Origin Stories
Where do we come from?
Greetings humans born in the usual way, give or take a little medical intervention:
This morning, I walked past the location of my first corporate job in NYC and stopped to think about that time in my life. I’d put myself through undergrad as a babysitter and as a work-study in the archives and (insanely) as a personal trainer (this should make many of you spit-take your coffee) — anyway. In NYC, I was initially a shop girl, landing a classic manager-turned-husband (who lasted long past his warranty and eventually abruptly stopped working). After that job ended, I needed to make money, so I did what a lot of smart budding actresses (who are too ADHD to waitress) did back in the day - I signed up with a temp agency.
My first assignment was as the executive floor receptionist for the Bank of Tokyo Trust Company North America Headquarters. I was facile enough to be able to answer the phone and cheerfully rattle this off, so despite my knowing nothing at all about banking (or perhaps because of this), I was hired. I was a phone-monkey and my job was almost entirely to sit still and look pretty.
Remember when phones were answered by humans?
In any event, that receptionist job led to several executive assistant positions which is probably why it is so easy for me to encompass (and wear) all the hats that need to be worn in my current role as an executive.
Working in a large corporation gave me so much pleasure. Not only was there almost no real work, but there were so many perks — affordable cafeteria food, endless buckets of swag, paid days off, marvelous views, and I had free access to all the high end office supplies. There’s a lot to be said for access to pens and notebooks.
Creative Inspiration
The reason I got all nostalgic in front of my old job’s building was that Teresa Dzieglewicz was in town and I attended her excellent poetry reading at Otto’s Shrunken Head on the Lower East Side. I had a cinnamon drink that was on fire and she asked me about my origin story. I told her four or five pertinent anecdotes about my childhood and today I realized I told only the awkward, traumatic or oddly funny ones. I failed to mention actual turning points in my life. But then, today I started to wonder:
What are the actual turning points in your life?
Are they always the bad ones? the ones beyond your own control? The choices you regret? are those the ones that stick in your mind? I am trying to recall the first time I got paid for something I wrote and the thing that comes to me is that I won an Optimist Club Scholarship for $1000 before going to college. This seemed like an extraordinary amount of money back then, and the high school counsellor and I both laughed ourselves silly imagining what sort of people would be there, listening to me read my winning story which was, of course, all about overcoming the loneliness of being the only Lithuanian in my entire grade - our family being the only Lithuanians in the entire Texas town.
Loneliness, sadness—is that what gives us character? What a very sad state.
Why don’t we report on the absolute joys when asked about the turning points in our lives? Or do we simply never turn where there is joy - perhaps in times of joy we just dive right in, off the deep end, well in over our heads.
Other inspirations this week: I saw the movie Death Becomes Her in preparation for seeing the musical Death Becomes Her on Broadway. My opinion of the movie is “oh jeepers, Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis, Isabella Rossellini, and Goldie Hawn were such babies!” and my opinion of the musical was “How the heck are they going to…. Oh! That’s clever!!”
I also have been promising you a showdown between two monsters in a dual theater review that Counter Arts just published. Here is the friend link to read “Vampires vs Bigfoot!”
Hoping to catch Melanie Faranello reading from her new book tonight at Von Bar and maybe catch a glimpse of Sara Lippman and Brian Gresko who are good friends of hers.
Random Final Thought:
If all of heaven is singing, is everyone suddenly a good singer, or does everyone suddenly not care if the music is in tune? Maybe there a divine choirmaster that autotunes angel voices?
Also, are there harmonies or is everyone always in unison? Maybe it is just one eternal note, since no one ever has to inhale again?
Or maybe it is just an eternal rest?
HAhahahaHAhaHA!
Personal experience write up, very interesting.
The two plays set side by side very powerful!
I love origin stories. A librarian group I'm in did a thread of them recently (supposedly limited to five points, but no one follows rules), and they were more divergent than you'd imagine. Mine, for instance, starts with my mom showing me the union label in a pair of jeans circa 1986.