Friday, November 26, 2010
The Jewish Santa of Philadelphia
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Notes from the Ice Floe
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Got God???
It would have been much more simple if I'd just gone along with the way things were. My dad would insist that was the way it was meant to be. But I was the way I was meant to be as well. The best of our home were the holidays. The traditional foods, decorations, blessings -- I loved all of that. And then we'd walk the short way to the synagogue -- the orthodox synagogue where my father worshipped. Women didn't sit with the men; our seats were in the balconies that lined the sides and the rear of the sanctuary. I did not like this very much; not being a part of it. (If you know me or have been following my blog I imagine you'd expect me to feel that way.) Some of the women prayed; many whispered to each other. Most sat and listened without understanding the Hebrew service. I was also sent to Hebrew school after public school several days a week, where the teachers were ill prepared to educate girls. We were supposed to be home learning to prepare gefilte fish. The boys would reach 13 years old, celebrate their bar mitzvah, and join the congregation. There was no such ceremony for the girls in the orthodoxy. When I was almost 16 I begged my dad to permit me to stop going to the classes. The teachers really didn't know what to do with me at that point, and it was past time to "self-graduate." He laughed and scratched his head, as he always did when faced with a conundrum. We talked once about my discomfort with the synagogue. He reminded me that in "our Father's world" one can prayer anywhere. I chose the beach; the sea. That became, in more than one way, my sanctuary.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Ode to the Morning Mile
But I'm heading for the lighthouse a bit further on. All of this is the best of the town I live in. I'd say "now," but really it is "again." We had a great old house here "back in the day." It required lots of love and we happily gave it all we could. We lived in it for 13 years; I had to sell it then. I moved my family to Brookline, MA where -- after a year and a half of difficulty -- I was hired to be the Artistic Director of a children's theater company. We lived in Brookline for six years in two different apartments. Then I moved to an attic in Jamaica Plain. At this point I was living alone. Huge adjustment. I was in J.P. for 9 years. I got very lucky and found a sweet apartment back in Beverly where we'd had our house. I lived there for 4 years; commuting to my job in Boston (the theater job had run its course). So that was a new experience, traveling with the commuters every day. In February of 2002, I moved to Fort Lee, NJ, and, after several really trying months, I got a job in Manhattan. I won't go into the circumstances of why and how I moved to New Jersey, or why and how I moved back to Beverly in the summer of 2006. Typing it here, all this moving around really sounds like the marathon it was. But Beverly holds a good deal of history for me and memories of the happy days raising my kids and creating/operating my own theatre company. And it is a coastal town with wonderful views of the ocean.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Children of the Myth
Friday, July 23, 2010
Heading Out
Monday, July 12, 2010
Almost Death by Mushroom
So what happened was this: It was Spring, 1979; we'd come through our first winter at The Acting Place. I needed an escape -- a couple of days away. We were between things and my assistant, Ginny Williams, offered me her family summer cottage in York, Maine.
I love York, Maine. Sharon Ware, Ginny's good friend who'd been working with us, came along with me. My kids went to visit their dad for the few days (it was probably April vacation). Evening one: we ate at a nice restaurant in Ogunquit. We didn't have much money so we each had a bowl of soup, and each put a couple of rolls from the bread basket into our pocket books. The waitress collected the check and offered us paper bags -- for the rolls in our pocket books. We left laughing. We didn't know each other very well. Laughter is a great prologue to friendship. The next afternoon Ginny came up to York to take us out to dinner. We went to a very nice place -- I don't recall the name; a country inn sort of place. Half-way through dinner, I didn't feel very well. I hurried to the ladies' room and became violently ill. My friends joined me outside and rushed me back to the cottage. I was awfully sick and asked them to get help. My first (please! my last!) ride in an ambulance. They rushed me into emergency. A charming doctor with a charming accent gave me a shot; attached an intravenous thingy. The gals came in weeping and wailing. I remember (and they'll never forget) asking them -- "if I'm going to die, do you think I have time for a quickie?" The charming doctor returned and concurred that I had been poisoned by a mushroom. I didn't mention the quickie!
had one of the leading roles. Paul was from the York area in Maine and his family was arriving for opening night. Ginny and I stepped out into the small lobby to greet Paul's relatives. Standing with them was a good family friend -- none other than Charming Doctor! Who woulda thunk?!!
Monday, May 24, 2010
"Mama's Little Baby Loves Rhubarb, Rhubarb......"
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Buttercups and Bluebirds
Sunday, April 25, 2010
New Shop, Old Books and a Rose
Saturday, March 27, 2010
White Noise, Old Friends, & Dining with the Help!
One more day. A visit with a friend I worked with when I lived in the neighborhood a few years ago. I went up to the office and saw some of the folks and then ate some Indian food with my Indian friend. I had meant to walk through the West Village or the Lower East Side, but I was suddenly tired. I went back to the apartment; chatted for an hour with my son's friend, then left to see the preview of the Twyla Tharpe ballet -- an homage to Frank Sinatra. (a college friend left a comp for me at the box office. Nice!) In the elevator on my way out I met a man who - it turned out - was from the same part of Brooklyn where I grew up. We chatted onto the street like a couple of old friends. It is rare for such an encounter to happen in Massachusetts -- unless you meet another New Yorker. If you smile at a stranger in Boston he/she will turn and run. If you smile at a stranger in New York, he/she will either say "What??!!" or " I know you? " or something else that acknowledges your existence.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
"Alone" - in search of a definition
just as you know less than you want to know.
............Oscar Wilde
Alone is not a word that is simple to define. Nor is the condition/state of being. Sure it is, you say; no one else is in the room. That's not what I mean; I suppose I'm taking an existentialist approach. i.e., one can be alone in a room full of people. Since I'm being obtuse I'll take the long way around to explain and tell you a story. Picture, if you will, a little girl -- five or six years old; blond hair, chestnut eyes. Not a waif; more of a presence. She lives in a big city with her family: parents, grandparents, older brother, baby brother. She is passionately in love with her family although she feels, oddly, that she is on loan to them; that she does not come from them. (She'll suffer later for both these emotions.) Her mother is distant, being very close to her own mother and subconsciously wanting to be the little girl of the family herself. Her older brother is "the prince;" the first born son with biblical impact. Her baby brother is the baby after all. So our little girl is vaguely apart from the family.
A huge occasion: the end of WW II. The entire city pulsates with joy. She runs across the empty lots behind her home to greet her brother returning early from summer camp. They hug and race back to the house. And before adults of the family turn the corner to greet them both, her brother swings, smacks her across the face and levels her. The parental response is what did you do to deserve it? It begins with this and continues for the next 10+ years. Empty space is created around her; she steps back.
In all seasons, she runs to that house believing each time that it is truly home; safe haven. But there are challenges: the adult cousin of her father who corners her in the upstairs hallway and she has to fight him off; the stepbrother of her mother who attempts to bother her when she's sleeping on the living room sofa so he and his wife could have her bedroom while they visit. The mean kid from her religious school class who follows her home on the dark winter evenings and tries to assault her on the street. She goes to her parents who are ill-equipped to deal with any of this. What did you do? She steps further back.
She hides somewhere in her head; in her fantasies; in her imagination. She lives in her love for dance, and movies, and poetry. Not a good enough dancer to make a career, she's told. That poetry is obviously not yours -- what did you do?? She steps back further still.
Racing ahead. She marries young believing that her husband will be her best friend. Her true partner. But he is looking to be taken care of; and to protect his own chosen isolation. They inevitably part. What the hell did you do??
Don't hang up -- I know this reads like one huge kvetch! But really it's a street-map of sorts to understand a way of being. Our little girl, now a grown woman, creates camaraderie with her own children and within her artistic endeavors. When the children and the artistic endeavors move on, she steps back again and this time falls, like Alice down the rabbit hole, into a place that she doesn't recognize nor from which can she seemingly escape. Having lived in too many different places to establish community; having an internal sense of isolation (growing out of the events above and more) that prevents her from pressing into clubs or groups, etc., she can indeed be defined as alone. No -- please do NOT believe that she is a victim. From that first day when she was five or six years old she rejected that role. You can be sure that falling down the rabbit hole was not an accident. She knew exactly what she was doing.
Alone is not necessarily a bad thing. Not the greatest condition either, to tell the truth. But at the bottom of the rabbit hole, if you recall the tale, Alice goes among mad people. And probably doesn't inspire a sense of normalcy herself. "We're all mad here," says the Cheshire Cat. "I'm mad; you're mad." It's a fine madness; a sort of protection against the terminal loneliness that "alone" can cause. The moments of clarity when one realizes the lack of "remember that?" moments; "no one to call" moments; the absence of a daily witness to one's existence. But since our girl is filled with love of life; of being; creating; since our girl has dear friends in various parts of the world (though not available for a walk on the beach) who care so much that she's there -- since our girl is an eternal tourist and is surprised constantly by the small moments of each day -- she is one with the world. And if you asked our girl what the hardest thing is about being alone, she'd no doubt tell you that she misses almost most of all -- the dancing.
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Inner Eye of the Beholder
"The best mirror is an old friend."
.............Peter Nivio Zarlenga
It was lovely to begin the New Year in Northern California. The 60 degree weather was a delightful improvement over the 12 degree agony I'd left in New England. I had coffee each morning with the fat cat, Archer, and would walk a couple of miles in the residential neighborhood being amazed by palm trees and Dr. Seuss shrubbery. Soon after my return to the house, the family would begin to awaken, one by one. My son, my daughter-in-law, my teenage grandchildren -- I'd slide from role to role to role without realizing the adjustment. A few days into the visit my son drove me out to a town near Modesto, to visit with a dear friend from my college days. We were good buddies at school; both in the theatre department. Lloyd has had a substantial career in theatre and film. He's a brilliant talent as actor, director, writer. We had reconnected after -- what? -- 24 years -- and had been speaking through email, and mailing writing samples to each other since summer.
His charming companion of 12 plus years was as welcoming as he, and we toured the wonderful little house and property. We lunched at a great "Greek joint," as he called it, and visited a performing arts center in Modesto, designed by another classmate of ours. And we talked and talked, trying to catch up -- make up for 24 years of silence. It was amazing. We started school together 54 years ago. And we were grateful to look at each other and to say -- We're still here.
A whole rush of memories followed me back to my son's home, and more slip through my offending mind each day now back in Massachusetts. But equally remarkable is the strange, almost familiar feeling I walk around with. It is not mother, mother-in-law, grandmother. It is not friend, job applicant, teacher, etc. It is me; bare-naked soul, disconnected to anything or anyone except my own affections, my own space, the me-of-me. When I was teaching actors, we used an improvisation where two people were talking on stage, and one by one other characters would join the scene revealing a different relationship with the original actors. For example, two lovers are speaking; a girl arrives into the scene and turns out to be the granddaughter of one of the characters -- a change happens. And so on. That's what happens to us in our real day. For me, I am constantly struggling to own my identity as just me -- not the perennial mother, caretaker, grandmother, etc. Trying to find the balance -- remaining me and still able to contribute to the lives of those around me without losing me in the process.
A bit obtuse? I guess. I'd forgotten, you see, what it felt like to have someone speak to me as me -- not as the life-role I am playing. My friend does not know me as grandmother, mother, caretaker, etc. He sees Mickey; he speaks to Mickey. A wondrous thing!