Letters from Max. Sarah Ruhl

romantic prospects, one of which makes me really hopeful—but I don’t want to need a Not-Mom-Woman. I want to just WANT a Not-Mom-Woman.

      P.S. “I always thought I hated washing dishes. But it’s nice to just dry a dish in the rain.”

      So. Beautiful. A universe of wetness surrounding a home of dryness.

      The scene that Max refers to is one in which the American woman and Tibetan man fall in love very suddenly while washing dishes together:

      MOTHER:

      I want to help you. I want to wash the dishes with you.

      I—

      FATHER:

      You do?

      MOTHER:

      Yes.

      FATHER:

      Well, all right. Then I can’t charge you for your meal.

      MOTHER:

      Oh, that’s all right.

      FATHER:

      I insist.

      MOTHER: (as in now our relations have entirely changed)

      Then I’m no longer a customer.

      FATHER:

      No.

      MOTHER:

      We put our arms into soapy warm water.

      FATHER:

      We didn’t talk.

      MOTHER:

      We washed dish after dish.

      FATHER:

      Well, I washed.

      MOTHER:

      I dried.

      FATHER:

      I like washing.

      MOTHER:

      I like drying.

       They wash dishes for a while.

       These might be real dishes, or imaginary.

       In any case, the audience’s attention slows

       as they experience the feeling, real or imagined,

       of soap and water.

      FATHER:

      Then she said:

      MOTHER:

      I always thought I hated washing dishes. But it’s nice to just dry a dish in the rain.

      JULY 22

      Oh, thank you so much, Max, for your kind words.

      I am so sorry that the chemo hasn’t appeared to shrink the tumors yet. That must be very hard for you, and to contemplate the experimental therapy. When would the experimental therapy happen?

      On other fronts:

      Don’t worry if your poetry feels insulated or indulgent. Poetry by nature is insulated and indulgent, from Sappho to Whitman to Strand to Dickinson. Only some small degree of emotional restraint keeps it from being indulgent, and some small degree of sharing it with others keeps it from being insulated.

      Also don’t worry if you’re not writing. You have plenty to contend with in the moment, and the writing will come when it needs to.

      The Not-Mom-Woman made me laugh. I would say: living alone is overrated. Personally, I hate it. I only like living alone from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. At 5:00 p.m. I’m very happy to have a mom around, or a mom substitute.

      Let’s find a way to connect this summer when we are all in California. Our house will have a trampoline in the backyard.

      Give my regards to your mom.

      xo,

      Sarah

      P.S. I just saw I spelled your name wrong in my acknowledgments! The k is forever banished!

      JULY 30

      Sarah,

      That is all very good advice, and calmed me down a little.

      It might be okay to need somebody.

      Your play continues to ripple in me. Attached find a poem stirred up by it. I don’t think my poem is in a finished state and would love your criticism.

      REFUGE

       For Sarah

      Rain falls on the house.

      My mother dries dishes

      in the dark house in the rain.

      “I’m your little dish,”

      I tell her, even though I ought to be a man.

      “You’re a big dish.”

      “You mean I’m very wet.”

      I haven’t seen much,

      and don’t see much:

      The jungle of my short life is one row of white straight naked

      trees.

      The vines are white and fall apart in my hands,

      as if dissolved under the tongue.

      Every living thing is screaming dust.

      To imagine a heaven is to admit

      there are things in this

      world you think you could never bring yourself to love,

      even given an unlimited number of attempts.

      “Learn to love everything—the world becomes heaven.”

      “That sounds hard: I have a better idea, pass the soap.”

      I tell you now,

      unhappily knitted to bravery,

      that all you must do

      is hate yourself

      round and round,

      hand in hand, foaming mouth open,

      rainbow bubbles dashing open.

      Hate yourself more

      than any other thing:

      you have made heaven.

      Heaven’s Proverb:

       When your milk Finally spills,

       may it feed the toxic white slug

       impaled by the heel

       of the tyrant’s loose sandal.

      JULY 30

      Dearest Max,

      I love your poem. Thank you so much for writing it, and for sharing it with me.

      I am very honored to have a Max poem dedicated to me, you know. I love it.

      I wasn’t sure about the last stanza, somehow it reminded me of T. S. Eliot as a gesture towards something oracular or multivocal in italics, and something about your poem was more intimate. I suppose I wondered if the idea of hating yourself to create heaven