My favorite part of myself is the part that whistles and sings through my daily chores. I am not much of an interior designer, but I enjoy housework and have a special affinity for sweeping, vacuuming and mopping.
My enthusiasm for clean floors stems from my years as a professional stage manager. Though I could have delegated the task to the assistant stage manager or a crew member, I insisted on mopping the stage before every show.
Before I mopped it, I swept the stage and then squirted the air with a spray bottle that was filled with water. Each spray would capture dust and ever-so-gently bring the particulate down to “the boards.” Only then would I begin to mop.
Image from The Carol Burnett Show listing on IMDB.
Sometimes actors would tease me. “Look, there’s Carol Burnett,” one would say every time he walked into the theater and saw me mopping. I would beam with pride.
I loved watching the show from the booth as I called the light and sound cues. To this day, I feel like my devotion to mopping the boards added a purity and glow to the entire play.
These days, I like to think my daily floor treatments add a touch of purity and glow to my home. Now If you’ll excuse me, I have some laundry to fold. 🎶 Zipadeedoodah, zippidy day, my oh my what a wonderful day! 🎶 -Connie
In order to write about what makes me feel strong, I must first write about what makes me feel weak and that’s Zoom.
Yes, Zoom is a useful tool, it’s better than nothing and we need it right now. I appreciate Zoom, but Zoom exhausts me.
The eternal Zoom closeups, the mute button, the original sound that isn’t original. The option to “touch up my appearance.”
Live theatre reveals how old and nervous I am. Zoom makes me feel like I should be ashamed of those things, but in reality, being myself in front of and among actual people emboldens me.
And sharing new work? Yes, it makes me weak in the knees, every time, but that’s also what empowers me. That’s what makes me feel strong.
I miss theatre so much.
I miss seeing whole, imperfect bodies shuffle into the theater. I miss feeling the cold come off of someone who just rushed inside.
I miss saying, “Nice to see you,” in real life, and meaning it.
I miss being in the audience, watching and listening to new work.
I miss real performances where actors push and pull their whole bodies through time and space on a stage, and the only reason I can hear them is because they know how to project.
I. Miss. Live. Music.
I miss seeing people blush. I miss the intelligence and discipline of a live audience. I miss the organic sound of people clapping their hands together.
I miss the warmth of cold readings and witnessing the heart-pounding vulnerability of having new work read.
I miss printing my scripts, even though that chore is always 100% stressful. When will I be able to do that again?
I miss that moment of being trusted with a script. I miss seeing actors with my script.
Actors reading a scene from my play “Hotbed” in 2020, a few weeks before the stay-at-home order.
I miss being in a room filled with writers, directors, actors and producers.
I miss seeing people in profile. I missing seeing the backs of people. I miss knowing there are people sitting behind me.
I miss metaphors.
I miss seeing the secret smiles exchanged between longtime friends and short-time lovers, and short-time friends and longtime lovers. I miss the trust that is placed on everyone in the room.
I miss the hierarchy, the overtalkers, the awkward chit-chat and hearing someone’s phone go off.
Lord, or whatever your name is, deliver me to the theatre, stat. I understand Zoom is a necessary tool and I promise to continue to do my best with it, but if I am to ever feel whole and strong again, I need to be physically among my people. Please, thank you and amen.
As a child, I had a recurring dream that Snuffleupagus was chasing me. Though sweet-tempered on Sesame Street, in my dreams, Snuffy was a sinister child-killer.
Sometimes when I was falling asleep, I would hear him “materializing” from within my lumpy pillow. It was one of those old, striped farmhouse pillows. In an attempt to stave off the beast, I would “knead” the lumps and, on a good night, “Dream Snuffy” would break up, disappear and let me sleep in peace.
But on bad nights, he’d emerge from my pillow and slowly – but relentlessly – stalk me in my bedroom, down the stairs, out the door and into the alley. Then I would wake up.
Though it was a recurring dream, its life span was short. Snuffy stopped coming to get me about the same time I stopped watching Sesame Street which is to say when I was about five or six years old.
That’s the dream I remember.
What I couldn’t remember as I was writing about the dream was how to spell “Snuffleupagus.”
When I wrote it the first time, I spelled it S-n u-f-f-l-e-u-f-f-u-g-u-s. It felt “wrong” so I looked it up and that’s when I learned it’s S-n-u-f-f-l-e-u-p-a-g-u-s. And that’s when I looked up “pagus.”
Pagus, according to dictionary.com, is used in the names of severely malformed, usually nonviable, conjoined twins. Here’s a list of those names and where conjoined twins may be joined:
Chest – Thoracopagus
Abdomen – Omphalopagus
Base of spine – Pygopagus
Length of spine – Rachipagus
Pelvis – Ischiopagus
Trunk – Parapagus
Head – Craniopagus
Head and chest – Cephalopagus
The original Snuffleupagus when he debuted in 1971. Photo from muppetfandom.com.
Cephalopagus twins are joined at the face and upper body. They share a head and a brain and cephalopagus sounds an awful lot like Snuffleupagus. But I’m not saying that to upset you or…get into your head.
My favorite quote is “Trust yourself” because it is so simple and empowering. The author is my college friend Bekkah Fry and she said it to me 15 years ago. Though I do not remember what we were talking about, I remember her saying, “You have to trust yourself, Connie.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I said ‘Trust yourself.'”
Rebekkah and her kids (from L-R) Lucy, Adeleine and Max in 2013.
Bekkah is a clear-headed nurse with psychology and philosophy degrees. She is an art-loving, book-reading mama-of-three who is logical, loving and loyal. She can pinpoint the source of any problem without batting an eye and does so with warmth and authority. So when this brilliant, respectable woman advised me to trust myself, I was shocked.
No one had ever said anything so radical to me before, and no one has ever since. In fact, I’ve never even heard it suggested to anyone.
Here’s what I have been told or have heard, repeatedly, over the years:
*Trust your doctor
*Trust God
*Trust science
*Trust the process
*Trust your coach
*Trust your partner
*Trust your boss
*Trust your teammates
*Trust your stylist
*Trust your mother
*Trust yourself
*Trust me
And, of course, we’ve all heard the famous quote “Trust your gut” which I find unrefined and actually a little gross. I understand it’s about trusting your intuition and while that’s important, I stand by the elegance, wholeness and responsibility of “trust yourself.”
For the record, I’m not telling you to not trust people or concepts or science. I’m suggesting that above all else, you trust your whole self more, first and last.
Connie Kuntz is participating in #bloganuary. That means she is writing a new blog post every day in January. She learned about the challenge yesterday therefore this is only Day 2 for her. Though she is three weeks behind, she is enjoying the prompts, meeting new writers and reading new stories. Follow her on Medium or Twitter @connie_kuntz.
I learned today that it is “Bloganuary.” That means bloggers across the globe are challenged to blog every day in January. There are (optional) prompts posted every day to keep us motivated and, I suppose, part of a collective conscious. Sounds like fun to me; I only wish I weren’t three weeks late to the party! That said, let’s go!
The prompt
If you could, what year would you time travel to and why?
Minneapolis circa 1978
I would travel to Southwest Minneapolis in the year 1978. That’s when my husband Jesse was five years old and conducted an imaginary orchestral concert for his parents and King, his German shepherd. He said he tied a towel around his neck so it looked like he had a cape. The cape, he said, was integral to his performance.
He then stood, caped, in front of his parents and King and proceeded to emphatically mime conducting. Mind you, he did not play any music. He just “conducted.”
It’s a fond memory for Jesse because he remembers his parents watching him and smiling. Even King, he said, seemed amused.
Jesse and King.
I would like to time-travel to this moment for a variety of reasons:
(1) I want to see Jesse as a child,
(2) I want to see his parents united and young and happily supporting their child,
(3) I want to see the dog,
(4) I want to see Jesse’s five-year-old mime skills.
There is much to appreciate in Jesse’s memory, but the story has also saddened me ever since he shared it with me some 20 years ago. In the spirit of today’s “time-travel” prompt, I’m going to fast forward to…
The house fire
Jesse’s dad was an undercover narcotics officer and some disgruntled drug dealers found out where he lived and firebombed their house. Jesse was asleep when the fire started and King “nosed” him out of bed and alerted him and his parents to the smoke and fire. Jesse credits the dog with saving their lives.
The house was destroyed and the property was deemed a crime scene. The authorities locked King in the garage for several days while the family scrambled to relocate. When Jesse’s dad went back to get him, the dog snarled and barked at him. He then reported to Jesse and his mother that King had “gone crazy” from the stress of the fire and being alone. Jesse’s mom said it was too risky to bring King home. “We don’t want to risk him hurting you,” she told Jesse. “We’re doing this to protect you.” His parents had the dog euthanized and Jesse felt like it was his fault.
Things went from bad to worse and Jesse’s parents divorced. After the divorce came multiple marriages. His dad went on to marry four more times. His mother married two more times. Let’s do…
The math
That’s a total of four step-moms, two step-dads, one biological mother and one biological father.
For more perspective, the only child was raised among the hustle-and-bustle of six weddings and the storm-and-stress of six divorces.
What was his support system during that time? Who was looking out for him? How many marital fights – verbal and physical – did he witness? How did, say, Stepdad #1 treat Jesse? Hint: not respectfully.
Yet, during that time, outsiders characterized Jesse as spoiled. He was an “A” student, decent athlete and budding thespian. He had many toys, action figures and new clothes. He had friends, liked all kinds of music and respected different cultures. But Jesse will tell you he wasn’t interested in enrichment. His primary interest was…
Survival
He wanted to be anywhere other than home because that is where Stepdad #1 abused him.
Al started off “jokingly” hitting Jesse on the back of his head. “You better watch where you’re going,” he’d warn. Jesse learned quickly to watch his back, but Al found other ways to physically and mentally menace the child. If Jesse complained to his mother about Al, she would say, “I married him to get you away from the bad influence of your father.”
One Sunday, Jesse had just gotten back from spending a week with the “bad influence.” His dad had given him his huge Army duffel bag for all the back-and-forth trips. They missed each other and Jesse treasured the duffel bag. He crawled inside it and zipped it up because it was comforting to be cocooned in his father’s duffel bag. Al, again “jokingly,” picked Jesse up in the duffel bag and began swinging him around until he “accidentally” smashed the bag, with Jesse in it, against the wall. When Jesse complained, Al called him…
Spoiled
“Spoiled” is what happens when you ignore something.
“Spoiled” is what happens when you ignore something. As I look up from my laptop, I see the spoiled bananas on my banana holder. My bananas didn’t spoil because I gave them love and attention. They spoiled because I ignored them, as I do most of our…
Childhood traumas
There will never be enough time to unpack all of our traumatic memories and I truly don’t plan to do it here. But today, when I was prompted to write about where I would time-travel to, I chose to visit my husband’s childhood memory; when he stood in front of his parents and dog, and danced to music only he could hear.
*Connie Kuntz prefers playwriting to blogging, but thought she’d give #bloganuary a try. This is a true story. She and Jesse have been married for 17 years and he said it was OK if she wrote about his childhood.
Constance Kuntz 