Say Brother; 2617; Crossing Lines With Alice Walker

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Alice Walker most noted for her 1983 Pulitzer Prize winning novel the color purple is also the author of other works Including you can't keep a good woman down Possessing the secret of joy meridian the temple of my familiar and living by the word But when Steven Spielberg and Quincy Jones brought the color purple to the silver screen Walker's peaceful life as a reclusive writer screeched to a halt More jarring however was the painful personal criticism She endured from within the african -american community For the film's perceived negative portrayal of black men and their relationships with their women Now ten years later Alice Walker has written about her pain as well as her own struggle with Lyme disease her mother's death after a 13 year illness and the portrayal of her love and best

friend in her new book the Same River twice honoring the difficult Once we enter the labyrinth Ordinary time and distance are immaterial We are in the midst of a ritual and a journey where transformation is possible We do not know how far away or close we are to the center where meaning can be found until we are there This is a book that I loved reading it is actually a Ten -year response, I think to the color purple to people asking you what it felt like to have this very intimate novel of yours Turn into a big -screen Hollywood film by Steven Spielberg I'd like to leap in And ask about what I think might have been one of the most painful pieces Alice Which is that when you came out with the color

purple and then when it came out as a book many people from our community Thought that that you were maligning black men being abusive of black men I was actually amazed by it. I was amazed that that is what people got from the color purple to me it was full of love and redemption and my grandfather is You know all over it in terms of spirit in terms of my relationship to him, which was very warm and very wonderful And I think also that some of the responses were just Out of a kind of ignorance because there were people who had great sweeping hostility and criticism Who admitted they'd never read the book they'd never seen the film and so this was about their own insecurity It wasn't about anything I had done Um and nor do I think of myself now as trying to answer these people I mean some of them have died some of them have gone through other transitions So it's not even about that. Right. It's really about Sharing with people this process

Which was extremely interesting and and also challenging And saying to the youth that yes indeed we go through these incredible changes You know as human beings and you can get through them You can actually be thoroughly trashed in this culture and survive and have a wonderful life And that is what I'm saying, you know, rather than trying to rake up anything from the past Right. It feels very southern and very black My grandfather who was an Episcopal priest and dedicated to the church for sure Was I think less interesting as a religious man to me as his granddaughter and to his daughter my mother And more as a spiritual man because he always followed the spirit You know someone would something would say to him I must do thus and so and it was always the right thing to do and it was often a major intervention And that's because your mom and your grandfather really understood How good you feel how much you you you nourish yourself when you do

that You know, I think for a long time. I didn't understand that about my mother You know her willingness to help out the neighbors her willingness to you know, take care of other people's children I kind of thought that it was all about, you know, just sort of hard suffering on her part to do this But that was entirely wrong. I mean my mother was very cheerful And it was because she was led by this inner spirit, you know to to be this way And it kept her happy And that's how I feel about myself. know, yeah, do you think that's inheriting? Partly, yeah, but I also think we all have it. I mean, we all have that little voice that little spirit that is saying You know, just it you know expand get give of yourself, you know And and you'll see that you you'll feel much better. You'll feel happier yourself. You'll you'll be healed It's the way of healing I think it is, you know, when you say get rid of all this noise In order to hear this Message the spiritual message. I think that's one of the

huge Problems and dilemmas today that it's just so frantic. There's so much noise. There's so much busyness That to kind of carve the space out and insist That you find a place so that you can hear these messages. I think is is to me the biggest challenge It is Sarah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, how do you do it? Um Well, I I did I think inherit this not in my genes but from watching my mother whose life was always busy and There was some way in which she was able to be present with whatever she was with That she could block out all of the other things that were calling on her Demanding of her insisting that she be there and she would just be present and that meant that as a mother Whatever time I spent with her I felt this attention. Yes, you know what I mean And connection and energy And this is the way I still can do this I can meet my mother in an airport someplace and we can just have an hour together And it will feel

like we've been together a week because we've nourished one another with complete attention This is another thing that's so fascinating about this book. It's about losing your mother To death when the film was being made just before she had had the stroke And then she was immobilized for 13 years and I found that almost unbearable I mean I after a while. I couldn't even let myself think about it Because she was one of the world's most active people. Yeah, so she couldn't garden. She didn't couldn't do any of the couldn't get out of bed Oh my goodness. That's too long 13 years So who took care of her during that you know, she had nurses around the clock She wanted to stay in her own house. She did she lived the life that she wanted given her condition And I you know, I was happy to make sure that that could be And I felt it as a great honor. That's terrific. You know, yeah But I have to say that there are days when you know, I couldn't think about it. I just couldn't bear To think that she couldn't be herself

Now she had the opportunity to see the film Didn't she can you talk a little bit about her response to that? Well, first of all, she wanted to She you know, she was incapacitated physically, but she wanted to go and even though she had to go on a stretcher She wanted to wear her high heel shoes I love it. I know you wonder her high heels shoes So, you know mom we dressed mom up and put her on her high heel shoes and put her on a stretcher And then we took her to the theater Now was this the preview or was it? No, no, this was you know, when the film we brought the film to eatonton, georgia This little town in the middle of georgia, you know, totally segregated My mother's entire life and most of mine To a little theater that was completely segregated until you know in the 60s And that is where we show this film and with everybody sitting everywhere. So this was a new experience for her Yeah, know, you mean the black folks not up in the right in the gallery. Yeah, everybody's everywhere And my mother there and and at last and

rebecca came oh everybody came I mean, oh everybody big deal, but When my mother sat there looking at this film it was so moving to me Because I realized and this was the point of course that at last she could sit in this theater And see something that had some Meaning for her own life Really mean real meaning, you know as opposed to hop along cassidy And uh, you know all of those westerns and all of those movies about you know people who lived in new york and You know just sort of fluff Meaningless stuff really And in which all the black people were servants When there were black people or buffoons, you know our clowns Yeah, mm -hmm. So this was very good. mean I I and she she uh really loved it She felt she could feel her mother her own mother in it Now remember you're saying that that part about her feeling Identified in terms of her mother being

in the film as being one of the greatest pleasures of her life It was so there was that resonance yet sweet is exactly the word for it And she had not read your book No So this was the first encounter with the color purple Well, it was kind of the first real encounter, but I think that my mother had been horrified by the severe hostility That had been directed at the book and the film and then I think I really think she feared what I had done You know and we were so close and I I think that she was afraid and also she had read the first page And my mother was such a devout woman and so clean of speech and thought She I have never heard my mother say damn. Oh my she would never say damn Yeah, so here she opens this book and right away. I'm using what she would call just absolute gutter language The devil's words, right? And so she she just you know, she couldn't take it So I think that was part of why it was necessary for her to see the the film I mean she was not a book reading person anyway But she

was very used to going to the movies every saturday. And so it worked out. Yeah Since my book the color purple was filmed 10 years ago I have been asked innumerable times about my opinion of the result I have found it one of the most difficult questions. I have ever tried to answer For many years I began my response by talking about the headache. got the first time I saw the film Peter Goober a producer had warned me that on first viewing I might be shocked I was to be grateful for the warning I saw the film in a huge theater with only two other people And everything about it seemed wrong, especially the opening musical score Which sounded like it belonged in oklahoma One of the things that you talked about when you were when You looked at the film was that it was quite different from the script that you had written Really, maybe people don't know that you wrote the original script

right for the film And ultimately it wasn't the one that they used exactly. What were some of the differences between The film that you wrote the screenplay that you wrote and the film that emerged on the screen Well, first of all, I want to say that I wrote this script And this was a time when I was using a cane and my mother was sick and all of that But I wrote it because I didn't want to send the characters down to burbank alone. That was basically my thinking But then when that didn't work out and and you know, I think that there were forces that that made it impossible for them to use my script really Because they were being criticized for you know, the lesbian Aspect and you know the hatred of black millions. There are people who were just really making life hard But anyway in my script Celian should have a life that blossoms, you know The activity of mister is is sort of a backdrop To this life that they have together Um, that's a love life. It's love. Oh, Oh,

yes. They are in love. They are in life But isn't it also true that you were wanting to make Sug more explicitly bisexual Sealy more explicitly lesbian. Yes, really in your film wanting to bring out these issues Of women's sexuality, right? And that was something which hollywood Couldn't embrace. Well, I also think that it was a question of emotional maturity I think that steven perhaps after schindler's list Might have been able to you know, this is steven spielberg might have been able to be a lot more fearless But I also think it would be a lot to ask of him You know as a man and as a white jewish man to kind of take on this in all the ways that I thought it could be taken on I just assumed that if you wrote a script In which this is the story then this is the story that's filmed Yes, you know and let the chips fall where they may But I think in trying to uh downplay that and to to to pull up the the male misogyny The the the whole tenderness that surrounds the

development of mister is skewed, right? Which is really your love of mister. I mean you're able to love this character. Oh, This is this is based on my grandfather who was a terrible person long before I was born But by the time I was born he was wonderful. Yes, and you were precious to him. Absolutely treated you like the bird Absolutely. Yeah, right. Yeah One of the I think big themes has to do with vulnerability and illness and both of us in our midlives have gone through major illness You speak about lime disease and your discovery of lime disease being very very sick with it Yes before you even knew what it was. Nobody knew this was in the early 80s. It didn't exist And so I was left to think all kinds of scary thoughts You know because I had no idea. mean I knew about syphus. I read about this chronic fatigue syndrome that very smart women get And so I thought oh no,

you know because there you'd be forever, you know kind of lounging on your couch Fatigued and you know sure enough. I was just really fatigued for years And I had to use a cane But with my sense of style and of course you would appreciate this I had a beautiful fade. Yes. Yes. You picked it up and where did you pick it up in china? That's right. It's a dragon. Yes a dragon with a pearl in its mouth. Oh my goodness Sounds fabulous. And how long did you walk with this cane? Well about three years. Yeah, and when did you ultimately discover? That it was Lyme disease and figure out a way to come back from it Well, I figured it out after people started discussing that you could be bitten by these deer ticks and that You know you would then get sick and you would have and I remember that I had had these three ticks I've been lying on the ground as I often am but I'm in the country because I love it And I have been bitten

and I had thought nothing about it because I'm a southern girl and you know We have ticks all the time and the dogs have ticks and you know you just pull them off And I had all the symptoms and I realized that that was what had happened and that I could you know The only way I cured myself was by forcing myself to really try to live My original life my active life rather than giving into the illness We all have these crises of faith, you know, I mean the the jewish people and the christians and the muslims I mean there's always that moment when you think Oh, no, my god has just said, you know, forget it. It's that god is not with me And so when I was bitten by these ticks and I became so ill I thought well, you know, the earth has really betrayed me this this whole love that I have of nature Nature has turned on me And so for a long time I wasn't able to garden or or relate because I was afraid And so the lesson really was that even though, you know, nature can can hurt us I we can get really cold out there in the snow. The sun can scorch us ticks can

bite us scorpions can sting us Whatever, uh, I still have my fundamental connection to it and still devoutly love it And feel totally renewed by it I belong to a people hard in mind who do not trust mirrors Not those in any case in which we ourselves appear The empty mirror the one that reflects noses and hair unlike our own And a prosperity and harmony we may never have known gives us peace Our shame is deep For shame is the result of soul injury I belong to a people so wounded by betrayal So hurt by misplacing their trust That to offer us a gift of love is often to risk one's life Certainly one's name and reputation The word betrayal makes me think of something which really I'm sure grabbed me and will grab many Woman

readers, which is your story of robert's betrayal in this book His relationship with another woman. I think a friend of yours were a friend of his This is a man who you had known for 30 years best friend been a lover of for 13 years And he tells you much later that he has had this relationship for a year And it's stunning particularly at the time when you're getting such public abuse And where you're sick yourself, I think in where your mother's dying So these things are all converging making one big huge Terrible trauma. I think it's called being kicked while you're down kick. Yeah, there you go To be really blunt. Yeah, there you go But but more striking to me than that because I think all of us can relate to that I mean I can my tears can come in response to that Is how you came back from that. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Uninvited Sarah, you know, I just wasn't gonna let it get me down. You know, I mean I had my very sad days But I love life. You know, I love life so much. I even love death You know, I mean I love all of it And there's a way in which um, you know, I just had faith that I would keep trying to be a responsible You know honest good person with this person who had done this thing and who was sorry Yes, you know and who had bad timing And who tried to face his envy, you know of my success Which was very hard. You know that that feeling of loving someone who Is is hobbled by envy of what you do and what you can do in the world rather than joyful But I I just decided that and together with him that we would just have to talk about it We would have to struggle with it. We would have therapy We would have whatever

it took So that you know, we could part and be people who still laugh and joke and go on walks and swims and you know All of that because this is a good person. I I feel an old friend one of my oldest friends And I just am not interested in tossing people away or pushing them away or You know judging them so so cruelly that you know, I never want to see them again. I'm just not that way All of my old friends no matter what we've been through. We're still friends, right? That's right, and they've put up with stuff from you. Oh, yes And you've put up with stuff from them. I am one of the world's most moody women So I can definitely make you feel like, know, I don't want to see you right. You're not welcome come back, you know next year You know, but yes, they they accept me. I just think that there's so Many of us who are hobbled to your word By a bitterness that comes after this kind of betrayal And I do think that the first step is saying it's not going to happen to me I'm not going to be

a bitter bitch. You know after this. I am going to live a life That continues to be hopeful a life of struggle but a life of joy And I think in that that's the beginning of recovery just that Declaration. Yes, and for me nature is what helps me through. mean just like people call on god You know, whatever god they're you know into nature is is what has kept me from being bitter and and It also keeps me hopeful and optimistic And I just want to say, you know that talking about this kind of betrayal is very hard Yes, but I am so happy to be doing it with you sarah because I think this is the work of adult women Now, you know, I think that in Cherokee tradition you become an adult when you're 52 Oh, well, we're almost there. We're there and I feel so strongly that we have to speak to the youth About issues like this because you know, I think that often they feel

That you do become bitter you do become just sort of trashed and trounced and you know tossed away and that's the end of it But in fact life just gets more and more rich It absolutely does it does. I think this mid -lifetime is so complex and so layered so textured and so rich and I think that Sort of one of the things that I feel that's so resonant in this book is this speaking your soul Not even your mind anymore because but your soul out And that is is heard loud and clear and there isn't this kind of defensiveness or posturing Or masking. This is who I am Alice Walker, Without apology, you know as a matter of fact with declaration and real happiness and real gratitude That's right, you know, that is felt absolutely felt in this book. Thank you How does the heart keep beating? How does the spirit go on? Like my mother who seemed to switch over to

another mode of coping after her body failed her So that she remained radiant even though she couldn't move I felt after a time of dimness and exhaustion for what seemed like utter meanness of spirit racism sexism homophobia hypocrisy and sheer craziness Lifted up by an inner spiritual reserve that I hadn't been sure I had The assumption that life is grand no matter what That suffering has a use It helps push away the old skin Surely not empathically flexible enough Still clinging to our ankles That I and all that I love or inseparable forever And that I deeply love courage and creativity and the boldness to try something new All of which I experienced among the collective who created our film That even to attempt to respectfully encounter the other

is a sacred act And leads to and through the labyrinth to the river possibly to healing And that this is a special effect of the soul You You You