LEAP DAY!
Now that I have the basic sketch of Joanna's monologue, I am going to try to reduce the tangents and streamline the whole monologue. I'm going to warm up by cleaning the Elizabeth monologue up a bit.
ELIZABETH
I bore the weight for him. My son, whom all the things of this world could not touch.
I am born of priests. My husband is born of priests. All my life I bore the weight of a long family line, but when it came time to name my miracle child, I called him John. A new name in an old family. He was the herald of a new age, unburdened by the weight of the past, the old ways to God. I bore it for him.
Zechariah and I lived righteously. He served God in the temple with great diligence and so little faith. Even looking in the face of an Angel he could not believe in miracles. He was struck dumb, and my womb quickened, and he turned to me in wonder. All those years, in our shame, somewhere along the way he had dropped his faith. I bore it for him.
My cousin Mary was so young when my miracle child leapt in my womb - leapt at the greater miracle in hers. She was so young in every way. So new to shame and gossip - to all the unpleasant things those who think they are righteous do to others. Her song was pure joy and gratitude. She did not hear the irony of her words, "From now all generations shall call me blessed." All generations but her own. She had no fear of what God's will would cost her. I bore it for her.
When my son was eight, he asked for a piece of beef. He said not pork, not anything unclean. He wanted to know why he could not have what others had. Why he could not be like the others. I told him he was set apart, that God's plan required this of him. I did not tell him that there was nothing sinful in beef, that God's order was arbitrary. I bore it for him.
When my son was fifteen, I saw him turn down and offer of wine, and I wished he would just once take it - take it and come stumbling home drunk. So drunk he would sleep soundly enough that I could rip that damn hair shirt off him - just for one night. I watched him turn so easily from temptation, beat his body for it had no power over him. I tried to remember that it was a good thing - a good thing that he no longer felt the weight of temptations he could not indulge. I bore it for him.
When my son went to the desert and began to baptize, I was so proud. His name was everywhere, he did great works, and brought many to the fold. That was all he knew. He returned souls to God, he baptized the Son of God Himself. He did not worry about the kites of Rome or the buzzards of Jerusalem who circled over the head of this mad prophet threatening to spoil their comfortable world. He never felt that fear. I bore it for him.
When a small-minded housewife of a powerful man imprisoned him, he mourned only the loss of his ministry. It was only I who sat thinking, in the dark, alone with my thoughts, that if he had stayed at home he never would have come to her notice. He might have met a pretty woman who would give me grandchildren. In the dark of the prison, when they came for his head, he thought only of the souls unbaptized and of the way he had paved. He did not think of the lives not lived. I bore them for him.
I raised a prophet. I raised my miracle child to be a holy man that the things of this world could not touch. But I was not raised, so they did over me. I was raised to bear the weight. I put my body between him and all of those things that would have kept him from the divine message he bears. Anything that would separate him from the voice of God within him, that lights him up like a Christmas tree, I bore it for him.
[I'm not actually sure I made a lot of changes there, but it's a bit cleaner]
JOANNA
Salome danced when she thought she was alone. But she was never alone. I used to stand transfixed whenever I saw her. Most people in Herod's palace did. Herod's niece and step-daughter, so wrapped in pomp and protocol. But when she danced, all her silken chains fell to the floor around her, and she was bursting forth, pouring forth from some font from deep within. Bursting to live.
But she was never alone. She never felt their gazes, but they were there. And one day, her uncle-father and aunt-mother demanded that she dance for their guests. Did she guess? Guess that they were binding her up in new chains? At first she danced as freely as before, but then she stumbled, just a moment. Hundreds of male eyes were devouring her, and for all of her bursting, flowing movements, she only weaved their gazes more and more around her body. Their eyes seemed a single gaze, a single leering trap. And when she fell still, she fell silent. Everyone did. She silenced everyone with her dance. Herself most of all.
Her uncle-father croaked out a request, and she could only ask her mother what to bespeak. Not half the kingdom, but the head of a prophet. What did it matter to her, what her dance purchased? Nothing would free her of the gaze that silenced her.
I had heard the prophet in the dungeons speak. Everyone in the palace had. He spoke as Salome danced - as if no one could touch him, as if only in speaking was he finally unbound. Even as he sat in chains. He never withered under the gaze, as did she. But the trap on her fell on him as well. She silenced everyone with her dance.
Whenever people went away from the prophet in the dungeon, their voices rang louder for days. If I had been with John when they came to take him, would I have spoken for him? If they had come when I saw John irrepressible and singing rather than Salome silenced?
Salome silenced everyone, herself most of all, but it was my silence that they called perverse. They had silenced us all when they trapped her in their gaze. The only thing that made her free became her greater slavery. They said I grew strange. Silence does that to you.
Then there was a gaze like the turning of a key. I could have been lost in those eyes. I wonder if His gaze ever truly left me. No other gaze could harm me so long as I was in His. My name is Jesus, he said. Tell me yours.
Joanna. There were gasps around us, but I dared not break His gaze. Will you come follow me, Joanna? Yes. He broke my silence.
Chuza was unhappy. He had wanted his wife back as she was, so busy and bound in silken chains, not silence by a gaze nor freed from all her bindings, as he saw her now. He returned, but I stayed. I stayed and followed Jesus.
I travelled with the other women who knew what it was to be silenced. Who knew what it was to be asked to speak at last. I was there until the end. And when He died, after saying nothing in His own defense, I feared I would be silenced forever. I had shouted in the crowd, but others shouted over me. Their voices thundered in my ears and the roar silenced me. Of that Sabbath I remember only stillness and silence.
And when I spoke, on that Sunday, of the hope the angels had delivered to us, I heard the roar of disbelief, of grief, stop the ears of those who heard. I spoke, but we were silenced. I could not find my voice. Then He was with us, and His gaze fell upon me. For forty days, we gazed upon Him, and then He rose and left us.
For a moment, I believed he met my eyes alone. Perhaps we all felt that way. The next words, I felt, were for me. That the last thing He told me was why I had been silent, why still I could be silenced, "John baptized you with water, but in a few days you will be Baptized with the Holy Spirit."
The wind that came was a deafening roar. The flame was blinding. It burned it all away - the eyes ringing Salome, the roar of the crowd that had shrieked for death all around me. All faded but the still, quiet voice in my heart. And all around me, there was singing. I scarcely knew when I sang and when I did not or where I wandered. I felt no eyes on me, although they told me I drew every gaze. They told me crowds stopped to listen. More eyes than ever fell on Salome, but I did not see them. They did not touch me. They say many argued with me, and tried to shout me down, but I did not hear them. They say that my voice rose against them, that I spoke in every language at once. I was only singing, irrepressible and unbound at last.
They say the wind spread, and the flame, that day, in the crowd. They say other women took up my cries. They said I silenced any who came against me. I have been silenced. I hope they are wrong. They said every woman who heard me was converted. I hope, only, that they turned to speak."
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