It's Saturday

It’s Saturday. I am typically “up and out,” on a Saturday. Today is different. Maybe because it’s only 20-something degrees at the end of March; maybe because I was taking a medication this week that made me jumpy and having stopped taking it today I’m crashing. (NOT a narcotic; don’t get excited!) But whatever the cause, I found myself crawling back into bed after bumping into walls for a few hours. I woke up suddenly realizing I’d been dreaming about my Dad. A dear friend of mine lost her father this past week. He was 80 years old. Losing Daddy. There’s never a good time.

As I’m typing this, my Dad’s been dead for 46 years. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over it. I had been married exactly one month, and I had just turned 22 when he died. He was 50 years old. Just a few years ahead of the medical knowledge the doctors needed to prevent such post-operational complications.

He was not an ordinary man. Ben was 10 years old when he came to America with his family from Stolin, Poland. Benko Tkatch. Of course, he never used that name. He’d tease about it telling me it was pronounced “T-koch.” We thought it was a Polish name with various interesting pronunciations. Several years ago I met a gal with the same name. She told me it was very common in the Ukraine and was indeed pronounced T-koch. A moot point, since Zadie, Dad’s father, (Moshe Tkatch) somehow left Ellis Island as Morris Cohen. (The Ellis Island folks insist that they didn’t change people’s names. But Zadie would never have chosen Cohen; he wasn’t a kohane. A Judaic thing; maybe I’ll explain it later. Probably not. Zaidie’s brother, Michael, left Ellis Island with the name “Kay.”) Ben was the oldest son; his brother, Uncle Jack, was challenged and appropriate educational opportunities were unusual. Dad had two younger sisters, both born in the USA. Sara and Lillian.

They bought a house on Beach 82nd Street; a boarding house that brought in most of its income in the summer when people would come out from the city and rent rooms for weeks or weekends. Bubbe Goldie, my Dad’s Mom, ran the boarding house. This was the home in which Dad, Jack and then Sara and Lillian grew up. There was a large apartment in the front, and a whitewashed hallway with tile floors led back to the door to Bubbe and Zaidie’s home and also to the stairs to the upper levels. Entering the apartment was always a little scary for me when I was young. It was very dark and there were closed doors as one came through. There was a complete kitchen for cooking the meat dishes and then, in the main part of the apartment, the everyday kitchen for cooking the dairy foods. This kitchen dominated the living space. There was a small living room, and two bedrooms at this end of the house. The toilet had a room of its own, and it had a wooden seat and a chain hung over head for flushing.

Upstairs were many bedrooms on several floors. People on each floor shared a kitchen and a bathroom. I remember the inside of the house best in winter. In summer we spent our time outside. But in the winter I could roam around the chilly house, which smelled always of damp sand; iron beds painted white with white bedspreads stood in every room. My older brother and I would play hide and seek on the upper floors in the off seasons. When we’d dash back into Bubbe’s house, the warmth of baking would always rush at us, the smell of hot bread. And if Bubbe knew we were coming to visit, she’d bake challah and mini-challah’s for each of us kids. And her wonderful cherry cookies. But somehow, thinking back on it is more comforting than it was comfortable when we were kids. I always felt as though I had entered a foreign country when I stepped across the threshold. Of course, I had.

There were lockers behind the house and shower stalls. Bubbe Goldie would rent the lockers by the day so visitors could stash their stuff when they went across the street to the beach. And then they had the use of the showers. Also, under the house, was a candy store. Today we’d call it a convenience store. Over the years anyone in the family who needed to make a few bucks would run the store in the summer time. When Dad was growing up, he and his sister, Lilly, helped his Mom run the store. When he was in high school, he ran the store to send himself to college.

Bubbe Goldie was quite a business lady. From what Dad told me, she learned this at her mother’s knee. Theirs was not an agrarian tradition. (Although Dad truly knew how to cultivate a garden, and he didn’t learn it in Rockaway) She and my Dad had a private, special relationship – open enough that she told him everything, and he’d scold her. And sometimes they’d shout at each other. It was, of course, always in Yiddish so I never did get inside their relationship. Also, she died the year I graduated public school. She was in her early sixties. I was 12 years old.

Zadie was a cobbler. In Europe he was a boot maker. In this country, he repaired shoes and had his own shop in the main shopping area of Rockaway. He worked hard. There was always a lot of whispering about Bubbe and Zaidie’s relationship, but the whispering was always in Yiddish. Although it was truly the Mammaloshen, in our house it was pig Latin – the secret code. Sadly, my brothers and I always understood just enough to misunderstand completely. I remember Zaidie’s shop. And I remember the thick, lyrical way he spoke Yiddish. And I remember that he kept pigeons behind the house, above the lockers and showers.

I have later memories of Zadie. But I’m not writing a book here. Dad told me other stuff. Not all good. He didn’t tell this with bitterness. Zaidie was apparently very tight-fisted with money. He also contracted tuberculosis and was in hospital for quite a long time when the family was young.

Dad would speak to me about his family on drives to Rockaway Beach. Once a week, usually on a Friday night or on a weekend evening, Dad would try to get one of us to go to Rockaway Beach for the obligatory visit. In the summer it was not a problem. All of us welcomed a walk on the boardwalk or a run on the beach or an hour at Playland. But on the winter evenings…well, I was usually the one who went. It was not a hardship. I had Dad to myself for the drive out and back. And he would talk about stuff to me then. Getting him on his own, well, that was when he was who he really was. And he was pretty damn smart. Not only with the stock market. And he was very smart with the stock market. He borrowed wedding gift money from my mother after their marriage and returned it to her in a year with interest. The income from that money, he turned into the college funds for three kids, vacation money, and eventually the nest egg he never got to retire with and which became my mother’s freedom after his death. He also invested money for Zaidie after Bubbe died, when the city bought the house by eminent domain; the house and all the houses like it were demolished for low income housing. Everyone always thought my father was a millionaire. Partly because he was so clever with money; but mainly because Jennie, my mom's mother, told the world he was. Isn’t that remarkable? People love to believe shit like that!

Dad spoke English with a very slight George Jessel accent. (You probably don’t know who Jessel was or what his accent was like and I can’t help you there.) He was fluent in Yiddish; he understood Hebrew and could read it and translate it. He spoke fluent Spanish from high school Spanish and fluent German from college German. One day I heard him speaking Polish to an old lady in Rockaway, albeit tentatively; blew my mind. He didn’t seem able to forget anything! His powers of logic were phenomenal; he read and discussed philosophy. He loved fine books – not just the content, but book-art; the covers; the calligraphy; the paper. He didn’t have time for sports although he was a very strong swimmer and played a mean game of handball. And above all, he loved music. He had a stereo system built into the house. Speakers in several rooms. And a solid collection of the classics as well as jazz sung by female vocalists. His favorite was Lena Horne. He listened to Gilbert and Sullivan and Mahler and Mozart. Dad educated himself in books and music and theatre. He loved a stroll through a museum. His favorite was the Museum of the City of New York. It’s not an enormous place and the presentations are always varied and integral to New York’s history. Dad loved New York. It was for him the only city in the world.

Every Saturday I went to the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in Manhattan – from the time I was eight years old – to take modern dance and speech (elocution) classes. Sometimes my Dad would meet me after my classes. He’d take me for lunch or tea at Little Vienna, a favorite café of his. It was a typically charming old-days New York café, steps down under an awning, with several little rooms or areas that felt like separate rooms. The only thing I remember eating there were the desserts: the waiter would bring a three-tiered cart and all of these gorgeous desserts would sit on their own flowered plates daring me to choose. I almost always chose the fruit tart although I was torn between that and the petite Napoleons. I remember best the fruit tart that was filled with half a peach (or apricot?) lying upside down in sweet custard. Dad would let me agonize and then tell me to have both! I wonder sometimes how often we went. Surely more than once, but maybe only twice. In my internal child’s place, it was enough times to create history between us. No one else in the family ever went there with him.

I recall my Dad reading books to me when I was little. I remember sitting in his lap and looking at picture books together. And he would tell me the same made-up story whenever I asked him to tell me a story. I’d feign anger and he’s laugh. Sadly, I don’t remember that story. On Valentine’s Day, I’d sit on the stairs in the living room waiting for him to come home. He’d always have an armload of roses for my Mom and one of those big, satin boxes of chocolates, and usually lingerie or something like that. And he’d always bring me one of those sweet, tiny heart-shaped boxes of candy.

Dad and I went to the theatre together a couple of times that I can recall. We went to see The Wall when it was on Broadway. We both wept. And once when I was in high school, we went together to see Le Commedie Francaise perform Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. We had great fun that evening; neither of us understood a word of the play, but we laughed a lot. After, we went for dessert someplace, (Lindy’s I think) and I was decked out in my beret. I pretended I was French and spoke with an accent and he was so amused and lit my cigarettes; people at nearby tables reacted as though we were on a date. Dad thought that was really terrific. We had a great time.

He was an awesome shopper and loved having an excuse to go through specialty stores and European markets. Dad loved good food. His favorite restaurant was The Abbey – an authentic schmorgasbord at a hotel in Manhattan. He loved being able to eat little bits of lots of different foods. When Mom was off at a meeting, we’d empty the refrigerator and make our own schmorgasbord. I don’t recall him cooking very much until after Jennie died. It was my father who taught my mother how to make bread. I remember them in the kitchen together, mastering that. He loved to cook Sunday breakfast – lox and eggs. Not my favorite, but he prepared it very well. And of course from his days running a candy store, Dad would make jelly apples (they call them candy apples now). That was a great treat when our friends came over.

He was a field auditor for the New York State tax department. One of his clients owned Lundy’s Restaurant in Sheepshead Bay. In those days, the old Lundy’s was three or four stories high and was run with sleek efficiency by a major domo. When we went to Lundy’s for dinner – usually a “Hallmark” occasion like Mother’s Day or a birthday – Dad always got a table. A good table.

He wasn’t free with money -- it hadn’t been easy to come by. And he loved a bargain; he’d rather wait to discover a real find than simply go into the store and buy a piece of furniture. His generosity was a generosity of spirit. For example, at tax time, the entire family would come to see him to have him fill out their taxes for free. It would annoy him, especially after long days at work doing the same thing, and because the relatives just expected it. Nevertheless, he’d do it; he never turned anyone away. And not just for his relatives; Jennie’s family would march in as well. And in his inimitable, schizophrenic way, he’d oblige and then be angry with himself.

But the best story related to Dad’s tax time, was his relationship with Shultzy. My brothers couldn't help me remember who exactly Shultzy was. Possibly, he and Dad went to college together. Or he was from Dad’s neighborhood in Rockaway. Mr. Shultz had an office in a poor section of Brooklyn. I think he sold insurance. He might have been an accountant. Dad had known him for a very long time; he called him Shultzy; Shultzy was a dwarf. One of his great talents was as a calligrapher. Sometimes I could convince him to address an envelope to me. A few times when I was a teenager, my Dad asked me to go with him to Shultzy’s at tax time. He’d go several times during the tax period to help Shultzy out. My job would be to sign people in. The clients were mainly poor folks who lived in the neighborhood. They were always very suspicious of me: “We want to see the man,” they’d say. And I’d hear my father talking to the clients. Scolding the women who’d had another baby that year and still no husband. He’d always charge them: a dollar, a quarter. Always something. I asked him the first time we went there why he charged them so little. “Because they’re very poor,” he said. Then why do you charge them at all, I asked. “Because they’re proud,” he answered.

He never took any of the money with him. He left it for Shultzy.

He loved mermaids and the idea of mermaids. I wear a ring that was his; a silver ring that is a mermaid. One of his favorite films was Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid. I don’t know what that was all about; perhaps it had something to do with growing up near the ocean. And loving things fantastic.

And he was my greatest champion and most awesome critic. You were either very smart or you were stupid. In between didn’t work for my Dad. In public school, by all early reports I was not too bright. So he didn’t expect much. But when evidence appeared to the contrary, Dad’s expectations changed. In high school, any grade below a 90 was failing. I had an 89.9 average at the end of junior year, so I didn’t make Arista, the scholastic honor society. He was very disappointed. I did break 90% on the math regent, a huge accomplishment for me. I applied to three colleges and got into all of them. I wanted to go to Bard College; it was small and I felt I could cope with it. Dad went with me to Carnegie Tech for my audition. When I had to stay overnight for the audition callback, he returned home. But he made up his mind that if I got in I would go. It was to him a “real” college. It was Spring Carnival weekend, and the girls were running around in cheer leader outfits, and Dad was so impressed with the youth and the energy. He wanted that for me. I did get in, and I did go.

I got excellent grades. He accepted my success with trepidation. Carnegie Tech was a professional college, and I was in the theatre program. He wanted me to go another year and get my teaching certificate along with my BFA. Of course, since our relationship always put us at odds with each other, I refused to do that. He was right of course, as time revealed. But, no, he wasn’t perfect. I may have made him sound that way. Well, at the end of my sophomore year, I wanted to leave Carnegie Tech. I applied, and was accepted into, the graduate program at Yale School of Drama as a playwright. Unheard of! At this far end of my life, I realize what that would have meant to me – graduating from Yale with an MFA. But Dad wanted me to finish at Tech. Not finishing was a sin; a totally unacceptable form of behavior. He couldn’t have known about Yale and what that degree would have meant to my life. I didn’t fight hard enough I guess. I was probably scared to do any of it.

When I graduated Tech with a 3.8 something factor, I gave my Dad my diploma and said something like – hey, didn’t do too badly, did I? – and he said, “But you didn’t take any hard courses.” Then he laughed, embarrassed, because he knew he shouldn’t have said that. I, sadly, have never forgotten that he did.

I worked in downtown Brooklyn for almost a year after graduating college. I would wait at the station on my way home for Dad to come off the train, and then we’d walk to the house together. He was very distressed that year.

He was having health problems – prostate. At his job, he was losing the opportunity to work in the field and would be tied to a desk. My older brother was starting out at Dupont earning more than my Dad’s salary after 26 years with the State. The walk home from the Avenue H station together was an island in time. The station itself – now called “the little station in the woods” – has an old-fashioned railroad station house. Stepping off the train there felt a bit like arriving some place remote; country perhaps. Ebinger’s Bakery was right there, and it was likely once a week that we’d buy a “black-out cake.” (It looked like a cake but tasted like chocolate pudding.) Dad would confide his day to me; his concerns about the change in his job. His health was worrying him. He required surgery – a bigger deal in 1961 than it is today. Mom was struggling with menopause and the emotional ups and downs caused by that and the emptying nest. Once I announced that I was going to marry, a wall went up. We still talked, but through a chink in the wall.

The wedding happened. Dad spent the day of the wedding in bed. My Aunt Edith coaxed him out of bed and to the wedding. At the last minute he handed each of my brothers a camera so there would be pictures of the wedding. The next day we came back to pick up the few gifts that were there and my stuff. The last thing my Dad said to me was “Now I have two of you to worry about.” And he left in his brown fedora and old overcoat. A couple of weeks later he went for prostate surgery; he died of an embolism. His funeral was a month to the day of my wedding. He had been a paradox; the only truly brilliant person in our family. He was gone. I had just turned 22. The day of the funeral I suspected that I was pregnant (thanks to the Margaret Sanger Birth Control Institute and their gimmick). My mother said it was “a life for a life.” It was “a name.” Indeed, it was. I gave it to my son. He can’t know the power of the gift.

It’s Saturday. I’m no where near Brooklyn, or Rockaway, or Ebingers. My children’s father turned 75 today. My friend's father died this week at 80. My Dad died at 50. Losing Daddy. There’s never a good time.

Lost and Found and Found and.......

In Thornton Wilder’s play, OUR TOWN, the Stage Manager agrees to let Emily who has died to “go back” for just one day. It has to be an ordinary day. She picks her twelfth birthday since it isn’t particularly memorable and she wants to choose a happy day. I was thinking about this play this morning, wondering if it had ever been done as a dance – a modern, Martha Graham piece rather than a ballet. I don’t know what brought this on. But since today is my birthday – thank you! thank you! – I began to think about past birthdays, trying to remember the most memorable. Not an easy task – there have been quite a few birthdays.

The first thing I remember is how special I always felt, still feel, on my birthday. A sort of conspicuous feeling. As though it showed. As though I would look different and actually be different because it was the 23rd of March. When I was quite little, I shared my birthday with Grandpa Pal, my mother’s father (technically step-father). Grandma Jenny and Grandpa Pal (Harry) lived with us in the little house on East 10th Street in Brooklyn, NY. Grandpa’s birthday was March 21st. He had chosen the first day of Spring for his birthday since he didn’t know the actual day. He was born in Russia and was a twin. His parents sent him to America with an Aunt and kept his brother Max. He said it was bad luck to have twins; I imagine the bad luck was in the expense of it.
Pal didn’t eat sugary desserts. He didn’t eat fat either. He was very strong and healthy. His birthday cake was always an angel food cake; I would have the sugary-bad-for-you cake. Birthday celebrations consisted of cake and gifts at dinner-time. I don’t remember having a party with friends when I was little. When I turned twelve, the candy corsage routine was in full swing. I remember one year it was made of life-savers, then charms, then lollypops, then sugar cubes – for sweet sixteen of course. When I was fifteen there was an impromptu party in our living room, and my Dad made Jelly Apples (they’re called Candy Apples now). I did have a very special sweet sixteen party, at a restaurant in Park Slope called Michelle’s. We had a small band of guys from my High School. And I had a very handsome date. I can’t remember his name right now. Several years later my wedding reception was in that same restaurant.

I remember one year when my children were little, my son, Jamie, got wind of the fact that I always wanted a Raggedy Ann doll. Being an actor informed constantly by his many talents and imagination, he took his little sister, Clea, upstairs in our old house, and transformed her into Raggedy Ann and himself into Raggedy Andy. He was eleven and Clea was seven. My Aunt Lil who lived in Chicago at the time, would phone our local bakery and have them deliver a birthday cake to me. And for twenty-two years, a film star friend and I would exchange flowers on our shared birthday day – a dozen yellow roses every year until her death.

When I turned forty, the gang at The Acting Place, my theatre school and company, threw me a party with a cake made by my buddy Al Debenedetto: the anatomically correct lower half of a male torso. When I turned fifty, my friends Paul Lingard and Charles Robinson made a little party for me in their wonderful house on Lawrence Street in Boston. We held a séance! Really!

When I turned sixty – or was about to – I freaked out. We won’t go into the details of that epiphany. Suffice it to say, I invited everyone I cared about who lived within a 50 mile radius of my apartment with an invitation that read: EMERGENCY CELEBRATION! LET US EAT CAKE! Every one came. Lots of piano playing; lots of singing; lots of champagne and one great, big cake. No one realized it was my birthday until they got wind of the cake. They had come for whatever the celebration might be. I kicked the last of them out late into the night.

(with Tommy Lawrence)

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backward.” (Yes, Lewis Carroll again. Brilliant is brilliant.) Since I don’t have a problem remembering tomorrow – most of the time - and since one can record the present as it’s being created – it makes perfect sense to me. Today I will drive the coast road up to Ogunquit, to that special place where I go to sort myself out. Of course it is blessed cold so the walk along the Marginal Way might be rather challenging. I think I will also take myself out to lunch. And perhaps when I get home, I’ll bring my three year old granddaughter over in her HANNAH MONTANA wig to sing Happy Birthday to me. See? That’s already a perfect memory and hasn’t even happened yet.

Blessed Be.

The Sexagenarian and the City

It seemed a good idea at the time. Moving to New York City that is. I was being evicted from my apartment (you don’t want to know) and cut backs at work left me without a job. So when my son (the actor) said, “Mom, move to New York. Be near me. It’ll be great.” Hey, there weren’t any better options.

Now, I didn’t go off half-cocked either. I made several trips into the city from Boston’s North shore. I spoke with several employment agencies who promised me that with my experience age was “not the kiss of death in New York.” The latter would have been a good bit of news except I didn’t ask them that – they took a look at me and offered reassurance. An alarm should have gone off right there and then. Well, I was born and raised in Brooklyn; I thought I was going home. This was right after 9/11. Even having been a New York expatriate for over 40 years, a surge of chauvinism and sentimentality took over my logic. I looked for an apartment in all of the boroughs. After being enticed by living spaces the size of my Honda coupe, I took a flat in a two-family in Fort Lee NJ -- $350 more a month in rent than at home and 600 square feet less. I paid a full month’s rent to the realtor and three months rent to the landlady. My son watched me slightly abashed. “Do you have moving money?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said. “Just. This was my face lift.” “Well, a home is more important than a face lift,” he offered. I didn’t respond. He was in his thirties and looked like a frigging movie star. What the hell did he know?

The move itself was a study in disaster. First of all, who moves in February in the north east? And the affordable mover recommended to me pulled out at the last minute, recommending a company I knew nothing about and who were going to charge me twice the price the other guy had quoted. But at that point I only had a day to vacate. Of course that day it snowed. Really snowed.

It took an absurdly long time to load four small rooms of furniture into the truck. It didn’t help that the lead guy had an injured hand and another guy kept getting the vapors. How many signs does the universe have to give me before I realize that this is NOT a good idea? The next morning, Sunday, I arrived at the apartment moments before the moving van. The leader of the pack came upstairs, slapped down a very pink paper which declared that the weight of my shmatahs exceeded expectations and would cost me another $1200. Pay up or they’re continuing to Florida. With my shmatahs. There was really nothing on that truck of mine worth $1200 except the old spinet. I tried to call their main office in Somerville Mass. Of course no one answered there. It didn’t occur to me to call the police – would that have helped? When my son and his partner arrived, I was in tears. It didn’t appear that I had a choice, so I drove to an ATM and emptied the rest of my savings. They unloaded the truck, having broken several pieces of furniture and gave me a claim form. (We won’t even go there.) We stood among the boxes wondering whether it was adventure or total stupidity that inspired an almost 63 year old grandmother of 5 to arrive broke and jobless on the island of Manhattan instead of someplace in the Caribbean where at least there’d be no cost for heat. I obviously appeared to be an easy mark. Well, duh! I was an easy mark.

We are theatre people. Does that mean that we’re resilient? That we can fake it? That we’re used to “shit happening?” For me it simply means “improvise.” So we created a semblance of order, went out for Chinese food, and did a quick scan of transportation into the city. We’ll ignore the fact that all but one of my 14 plants arrived dead; that my mobile phone wouldn’t work in my flat so I had to sit in my car to make calls; that 1/3 of my possessions wouldn’t fit anywhere in the apartment and turned the second bedroom into storage. What we can’t ignore is the fact that I was broke. The next day I took the bus to the city, located the subway, and found nine million more people inhabiting New York than when I left 40-something years before. They were not happy to see me. I suppose it was foolish to take it personally. But these folks were champions at Roller Derby and knew that I was the new girl. They were very angry, and I was obviously not in a “New York state of mind.”

I arrived at the employment agency a bit rattled; only to be told by the woman who’d been so welcoming the month before that “You’ve chosen a really bad time to move here.” She viewed me with such alarm, it became immediately clear that age was definitely the kiss of death in the job market. I experienced this response at each employment agency I visited during the next two weeks, and was considering being scared when my California son sent me a “house warming” cash gift. Several friends across the country did the same. Enough to get me through another month. Embarrassed and humbled, all I could do was persevere. When my New York son called with a Saturday job at a new museum looking for someone trustworthy to sell tickets on their busiest day – I said yes. They were so happy to see me and seemed actually glad to have a “woman of a certain age” greeting the public. However, I’d have preferred that my friends and family not be so amused.when I told them I was working at the Museum of Sex. I had no idea what would be exhibited in a museum of sex. Well, that’s not true – I had several ideas. However. Some on-line research introduced me to the Museum of Sex in Amsterdam. Much larger institution with a substantial collection of art and artifacts. The New York museum had three galleries at its opening. An interesting display of sex in Hollywood; another show traced sex through American history in photos, magazines, books, etc. My son walked me through these first two galleries. Then he left me on my own saying, “I’m not walking through gallery three with my mother!”
I wish he had, because I had a difficult time recognizing a good deal of what was on view. That’s how long it had been! But I’m glad to say, it was an interesting mélange of art, science, porno, humor. I’m equally glad to say I was okay with it.

With renewed confidence I called one more temp agency, took their battery of tests and became a “Kelly girl.” I learned the city all over again going from office to office with my subway map and street map and an undercurrent of anxiety. Oddly, I was invisible. If that had been the case in Boston, I never noticed. But on Saturdays I was present; relaxed, glad to meet the public, and feeling the tiniest bit notorious at the museum. It was a feeling that I began to take home with me. Example: on the subway going to the museum one Saturday, two gals were attracting as much attention as possible discussing some guy. Something like: “Well, I don’t give a shit if he’s a school teacher. As long as he treats me like a princess. I deserve to be taken out to dinner and sent flowers and all that crap – I mean I want a guy to put me on a pedestal –“ I was at the doors waiting for my stop; I turned to see who these very loud people were and the wanna-be princess turned on me: “What are you looking at bubbie? Don’t you think I deserve to be treated like a princess? Don’t you think I deserve to be treated special – to be married – don’t you huh – well?”

And (oh m’god!) I heard myself say, “I think you’d be lucky to be f----ed on a regular basis.” The doors opened and I exited leaving a couple of rather startled girls in my wake. Ha! That took more chutzpah than I’d displayed in a very long time. It was probably rather rude, but I felt so strangely good about it, I decided I was in a city that played with a different set of rules. Now that might only be what New Yorkers want the world to think. On that particular Saturday it worked for me.

Opportunities directing or teaching theatre were not available to me because I didn’t have New York credits. But I’m a writer so I kept writing. I became a perennial tourist. And heck, there was always Saturday! I may actually have fallen into a category referred to as “dirty old lady,” but I became conscious of people’s sensuality. Not only at the museum, but as a daily, involuntary observation. It became evident to me that New York has a large, diverse population of flaming heterosexuals. In Boston male behavior is definitely dictated by neighborhood affiliation. No, really – in the financial district men pretend not to look at women. In Southy or Revere guys are still “standing on the corner watching all the girls go by.” I had stopped taking notice of such normal behavior. Well, I’d stopped being watched! And except at the movies, I’d pretty much stopped watching. Then came Saturday! making me aware of such behavior. Men began smiling at me, ancient men – but you can’t have everything. And oddly enough, I was becoming less and less conscious of my age. I was dressing out of my favorite vintage shop – my closet – but I began to improvise with affordable bits and pieces. The result was maybe quirky – nah! –edgy – with a kind of ageless chic that didn’t make me look ridiculous. All this must have worked, because I was offered a job at one of my temp assignments. A real job. Sort of entry level in pay scale, but it beat temping and removed the angst of being unemployed every other week.

And on Saturdays I sold tickets at the Museum of Sex where most people entered attempting to look cool, and left feeling rather warm , embarrassed, shocked or pissed off. During Fleet Week young sailors looking as though they didn’t shave yet would call me “Ma’am;” classes from science programs at local colleges were led by teachers who hoped the students would remain scientists as they toured the space. Teachers who were inevitably disappointed. And students who weren’t. And no, no one asked me out or hit on me or interacted with me in any inappropriate way. And, no, I was not moved to sign on to match.com. But who we are does not have to depend on external feedback. I was having a good time being alive.

Four years passed as quickly as that proverbial ‘New York minute.’ In September, my California son called to ask me a question: “Where do you want to live when you can’t work any more?” The answer was obvious – “When I can’t work anymore, I won’t be living.” He poo-pooed that; so I said “How about Italy?” It turned out to be a trick question: I let him give me the answer. The north shore of Boston where my daughter and three grandchildren still lived seemed to be obvious to him. His plan was wonderfully generous. He’d buy a condo; I’d live in it and pay the expenses for as long as I could pay the expenses. The trick part was that it had to happen now. I had a real job – it wouldn’t be easy to do that again, and other concerns made me feel conflicted about moving “back home” at that juncture. I had, after all, more than survived life in the big city. I was feeling eternally young; his call reminded me that life was winding down. I was afraid to say no and terrified to say yes. Well, my Aries horoscope tells me always do that which is the most daunting. Now, that should have been choice number three: sell all those shmatahs and head for Italy. But there was nothing in the lot that would pay for the ticket.
Before I left the city, I went on one more search for the New York of my youth.

I ate at Katz’s, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge; drove to Brooklyn on a pilgrimage to the house on East 10th Street where I grew up and the schools I attended. I had hot dogs at Coney Island and cheese cake at Juniors, and I drove out to Rockaway so I could walk on Beach 82nd street where my dad had grown up and where I’d spent many a childhood summer. Beach 82nd street wasn’t there. A large apartment complex had been built from 81st street to 83rd street.
A better writer than me wrote “The homesickness of an exile…..what you missed was your own youth, not a place.” The truth of that became evident as I stood in Rockaway Beach looking for the missing street. Yet another epiphany: yesterday was a part of me, and my essential self wouldn’t change if I lived by the sea in New England rather than the rivers in New York. I was in the elevator with two young women who were arguing amicably. It seemed that it was the birthday of one of the gals. She was telling her companion that she didn’t want to grow old. Her friend told her she had only two choices – to grow old or to die young. The birthday girl – all of perhaps 20-something --said that was enough reason to be miserable. Once again I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. As I was about to exit the elevator I smiled at the girls and said, “Actually, I think you have three choices. To die young, to grow old, or to be like me.” I don’t think they got it. But I finally did. It had come to me in a New York minute.

The house on East 10th Street

Curiouser and Curiouser

A very odd recollection came to me recently. Very odd that it came to me and very odd in itself. Hadn't thought about it in years. To preface: like so many kids, I was in a great hurry to grow up. When I was a teenager, the consummate age for a woman was "30-something." (no youth cult for us!) We had Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Eva Marie Saint, Kim Stanley, Lauren Bacall -- they were always "30-something." Eternally. And since I didn't exactly enjoy being a kid, (I was 5'7" at age 12, in a time when 5'4" was the tallest a girl dared to be) and didn't have any idea what I looked like or the potential impact of my persona or the power of my mind -- I couldn't wait to be that 30-something, film luminary image. Right! We were totally star-struck in Brooklyn in the 1950's.

It didn't seem to be happening, that metamorphosis -- even when I left teen-dom. I married right out of college; had my first child a year later; and took all the other lovely walks down paths deeper into the maze of self delusion, mayhem and bewilderment. I certainly was not becoming a celebrity icon.

And then one day -- and I really don't remember exactly when this was or the circumstances of the incident -- but one day I crossed a city street and was poised to enter a large office building. Coming toward me through the broad glass doorway, was an attractive 30-something woman, in high heels and camel-hair coat, collar up, Lauren Bacall hairstyle; strolling with great composure toward me. I stopped right there on the street. And thought rather calmly -- "there she is; there's the woman I always wanted to be like."

She stopped walking, too. And I realized so suddenly I made myself laugh -- I realized so stupidly that it makes me laugh now -- that the woman standing there facing me was me -- my reflection in the glass. With an 'oh for God's sake' response, I continued into the building, the incident impressing me less at the time than it does in retrospect. I didn't mention it to anyone. but it made me laugh out loud whenever it came to mind. All that registered was that I'd mistaken myself for somebody else. Not that: when I found the perfect prototype for me --it was me!


So what was this journey I was taking? Trying to become someone or something I thought I wasn't and already was. Too often I don't really know where I'm going or what it is I want. And so many other people will say to me: I don't know what I really want to do. Or I don't know what I'm supposed to do or was meant to do. Like me, they become blocked and can do nothing or we do something we don't want to be doing. As though there were a master plan for us and we haven't figured it out yet. My brother used to say: We should on ourselves. I should do this or I should have done that. And time moves us along until we thnk it's too late to begin. Which I've discovered it never is. Well, one might not become a ballerina at 60 or a gymnast at 55. But we can dance and we can work out. We can begin. Brings to mind Lewis Carroll's wonderful children's book, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. "If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there." I might say, what the heck is that? But if I think about it for a minute: if I have the courage to start the trip -- to just go (or 'go for it'), who knows where I might arrive? "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop," Carroll writes. How simple is that? And if I don't arrive anywhere, couldn't I turn left or right and continue on until I reach some destination? And if I see someone coming toward me who is who I really am, well -- messages come in many disguises. And, like ALICE, I might reach wonderland after all. Or at the very least, make it all the way home.

"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

(The Hidaway on Flickr)

Amnesia??

I woke up the other morning feeling pretty damn good. I jumped out of bed and went downstairs to the bathroom (odd duplex) with a tune humming around in my head. (I think it was Let's Fall in Love) There in the expanse of mirrored wall was this aged lady who resembled me -- well, maybe around the edges. Oh, m'gawd! When did this happen? I felt suddenly as though I had slept through my life! I felt as though I were 30 or 40 -- at the very most -- and there in front of me was the evidence of years. I washed my face quickly, the cool water rinsing off some of the improbability. And then I saw them, all the years -- all the memories lying in front of me like the loose pages of a manuscript tossed in a mixed-up spread.

Okay, at least I haven't blown my mind out totally. All I need to do now is collate those memories. Visualizing the mess of years, months, days, minutes, emotions -- now there's a job. But first I have to figure out what today is all about. No, I don't have dementia; or Alzheimer's. I don't even have an acceptable case of remorse. I think it's more like....terror! A bowel-level fear that I won't have time to do all that I dearly want to do. Well, dummy, I said to myself -- you'd better get to it then. Start collating, and get on with it.

Gratefully, it was not a work day. I think it was a Saturday. That'll do in a pinch. So I decided to drive to a place that always helps me sort myself out. We all have a place like that. Of course I could have just gone for a nice long walk and let the soft wind blow through my ears. Instead I drove to Ogunquit, Maine, to walk the Marginal Way.

Have you been there? If you keep your
focus on the sea and the seawall, on the
foliage along the way, on the sounds of
ocean and gulls and wind; if you sit on
your favorite bench and let your thoughts
drift away from you on the white caps and
then wash back over you -- well, if you don't find a solution to whatever the hell is
bothering you, at least you'll feel pretty
damn good.

This of course is not the only solution to
my confused moments. And often, the
Marginal Way is not a drive away. In those cases, a glass of good port will sometimes do the trick, or a dish of cappuccino ice cream.

It is useless, I know, to mind growing old. Unless one dies young, it's gonna happen. It's the WAY we do it. I'm sort of glad that I'm rather nuts (really) insisting on internal youth since eternal youth is not possible. Because this attitude forces me to move more (climb the stairs instead of taking the escalator), dress my own edgy way (instead of subscribing to OLD FART FASHION magazine). It lets me look forward to things -- little things, big things -- next year -- next minute. Every ordinary day is THE day. A friend told me recently that she needed new skis; hers are 30 years old and not functioning very well. But she didn't think she should invest in new skis because she won't be around to enjoy them for 30 more years. Wow! What a message to send to the universe. And what difference does that make, I told her. If you enjoy them for one day that's a lifetime in itself.

Do I sound like PollyAnna? Sorry about that. All this because I had a big amnesia moment and thought I was still a kid when I got up the other morning. Maybe I am. Maybe it just doesn't show. Maybe tomorrow it will all make more sense. I sure hope not!