Over the past three days, Sid and I have been able to make some really beautiful connections with Lakeview. It seems to have widened both our understanding and our appreciation of the neighborhood and its residents. On Monday we were invited to the Villarrubia home for our weekly meeting. The house has held six or seven generations since it was originally built by Jan’s family one hundred years ago exactly. The architecture and the interior are stunning, but it was especially significant to visit the basement. Jan showed us around the space that belonged the the man who served as inspiration for Cashmere in Turning of the Bones.
We were also fortunate to meet Jan’s father and hear stories of the home and family while looking at their old photographs. Sid and I were able to attend Kathy’s last performance of Spaces In Betweenon Tuesday. This piece was included on the Lakeview Sunset Bus Tour last year. Set at her gutted childhood home, the house serves almost as another performer, contributing to Kathy’s dialogue and movements while guiding the audience from room to room. The dynamic performance really brought the space to life. I think I can speak for Sid as well in saying how thoroughly we enjoyed and appreciated these women sharing their homes and memories of Lakeview with us.
Today we visited Holt Cemetery, the final resting place for the real people behind the characters in Five Dollars a Day and Carfare and Turning of the Bones. In trying to locate it, we were alerted to a lack of community awareness about the cemetery as many people did not know about it. When we arrived and wandered around, Holt proved to be incredibly moving. It was evident that some of these people were very loved even if only a hand-painted sign and plastic flowers were there to mark the grave.
