Deborah Kerr: Radical Kindness
Photo by Yul Brynner |
Phone Interview
1992
From the forthcoming Artistic Suicide
The
disappearance of time is the most startling thing. I don't mean simply that
there is suddenly so much less of it: I became aware that the very texture of
time had changed. In the early years of my life--first as a dancer, then as an
actress--I was very much aware of people surrounding me and helping me and
caring about my development. Time moves forward and suddenly people have these
heavy careers to hoist about, and they slip away. Not all of them, of course,
but many of them. The demands are so great. But this is a very sad and
inevitable fact of life, I think: People move away, drift off. It is not at all
personal--they are merely raising their families and tending to their
lives--but it feels very personal. It's a loss. And now that we're all old and
there is suddenly so much time at hand and facing us, we reconnect. We call and
we write and we hobble toward each other at benefits and funerals. And it all
comes back. Love and gratitude and memories. I have been so lucky. I think we
have to find a way to alter time, however. Not in a mystical sense, but a very
real sense: Let's just say to hell with what I think I have to do right now, or
what a manager tells me to do, and run over and spend some time with the people
who held out a hand and pulled you up. Radical kindness. Rebellious generosity.
I like that idea.
©2013 by James Grissom
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