Turning Points

I wrote in another installment about turning points in stories or scripts as the part of a narrative that leads the story in another direction or as a continuation to the sequence before any resolution or the ending... In life there are a series of turning points that are the significant moments we experience before a  change and/or catharsis.

I'll get back to this in a moment but I want to backtrack to last time... I had a couple of interesting e-mails and feel I should address them... you need to do some serious soul searching before deciding to cut contact with toxic people in your life; you need to decide if there is anything left to salvage or if your peace and happiness with life will grow without the negative influences these people have bestowed on to you. Before you do anything you need to understand that nobody has to put up with any type of abuse or mistreatment from anyone... you also need to understand that your decisions and your new life is going to cost you your old one. Once you have the courage to loose sight of the shore from who and what you are leaving... you will find the people, places and things that are meant for you on the other shore... the things you are loosing are what you used to have for the person you no longer are... This is something you can't take lightly because you will soon find yourself in the in-between and that is the point of no return. Having said that we all evolve and change... but at the heart of things it's important to be true to yourself  and who you are... One of the greatest achievements I think anyone can make is to navigate life and still have the essence of who they are intact. That is really what my friend meant by "Don't let anyone make you a cruel person."

One of the things that has been a constant tug-of-war for me in life is that no matter how much you sometimes want to... you can't skip chapters and take short cuts and you have to meet and interact with all the characters and let the story of your life evolve; but pay close attention to the turning points that lead you to the next part of the story; some are more important than others and some that might seem insignificant at the time you may come to realize later what their  paramount purpose is in the big picture.

I wrote previously about some of the significant events in my life... in this segment..Treasures Among The Ruins

All of those things played an important part in my life but without a doubt the first major turning point  for me and the world I was a part of was the assassination of President John F Kennedy.

Jack Heifner wrote a play called "Vanities" in the seventies that began in a gymnasium in 1963 the day President Kennedy was killed and he used that as part of the narrative toward the end of scene one in that the announcement came over the loud speaker that the president had been shot and the characters thought they were talking about the school  class president... I remember someone criticizing this in a discussion when a friend of mine used it as her directorial project as part of her masters thesis... and I said basically if you did not experience this first hand it won't make sense to you... Because at the time it was so unbelievable  because unlike today... no one had ever heard of anyone being shot except in movies and on television... when the announcement was made everyone thought that he would get up and he would be fine... then came the announcement that he had died... no one in school knew any details... Some people were crying and some people were oblivious and some people were real assholes making jokes... and the day dragged on until we went home and the details were unfolding on the television.  I remember a few years ago someone saying how upset they were that school and classes were not cancelled when Donald Trump was elected president... and I remember thinking to myself... school and classes were not cancelled the day Kennedy was killed or even the day the space shuttle blew up... it was a Friday and after school activities were cancelled but by Monday life and living moved on... more slowly and on a more somber note... but life moved forward. I said in the earlier segment that I learned a valuable life lesson that I continue to use now... You can learn a lot about a person and their character based on how they react  or don't react to life events... the good and the bad.

The other was the morning of September 11, 2001 in New York City ...

I'm not going to post a running list of all the important turning points in my life because much of it is very personal and I don't want to share it... but suffice to say that people who have died are at the center of them... I've said before but it bears repeating that I will always miss people more than things. But I must add this... on more than one occasion I have been very, very lucky...

It's those turning points that don't seem as significant at the time that I want to spend a little time with because... well because some of the things that were the turning points in other peoples lives that have been related to me by them have in time been more significant than I might have first imagined... To a degree the landscape of my life had been effected or at least colored by some of the experiences of people I have known... much of it has taught me empathy (a super power if you actually have it) but also an enhanced perspective in understanding different experiences, cultures and ideas...

I have known and had in-depth conversations with people who were in the last all male graduating class at Yale or who have been...

in a WWII concentration camp

in a Japanese internment camp
blacklisted in Hollywood

a student at Kent State during the riots

a guest at the Ambassador Hotel the night Robert Kennedy was shot

a soldier in Vietnam and a couple of people who never came back...

Not all of them have been centered on difficulty and pain and endurance that comes from those lessons...But each brought something to my life and consciousness. 

I have had a couple of conversations with Katherine Hepburn because we had a mutual friend... and once a brief encounter with Greta Garbo that was no much a turning point but a little extra interest to an otherwise dull day... I even used to know someone who was a Harvey Girl when she was young (if you don't know what that is look it up)... but the stories and what I learned from my shopping excursions at the jumble sales in London and the lunches that followed  with Fanella Fielding will stay with me forever  and I'll do whatever I can to pass some of that along to the people who will either understand it or who really need it. One of the most significant and something I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and remember her saying is "It's OK to be afraid and to acknowledge the importance of fear... sometimes from fear we find a new path we might not have otherwise considered."

There were things that at the time... seemed like a turning point ...like being on the Vanity Fair Best Dressed Consideration List... or running with the bulls in Pamplona

...don't get me wrong they were both wonderful in their own way but in time proved to be of very little significance or importance in the vast configuration of things that actually are. For a long time I thought being on the stage and performing were the most important turning points of my life... but in fact they are and were the moments in life that were in between the turning points...

I'll leave you with this... Falling down is all a part of life... it's the getting up and moving on that is actually living... 

See you next time!