A Question of Balance

*This post was altered out of respect for a friend.

A big challenge in writing this play and in deciding to go ahead with blogging about it has been this: how to get people to resist the urge to read the stuff a murderer has already posted on the net?

I do not want to bring more attention to the man who perpetrated such deeds, but I know that I would be looking into it and liable to read what he'd posted had I come to hear about his postings through this venue. Part of me wants people to assign her end to his hand, since the courts never did. Most of me wants to cleanse her name of the sensationalized association with a serial killer. Any suggestions?

How do we disappear the enormous white elephant clogging up the room? I don't even want him ignored, I want him to fall away, impotent and powerless as one spending life in the prison system is meant to do. Our society is supposed to be lessening the power given to him and his crimes. There were two people present when Monica died, and he was one of them. How do we seize that from his hands and put it back into hers, when she is not here with us? We use our hands, I know. Hold onto it for her in whatever way we can.

If you're at all in tune to this thing my roomate has gone mad over- the Secret- (worst title ever) then you know that the laws of attraction work against me by thinking on this at all. I've seen the magic Michaela has worked through this laws of attractions thing. It ain't magic. It's goddamn science. Hard to argue with it when you see results leaping into her boat like so many smiling and suicidal trouts. Of course this line of thinking has been around well before the product version of it ever was... like anything that works, it has always been known in some way.

So.

Can I ask you not to read the posting from that other source? It's way outdated anyway. Or do I direct you to it, get it out of the way, and move on? Same deal for the show- how do I field questions about the whodunnit? How much fact do I include? It's all out there anyway, reported vaguely in papers. The girl in this case was never a headline, though some of the others were. (in this moment I struggle with noting that it was the murder of white children that got authorities moving to nail this criminal- is that a point? does this cloud my handling of this whole thing? ahhhhh!!!!!)

I am toying with the idea of including a sort of playwright voice in the script. As it is, Michaela will be addressing the audience directly in character. I may try having her switch out of character and speak as herself to the house proper, noting just such things. Does this diffuse the dramatic power of the story?- a true story of which little is known?

The final moments of [the former play's subject's] life happened without impartial witness, save for the life in the natural world where she exhaled her last air. The Creator being in all things, I cannot discount the land she came from as having been there, cradling her as she crossed over. I have a deep desire to go to the Nicola Valley for months and just sift through the soil there, passing it over me like smudge, lick the bark of the trees, chew on pine needles and drink only river water, in an attempt to absorb what the countryside knows of those moments. To make sure I don't misstep.

I will ask you not to type the name of the other person who was there when one girl died. Not here, please. If anyone feels moved to comment on this journey, I should be honoured. I do ask you to keep that one name from this space.

Think only of the good names. [omitted] Pauline, my mom, who connected me with [omitted]. Michaela, the courageous creature of hulking talent who will enact this play, Andy Moro who will ply his considerable understanding of theatrical storytelling to the design our show. And [omitted.] [Omitted. Omitted. Omitted.]

[Omitted.] Auntie, daughter, cousin, neighbour, niece, granddaughter, friend. Not a saint. Not any one thing. A fully realized twelve year old girl.