38 Things About Carol Wright

Carol Wright is someone I’ve met once in passing – I’ve known nothing about her until we began corresponding a few times across the digital aether over the past several days. Here and there in those messages, she referenced things that were a mix of fascinating, significant, and downright beyond me. This piqued my curiosity to know more about her, so I asked if she would be willing to write 25 things about herself, or 30, or 40 – whatever felt right to her. I had a feeling she could really go for it based on the hints I got from her messages.

Wow – reading her 38 things is engrossing! Make sure to click the link to the flyover she references below about the book she helped make. That alone will give you a sense of the multitudinous talents she has – I assumed it would be a simple overview of a book; there is nothing simplistic about the video or the making of it, which is a window into Carol’s abilities.

1. I spent 18 months of the pandemic editing and designing the career-topping 248-page coffee table book of artist Jerry Wennstrom, A Second Wind: Art Resurrected. He first latched onto me during the Living Room Gallery exhibit organized by David Densmore and Susan Osborn in 2000. We are now working on PR. (A segment on CBS’s Sunday Morning would be nice.) Here (and below) is the video multimedia flyover of the book, featuring poet David Whyte. The book is available on Amazon (five-star reviews so far) and via Jerry’s website.
2. I am the oldest of four girls, pressured to figure out school and get good grades.
3. I played drums in school band, but also studied piano, flute, and guitar. As an adult, I studied violin and cello. I don’t play an instrument now.
4. My parents took us kids shopping for a bomb shelter when we were in grade school. We all cried when they explained that we would have to leave our dog Pepper outside to die. With all that mania about war with Soviet Russia, I studied Russian in high school.
5. The family scandal: when I was in my fifties, I pondered why I often had visions of slitting my wrist. I asked my dad if something happened before I was born. “Ask your mother.” I did, and she bravely confessed she tried to commit suicide while she was pregnant with me. She slit her wrist.
6. I became a Beatnik when I was a freshman in high school. I saw a lone, bearded man on a street meridian carrying a sign. I asked Dad what that was. “He is a Beatnik, and that is the peace sign, made from the signal corp flag positions. ND: Nuclear Disarmament.” Instant Beatnik, me.
7. I was a sandal-wearing (handmade in North Beach) Beatnik all through high school (class of ‘66) and college. I was never a hippie.
8. I did not drink until I was over 21 and did not do any drugs during the hippie era.
9. Through high school, I volunteered at the Palo Alto Community Theatre almost every night. My close friends were adults and brainiacs from Stanford. My parents totally supported me doing this, and often volunteered backstage.
10. Before I was out of college (Tech Drama major), I made my living designing sets and costumes, all period pieces. This included operas. I was designing shows before I was out of high school.
11. During college, I was tear-gassed by the National Guard at a demonstration. I also witnessed a moment in history when I was within 30 feet of Richard Nixon, who was jeered when he came out to his limo after a convention rally for George Murphy. The demonstrators went ballistic. With debris being thrown at him, Nixon stepped up on the side rail of the limo and held up his arms and flashed a V for Victory sign at us. This was the instant it became an iconic symbol of him.
12. For three seasons, I was a costume assistant with the California Shakespeare Festival.
13. There, I was “the dresser” for David Ogden Stiers, pre-MASH. I had a crush on him and did not realize he was gay. Memorable costume change – “My horse, my horse!” – was costuming all the soldiers quickly in armor. We had our own armorer…real steel, real swords.
14. My first job after college was in the art department of a chain of community newspapers in Silicon Valley. Phototypesetting, paste up. I was enticed by a “plant” to be the in-house secret union organizer for the International Typographical Union. I had an affair with the guy, Charlie.
15. I dropped “the theatre” totally. Before the photoshoot for Verdi’s Macbetto, the dour opera director – Henry Holt, Sr. – dropped dead. He was replaced quickly by conductor Edwin Flath. He was on fire!
16. I jumped into Flath’s music world, the California Bach Society, and did his promo for years.
17. I was accepted into the circle of the wild cellists of Berkeley. Our crazy group attended perhaps five concerts a week. I did their flyers, programs, and PR. Some of us lived together in a Craftsman mansion in the Berkeley Hills designed by Julia Morgan. It was like the Marx Brothers at the Opera.
18. I produced a chamber music festival with cooperation of the city of Palo Alto. Four Concerts – Brahms Among Friends. I did all the work myself, down to taking tickets.
19. After years in the theatre and getting a BA degree, I got a real job in graphic arts. (I had minored in advertising.) I dumped the theatre for graphics as a profession, and I dumped the theatre for “classical music” as an interest. I later became a music writer/reviewer in the new age genre for many publications and websites. Now going deaf from the years spent in headphones – $500 Sennheisers. Still have them.
20. My favorite book, which I read in college, was Samuel Beckett’s Murphy. It gave me the experience of an empty mind.
21. My cellist buddy got me to take Est in 1975. Game changer. I assisted in the art department of Est Central for years, and for three years I was on Werner Erhard’s crack Physics Conference Team. This high-stakes, intimate conference was held in the attic of Werner’s house. Feynman and Hawking. Hundreds of people assisting behind the scenes, invisible, no credit. “Trim tabbing,” as Bucky called it. I still do this, am this.
22.  Also with this cellist (gay of course), I enjoyed a one-month budget cruise sailing between Washington, DC, and San Diego.
23. Through a contact at Est, I was invited to be part of a secret group that took guided trips on psychedelic drugs. The lovable old guy who led it for decades was world-famous in these circles.
24. I got into the Ramtha movement in 1982. Out of the blue, I was offered to come to Orcas to work on what would be called “The Great White Book,” titled simply RAMTHA. Surprise, I had an innate knack for editing, and was the primary co-editor of the book, which I also designed.
25. I took Reiki and Jin Shin, and was a regular practitioner at the Healing Arts Center, which I helped found.
26. On Orcas, I was head of the Drug Abuse Prevention Task Force for a year or more. I was also on the board of the Orcas Sailing Foundation and produced the Heavy Weather Fashion Show.
27. I crewed for years on a Soling, with Hal Cook as the other crew member. It was many months before I asked what he had done for a living. “I was the publisher of Billboard magazine.”
28. I consciously dropped all affiliations with any spiritual movement, including energy healing. I did this “to be fair/neutral” when I worked at the New Age Publishing and Retailing Alliance (NAPRA), a trade association for New Age publishers, music labels, stores, etc. As managing editor of its magazine, I was fortunate to interview and befriend many big names in the movement.
29. Highlights of this time: Asking Bill Moyers a “yes/no question” (and he, chuckling, let me hang in the void), and then asking him who his editor was (“Jackie Kennedy”). And Clarissa Pinkola Estes latching on to me, calling up frequently to gossip about Jungians.
30. After NAPRA, I spent a year writing the update section for Jane Heimlich’s What Your Doctor Won’t Tell You. I wrote the section on 20^th-Century Diseases: AIDS, Lyme Disease, Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome, Gulf War Syndrome, etc. The project just about killed me, and she herself dropped the book after a year’s work at the insistence of hubby, Dr. “Maneuver.”
31. In 2002, I left Orcas to care for my mother, Shirley Wright, in Mountain View, California. She was dying, according to my three sisters. “Six months, max.” She had Alzheimer’s, and I was her caregiver for almost 10 years at home, then nightly for three years in a nursing home.
32. During these years, I was a writer/editor/designer for magazines published by former Orcasonian, Tovi Daly. The magazines were lifestyle publications on Kona, HI, and the Coromandel Peninsula of New Zealand. (Talk about working remotely!) The pandemic killed this.
33. After many years as full-time caregiver, I started writing a blog about my experiences. I reconnected with Dr. Estes on Facebook and shared the link with her. “Five Chapters and an outline to send to my agent! Book to be titled We Fought for Mercy for our Elders.” She was my secret confidante/mentor for over two years. I wrote perhaps 20 chapters. Eventually, I knew I could not publish this: I would be sued. Public guardian, lawyers, and family attacking. No thanks.
34. A special element of working with Clarissa Pinkola Estes was this: As soon as SHE chose the title, Ms. Mercy became a real force and personality, in both our lives. “You DARE use my name in your title?! I will test you.” Test? Like riding a tornado through a cactus patch. After Dr. E posted a moving story about providing hospice, Ms. Mercy let up on us. We passed.
35. While working with Dr. E, I wondered why I had the knack for working with such brilliant people, or entities (Ramtha). I devoted a morning to figuring it out. “My brain is really empty most of the time, so…” YES! “What?” Exactly. What I have learned goes into the background, and I access “knowledge” as needed.
36. I have been a close friend of composer Wendy Carlos since 1999. I have visited her twice in NYC, and once we were snowed in all night by a blizzard. She played music for me until dawn. For years, I was the only one she trusted to interview her. See her website for the interviews.
37. I was close to marrying two guys, both decades older than I was. One was the arts director for the city of Palo Alto, and later I lived in a Tiburon townhouse with the head of a credit card processing company. Also, I almost got involved with a genius, originally from Ghana (then the Sorbonne, Oxford, and Stanford) who was the venture capital scout for Sean Parker. He scored initial funding for those two guys from Stanford who had an idea for a search engine. We had ongoing coffee house exchanges, and almost…
38. Best quote from myself from a past life: “If you are the Son of God, save yourself and us as well.”

I had to look up a good handful of those references to people and places!

Thank you so much, Carol, for sharing your life experiences.

You can also find this on the April 24th Sun Days column on The Orcasonian here.