All Things New
Last week I joked that I was making spring dresses in the hopes of summoning spring early and then! It happened! Warm weather, blossoming trees, bees in the lavender, and my first Monarch butterfly sighting of the season.
See me for all your future psychic seamstress needs.
Anyway, I am putting Persephone in Bloom on 99 cent sale from all your favourite e-retailers, because in addition to age-gap rom com fun times in a Greek myth inspired magazine publishing house, it is ALSO about a woman blossoming into her own self and I can never resist a seasonal metaphor.
Speaking of women blossoming into themselves, for my birthday last month, my work wife and I went to the Court Theatre production of Fun Home. I am a huge fan of Alison Bechdel's graphic novel, but while I thought the performances were solid, I wasn't as enchanted or intrigued by the writing in the adaptation. The original embraces nuance and uncertainty, and is unabashedly intellectual, and I think a lot of that got glossed out in the musicalization process.
What the musical absolutely nailed, though, and what my work wife and I chatted about nonstop on the way home, were those moments of queer awakening where awe and joy combine in an explosion of undeniable epiphany. Both of us recognized our queerness later in adulthood (despite many flashing neon signs) and so we have strong, relatively recent memories of those moments where it was "Oh! THAT's it. I like girls!"
(A book I finished last night which personally gave me lots of queer recognition moments [not that the protags recognize this for the first time, but that made me go AHA YUP], AND takes place in a reality TV cooking show setting, is Love and Other Disasters by Anita Kelly. I laughed, I loved, I lived. Consider this my fullthroated recommendation.)
The queer recognition song that gets the most attention from Fun Home tends to be "Ring of Keys", I think partly because it features a child actor doing impressive vocal and emotional work, and we all admire that. But for my money, the better, funnier, more emotionally resonant song is "Changing My Major", where Alison goes from "am I gay? maybe I just won't kiss anyone ever? then I don't have to find out?" to "YES. THIS. ALWAYS!" in an ecstatic and extremely nerdy celebration of queer joy and desire.
Musicals are one of my favorite art forms, because I can always be got by that moment where someone's emotions are so strong that the spoken word won't do. To convey the intensity of feeling, we're gonna need a full orchestra and some soaring grace notes, or a rock band and some foul language, or... okay, look, we've all had that moment where we're like "This! This is MY SONG!" but I am less into jukebox musicals, because they are by nature less character-and-story specific. Even the ones that include your song.
I cannot find a convenient way to segue to the following, so here is an anecdote about the word segue. More than twenty years ago, having never seen the word spelled, I made reference to "segueways" no less than three times in a newsletter that went out to my university drama club. One person responded with "What's a segueway? Is it anything like a transitionshun?" The humiliation will never die, and while I can't remember who that person is, I harbour an intense grudge that will outlive my mortal husk.
Anyway!
My mother Mary, in addition to being an excellent mother and grandmother, great teacher, and brilliant administrator, also reclaims and upholsters furniture, saving older pieces from ignominious retirement. Excepting two computer chairs, everything you can sit on in my house is the fine work of Mary Healey, and I like my house a lot.
She's done this for friends and family for years. A couple years ago, she finally gave into the urgings of literally everyone who's been encouraging her to do this skilled labour for like, money, and started taking commissions. Now she's opened her website, Mary's Wares ("designed" by moi). You can buy some of her extant pieces, but, more importantly, you can commission her to restore your own much-loved furniture.
If you live in New Zealand, especially if you live in the Tasman/Nelson region, then I urge you to get in touch, especially if you've got some sad outdoor furniture you'd like revived for summer.
Because it's coming, everyone! Summer (and the school holidays) approaches. I am so looking forward to lying around the house in various draperies and complaining about the heat, and also, writing many books.
And in the meantime? Spring.
