WALTER CALAHAN Carter in costume in his DC loft. I emerged from five years of grad school in the late 80s well, if not victorious, at least not much worse for the wear (I quit). The early 90s found me plundering the depths of New York City. Then came stasis: spending my late 30s in that social cesspool known as the nation’s capital. Is there a better place to be when one is no longer enamored of one's own potential, when the daisies have grown more than a lit- tle like three-day-old foccacio? A better place from which to launch oneself into the new millennium, toward a new ceil- ing of consciousness? For if I can be said to be doing any- thing, it must be that. Yes, I write penetrating and provoca- tive theater featuring African Americans as universal charac- ters with depth and agency for a country that creates space only for mindless melodrama about marginalized morons. The truth is, after years of imagining myself in the counter-cultural revolution, I’m not sure I’ve seen any of it and I’m not even sure what it is. At Haverford, the enemy was pretty obvious. One could take aim at various incarna- tions of ‘the establishment’ and be pretty sure of hitting the pifiata. But out here, it’s much more difficult to measure success in terms of change. Change in society, change in the city in which you live (unless, woefully, you are Rudolph Guliani), even change in your own circle of friends, is extremely difficult to effect. The brilliant literary stuff is easy. What I find myself struggling to do are the so-called ordinary things: doing meaningful work, finding someone to love, finding the right tennis partners, riding a bicycle in the city, getting out of bed in the morning looking forward to the day. FALL 1999 What does some college | attended 16 years ago have to do with that? I don't know. I’m forced to admit | dont know a lot of things. I’ve stepped back fom the cultural front lines and reso- lutely focused inward. There I discover I have a time-worn capacity to bounce back. Whether it’s being graded unfairly by a Bryn Mawr English prof senior year and taking it in stride, recovering virtually unscathed from a head-first collision that by all accounts could have killed me, or untying the heart strings cauterized by a lover's desertion, I have this crazy sense that I belong in this world right side up. Did Haverford give me that? | certainly got a han- dle on the academics. Some of that credit goes to English Professor Steve Finley, my senior committee chair, a gifted ceacher and communicator. But ultimately I'll never know the answer to that one either. If it did, it was through the same process by which a rock is molded. You don’t turn around and thank the fire, shaking off sparks; in its mindless, imperson- al, relentless way, it only tried to force a meltdown. Maybe that’s why by the tme I ran headfirst ‘nto that SUV, my head was hard enough to leave more damage than it received (onlookers say the dent looked like 1 boulder made it). Maybe cars are just cheaply made. Anywhere but New York City, | still seem to carry more diversity with me than I encounter. Maybe that's my M.O. On the verge of 40 and on the edge of the new millen- bumhum, I work to increase the responsible use of alcohol and to reduce the digital divide. I write plays and never seem to run out of ideas. My car is back. I have a few sore bones and muscles. And I am generally happy. I get out of bed and look forward. I have the hope that my private bat- tles will somehow resonate on a larger plane. I no longer dream a world, I live in one. After all, no one knows they've given birth to an Albert Einstein or a Miles Davis, or even whether you are one. You just know you've got a baby to love and take care of, youve got a story to tell, youve got an idea about the world, or you've got a song to play, and you do the best you can. Wendell E. Carter works for Health Communications, Inc. helping people nationwide learn to consume alcohol responsibly, and is a playwright and reviewer. He lives in Washington; DC. His e-mail address is wendell_carter@yahoo.com. | a