We are not out of the woods yet
Last week I finished assembling the script for Stardale’s new film project tentatively called Shadow. It was a daunting task. On Sunday afternoon I had hundreds of recipe cards and small pieces of paper spread over my desk (and beyond). The challenge was to find some kind of template to put the girls’ thoughts into, and from there, to decide which ones were in and which ones were not.
We work in such a way that the words the girls write for me in our writing sessions are not attributed to any specific girl. They don’t put their names to their writing so it all becomes one collective voice of the Stardale class of ’21. This is the fourth time I have gone through this process. If I’ve done it properly, the girls’ voices can be heard loud and clear with little or no discernable editorial voice being apparent.
I’ll say one thing for this process – they never covered it in my MFA in playwriting.
One of the difficult parts of this process is that more material the girls have written doesn’t make it into the script than actually does make it in. Some times there is repetition of an idea or image and I have to decide which one is the best, In some cases one speech will be a hybrid of two or three pieces of writing. This truly is an example of collective creation.
Once I was well underway, we received a piece of writing from one of the girls, sent by email. It was too late to try to get it into the script, and it doesn’t have anything to do with racism, per se, which is what our new film is about. Yet it speaks to another issue that the staff and volunteers at Stardale are particularly concerned with at this time, and that is the emotional well-being, indeed the mental health, of the girls in the program.
It feels like we crossed some kind of milestone back in late March, when we realized that the pandemic has been going on for over a year, and yet for all the measures that have been taken, for all the hand-washing and sanitizing and mask-wearing and social distancing we have done, the situation is no better than it was a year ago. If anything, it may be worse.
This is a depressing realization. I can’t help but think it must be a lot worse for the girls in the program than it is for me or the other adults involved. This piece of writing brought that point home for me and I share it now with you:
She’s the girl who says “I’m fine”. While walking out of the bathroom with dry tears on her face.
She’s the girl who loves like she’s never been broken before.
She’s the girl who’s everyone’s therapist, while she’s the one who really needs one.
She’s the girl with the loudest laugh but tears that could fill the ocean.
She’s the girl who tells everyone it’s going to be fine while she doesn’t believe it for herself.
Because in truth I am that girl.
These are the words of a fourteen year old girl. They remind us that we are not out of the woods yet – far from it. And so the good staff and volunteers at Stardale are redoubling their efforts to visit the girls, provide for them the things they need, offer emotional support, whatever they can do in the continuing dark time.
We’re all in this together. Stay strong!