CATEGORY: PORT TOWNSEND

After Arthur Miller was divorced from Marilyn Monroe, he went into a downward spin of insecurity and doubt.  Eventually he met another woman, who was intelligent and mature.  He wanted to get close to her but he was afraid.  She had been in a concentration camp during the second world war and had seen and been through terrible things.  She had nightmares.  She had one repetitious dream in which she had given birth to an idiot child.  It would come to her in her dream drooling and staggering and holding out its arms to her, and she would turn away in horror.  One day, upon awaking from this dream she decided that the next time she experienced it, she must force herself to take this child in her arms and kiss it.  Although it was agonizing, she was able to do this, and she never had that dream again.  She told Arthur about her dream at a time when he was trying to express the reasons for his reluctance to get any closer to her.  Then she said, “All our lives are idiots that we have given birth to, but there comes a time when we must take our lives in our arms.”  They were married and then Arthur Miller wrote a play about it.  It was AFTER THE FALL.  He used her exact words in the play.  I learned about it from reading the play and an article about his life.  I do not remember anything about the play except the part about kissing your idiot.

I have spent a big part of my adult life learning how to kiss my idiot.