What a gratifying treat to be able to travel to Manhattan
not for medical treatment or pow-wows, but instead to see a piece of my writing
staged by Broadway actors. For real? For the second year, the judging panel of
the Visible Ink Writing Program hosted at Sloan-Kettering chose my submitted
piece – “The Guru in the Elevator” – to be one showcased along with 17 others
in a night of beautiful performance.
I was thrilled last year and again thrilled this year,
especially to be part of the program’s fifth anniversary reading of works. The
evening brings together prose, poetry, playwriting, music, dance … followed by
a reception of cheeky hors d’oeuvres and sweet delicacies – pretty much all of
my favorite things colliding.
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| My beautiful entourage. |
My entourage included Craig, my parents and sister. We had
roped-off VIP seating right behind the program’s venerable founder and my
extremely kind and wonderful mentor, author Judith Kelman – recently named
NYer of the week by NY1. Each of the front rows was marked off for those
authors whose work would be showcased that night. It was an honor to be among
them.
Working with Judith who pushes me to be a bolder, tighter
writer and helps me to brainstorm and focus has been instrumental for me. The
program does exactly what it intends to do: empowers and heals. Fox5 NY covered the event and put together a great package showcasing the performance and the program itself.
All 700 writers that currently participate in the program have been a patient at Sloan-Kettering at
one point or another, but not all stories performed that night focused on cancer. There were funny
stories and poignant stories, heart-wrenching videos and interpretative
weavings of letters of love. It was a wonderful mix, each piece performed
wholeheartedly by actors with Broadway credentials kind enough to call these
annual readings of patients works to be one of their favorite gigs.
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| With my mentor, Judith Kelman. |
As evidence, the adorable, animated actress who played the
Turkish woman in the kitchen in my piece last year, played me this year and she
couldn’t have done better at the part: one that didn’t showcase me in the best
light (it’s okay, I crafted it), but was as truthful as can be. It was an honor
to have her portray me. Craig’s alter-ego was spot on as well – perfect at the
deadpan, unwavering stubbornness that drove me wild on that day that I wrote
about.
What made me the happiest were two things:
To have my family there with me to celebrate a joyous
occasion – not huddled around me in mask and gloves waiting to throw the puke
bucket toward me.
To have been a part in making people laugh. The actors and
the photomontage the director created in the background brought my words to
life displaying the right emotions in the right spots. It’s a pretty surreal
thing when the words you write get translated into motion. To be honest, I
couldn’t even take it all in. I just watched wide-eyed and gape mouthed, fueled
by the chuckles from the packed house and filled with humility and pride
thinking about how that real, truly shitty day the story was based on could
possibly have turned into such a positive, proud, and humbling moment.
The performance was professionally videotaped, and I'll post a link as soon as it is edited and published. Below are some photos from the performance and the text of "The Guru in the Elevator," which was also published in the fifth anniversary Visible Ink Anthology. You may remember it is a chopped and reworked version of a blog from last summer.
From the evening's program:
"The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible."
- Vladimir Nabokov
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| With my stage version: Actress Karen Wexler |
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| Craig with the actor who played him, Joe Ricci |
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| That's "us" with our elevator guru. |
The Guru in the Elevator
By Karin Diamond
A year ago, I was recovering from an
allogeneic stem cell transplant: uncomfortable, irritable, nauseated and in
pain. In other words, a bitch.
This morning, I was particularly tired and
weak, not eager to make the trek to the Upper East Side for my daily clinic
appointment.
Every couple has sticking points, and that
summer, ours was cab-hailing. I begged every night to call ahead to schedule
door-to-door service. A certain man was confident that getting a cab would be a
breeze.
We awoke and dressed. The tension was
seething between us as I ate my toasted waffle with a side of six pills and a
spoonful of chalky anti-fungal rinse.
I covered my face and nose with my paper
mask, snapped my fingers into my plastic gloves – the picture of fashion.
Shuffling on my stick-thin legs, I made my way through the streets with my
husband, Craig, eyes peeled for an available cab.
Finding a morning taxi at the hub where the
Long Island Railroad, New Jersey Transit, and a slew of subway stops dump means
fierce competition. Getting a taxi to stop for someone who looks like she’s
carrying a communicable disease makes beating the challenge near impossible.
I was losing patience and my energy was
fading. Craig stood on the corner – arm out – as cab after cab whizzed by or
other people cut in front of us.
“We should have called ahead, ” I said. “We’re never going to
get a fucking cab here.”
Craig stood, unwavering, as I nagged. He
wouldn’t even acknowledge me. My angst and frustration were rising to dangerous
levels.
Fifteen minutes passed. No cab.
“We should start walking,” I yelled through
my mask.
“Be patient,” Craig said. “We have plenty of time.”
“Things
wouldn’t be this difficult if somebody wasn’t
so stubborn!”
I felt a bout of rage coming on. I was hot, then cold, then nauseous and
woozy. I was still getting transfusions, my body wrecked by chemo. I hadn’t taken
a normal shit in days.
“I’m going to the Penn Station cab line,” I
told Craig. The Station was a long
avenue away, but there were guaranteed cabs there. With that came a guaranteed
line of people waiting for those cabs, but I was in no mood to be reasonable.
“That’s ridiculous, Karin. Just wait.”
My mind was made up. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but
I’m going to get a cab.” I started on my way, thinking this was a good way to get him back, because obviously,
the whole New York City cab inefficiency problem was Craig’s fault.
I weaved at a fast clip through the throngs
of people pouring out of Penn Station. I had only recently found my legs, but
that morning I got my sprint back; spurred by determination to prove a point.
My sunglasses were steaming from the air
coming up through my mask. My
hands started to sweat and itch. I
pushed on toward the crowded cab line.
Then my cell phone rang.
“What!” I snapped at Craig.
“Where are you?” he said. “I have a cab. You
need to get here.”
I could hear the cab driver in the background
yelling at Craig.
“Are you coming?” he urged.
I
did what seemed reasonable at the time:
I hung up.
Shuffling up the street, I dodged men selling
framed Justin Bieber prints, bootleg movies and peace pipes.
Soon, I started seeing stars and thought I
might pass out. My cell phone rang again.
“What?” I said, knowing very well what.
“Where
the hell are you? I can’t hold this cab for long,” Craig said.
“I’m coming!” This time I kept our connection
open so that he could hear my labored breathing as I lumbered up the block.
The cab driver was screaming: “Get out of my
car! Get out!”
“Please. She’ll be right here.
Look. Here she is!”
I collapsed in the back seat and the cab
driver sped off, still yelling.
Neither Craig nor I spoke a word, but a lot
was said. I didn’t feel well but admit that I amped up my breathing and moaning
for dramatic effect. Craig’s
eyebrows furrowed, his back was rigid as a plank.
The cab driver let us out at the hospital
entrance and peeled away in a cloud of city smog.
Craig walked 10 feet ahead of me, as if our
anger would implode us if we got too close. I labored behind, so he had to hold the elevator door.
A man stepped in the elevator car with us for
the ride. He was in his mid-fifties, easy, breezy and relaxed. I wanted to hiss
at him.
He regarded me in my mask and gloves “I used
to be like you,” he said. “I was a
transplant patient fifteen years ago.”
La dee fucking dah, I thought, sneering
through my facemask.
Turning to Craig, he said, “You want to smack
her yet?”
What? Who
is this guy? I was shocked at his remark.
The elevator door opened. The three of us
stood in the vestibule.
“A year from now she needs to take you on a
vacation for having to put up with all her crap,” the stranger said to Craig.
I stood there like a doofus, knowing that
this man remembered the many days on his own drug-fueled, post-transplant,
emotional crazy train and could tell I was conducting my own engine that day.
“Do you know what happened today?” Craig
asked, breaking into a smile.
“Yes. I do,” the man replied and walked away
down the corridor.
That broke the spell. We both let our guards
down and looked each other in the eye.
We almost smiled.
One year later, we did take that vacation,
one rich in the natural beauty of Acadia National Park – a far cry from the
previous summer’s concrete jungle confines. We left our attitudes and
stubbornness behind. No cabs to
catch in Maine, only crates of lobster and fresh blueberries to contend with.
