One thing ends; writing begins

I finished my Assessment class tonight.

I was anticipating a really boring class at the start of the term, and was apparently blessed to take it with a new instructor who had a easy-going wit to him. By boiling it down to what was going to be useful to us as professionals, the teacher managed to cover the significant assessments -- aka., methods of psychological testing -- and still keep it interesting.

Tonights final consisted of five group presentations, mostly composed of two students each. We had to pick a character -- famous, whether real or fictional -- and present a psychological evaluation on them. Four groups did straight presentations, including PowerPoint presentations. But me and my partner? No.

We did a role play.

In which my partner was a psychologist, and I was Frida Kahlo.

Sadly, I have never seen any footage of Frida Kahlo, nor ever watched the films about her. So there was no real character study going on here. I just learned what I needed to learn about her background -- which was plenty -- and then memorize a few actual quotes of hers to use. Alas, my interpretation of Frida seems to have come with a slight Russian accent. I don't know why.

But the whole performance -- "acted" out because her behavior was a part of the evaluation -- became a black comedy of sorts. My classmates did not know who the chacter was: We were all playing a game of "Guess Who?" as a way to keep things interesting. So as they listened to my theatrical, over-wrought responses to certain questions, they fell out with laughter.

For example, the psych asked me about my marital history, and in part, I replied: "There have been two grave accidents in my life. One was when a streetcar knocked me down. The other accident was (my husband)." She was referring to Diego Rivera, of course, but to keep our classmates guessing about identity, we did not use the names of spouses.

Another time, I said of my habit of drinking a bottle of brandy a day: "I started drinking so I could drown my sorrows, but it seems the damn things have learned how to swim."

My classmates did not recognize these responses as the words of Frida Kahlo, nor many other facts that came to light. When I identified one particular Rorschach tile as "my bloodied, fractured pelvis" and another as "Kandinsky's version of the Eiffel Tower," they absolutely roared with laughter.

It was a bit awkward. I suppose my acting prompted some of the laughter -- and sugar highs from the last-night snacks that classmates brought in must have accounted for some of it, as well. But it was a little odd to have such a tragic sort of character bringing my classmates so much joy.

I suppose I got an 'A' anyway. No matter what, I'm just happy to be done with the class.

....

On a totally different note, now that this last project is out of the way, I can and must begin the writing of a significant paper for my death & dying study. I've been feeling pretty blocked around this topic, particularly around the part where I have to address my own perspective and how it relates to the study I've undertaken.

It's unusual for me to experience blocks in my writing. It may be less a block, though, than it is a problem of mental organization. There may just be too many words trying to get down the shoot all at once. And at the same time, I feel a bit hounded by my own perfectionism. It's leaving me a little tongue-tied as a writer.

However, in that odd way that things in my home just kind of ... turn up ... I found on my desk this week a scrap of paper on which I wrote some notes at a lecture I attended in the spring of 2000. I'm not sure how such a thing managed to find its way to this desk, three homes later, but ... here it is.

It is a collection of writing tips offered by author Michael Cunningham the night he spoke at the Portland Arts & Lectures Series. Cunningham had recently won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, "The Hours," which is a modern literary work I admire greatly. His writing was spare and elegant, and he somehow managed to make the suicide of Virginia Woolf a really lovely moment, even under the weight of its sadness.

These are his words of advice, which I captured seven years ago and which have turned up just when I am beginning a significant writing project:

-- Be audacious.

-- Write things you "don't have the right" to write.

-- Don't spill the beans; keep the magic all for yourself.

-- A good read isn't so much in the plot as in the telling.

-- Over-write; then edit harshly.

-- Don't keep asking "What is the point?" Let the writing and the characters lead you there.