1. I wrote yesterday about a student, Scott Taylor, from 1982, emailing me. He added to his initial email and gave me a quick rundown on what he's been up to over the last 40+ years. I invited him to become connected on Facebook and now we are.
A reminder: starting when I moved back to Eugene from Spokane almost exactly 41 years ago today, I paid some degree of attention from time to time to people who hung out at Lenny's Nosh Bar and did other interesting things, like form a performing group called Big Time Poetry Theater. Scott Taylor was a founding member of Big Time Poetry Theater. I attended one of Big Time's (or a spin off of Big Time) performances at the U of O Honors College and I remember loving it.
Whether historically accurate or not, what has stuck with me is how much I enjoyed this troupe's combination of irreverence and pretension, both of which I got a big kick out of, and some degree of reverence and homage. They loved poetry. I don't remember what poetry anyone read that evening, but I know from doing a little digging that these performers wanted to bring Richard Hugo, Louise Gluck, James Wright, Shakespeare, and many other poets to life in public performances in bars, theaters, University halls, and elsewhere.
My overwhelming feeling, however, as I left Chapman Hall that evening was a wistful desire to be like Scott, Steve McQuiddy, Curt Hopkins, and the others who performed that night. They were loose, free, funny, improvisational, willing to have bits flop, and, above all, smart and smart asses.
But, I was a serious and frightened graduate student, always up against my fear of failure and always under the illusion that if I just studied more and read more, I could overcome my deep insecurities by outworking my fears.
Approaching my studies this way cut me off from, say, hanging out at Lenny's Nosh Bar or from even thinking about being a part of a performing troupe -- and who would I do such a thing with any way?
2. Some of these Nosh Bar regulars also hung out at an Allann Bros. coffee house near campus.
I went there often myself for coffee and to read books and grade papers.
My attention was casual but I enjoyed seeing these Big Time Nosh Bar people come in and, on occasion, I caught and enjoyed bits of their conversations.
Having become Facebook friends with Scott Taylor, I decided to check out his friend list today and as I clicked on names that were familiar to me, I enjoyed looking at photographs from the Big Time Poetry Theater days and reading articles about them that appeared in What's Happening and The Daily Emerald.
I found out that other people I never knew, like Ty Connor and Lydia Yuckman, but was aware of, were involved from time to time with Big Time Poetry and it was fun digging into this bit of history.
3. As I scrolled through Scott Taylor's list of Facebook friends, I most unexpectedly came across one of my favorite Shakespeare students from the spring of 1985, a great student who also cut hair. I was a customer of hers for a few years until she moved to Portland.
It was an eerie coincidence, in a way, that this evening I came across my former student and old friend, Marilyn Divine.
Within the last week, Marilyn had flashed in my mind. I remembered when she approached me after Shakespeare class one day and told me my hair was a mess and that she'd like to improve it!, conversations we had at the salon, the time she read tarot cards for me during a hair appointment, the time I was walking near the salon on Willamette around 15th Street and she was panicking on the sidewalk because a dog wandered out into Willamette Street's heavy traffic (the dog didn't get hit, thank God), and the evening we went to see the movie Radio Days.
If I remember correctly, on one of my ventures to Portland in the early 1990s, I was strolling in NW Portland -- maybe on my way to see a movie -- and I think I ran into Marilyn, a joyous encounter.
I never saw Marilyn again.
This evening I learned she died of cancer on November 28, 2020.
Learning she'd died shook me.
In my shaken state, I went digging.
I learned she continued to work as a hair stylist and owned Leepin' Lizards Salon.
I learned she also taught improv and performed.
I learned about her devotion to dogs, especially elderly ones, and of her compassion for and generosity toward people in need.
I found wonderful pictures of Marilyn and of the Celebration of Life held in tribute to her several months after she died.
And, most satisfying, I learned that Marilyn Divine was beloved.
The grief I feel knowing she has died is offset significantly by learning about her vivaciousness, love for others, humans and animals, her work in the world of improv, and the love and care she extended to those who put their hair under her care.
Many referred to her as a "hairapist".
I experienced that, too, 35-40 years ago.
