The Byrne Diaspora

Every Girl meets the world

Monica's play What Every Girl Should Know, commissioned by the Little Green Pig and performed to sold-out audiences the last three weekends, also featured choreography by Clare. It is about four girls in a 1914 Catholic reformatory discovering Margaret Sanger and themselves. It eerily coincides with current events in which Catholic bishops add to Republican calls for roll-backs on federal funding for women's health and birth control, as well as abortion. Which has led Monica to bypass the usual pathways and send the play "out there" to the rest of the world, social-media-style. Yet the play is the opposite of polemical. In fact, it is unsettlingly complicated and very funny. The "crimes" of "sexual irregularity" that have landed the girls in the reformatory turn out to involve equal parts poverty, games, prejudice, spirit, hurt, fantasy, abuse, experimentation, sexism and adolescence. And then ... the miracles start. Bravo!!!--to Monica, Clare, director Lucius Robinson, actors Marie Garlock, Carolyn McDaniel, Alice Rose Turner and Skylar Gudasz, and all involved in the production, including the soundtrack by Jane's Addiction. May the play have a long and influential future!--JEB

Jordan-Matthews is #4 in NC

Don III teaches ESL at Jordan-Matthews High School in Siler City, NC. For the second year in a row, Jordan-Matthews, which enrolls among the highest percentages of Latino kids and economically disadvantaged kids in the state, has ranked among North Carolina's top high schools, according to the U.S. News & World Report. Don said the whole school is super-proud. All the more, with the realities that teachers and students face. Poverty means not having enough money for necessities, but also, for schoolkids, it means family disruption, not enough sleep, not enough routine, not enough reading. More, dozens of kids at Jordan-Matthews are undocumented, meaning that no matter how well they do in high school, they cannot attend college in the U.S. We need to pass the Dream Act already. Meanwhile, Don III says they motivate the kids by advising them to graduate, do a correspondence degree from a Mexican university, and hang on til things change. Above, Jordan-Matthews seniors (and members of the state-championship soccer team) on graduation day. What can be said about such an image? GO JETS!--JEB

Esta es nuestra sobrina

Last weekend I got to meet Laxmi Sade, who is giggling, testing, trying, "talking," and mostly looking, looking, looking. Also I saw two performances of Monica's play, one with Donald, after which we called Clare, because the choreography kicked a$$. Saturday was full of activity. I hung out in Bear Creek while Pam did Zumba, Don III did soccer, and Nicole did a fish fry (a new venture!) for the opening of Nancy Harmon's midwifery clinic. Niko and Laxmi hung out with Nicole and friends. On Sunday we re-celebrated Don II's 70th--yaaaaaa papa! yaaaa abuelo!--and had a great time catching up with Monica's friend Allison, too, who is living and working with NGOs in the Dominican Republic. So. Did I successfully pictorially document all the variety of NC people and activites? As you can see, not nearly. But hopefully there is a glimpse of everyone, and more of the babies. Happy Mother's Day, everyone!--JEB

The family business

Sister Clare flew down to North Carolina just in time for the fullness of spring--dogwoods blooming, pollen snowing, and little green worms paratrooping out of the sky on ther silver threads. Each day, I drove Clare to a studio deep in the woods at Carolina Friends School, where she worked with my actors on six (!) dances for my upcoming play. I mostly exiled myself from rehearsals, but Clare invited me back fifteen minutes early each day to review the day's work. I couldn't have been more happy--Clare's instincts for the raw, feral, liturgical energy of the play was just perfect. You'd think we shared genes or something... ;)

 

Painting and rescue

Our uncle Joel Wysong is the brother of Sr. Marjorie Raphael, a sister of the Episcopal religious community the Sisters of Saint Margaret. Sr. Marjorie, known as Dodgie in the family, is now retired but spent most of her life in two pursuits: a mission of presence and service with her sisters in Haiti, and painting. The mission life took up more time, of course--34 years. But having come from a family full of sculptors and painters, and studying with a famous muralist before she entered the convent, Sr. Marjorie found occasional time, she said, "to paint Haiti's beautiful mountains and seashore." She also spent three weeks in 1989 in British Columbia, painting with her blood sister Becca, and took holidays every year in the western Catskills. Everywhere, she painted. Her pictures covered the walls in the Haiti mission.

When the mission collapsed in the Haiti earthquake of 2010, the paintings fell with the building. But everyone on the premises was ok. And the paintings were rescued from the wreckage and flown to the motherhouse near Boston for restoration. 

Right now and til the end of February, Sr. Marjorie's paintings are on exhibit in the Helen Bumpus Gallery in Roxbury. There have been a number of articles about the exhibit. Other events included Sr. Marjorie speaking about her work at a recent memorial for the second anniversary of the Haiti earthquake, and a reception that was cancelled due to snow but still gathered lots of family to celebrate. Both Joel and our aunt Laura Wysong have been working steadily with Dodgie to make all this happen. And it's not over: there could be a memoir ...

The painting above, Joel writes, is in the Catskills, in the locale of the first house he built, while in college. I liked this line from Dodgie's journal of that 1989 painting trip with her sister: "Becca and I spend some time each day looking at our paintings.  This is practical for we figure out what is not clear or where the message is not readable.  But it is also spiritual ... It is a time of being in touch with the particularity that is myself and that is loved by God."

--JEB

Sunshine

No apologies: this is an entirely gratuitous gorgeous sleeping baby post!

Nicole sent this pic today, with the note that Laxmi loves the sunshine. She is two months old and about thirteen bouncy pounds.  Everything is well in NC, from all reports. Italy, too--Clare was there. Belize, too--Monica IS there. Happy blue-sky day, everyone, wherever you are.--JEB

Juggle, laugh, send mail

The Feast of Guadalupe (December 12) also marked the twentieth anniversary of the death of our grandfather, Donald Byrne, Sr. He was a soldier and a postmaster and a lover of life. He had an easy way with everyone, even the Blessed Mother, whose rosary he said regularly--but when he fell asleep on her, he was sure "she finishes it for me." Oh, the way he packed boxes for Christmas! "He made his heart last until he had wrapped and loaded off to the post office three big boxes of Christmas gifts and cookies; I had to step around those big boxes to take the phone call from Mary Lou telling me that he had died," Don II wrote. "He was a wide and happy man, slow to take offense." 

He also had a special, secret, and lasting spirituality. The elders die, but they stay. We keep hearing about the elders dying (our cousins' grandfather) and the babies being born (our Annville neighbors' grandchild), and at Christmas we think of this more. Have you ever read The Clown of God by Tomie de Paolo? A heartstopping Christmas book that captures the feel. 

And here is more: Clare inherited Don Sr.'s wallet and this is the poem folded up inside.--JEB

Wind Chime

Sound glittering in the wind.
The rough spring storm
Nudges rudely at the little clown
Clapping together his white ceramic hands,
Causing his brown clay boots
To tap and clatter in a lyrical dance,
His flat smiling clown face swinging
Wildly from its porch nail.

Let me be God's clown in the wind,
Feel his Spirit blow through my soul
Causing my hands to clap at his Word,
Making my feet of clay sparkle and dance.
Then I shall swing wildly, joyfully,
Through the storms of spring,
Caught in the rampant winds of his love
With the open, funny face of a clown.

Sara Muenster
America Magazine, November 26, 1983

A spring run

I'm pleased to announce that performance dates have been set for my new play, What Every Girl Should Know: April 19-May 5, 2012, in Durham Central Park! (Above is a prototype of the poster art, which I'm also doing.)

Two years ago, my theater company, Little Green Pig, commissioned me to write a play about the birth control activist Margaret Sanger. I combined it with an idea I'd already had about my girlhood friends and I, who created an elaborate fantasy life and wrote letters to each other from all over the world. Two years later, I have an amazing team of collaborators, including these wonderful actors, and a choreographer whose name might be familiar ;) 

If anyone would like to come, let me know and I'll help you make arrangements!  --MCB

Welcome, Laxmi Sade

Laxmi Sade, daughter of Nicole and Don, born November 23rd after only ten minutes of pushing.

You were as eager to come as we were to receive you! You are our treasure of treasures, little girl.

More pictures here. 

Flowers for Abuelo

In the past month, we've been overwhelmed by the outpourings of love and support from near and far. Above are a beautiful autumnal bouquet from Francie and Alan (top) and an unseasonably rosy bouquet from Nicole and Don at Melleray (bottom). And then there's the care packages full of almonds, Hershey bars, homemade barfi, letters from Uncle Phil and Cousin Jeanne and so many more, delicious casseroles from my friends Crystal and Byron...the list goes on. Truly, all, thank you for your kindness these past few weeks. It makes all the difference.

Many of you have been in the email loop, getting updates on Dad's condition, but I'll just list the main points here: the surgery went WELL. As Dr. Lim told Pam, Clare and me in the conference room after surgery, he elected to do the least invasive procedure possible, which meant taking various measures to relieve pressure on the spine; but that cervial fusion--which would have meant a lot more pain and a much longer recovery process--was not necessary. So already, we'd dodged a bullet. We didn't know what we'd find when we went into Dad's recovery room...but he was up, lucid, glowing, articulate! He even said the neck collar he had to wear--which he'd dreaded--was very comfortable indeed, and he wanted to wear it all the time now.

There were noticeable, and rather astonishing, regains of function immediately after surgery; for example, Dad could clench his right fist, whereas he'd barely been able to curl it before. In the days after surgery, we conspired to get him admitted to physical therapy "boot camp" within the hospital, instead of onerous outpatient facilities or nursing homes. So whenever the physical therapists came by to evaluate him, he showed off and (as he put it) "did extra steps," and they were impressed enough to admit him.

That's where we've been, ever since surgery on the 6th! We call the physical therapy wing "Shangri-La," because it's sort of a cross between a hotel and a hospital. It's on the seventh floor, so you can see far across the rooftops of the beautiful UNC campus. Dad gets three or four hours of physical therapy PER DAY. He has lots of room, a very amiable roommate, and of course Pam, his sweetheart, who's been a rock of strength. I'm there almost every day too; and other siblings visit when they can. In fact, I just picked up Clare for a second time--she's here to celebrate FOUR things with us:

(1) Dad's discharge date on Wednesday,

(2) Thanksgiving,

(3) Her own birthday on Friday (!), and

(4) The birth of the little girl to come...though we don't know when she's going to come! She's taking her time, just like her big brother Niko. 

So, all things considered, we're doing very well here. We're not out of the woods; though Dad's made vast improvements, we still have a long way to go and sometimes it feels frustrating. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers this holiday, as we keep you in ours.

Much love! --MCB