Presenting Margie Pearl

Theme & Adaptation

I came to Toastmasters after realizing I couldn’t memorize anymore. It was clear that improvising was causing me more problems than it was solving.

For two weeks, I had tried to memorize John Masefield’s Sea Fever. I had volunteered to read excerpts from my favorite books for 7th & 8th grade students for World Literature Day. If you are a Star Trek fan you might recognize the second line. You can listen to Masefield read his poem here.

I had been reading scripted interviews at my job for so long, that I had lost the knack of using my own words. I clung to the printed text like it was a life preserver. The odd thing was I could remember verbatim conversations for months afterward — even their accents and speech pattern.

Words have music

· I needed rhythm.

· I could remember words set to music.

· I needed a refrain.

Dancer

My first ambition was to be a go-go cage girl. That was a fad since I was too young to perform in night clubs. Then, I wanted to be a ballet dancer when a Cuban ballerina taught ballet as part of the curriculum at my Catholic girl’s school. I met up with her years later, as the school principal of the Montessori school my son attended.

My ballet dream was dashed when my flat feet could not create the necessary arch for toe shoes. Few women have the natural build to be on pointe (toe shoes). If you have a chance, read Misty Copeland’s memoir about taking ballet at the Boys & Girls Club in San Pedro, California.

Singer

I discovered singing. I sang a duet in grade school and was in a 4-part madrigal in high school. I decided I wanted to become an opera singer. I was aiming for that high E in Mozart’s “Queen of the Night” aria from the Magic Flute. I squeaked there a few times, but really — only few singers are capable of this. Melba Moore, Mariah Carey, Phoebe Snow, and Bubbles Silverman a/k/a Beverly Sills. I took voice lessons in college for two years but was never cast in a college musical — not even in the chorus.

Actor

That meant I was left with Theater and I learned the mechanics of stage craft and stage performance. I was hopeless at scene painting, but I was a whiz on the sewing machine, and tolerable with a miter saw. I could choreograph. I had comic timing. I had pacing. I could recite lines. I had emotion and drive. The missing element was Why?

Why was I wasting my life auditioning and not getting cast? The disappointment was enough to break my spirit. But a college friend had a motto:

“I will not let disappointment ruin my life.”

Penny Sandstrom was experiencing the same setbacks and she could sing that high F, as well as, trill the aria from Leonard Bernstein’s Candide. Dick Cavett used it as theme for his talk show from the 70s and 80s. She pivoted and pursued music education. I have no idea where she landed, but surely it must be on her feet. What could I do to shuffle-ball-change in a new direction?

Writer

Buried in my childhood dreams was my desire to be a dramatist. To write stories for others to perform. Like the character Bottom of Midsummer Night’s Dream, I wanted to play ALL the characters.

The most satisfying way to do that is to write them yourself. Alas, I was flayed in my playwriting class. My teacher said I wrote in too small a detail. I needed to write large enough for the stage.

I didn’t agree then and I don’t now. Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie is small. You can’t see Laura’s glass animals, unless you are in the first row. A play is about ideas and the dynamics of human agency. I left college with few ideas of what I would do next; but I continued to write on slips of papers, before graduating to dollar store notebooks. The details of my imagination never stopped coming.

When I was 38, a college catalog arrived with the mail. A school offered classes in film production and screenwriting. I even received my AA degree in screenwriting. I loved every moment of it.

My next goal is cartooning. This will be a stretch, because I still can’t draw a circle; but studying the art form will give me the tools for turning my screenplay into a comic strip. Additionally, the labor costs will be infinitely more manageable.

Life is full of fantastic failures

I see it each spring when a beloved plant doesn’t come back. Nothing can replace it. It’s up to me to find something else to believe in.

Without dreams, our lives are roads strewn with shards of glass and too painful to venture out on. As the grandmother says in Strictly Ballroom, that is “a life half lived.”

I can see parts of myself in the young man from Strictly Ballroom. I just want to “dance my steps.” I can dance solo or with a partner. In 30 seconds to a minute, I can teach a new dancer my steps. I warn stiff dancers that I lead. There can be a scuffle at first, but once I put them into a spin and return, they are with me all the way dancing their own steps.

Find your rhythm. While you are catching your breath, learn the refrain. It might be a repeated phrase, a melody, or a call to action. It anchors you to your purpose.

I’ve included a link to the three stanza poem below.

Author’s note: I realize I haven’t explained my inability to memorize. My solution was to create my own words. At times, I vary from my own script, but that’s a blessing. Sometimes improvising provides a better choice.