The Fruits of Peace

(Why am I naming days?)
4/27/15, Day 14,236 (Mercena Day 256): The Fruits of Peace

It was a day of rest and recovery. After work, Heather and I sat on the terrace and watched a bruised sun send golden pink ships sailing over our heads. We talked of our days: Mercena’s trip to tiny tumblers class and refusal to take her third nap, my day of long meetings. We talked of Salvage and what it means for that production to be closed, and what’s next for Flux. We laughed at the crazy idea of a whole week where we’d be home at nights together.

And these clouds, this sunset, these babies rolling around, our baby sleeping, these meetings, this theatre, this laughter, this time at home together, safe; these are the fruits of peace, and they are too sweet for only some of us to have them.

How can we spread these fruits of peace, a peace which isn’t the absence of conflict but the presence of justice, of community, of creativity? It’s not enough to have Baltimore in my thoughts if it’s not in my deeds…

“I am a pacifist” I said, feeling sure that this would answer all of Piscator’s demands. “So am I,” he answered, rather dismissively. “But what kind of pacifism do you imagine in a world at war? What kind of society can you suggest that would be a peaceful society? How would you regulate life, food, work and water in a pacifist world?”

I was startled. “I…don’t know…” feeling as humbled as Piscator once did in the trenches of Ypres, when he said he was an actor…

“This is what I have to study,” I said, brazening it out.
–Judith Malina, The Piscator Notebook

This quote comes early in Judith Malina’s diary of her time as a young student studying with famed teacher and director, Erwin Piscator. I have been reading Malina’s The Psicator Notebook to honor her passing, and to learn myself about what kind of peace I can imagine for this world. I am studying, and feel that I’m getting a little closer, every day.