A grapefruit in a bowl of lemons

This week we use Yoko Ono’s artwork as a starting place for writing. We also discover why is she particularly fond of grapefruit. Use these pieces to break your mind open and spark your own creativity

My daughter and I recently traveled to London for her school holidays. She was desperate to escape France, and I had found a week-long theatre workshop for 14-17 year-olds at the National Youth Theatre. In 1986, I spent an entire summer studying acting with the National Youth Theatre, and it was among the happiest times of my young life.

Tim and I debated which of us should go with her. It would be too expensive for both of us to go, yet Easy Jet doesn’t allow unaccompanied minors, so one of us had to accompany her. Someone also had to make her meals and make sure she didn’t take off for the hills to avoid going back to France.

I wanted to go. While we live in the most perfect village I can imagine, populated by artists, circus performers, writers, and musicians in the foothills of the Cevennes mountains, I am realizing that I am at heart a city person. I like living places where walking is my main form of transportation, where it’s easy to find foods that suit my deranged anti-cancer eating habits, and where I have access to theatre and arts in all forms. Where I don’t have to drive to the hospital.

Tim was happy for me to go. He had plans for our time away. While we were drinking in city life, Tim removed everything from Theadora’s room, washed the walls with sugar soap, and painted it with the color she had chosen back in July, when we first arrived. It was a true labor of love, taking almost the entire week. Theadora was overjoyed to discover her newly rosy room when we returned. I hope it helps her feel a bit more at home.

We ended up taking the train, as it was the same price as Easy Jet and took us close to our friend Jennie’s house in Tufnell Park. For the entire train journey, Theadora worked on the novel she is writing. At first she hid the screen from me, but eventually she said, “Do you want to read part of my book?”

Her opening page is beautiful. I’m clearly biased, but I think anyone would find it beautiful. We talked about her narrative and where it was going, and these conversations took us almost all the way to London. I cannot think of a better way to spend a train journey than discussing writing with my daughter.

I had been afraid that my energy levels would tank in London, as it had only been ten days since my last chemo. They are so unpredictable. But the moment  my feet hit the pavement as we strode from Jennie’s to the National Youth Theatre, I was suffused with euphoria. We walked everywhere. We talked with strangers everywhere. The lady in the Greek bakery we stopped in after T’s workshop every day gave us free blueberry muffins. I found a literary coffeeshop full of books with a kind owner who chatted with me every time I settled in to work, and who made the best soy cappuccinos I have ever had. We walked 20,000 steps a day. Cities don’t drain me, I remembered about myself, they fill me up.

I also saw friends for the first time in months. I have been a recluse in France as I haven’t had the energy to entertain or see people. But in London I got to see a couple of my favorite people (alas, not all my favorite people, so the rest of you I hope to see next time!). I took Theadora to see live theatre improv for the first time, since she was doing a lot of improv in her workshops.

We got one bonus day in the city, as French train strikes canceled our trip home. This meant we each got to see one more friend, and I managed to purchase the very last remaining ticket for the Yoko Ono show at the Tate Modern. I couldn’t even get a ticket for Theo, who said she didn’t mind and wandered the rest of the museum while I went in.

I am neither an artist (alas) or especially educated about art. What I love about seeing visual art is that it pokes my brain in new directions, provoking ideas for writing. I’ve always loved doing artist residencies with visual artists, because they think differently from the way I think. I could listen to artists talk about their work for a very long time.

I’m not going to attempt to define the exhibit, which would be impossible, except to say it was a retrospective of Ono’s work. Which I knew little about. I also hadn’t realized she had been married twice before John. Or that she attended Sarah Lawrence, where I completed my MFA in creative writing. It all made me realize how much her work became overshadowed by John, although of course they then produced work together.

I couldn’t help peeking briefly at Wikipedia as I wrote this, and was struck by this line: “Ono left most of Kyoko's parenting to Cox while she pursued her art full-time.” I have never seen something similar written about male artists and authors who have historically and overwhelmingly left most of the parenting to their wives. Maybe we should add that to all of the entries on male artists with wives who spend all their time raising their children and supporting their career? I think we should.

I digress.

Ono lived liminally, across countries and cultures, involved in many kinds of art and music. Here’s a statement from the exhibit that particularly resonated with me: “The grapefruit is a recurring motif for Ono. She notes, ‘I named my first book of instructions with the name of the fruit I loved.’ Ono sees the grapefruit as a hybrid between an orange and a lemon. To her it represents ‘East and West, the two cultures of my life.’ The fruit reflects her identity as a ‘spiritual hybrid,’ never feeling at home, either in Japan or the US.” I read this and felt I was meant to be standing there.

There were exhibits that inspired me and others that deeply disturbed me. I found it excruciating to watch Ono’s performance art piece “Cut Piece,” in which she invites audience members to come onstage and cut away pieces of her clothing. While the women cut away small, discreet pieces of clothing, the men gleefully went to town, delighting in exposing her underthings and cutting her bra. I wanted to grab those men and drag them away from her passive body. I believe this is the kind of response Ono wanted, the horror at witnessing the violence of many of the cuts. Being female still often feels like sitting still while the world cuts away pieces of you.

I also appreciated the “Bag Piece.” In addition to a video of Ono in the bag, there were bags strewn across a platform for us to try on if we wished. In disguising us, the bag eliminated our sex, age, race, and gender. We became, in Ono’s words, “just a spirit or soul. And you can talk soul to soul.” It reminded me of my female reporters at the Yemen Obsever in Sana’a, who were nearly just as covered up in their black abayas, hijabs, and niqabs. All that showed was their eyes. One of my reporters explained how she felt about this by saying that when their beauty was disguised, they could be appreciated for their real beauty within. This made sense to me. What world could we create if we could all speak to each other as if we were not our gender, age, race, or size? I wonder.

What interested me the most were Ono’s Instructions, not least as they stirred my writerly imagination. I want to finish this week’s post by giving you a few writing prompts inspired by a few of Ono’s instructions.

One

 “Conversation Piece

Bandage any part of your body.

If people ask about it, make a

story and tell.

If people do not ask about it,

draw their attention to it and tell.

If people forget about it, remind

them of it and keep telling.

Do not talk about anything else.”

You could follow Ono’s instructions to create a piece of your own performance art. You could also use it as a starting point for writing. Here’s one suggestion: In the morning, bandage any part of your body. If people ask about it, invent a story and tell. Tell a different story every time. If people do not ask about it, draw their attention to it and tell a completely different story. At the end of the day, choose the story that most interests you and write it down. Does the nature of the injury say anything about the person to whom it happened? How did people react to the different stories? Why would someone refuse to talk about anything other than their injury? You could also journal about how it felt to make up stories all day. Did you feel shy and ashamed? Or bold and hilarious? Feel free to use any part of Ono’s writing as a starting point.

Two

Painting to be constructed in your head

“Imagine a flower made of hard

material such as gold, silver

stainless steel, tin marble,

copper, etc.

Imagine it so that you can count each of the thousand petals of the

flower.

 Imagine that the petals suddenly became soft like cotton or like

living flesh.

In three hours, prick all the petals.

Save one and press it in a book.

In the margin of the page where the

petal is pressed, note the derivation

of the petal and the name of the petal.

At least eight hours should be spent

for the construction of the painting.”

Choose an aspect of this set of instructions as a starting point for a story. Maybe you want to start with a flower whose petals became flesh. Who might have invented such a flower? Or what natural forces might have been at work? Why would someone want to prick the petals? Is there a substance inside the petals that someone might want? Maybe you want to start with a character pressing a petal between pages of a book. Who is this character? Why do they want to save that particular petal? Few of us have eight hours to spend on this exercise, so set your own time limit and write from these instructions. There are no wrong directions.

Three

“Map Piece

Draw an imaginary map.

Put a mark where you want to go.

Go on walking an actual street,

according to your imaginary map.

If there is no street where it is

in the map, make one.

When you come to the spot where

you marked on the map, ask the

name of the person you meet there

and give flower.

The map must be followed exactly

or the event has to be dropped

all together.

Ask your friend to write a map.

Give your friend an map.”

There are infinite places to go from here. Describe your imaginary place and where you want to go on its map. Explain why you need to get to this place. Try walking it as Ono suggests, and describe what you see along the way. Is there any overlap with your imagined place? Describe your interaction with the person to whom you give a flower. Use that person as a protagonist in a story set in your imaginary land. Or do something else entirely inspired by any part of these instructions.

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