Letters from Max. Sarah Ruhl
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hours long and I have to eat in a really regimented way to keep my weight up as a result of the cancer/chemotherapy I had in high school—more on that some other time.
I now had part of my answer as to why Max was different from the other students, why life and death seemed to hover near him, why (beyond being a poet) he’d already contemplated the big metaphysical questions, why he was so skinny. Max went on:
I would really love to take you up on your offer of some post-graduating advice. What days are you in New Haven, and when would it be convenient for you to be a sage for a half hour?
The following week, Max, as promised, delivered an insightful and detailed sermon to the class on Philip Glass and Robert Wilson. He was to have spoken for five minutes—he spoke for about an hour without stopping. (I later learned that a bright young woman in the class was horrified that a man was taking up an hour of her time with a lecture on Philip Glass; she was to become one of his best friends.) In class, Max had boundless enthusiasm. He had highly refined irony without ever being cynical. And if he was aware that his brain made connections ten times faster than most of his peers, he didn’t show it; he just seemed happy to be in such good company.
I met with Max after class at the local bookstore-café, Atticus, where we sat at the counter and ate black bean soup. Max ate slowly, with difficulty, and explained that in high school he’d had Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare pediatric cancer, and the chemotherapy made his digestion iffy. He explained that he was in remission and slowly finished three spoonfuls of the soup. Then he put his spoon down, and spoke about his dreams of becoming a poet, resting here and there to speak about the trials of love. (A girl was probably plaguing him at the time. A girl was often plaguing him.)
The semester wore on, with more deliciously coined phrases from Max in class (phrases like “theatrical onanism” and “lyric complicity”) and more of the same leaves falling on the same gothic campus. Then, in October, another email from Max, addressed to me and to the teaching assistant, Amelia:
Dearest Sarah and Amelia,
I write with sad news. Today was my cancer scanning day and an artifact was discovered in my right chest. We are waiting for more testing and surgical biopsy, but it is possible that this is a recurrence of my cancer. I have every intention of carrying on with my work—I just wanted to forewarn you that there might be some difficulties on the horizon. I can’t say how much you’ve both come to mean to me in my short time learning from you. If nothing else, maybe we’ll squeeze a great play out of whatever comes of this.
Gratefully,
Max
The small class and I were heartbroken.
A hurricane was about to arrive in New York City, and Max was about to go into surgery. The conversations Max and I had about art and life took on a new urgency, and our correspondence began in earnest.
Part One:
New Haven, 2012–13.
Or,
“Learn to love everything—the world becomes heaven. . . .
I have a better idea, pass the soap.”
OCTOBER 25, 2012
Dear Sarah,
I go into surgery in five or six hours. I will miss you—wish me luck as they cut me and fill me with opium and hand down the unappealable verdict!
I will get everything in, perhaps just not in a timely fashion. The idea of my one act is daunting—I might want to do a cancer one act. And I might want to very much not do a cancer one act. I will only have clarity a little later.
In the meantime, I thought you might enjoy a few poems I’m working on: proof of a fecundity, if unsoundness, of mind. Any comments would be deeply appreciated. I’m clinging more and more to my writing as my panic is increasing—and have just not had the concerted span of time necessary to write some of the staged things that are brewing in me.
X
SCAN
Lie flat,
comes the command,
from a voice unsinging;
the voice starts to weep
and I blow it kisses.
OCTOBER 27
Dear Max,
I have been thinking of you and sending you, or trying to send you, powerful wishes of healing.
I loved your poems. You have such an ear, such a mind, such a beautiful singing ear and intellect. Thank you for the gift of them.
I am terribly terribly sorry about what seems to be the news of the artifacts. I am assuming that the fact that you emailed yesterday means that you are out of surgery. That is a comfort, and I hope you are resting and recuperating from the invasion.
I want you to write in any way that makes sense to you this semester.
Max, is there anything I can do to help? Happy to visit the hospital if you’re up for visitors, or do you need books or distractions? Or if there’s anything I can do for your mom while she is in New York during the hurricane?
We are all rooting for you,
Sarah
OCTOBER 29
Sarah,
I can’t tell you how much your note means to me.
I am in my room at home—tomorrow, assuming the hurricane doesn’t box me in, I will be back in Sloan’s to receive the protocol. I will be penned up there for two or three weeks. Then hopefully the treatment can be transferred to New Haven.
It would be great if you’re in New York anyway if you visited at the hospital. That would mean a lot to me. Bring me a book and inscribe it! Reading is good. Writing is about all I have.
Today was mostly breathing exercises and limping and coming off of the opiates, as well as the transfer to home. Strange dreams with lots of focus on skin texture. My uncle has flown in from Israel—he gave me some acupuncture, which unblocked a very preverbal chunk of fear and rage—I felt like I was a prophet channeling my tumor.
Max
That fall I was knee deep in rehearsal for a play of mine called Dear Elizabeth, an adaptation I wrote of the letters between Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, that premiered at Yale Repertory Theater. It is strange now to reflect that just as I met Max, I was thinking keenly about the friendship between two writers, expressed through their letters. Bishop and Lowell found in each other’s minds a cure for a solitude particular to writers. When I read their letters for the first time, I found their friendship moving, and desperately wanted to hear their letters out loud. It had not been an easy play to write—I was trying to write while one child was vomiting, one child was screaming, and one child was imploring me to read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle out loud. At the time, my twins—Hope and William—were two years old and my big girl—Anna—was five.
And that was the state of affairs when I met Max; motherhood and writing had me feeling underwater much of the time. Meanwhile, Hurricane Sandy hit, rehearsals for my play were canceled for a week, no trains were running between New York and New Haven. I found myself stuck in New York at the same time Max was stuck at the hospital.