For Fred, in the new year

31 Dec For Fred, in the new year

As the moment in history we know of as the year 2020 comes to a close, the online, print, radio and TV media are filled with remembrances of those we’ve lost this year—from the famous whose names we knew before.2020, to those who died at the hands of police whose names we now know and will never forget, to the hundreds of thousands who’ve died from COVID-19, with too many names for us all to remember. 

Tonight, two days before a new year begins, I am remembering my friend and mentor Fred Newman who died in 2011. Because of all these remembrances of those we’ve lost, I am remembering Fred in the way he taught me and others how to understand loss —”There is no loss in history.” 

In his honor, I share these memories of Fred by his and my dear friend Cathy Salit.

A Ridiculous Tradition

“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, a true revolutionary

is guided by great feelings of love.”  Che Guevara

This quote is one of the first that I heard about revolution growing up. Coming of age in the 1970s, my bedroom wall was adorned with a silk screened poster of Che’s beautiful face with this saying. It was held up with scotch tape and so eventually it frayed and tore but I managed to hold onto it for decades before it finally got tossed or lost during one of my many moves.

The late American philosopher, social therapist and political activist Fred Newman (1935-2011) had this poster on his therapy office wall for many years. I framed it for him (I was his assistant for over a decade), and so it managed to stay relatively intact over many years.

Sometime in his later years, Fred shared that perhaps we’d been focussing on the wrong part of the quote, the revolution and love part. He wanted to spend some time in the first part, “at the risk of seeming ridiculous”. That line began to have greater meaning to him; Fred, who, in addition to being a brilliant thinker and political strategist, was also very committed to taking “the risk of seeming ridiculous”, and helping others to do the same. 

I am one of his proteges. He helped me and a sprawling community of people from many walks of life to take risks and to use play, improvisation and performance to simultaneously challenge the status quo while creating new forms of life. New kinds of conversations where people who “don’t belong together” – Black, white, rich, poor, queer, straight, young, old, etc.– create environments where they are able to hear and see each other, made possible with a healthy dose of play and being ridiculous together. New political initiatives here in the US where ordinary people dare to challenge the two party status quo, by doing ridiculous things like back in the late 1980s making history by gathering well over one million signatures to get the developmental psychologist Lenora Fulani, the first woman and the first African American on the ballot as an independent for president in all 50 states. New forms of psychotherapy — where the therapy isn’t “about you”, but a loving space where people build together to create new kinds of emotions, ridiculous as that may sound. The list of activities and examples would fill a large book — and has filled several already –with more to come. 

I miss Fred a lot of the time, but I especially miss him over the Christmas holidays. When I first started working for him back in 1980, we spent Xmas eve day together going Christmas shopping. He never wanted to shop before then. For a few years (in my early 20s) it annoyed me, “We could get even better presents if we planned in advance, Fred!” But he had no interest in that. He liked the ridiculousness of buying gifts for his dearest friends as near to the stores closing as possible. This became a tradition for us; well past my decade of being his assistant in all things.  And so every Xmas eve for 30 years we went out shopping together, and then came back to his home where we drank scotch (he taught me to develop a taste for it), talked about everything and anything, and wrapped the presents. We did this even when he became confined to a wheelchair, and wasn’t allowed to drink anymore because of his kidney disease. 

I remember our last Xmas eve together in 2010. He insisted on us going out even though he was so very sick and couldn’t go into the shops anymore. I took him in his wheelchair, all bundled up, and we sat in the nearby park in Greenwich Village together for about 10 minutes. Then I took him home, directions in hand on what to buy for whom, and I did the shopping myself. When I brought them home to him, he smiled approvingly and kissed my hand. 

Two revolutionaries with a ridiculous and loving tradition. Happy Holidays, Fred. 

Love, Cathy