In 1978 I read Women and Poverty, a thick brochure by a Quebec feminist lawyer, OH DEAR I HAVE TO CHECK SOME FACTS, NAMES AND DATES....
Well, that took a while. All my notes and files are in the archives of the University of Manitoba, so i had no way of retrieivng them - well, there is a way, but it would take too long. I muzzier and googled poking around the history of the (initially) Advisory Council on the Status of Women and the National Action Committee that attached to it later, trying to remember the name of the French-Canadian feminist lawyer who became the first president of the NAC and who wrote that little booklet that influenced me profoundly: "Women and Aging" or maybe it was "Women and Poverty". Her name was Louise Dulude. She's gone now, died in 2013. This was a long time ago so perhaps I can be forgiven for my faulty memory.
I do remember putting the brochure down and realizing what my next project would be. I decided that I was going to go and live on the Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security (which is what I'm doing now, with more than a little help from my savings, begun in earnest at that time. I'm not sure whether I'll outlive them.) I approached the Toronto Star's editor of the "Life " section (it used to be the Society Page) and proposed my idea. She agreed to a series, stipulating that I should wait until it was colder so that I should suffer. (I bought a winter coat at a Salvation Army shop.) I left home looking for a rooming house and ended up the first night at Nellie's Women's Hostel where I received some essential advice. Look for a place, I was told, with a smoke detector and with the landlady living on the premises. That way I wouldn't die in a fire caused by someone smoking in bed and setting fire to the place, and I wouldn't get raped by one of the other roomers. I was, however, courted by one of them.
I called that first piece of investigative journalism my Old Lady Caper. The second one came unplanned after the first one was published, suggested by a politically minded woman who couldn't get anyone to pay attention to the plight of mentally ill patients released from hospital with inadequate housing and care. For that one I was coached by a director friend on how to shuffle my feet, droop my shoulders and never meet anyone with a direct gaze. I found a place in a boarding house, sharing a room with three other women, having always to act, 24-7. That one I called my Psycho Trip.
I had two major revelations, one per project, not revelations but temptations, both unexpected. The first was The Temptation of the Hermit. I was living a pressured life at the time, supporting two children still at home, one of them challenged and requiring a lot of extra time (more so that ensuing year, when he had a psychotic attack), and my widowed, failing mother about to come and live with me after several episodes (presaging a stroke). The temptation was to disappear, just to melt into the streets, and fade away, my only concerns being to keep fed (vegetables especially, hard to get), keep warm, and keep off those attractively anonymous streets.
The other experience brought me The Temptation of the Impostor. I told you I had to act full-time, playing a role alien to my self. I had an assumed name, a bottle of Valium or some such thing, with my fake name on the label (i didn't take them, but they vouched for my authenticity,) and suitors for the taking (very dangerous). I was 50 years old at the time but I looked late 30s, early 40s because I'd had a much easier life than my Queen Street contemporaries.
It didn't occur to me until later that I should write a play about each of these adventures. A Place on Earth, about an old wman in a room, has won awards and is my most performed play all over the world. (There are old women in rooms all over the world.) The other, Time Bomb, has never been produced in Canada, but mention my name in Iowa. Both are available from Playwrights Press.
There, Marla, is that enough?