Now is the Winter....

It is a contradiction, I know, to love the changing seasons and yet despair the winter cold.  But I do that; always have.  In the past ten years, the approach of the cold has filled me with foreboding.  Yet here I am still living in the North East, dreaming of Barbados or -- at the very least -- a working fireplace.  It is, with my economy, not a simple matter to relocate.

This winter, its chill preceding its official date, is complicated by chilling events.  I lost my job last May, and have not been able to find something since.  "Admins" I'm told are not in great demand.  My daughter, recovering from mitral valve replacement surgery, is back in hospital with pancreatitis.  Almost two weeks now.  This is her third hospitalization since July, and her little five year old is confused and bereft.  It has been very difficult for us all.  Christmas is something of a blur.  And while I am so looking forward to a trip to California the day after Christmas to visit with my oldest son and his lovely family, I approach it with trepidation.  Will my daughter be okay?  So many cancellations since July.  It's hard to proceed with optimisim.  

I am kvetching; that wasn't my intention.  My thought this morning was all the different kinds of winter one deals with -- Macbeth's not the least of these -- the winter of our discontent.  It is best I think to huddle -- not quite like "once upon a time..." at the general store pot-bellied stove or four to a bed.  But to have a society; to get together with family and friends and surround oneself with the warmth of affection and good conversation.  Barring that, there is the apology for the lack of the latter:  a good book and a comfy afghan.  A glass of brandy doesn't hurt either.  

The shortest day approaches; from then on minute by minute the days lengthen and it will be Spring.  Ever hopeful. 

I wish whatever readers of this there may be the warmth of love in this season.

My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, & I thank you..

The NPR stations have been visiting immigrants' kitchens this week to find out what they cook for Thanksgiving.  I listened with interest and amusement.  A Greek chef and his family had turkey but the lamb cooked in the open pit was the star.  All side dishes were Greek.  The French chef did very sexy French things to the turkey, and converted all else to French attitudes.  And so it went.  I had never thought of mine as an immigrant family, but since I'm a first generation American, I suppose it was.  As a kid I thought it odd when other kids had grandparents born in America.  Perhaps I imagined that everyone came from somewhere else.  Anyway, today I accepted my origins and recalled the Thanksgivings in my parents'/grandparents' home.  The only thing foreign was the conversation typically in Yiddish.  My grandparents' generation was all about assimilation.  My grandmother, Genya, became Jennie.  Her brother, Toldras, became Harry.  You get the idea.  She was hurt and angry if you referred to her accent.  She insisted she didn't have one.  (Meryl Streep could have imitated her for Sophie's Choice.) So my grandmother and mother referred to magazines and cookbooks to create the consummate, American Thanksgiving dinner.

My mom loved to set an elegant table.  Organdy appliqued tablecloths; crystal cornucopia with fruit and nuts pouring out onto the table; Lenox china with a gold wheat design.  Her turkey was the largest she could find; her stuffing began with cornflakes (really!).  Candied yams, apple pie, jello molds, apple cider.  On and on.  The gorgeous Henredon table, it seemed, opened to accommodate a cast of hundreds.  And waking up Thanksgiving morning to the smell of that dinner cooking; well, it was childhood euphoria.

After my father died, predeceased by grandma Jennie, my mother married Bonpapa.  He was Belgian and spoke many languages.  But his primary language was French and his accent was cultivated French (very theatrical).  When we went to their first Thanksgiving dinner, I expected something different;  the French touch??  It was the same dinner; the only difference was the abundance of wine.  Not an unwelcome addition.

I'm grateful for those memories.  And the how-to.  From the beginning of my married life, when our economy was non-existent, our table -- no matter the size -- welcomed all who would come. (the only request we'd make is please bring a chair to sit on!) My turkey is basically the same as mom's -- including the stuffing.  Other dishes have changed to satisfy the taste buds of my children and now my grandchildren.  Not so many people in attendance these days.  My friends are far-flung; my children have happy lives in remote cities.  And the folks I care about here have gatherings with children and grandchildren of their own.  The constant that remains is the gratitude; my thanks for the giving.  The gifts of the universe;  the love and caring of my family and friends.  My ability to give when needed and asked for and when needed and anonymous.  

And to keep myself company while preparing the all-American feast,  I sing Yiddish songs, an occasional French tune,  and permit the wondrously familiar smells that permeate my apartment to take me back to many a Thanksgiving-Past.  When my little gathering arrives, I, of course, spare them all of that.  They're making memories of their own.

The Unlikely Chef

Who in the world am I?

Ah, that's the great puzzle.

.........Lewis Carroll

It wasn't what they believed I could do that defined me. It was what they believed I couldn't do. That's where self- doubt begins; you know that. And that's when the straight road becomes a pitted mess of quagmires, rocky climbs, hair-pin curves, sudden drops and as many other difficulties as we can think up for ourselves. The universe of course obliges. But when one is oh-so-young, and oh-so-filled with dreams and amazingly innocent imaginings -- well, "they" have too much power. "They" being family, teachers, other kids.....how easily we break.

Where the hell did this come from you ask. Believe it or not -- I was making the pastry for several apples pies this morning. I make excellent pastry. I suddenly recalled a time -- oh so long ago and only yesterday -- when I was faced with having to cook for a husband and having no clue where to begin. Boiling pasta was a powerful secret never mind successfully baking boxed cakes. Rather incredible actually, given that I grew up with two capable women cooking in the kitchen of our Brooklyn home. I can't remember a instance when either my mother or grandmother actually showed me how to prepare any part of a meal. I stumbled along for a number of years, and then one day I phoned my Aunt Edith -- my Italian aunt whose cooking never disappointed -- I phoned Aunt Edith and asked her for her pasta recipe. She laughed and laughed. " A jar of Ragu and a jar of Prince with a pinch of oregano or whatever else you want. That's all I do." I was amazed and said so. "There are no rules," she said. "Just use your taste buds." That was the beginning of freedom in the kitchen for me. And the season I discovered that I could bake bread and make pastry for pie -- the miracle of flour and water -- my mother retreated in confusion.   My only secrets to my eventual success: I loved to cook for people.  And I had great taste buds!!                  (photo of Mina and Jennie)

"They" totally believed that I would flunk motherhood and destroy my first-born before his first birthday.  We did have a few months of rough patches to begin with.  Alex had colic and cried for almost three months.  Then he woke up one morning, the first day of month four, all smiles and filled with joy!  That very week we received a phone call that my brother and his wife, Stefi, had given birth to their first child.  The family was gathering in Philadelphia for a celebration and "naming."  (I just realized that they didn't charge out to Pittsburgh when Alex was born -- well, my mom did come. Hmmmm.)  Anyway, my mom sent me money to come if I could figure out how to do that.  Really -- that's what she said.  It didn't seem so awfully difficult:  I called the airlines; I bought an Obi baby carrier; and Alex and I would fly in early, spend the day and then come straight home. Don drove me to the airport. Alex was, from the start, a born traveler.  When I got off the plane (the days of climbing down the stairway and onto the tarmac) my mom and aunt stood there with their mouths open.  It was as though they expected an harassed, encumbered me to arrive with a screaming kid.  My mom retreated in confusion.  My only secret was that I loved my baby; I loved all three of my kids -- you can do almost anything if love is in the mix.

When Don and I split up my mom was certain that I'd fail miserably taking care of the kids and the house and figuring out how to support them.  (I've always been sure she feared I'd pack them up and arrive at her door.)  There were many rough patches.  For two years I held four jobs.  Then I created The Acting Place.  (an earlier blog).  Then I learned how to be an Executive Assistant.  Since I worked as a temp so that I could take leave when I got a theatre job, my mom chastised me often for not having a "real job."  She had little faith in the whole writing thing, and certainly less faith in the whole directing thing.  Well, no one starved.  No one "went without."  My toughest challenge I believe is now that I'm at the "certain age," have been laid off from my job, and have not seen the proverbial light at the tunnel's end these six months.  BUT I also went to Los Angeles this past month where my first screenplay was a finalist in an important film festival.  Mom's not around to "retreat in confusion."  Mores the pity. 

 

George Eliot brilliantly wrote:  "It's never too late to be who you might have been."  All this as I baked apple pies, as I do each year after the ritual apple picking day.  I -- who wanted to be a great and famous dancer.  I -- who wanted to be a great and famous actress.  I -- who wanted to be and still want to be a great and famous writer.  I bake pretty awesome pies.  Of all the things I accomplished that were not expected of me, baking awesome pies is near the very top of the list.  As for the great and famous writer.....  I'm still here.  Ergo -- there's still hope.

Although It Wasn't Cannes -

What happened was this: I had sent my screenplay into yet another competition. This time, it was a film festival in Los Angeles -- the LA Femme Film Festival. It cost quite a bit to enter, but I was impressed to do it anyway. Films by women and/or about women. I fit both requirements. 

 I forgot about it. Once in awhile the thought would intrude; I knew announcements might be made in October. On 9 October, I retrieved a phone message from my answering machine congratulating me on being a finalist in the screenplay category. One of ten finalists. The email that followed was meant for a different category, so that confused me. I made several calls to the festival office hoping for clarity. I called my son, Jamie, seeking some kind of sense to the thing. He looked up the festival, told me it appeared prestigious, congratulated me, and told me that even though I couldn't get out to LA it was great to be a finalist. Okay. I didn't spread the news around. I needed to absorb it. On Tuesday morning, now the 13th of October, I sat up in bed and asked myself when the hell I expected this to happen again. Given my age, and the slow way life often works. I knew I couldn't afford to attend from Thursday to Sunday. But I figured I could manage Friday night to Sunday night -- see some of the films, meet the people and attend the awards ceremony. And that's exactly what I did.

The Cheaptickets hotel wasn't really cheap although it felt that way.  But it was only a mile to the venue.  It was late when I arrived, so I went to bed.  In the morning, I walked out and found a Starbucks where I had breakfast.  Then I went off to the festival which was being held at the Renberg Theatre.  A charming place with two theatres actually and a delightful courtyard.  In an adjacent building was a gallery and offices.  The complex was the Gay and Lesbian center, a fact which had nothing to do with the nature of the film festival.  I was greeted warmly by the folks running the festival, given my VIP pass and the program for the remainder of the weekend.  I saw a couple of short subject films and then a feature which was a horror movie.  I don't care for horror films, and this particular one was reminiscent of every other one I'd ever had the misfortune to see.  But this was followed by a three hour seminar on how to pitch your film.  That part was extremely interesting, and at the end of the three hours I walked away with the peculiar knowledge that one pitched oneself -- they have to fall in love with you before they fall in love with your film.  The second important ingredient is luck and/or nepotism.  I was on over-load by then, so I went back to the hotel, attempted to arrange my limited wardrobe so I'd be cooler (it was 95 degrees in LA and I'd arrived from a snowstorm in Massachusetts).  
I grabbed my camera and walked to Hollywood Boulevard where the Walk of Fame began.  Well, it occurred to me that getting to LA again might be a remote idea.  So I snapped pictures, and was delighted to find myself in front of the Chinese Theatre.  I was, for an hour and fifteen minutes, a tourist.

A friend from college days with whom I'd kept in touch over the years picked me up at 6:00.  We drove through Beverly Hills and Brentwood to the apartment where he lives with his second wife (his first wife, also a classmate of mine, had died several years ago).  His daughter was there also.  She and my oldest son played together as kids.  And she is a poet also.  So it was great to renew friendships. A terrific visit.  

On Sunday, after my Starbucks breakfast, I checked out of the hotel leaving my little suitcase with the front desk.  I was taking the Red Eye back to Boston that night, and didn't want to shlep the suitcase around all day.  I was at the festival in time to see several films.  At 3:00 I sat in the courtyard at an umbrella table waiting for another friend from the past.  Steven was my star actor at the Boston Children's Theatre years before.  Now he is a film maker, actor, writer in Los Angeles.  We had a lovely reunion, sitting in a coffee shop catching up on each other's life.  This visit also gave me the inspiration to think about making my movie myself -- well, with a team of folks who know how.  It is not an impossibility.  Although being currently unemployed -- well, the important thing is to keep the thought perculating, sending out positive vibrations.  Stranger things have happened. 

The Awards evening was charming; cameras clicking away; celebrities being honored along with several awards to the film makers and screen writers.  I didn't win in my category -- screenplay -- but it was a winning weekend nonetheless.  My screenplay has credentials.  And even though it wasn't Cannes -- I was there.

A Cuppa

This is how is happened: I had returned from Pete's Trip. (Wanderlust - March 2009) Somehow -- I don't remember how -- I learned of an organization called Women Welcome Women World Wide. The 5 W's have strict rules about only spending a night or two in the home of another member, but it's meant to have a welcome ready in various parts of the world. I have never used the opportunity myself, (though I'd love to have traveled that much!), but have welcomed folks traveling into my residence city. My apartments have been too small for overnight guests who are not old friends or relatives. (air mattresses?) But I took a charming lady with purple hair, newly arrived from Australia, for a day in Manhattan. I've had dinner with a traveling group of 5 W members in Boston. I've email-chatted with many members. One day (2004 maybe?) while I was living in the NYC area and working in Manhattan, I looked up 5 W news on the internet. There was a request from a member visiting from the UK for someone to spend a couple of hours with her in Manhattan. Her husband was attending a conference that afternoon in Princeton, NJ. Instinctively I responded -- "I can do that." So we agreed to meet at around 3:30 pm in the lobby of the office building where I worked. It was in the East Village, so I anticipated a great walking-tour around the neighborhood.

That day it poured. Not rain -- pouring rain. My guest's name was Jan; I waited in the lobby holding a flower so she'd know who I was (I think it was a daisy? oh m'gawd!). Jan arrived in her windbreaker and her trainers -- soaking wet. We chatted for a few minutes. She was shivering. So I hurried her off to a little tea/coffee place on MacDougall Street called La Laterna. We sat down near the fireplace and ordered a pot of tea. We chatted as though we had reunited after many years; two strangers with instant recognition of each other. By the second pot, we had done the biographies, the major history, and were up to the hopes and dreams. By the end of the second pot, it was almost 8:30. Jan tracked down her husband, and invited me to have supper with them. I declined since I had to get back to Fort Lee and it was a "school night." We went to the subway, and before I could get her a ticket, she'd bought one from some guy for half-fare and was on the other side of the turnstile by the time I got up to the ticket machine. On the train, this uncommon woman told me she'd be traveling alone with backpack into Asia (I think that's right) and had never done such a thing before. Neither had I. We were both very impressed at the concept. I walked her to her hotel and headed for the bus station. We promised to keep in touch. Don't we usually say that?

We did. Email is a wondrous thing. A couple of years later we met again and had supper at a little Italian restaurant on Ninth Avenue. We talked and talked. Jan wanted to get together Sunday evening before she and John headed for the airport. I was chairing an evening of play readings -- the Carnegie Collaborative reads plays by playwright alumni of Carnegie Mellon University. She said they'd love to attend. I warned her that we sat on folding chairs in a dusty studio. She was not deterred. She and John arrived with their luggage and stayed through Act I, leaving only because they had a plane to catch. They were charming and genuinely pleased to have shared part of the evening, never having attended a reading before.

That was probably 2005. In July, 2006, I moved back to Beverly, MA, and became a "Temp" again. Jan and I stayed in touch; she traveled to Vietnam where she worked in hospital helping little children. Among other awesome trips. What an inspiration! I directed plays in community theatre. She thought this so creative and exciting. The next time we met face to face was Spring 2009, when her son ran the Boston Marathon. I was so happy to be able to give Jan and John a tour of the North End (in the rain!) and an impromptu visit to a very special art exhibit in a church on Newbury Street. The next day they came to Beverly, and we toured Newburyport and Gloucester and drove around the North Shore. In October, Jan returns to Vietnam and to the Children's Medical Center there. Then she and John will tour China. I love hearing about her trips. And she was so supportive when I took my 6 day birthday holiday in Italy. She phones me and has been an excellent friend through my daughter's surgery. It's my plan to go to England next Spring to see them there.

I do not exaggerate the importance of this friendship, serendipitous as it was from the start. I have had very close friends though not many "girl friends." Most live in other states; I've renewed friendships with a couple here in Beverly and they've been great. What's interesting to me is that I know my friendship with Jan is unconditional. Maybe it's easy to be that way at this distance. I don't believe that's the reason. I have/had a friend of 19 years; a dear lady who -- after one not-so-pleasant a dinner meeting, just walked away. Not a word. Friends from the workplace from which I was laid-off in May have vanished. What's that about? A childhood friend did the same thing a number of years ago because she didn't believe that Pete had given my son and me the trip abroad. "People don't do things like that," she said. How sad for her to believe that. How lucky for me to have known that.

Anyway. I sat in a small cafe the other day and had a cup of tea. A cuppa. And I thought of Jan. People touch our lives. How great is that? I was impressed to write about it. Thanks for listening.

(with Jan and John in Boston)

At Wingaersheek

And all things hushed. Yet even

in that silence a new beginning,

beckoning, change appeared.

........Rainer Maria Rilke,

Sonnets to Orpheus

We went to Wingaersheek Beach late this afternoon. The tide was out -- a marvelous event at Wingaersheek. You can walk a mile out to sea on the sand bar that appears. Clea, my daughter, wanted especially to go. Few people were there at 4:00; the sun was soft as was the cool breeze. The sky was wonderfully blue. Perfect. We saw a very large schooner pass on the horizon; and behind it, a smaller boat with black sails. Like a mystical pirate vessel. We walked the sandbar, then settled down on the same huge rock plateau we've always called "our rock" since the kids were small.

DJ (the 14 year old) was moody and itchy; he doesn't know how to be without his friends or his X-Box. Keira (almost 5) had scraped her knee so was being tragic. Clea was thoughtful; her surgery coming up next Tuesday. I settled my focus on the lighthouse at the end of the mainland, and the slow incoming tide. There seemed to be an unexpected silence. As though I were suddenly inside a bubble that closed out all sound. I felt something shift. Something changed. I know it happened; I can feel it now so many hours later; I don't, however, know its name.

Do you recognize that hushed moment-- that instant stop, as though there had been a minuscule break in a phone connection followed by a different voice picking up the earlier conversation. Extremely odd, but not disconcerting. I recognized a similar event recently -- actually several events -- causing the same effect. People have appeared out of my past; serendipitously. A couple were folks I haven't thought about in years, but seemed to come around a corner as surprised to see me as I was to see them. Each had a message for me though not realizing they were delivering one. (confused yet?) One is someone I have thought about often for many years; a dear, old friend and colleague. He may or may not realized he had a message he was delivering. Possibly I, too, am a messenger in this case. But with each re-meeting that stopped moment occurred. And that shift. Ever so slight, its impact will last for my forever. It may have to do with my work, with my intentions, with my journey. I don't know yet. But I feel the change coming. And I know it's a positive one.

It's been a difficult year in so many respects. And I imagine there will be more difficulties ahead before the radio plays Auld Lang Syne. But I know all will be well. I know something new is stirring, as though the Wingaersheek sand has touched the smallest spot and has begun a pearl. (that reads rather corny to me, but I'm going with it anyway.)

I have always believed that we are given a certain number of people in our lives. They come, they stay, they leave, we leave. But if we have unfinished business, if the purpose of our knowing each other hasn't been resolved, we will meet again. So the adventure continues and can't be forced.

The difference is palpable, if only to me. Perhaps I need to walk Wingaersheek again. And again. Remembering Rilke:

The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.

Sur La Plage!

"There's no saying
Who may be playing
With you sur la plage.
A knight who's left behind his charger
May call you "ducky"
Won't you be lucky?
In the ocean You'll find emotion
May play you a funny game
Sur la plage, sur la plage
Ev'ryone looks the -
Ev'ryone looks the -
Ev'ryone looks the same"
...................................from THE BOYFRIEND

We drove to Old Orchard Beach in Maine last week. To celebrate my daughter Clea's birthday. None of us had been there before. We love to go to Maine, and do so often. It's a short trip with lots of different attitudes. We like York a lot, and have gone since my kids were very little. Long Sands Beach is grand, and the waves are wonderful. There's the lighthouse of course; Nubble Light. And Short Sands Beach is in the beach town which boasts -- along with a variety of crap traps -- a wonderful 1950's style (remnant?) luncheonette that has a soda fountain and taffy machines creating the candy right in the store front windows. The Goldenrod actually opened in the 1890's, but the shop was rebuilt and feels very 1950's to me. And, as I've mentioned at other times, I love Ogunquit where I walk the Marginal Way, and enjoy some wonderful little restaurants and craft shops.

Old Orchard Beach is carny. Helped along by the Playland Amusement Park in the middle of the little village. The residential areas on the way to the beach town are really charming; the houses with gorgeous little gardens, and a sense that all is always good. The beach area attracts many families. Very little diversity which always
disappoints me, being a New Yorker, except in the social mix. Bikers, RV'ers, Canadians, and a mixed-bag of families. It's always remarkable to Clea and me when we are conspicuous walking down the street. Only because we've been a family since 1970; not much has changed around us. The beach itself is quite something; seven miles of water front with relatively clean, white sand. It's not San Tropez; but it serves. The food is mainly fried everything -- what one might expect at an American seaside gathering place.


We stayed one night in a less than auspicious motel. In the morning I walked down to the beach at six o'clock; a number of people were walking or jogging. It was a glorious morning -- not terribly warm yet; a good breeze; no humidity. When ever I walk a beach in early morning I spin back into my childhood at Rockaway beach; back into the early years of Massachusetts era when the children would be sleeping in the Anchorage Motel and I'd walk the beach to see the sunrise and listen to my phantom voices in the waves This walk began that way. And then a peculiar thing: these guys bringing chairs down to the sand from the rental bungalows at that early hour. Guests at the bungalows -- claiming their space for their day at the beach. It reminded me of the urban dwellers in the north east who shovel a parking space and hang on to it with chairs or barrels. Seven miles of sand. Room for all?

Maybe it's because photos of these places are often "old photos" of these places. So one expects the charm we see in the movies. "On the Boardwalk in Atlantic City...." with Fred Astaire or Judy Garland or Gordan MacRae --
Happily the children don't have this frame of reference, so for them it was a fun, carnival kind of place, where a mean grandma refused to buy them fried dough.

Go figure......!