the journey of my work

well I had a little divine help with this. when i was 16 I attempted suicide I took a bottle of valium and went to bed. I woke up pissed and went to party with friends. I was to sick to drink but the cop that caught us took me home after I cried and told him what i had done. the next night I went in my pink furry slippers and drove to drink a beer and look at the view from Glendale. the same cop pulled up behind me this time he took me to the station not because of the beer really he said the only way my dad would care was if he was inconvenienced. while I was there and asking god what to do I had a vision of being an artist in the bay area, I had a son, there were no paintings, so I guess I was a writer. at the time I had no thoughts of writing. (true story)

then I was pregnant my dad just died of alcoholism and I was pregnant and single. I went to a psychic because I had 50 $ and no idea how I was going to make it. I was thinking about buying a computer with my inheritance. I wanted to be a writer but I though a computer was extravagant. I got to ask the psychic one question. I asked if my son and I would be OK. She asked me what was wrong with me? Why did I look the way I did. She said I did theater and that I would be a writer and my son and I would travel. I bought a computer that day.

So my works journey well it began already by coming to Mills. My family was so freaked out about me writing memoir they all started popping up before I got here. My adoptive mom whom I have not spoken to for 23 years googled my writing and my graduation speech which said I hadn't been mothered until I met the professors at my community college. I don't expect my works journey to be smooth. I wonder if I will be able to tolerate the attention the, questioning, the law suits.

But as I have decided to do a one woman show based on my childhood the bad and the tiny moments of joy. I see it on stage it will start out small. It will be performed eventually at the Berkeley Rep. Where I saw the first play that changed my life. I won't tell my family but they will google me and they will know. They will come see it and if they can get through the brutal parts. I hope they will see the little girl they hurt and the big girl with an amazing capacity for compassion. I hope they will notice I didn't forget the Pinto or getting my bear after I threw it out if the car three times saying, " Teddy wanted to jump."

I f I can live long enough to get it out there I hope my work will change people, make it all worth it. Change me. I will go where it goes and my son will go with me and on the journey we will both be able to forgive our mother's and our father's and by then my son will be old enough to understand I haven't chosen writing over him. I have chosen writing so I might be capable of being worthy of him.

I will go on Oprah and pr my shit and I will still get pissed off when she cries and pretends to get me because we were both molested.

I will travel with my books and my shows and I will get enough money to buy the house that I saw in my vision when I was 16 and I will sit on the chair that can seat like 20 people that I call God's Chair in a field of flowers and look down at the water and sob. Not because my work made it or because it made money. But because I made it out alive or I found a way to choose to stay alive.