, and were among the last to be sold, but for that performance, the stage had been adapted, and the pit had become the dungeon prison where the action of the play took place. The orchestra had been moved to the backstage area, behind a curtain. We were almost a part of the set. So, as Andes sang of how his "heart would lie peaceful and calm" when laid to rest, I was carried along, and flying. So, too, a bit later, when the abused barmaid sang of being, "born in a dung-heap to die in a dung-heap," and begged Don Quixote to stop calling her the "Lady" Dulcinea, to look at her and realize that she was only "Aldonza, the whore," the tears were streaming down my face. And when Quixote's family held up the mirrors to his face and forced him to see that his deranged fantasy was just that, and he collapsed, I was in a pit much lower than the orchestra pit stage in front of me. But as the entire cast, in the finale, began to sing once more of following that "Impossible Dream," I was standing and cheering along with the rest of the captivated audience.

I'm remembering today because I happened to catch a showing of the film version of the play. I had seen it once, back during the early 70's, and had been disappointed. The play did not transfer to the screen very well, and Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren did not have the greatest voices. But somehow, this afternoon, that did not seem to matter. I found myself carried away and singing along (It's OK. There was nobody else at home).And I'm still thinking about it, about how it doesn't really matter whether we reach some "acceptable" degree of success, either as writers or as individuals. If we hold on to the dream, no matter how impossible it might be, if we keep striving,

I don't know. Maybe I'm jousting with windmills myself. Probably, my writing will never make a bestseller list. But, just maybe, wherever it gets published, or even if it doesn't get published anywhere, the world might be better for it.

You see, I've been working with Mark David Gerson's program, the one Malcolm has written about here, The Voice of the Muse, and I can't help but connect to something Gerson said about how we are "published" as soon as we write something down, and that if we follow the lessons of quantum physics, that our writing does have an impact in the world, just because we write it.

Anyway, it's something to think about.

Ann

I agree with the bit about writing it down having an impact, if only that we quote from our writing, share it with others, think about it; it may change us as well.

Your so right, DK. It can't help but change us, can it?

Ann

Ann,

That was beautiful.

I was talking to another woman at the birthday party today about what we'd learned in college.

She said, "I learned to love classical music, and I never took any courses and majored in something completely different. But we would study on a porch outside the music practice rooms, and on warm days the windows would be open, and as I studied, a cello would play from one room and a piano from another. It was all beautiful." It is unlikely any of these musicians went on to become famous, but they inspired one woman for the rest of her life.

Carol

I have always felt that I was a little over the wall posting my stories. Changing people was never my goal, but posting a story is a validation in a way, to my self.

I think it is better if one person reads one story than if 1000 people never found them at all. I hope that makes some sense. I have nothing to sell. I have stories to tell.

Love,
Betty

Betty,

That makes all the sense in the world.

You always make sense. Keep telling stories.

Carol

Dear Carol,
A long time ago, I read a series of books about famous baseball players and people like Abe Lincoln.

It is in my mind that you could write that kind of series of books. Not just the famous men, but the women.

Say you did Betsy Ross, for real, or Mary Lincoln Todd, for real. All people get is the pap that is smeared around. There is really not much for young people to read that is the truth.

Just an idea. I would buy it.

Love
Betty

Betty,

A woman named Feather Scwartz wrote an excellent book, The First Ladies. It was published by the same publisher our books were. Each of the first ladies tells her story in her own words up to Eleanor Roosevelt. But along the margins of the pages, first ladies like Hillary and Eleanor and others write their comments. It was like the ladies all met in a big group and told their stories and discussed their experiences. She gives talks on this book as well as others she has written.

I love to write history, make it come alive, not just dull encyclopedic history of dates and places to memorize. I'm working at it and I think I'm finally understanding how to do this. I get so wrapped up in the research, it seems to never end.

Lately I've had good response to my Missouri book. I got to thinking. This is a story of a family, and by the end of the book the reader has learned about the Civil War in Missouri. A retired history teacher told me recently if she had it to do all over again, she'd have her classes read historic novels, that they make history come alive. (And that was right after she read my book.)

I think that the writing is too much fun. The publishing is probably very difficult because the tried and true gets published, those history books written by male experts with the facts and figures. So writing different might not hit the best seller list, but it could join with others trying to promote really learning history written in a real, human way, where the people and the situations came alive.

Maybe one person can't make a difference, but when combining with others, and supporting others the difference can happen.

Since I gave my presentation at the Civil War reenactment in our town, the Wisconsin reenactor ladies want me to come and spend a reenactment weekend with them. Then, I'd have to make a period costume, sleep in a tent. . . Maybe I'll pass that opportunity up.

Carol

Dear Carol,
You always make a difference.

I do not know about the tent, either. I am reminded of the noises of the night, the bugs, and no matter how wonderful you think that nature is, night is not the time to enjoy it if you do not like mosquito people and if you are easily frighted by rummaging sounds.
Love,
Betty

Alj,
your thoughts about writing does make sense. As has been said, "What you say, disappears. What you write, stays."
As for being famous and/or making a difference, how could one determine what is good unless there was a comparison with something not as good? Each writer makes an impact in some way.

Great post, Ann. And all the comments are inspiring, each in its own way.

Ann, you are the one in the audience actors dream about. You actually cried? I hope those on stage saw you.

Carol, by all means sleep in the tent. Take your steel helmet and a candle with you. Set the candle inside the helmet so it is facing you. It will keep you warm and discourage insects. To avoid having the sergeant yell at you, drape blankets over the tent so the light does not show through. Allow a little air to get into the tent so the carbon dioxide from the candle doesn't kill you. As rattlesnakes are common in Wisconsin, do not allow them inside the tent. Hope this helps.

There's a product called, "snake away," that looks like kitty litter. It can be put around the perimeter of the tent area. Snakes don't like the smell and stay away, no kidding. It's animal and environment friendly and has no odor to people or pets.

If you get to sleep on a cot, take the padded kind; I think there's a jell filled camping pad that rolls up small but makes a world of difference in sleeping.

Thank you for all the advice.

Carol