Gone Girl Not the Movie

*Grandpa Hodge (James) and me at Niagara Falls

I’m sitting in Santora’s restaurant by the UB North campus and it’s all TV screens and loudness at 7:30 on a Saturday. Greg and I have landed here after a failed attempt to see “Gone Girl” at the Maple Ridge movie complex. We didn’t get busted for the bags of popcorn we tried to smuggle in under our coats, but instead were told that the only seats available together would be in the front row, which at $12.50 a pop, what would be the point? Do we really have to buy seats online in advance for $3 more to watch a movie in the theatre these days? Of course, this one has swanky reclining seats, but still. No wonder we wait until they come out on DVD or stream them on Netflix.

            So here we are at Santora’s feeling a little grumpy amidst the beer and chicken wings when the room empties out a little and we see this magnificent couple enter and sit down a few tables away from us. They are so stunning that I literally cannot look away, as if Kate and William have just arrived in a motorcade with paparazzi snapping pictures behind them. Here in our midst is a little blonde girl about six wearing a sparkly headband and sparkly sweater to match. Her movements are graceful and light, her presence both grounded and ethereal. She smiles sweetly at her companion, a man in his seventies with tousled grey hair and glasses, who smiles back leaning in to speak to her softly. It’s an intimate encounter that we strangers bear witness to, so much love radiating between this lovely pair. And yet it feels familiar and somewhat personal. Am I really seeing strangers here or visitors from my past and future selves? Is this little blondie a perplexing vision of a gone girl who used to be…me?

I have been lucky enough to know all my grandparents and as I’ve written about before, my maternal grandfather was a big fan of my sister and me, bowing to our every whim. He took us on “dates” like the one I’m witnessing, hung on our every word and delighted in our smallest achievements. My paternal grandfather lived in South Carolina so we didn’t get to see him as much, but when we did it was the same kind of love fest. He would do crazy southern things, like let us sit on his lap and drive his car, and give us gifts of dyed baby chicks at Easter. In my mind he was as tall as Abraham Lincoln and I loved when he carried me around so I could see things from up high like he did.

My grandmothers were equally indulgent in their own ways. Gammy would sit on her porch doing paint by numbers with us then take us out for lunch and order us kiddie cocktails so we could follow in her footsteps as alcoholics. Grandma Hodge would make pajamas and beds for our dolls to match our own. She would spend her last pennies to buy us candy and when we got older, drive around Sumter like a maniac pointing out and honking her horn at all the cute guys she’d picked out for us.

We all love our children unconditionally, but with the added burden of making them into responsible, loving human beings which requires guidance that sometimes feels like judgment. Grandparents don’t have to do that. They are free to love recklessly, indeed spoil us, when all they expect and long for in return is our presence to receive their unbridled affection and adoration. We are their futures and we hold so much hope for them.

When I visited the Spiritualist Community, Lilydale, a few years ago with my friend, Tim, we sat outside where practicing mediums chose people from the group assembled to give them their messages from beyond. I was chosen twice. Both times they were from an older gentleman named James (my paternal grandfather) offering vague assurances and guidance about important life decisions I was dealing with at that time. While not a complete skeptic, I am leery of the idea that my southern grandfather, who died when I was still a child, would be hanging around in New York state waiting for me to show up at Lilydale this first time and make contact. But I was deeply touched by the thought that though over fifty years had passed since we were together on Earth that there was still some connection. That somehow Grandpa Hodge had managed to continue seeing me as I grew into an adult and made himself known so he could offer his advice…twice.

The holidays are hard for a lot people because so many have passed on to whatever or wherever your beliefs make sense of what happens after death. I am uncertain of what this is but what I know right now is that distance, time, and even death don’t separate us from those with whom we are deeply connected. The love continues and we are never gone to each other.

***

*Photo sent by Aunt Peggy. Thank you!

Waiting out the Solstice

         November and December are the darkest months in Buffalo. The leaves are gone, the sky is deep grey and just like everywhere else in the Western Hemisphere, the days keep getting shorter and shorter. If it wasn’t for things like work and needing to eat, I probably wouldn’t bother getting out of bed. But here I am, suffering until the solstice, wondering how on Earth I will get through these next three weeks without sinking into a deep and miserable depression.

         One of the ways I've gotten around this is by scheduling all my preventative care medical appointments which forces me to get out of the house and interact with people who are being paid to show concern for my well-being. There’s so many things on me that are falling apart or need checking; my eyes, my boobs, my thyroid, my teeth, all showing the wear and tear of aging. Now that’s something to get excited about.

         My dental hygienist is so young and adorable and tells me with such sweetness that if I don’t start flossing more regularly my teeth will likely fall out of my head. Then she compliments my smile and apologizes for scaring me. It’s the perfect love/scare, guilt/redemption relationship. When I tell her that she makes my dental experience a little less terrible, she says I should write an online review for the office, but maybe not use the words terrible or torture when I describe my visit. They are very aggressive about soliciting these reviews but who actually finds dentistry the least bit pleasant? I walk out with a new toothbrush, a tiny bottle of mouthwash, equally tiny box of floss and the slightest hope that my next periodontal exam will yield 2’s and 3’s, not 4’s like this last one.

                    I also joined a gym. Yeah, I did that, which only shows exactly how unstable I’ve been feeling lately. I’ve joined gyms before. It didn’t work out or let’s say more accurately, I didn’t work out. I mean, I did for awhile but then I’d have a headache or be too tired and then I’d just stop going, like it never even happened. My commitment was over but of course, I kept paying and paying until finally they let me out of the contract.

           But this time it only cost $10 and the membership lasts until December 31^st  unless they can get me to sign up for longer and then it will cost considerably more. But I’ll have to go to the gym for them to convince me of how worthwhile it is and I have no intention of going. I know I should be getting in shape or losing weight, getting some cardio…whatever. Aren’t we all supposed to be obsessed with that? And I heard exercise helps with depression, if you actually do it. Endorphin release, it’s supposed to be great!

             And everyone loves a bargain. What else can you get for $10 these days? Nothing! Which is exactly what I’ll get unless I get off my moderately fat butt and use the equipment at the gym that I paid for with my $10.
            Maybe I should have bought a sandwich. I enjoy sandwiches but they do make you fat. But at least you have something to show from having eaten them. An actual encounter, unlike the gym that sits a few blocks away and is calling my name. Or not calling my name. Maybe I should just put on headphones.

                 It’s eleven A.M. The slick black branches outside my window sway eerily sending tiny drops to the driveway. The wind shivers splashes into puddles. It’s a monochromatic scene, except for the grass no longer draped in snow. The rain pours down harder tilting slightly to the left. Stillness and movement in perfect alignment.

         Inside the candles flicker. The furnace roars from the basement. I stretch out my legs, unfurl my fingers from my fist, rest my chin on my wrist. The dark days will be over soon. The dark days will be over.

Three Decades of Fun with Zach

The dashing, young Zach Anner

My son, Zach, is turning thirty today and that’s a pretty significant number. One of the ones where you sit back and assess where you’ve gotten to thus far, how your accomplishments match up to the rest of the world’s and where you still need to go. No pressure, just evaluate and judge yourself and figure out how you’re going to improve on things for the next thirty or so years.

I’m the mom, not the judge, so if all Zach had done and was going to do is sit and smile and laugh his infectious laugh, I’d be really fine with that, as long as it met his standards for happiness and fulfillment. But the person I gave birth to had plans and dreams and has already accomplished quite a bit for a person his age, or any age, for that matter, so let's go back to the beginning and retrace our steps.

It all started on a cool November 17^th evening in 1984 when I was home with my 19 month old son, Aarau, and started to feel a little back pain. I was seven months pregnant with an unknown alien in my womb who decided it would be fun to come out and get this party started two months early. The alien would later be known as “Zach,” and when he was unceremoniously plopped on my belly after three hours of hard labor, (I know, only three, but it hurt!) he lifted his little head and looked around, surveying the doors and windows, plotting his next move after realizing his escape to this cold, light-drenched world had only landed him a few feet from his previous surroundings. This was his first attempt to get away from me. It did not work.

 He was put in a box. I think they called it an incubator, an especially small prison for babies planning to crawl out of the hospital when no one’s looking and have underdeveloped lungs because of their premature births. Weighing in at a whopping 3 pounds, 7 ounces, Zach needed to be maintained in an artificial womb after abandoning the real one, where he could get fat and develop like he would’ve if he’d done the right thing and been born a little later. Now he had a heart monitor, tubes and needles sticking everywhere and little bruises from blood oxygen tests. I wasn’t allowed to hold him or feed him, breast milk had to be pumped and frozen, then thawed and delivered through a feeding tube so he wouldn’t lose calories by suckling. A rough beginning by any standards.

After five weeks in the Intensive Care Nursery, he came home with a heart monitor just in time for Christmas, weighing a little under five pounds. He was about the size of a very skinny football and his brother immediately took to him, referring to his heart monitor as “Zachy’s T.V.” and turning it off. So that was his first accomplishment, surviving his premature birth and making it home after a long hospital stay where he could live a normal life with his family.

Not so normal. His first year was filled with failures to meet every developmental milestone imaginable. He also screamed and cried inconsolably for hours on end which I later learned was an indication of neurological damage, (no Internet in ’84) but he had such a charming personality when he wasn’t crying and such apparent language abilities (I think he was putting sentences together by the time he was one) that we were able to live in comfortable denial that everything was okay and he was just “catching up” until he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at fourteen months.

Fast forward to 29 years later.

A lot has happened since that diagnosis. I think Zach’s first sentence was “I want to be independent” and he’s done a lot to make that happen. He attended college in Buffalo until he escaped to The Disney College Program for a semester in Orlando, first time away from home, broken wheelchairs, hurricanes, every bad and good thing imaginable. He then went to Austin, Texas, knowing absolutely no one, and attended film school where he met friends who produced comedy shows and webseries with him. He then posted his famous audition video and went on a reality show (Your Own Show) and won his own show from Oprah (Rollin’ with Zach). When that show was canceled, he immediately hosted another show (Riding Shotgun) where he traveled across the country using suggestions and meeting people from the Reddit community along the way. He then moved to Los Angeles for a year where he filmed with Soul Pancake (Have a Little Faith) and his own youtube series, (Workout Wednesdays). And along the way he made more friends, had great adventures, and inspired people to lead better lives.

I’ve had the privilege of watching Zach address hundreds of people in cities throughout the country where he makes them laugh and makes them think. He doesn’t have to say much about what having a disability is like because his advocacy is his life. He shows through his humor that using a wheelchair and not being able to walk is not a big thing for him. It’s just one of the many things that can be a struggle and has very little to do with who he is as a person. But I don’t have to tell you about that because he’s writing his own book which will be published next year (If at Birth You Don't Succeed...) and you can see it for yourself when you watch his youtube videos.

He’s doing what we all want to do, using his life to inspire others, changing perceptions through example, and living his dreams by having meaningful work. And building great relationships, being creative and doing what he loves to do most, making people laugh.

Zach is turning thirty today and I won’t be at his birthday party because he’ll be in Austin with friends (and his brother) at The Alamo Draft House screening the long-awaited completion of their mockumentary webseries, "The Wingmen." His girlfriend will be baking him a cake. There’s a lot to celebrate.

Happy Birthday, Zach! I hope I get to stick around to see what the next 30 years hold for you. I can’t wait to see what you do next!

Colorado/Moab Part 2: Where Was I?

When I last wrote for this blog I was sitting in a rented Ford Edge in Arches National Park watching the sunset with a bunch of photographers. Then I came home and got bummed out about being away from all that mad beauty and didn’t feel like writing about how awful it was to be back in real life, so utterly disconnected. So I posted some filler, good writer filler, but nonetheless… 

Now I will attempt to put myself back in that place, to recall without longing, where I was when I wasn’t here.So where was I?

I never finished writing about Estes Park, the climb up to Dream Lake on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in October with the sun shining and just enough clouds to make pretty pictures. It was our first day of hiking so we had to stop every fifty yards or so to take in the incredible mountain vistas and catch our breath as we panted noisily from the thinness of the air at elevations reaching 10,000 ft.

There were stunning lakes and trees, rushing streams, yellow leaves, colorful birds, pebbled paths, and some other folks enjoying the day. A light breeze, about 70 degrees, really couldn’t ask for anything more perfect. 

In the evening the elk gathered in the pastures to feed, the not so tiny young bumping against their mother’s undersides to get milk. They seemed unconcerned with the picture snappers lining up along the road standing sometimes within 5 feet of them while the sun turned the fields to gold as it set behind the mountains.

 Greg and I had come to Estes a few years earlier in the spring and weren’t impressed. I don’t know what the hell was wrong with us, but fortunately we came back and because there was so much we didn’t get to do this time around, we are planning to come back and stay for a whole week next year. The fall colors were lovely, we enjoyed our small hotel on the Fall River and found another great restaurant in “Ed’s Cantina.”

But this time around, after just one Saturday night and full day Sunday, we left for Moab,Utah on Monday morning.

We love Moab, though it’s not easy to get to, about an eight hour drive from Denver through curvy mountain roads, mostly highway 70, but that’s part of the attraction. You have to work to get there! And once you do, it’s like you’re on some crazy rock-walled planet, walking to the ends of the earth, seeing how explicitly a river formed a canyon. So how could that possibly be reasonably close to any airport?

Colorado River on Rt. 128 towards Moab

Our first digs upon arriving were at the Moab Valley RV Resort where we rented a small cottage. By small, I mean tiny, but it had everything we needed, including beds, a kitchenette, and most importantly, a toilet! It’s about the same price as a crappy hotel room in town (think Motel 6) but I love being in the campground without really having to rough it and it also has a pool and a laundry room which we’ve made use of when visiting in seasons when it was too hot to hike mid-day. 

View from Moab Valley RV Resort...seriously!

 We got in late Monday and headed to "Zax" for all you can eat pizza and salad which we were able to eat outside on the terrace on this warm desert evening. The town was full with half marathoners and whoever else has reason to come to Moab in October. With all of its parks and extreme sports, that could mean anybody, including Greg and I.

            After staring at the stars for a bit at our picnic table back at the camp we went to sleep with the windows open to let in the cool night air. Then Greg got up early and took the five minute drive to Arches for sunrise shots while I stayed back and enjoyed the kids and dogs and rocks and trees at the campground.

            Later on we hiked on a path named “Park Avenue” for its skyscraper sized red rock walls, taking both photos and video on another perfect weather day when, oddly, we were the only ones on this wide trail marked by cairns and loaded with small cacti, desert grasses, and twisted burnt looking trees. We’ve been to this same place on several occasions, but every time feels new and humbling and gets us into the proper mindset for connecting and acknowledging this ancient land that belongs to no one, but was fortunately preserved by the U.S. National Park Service.

            We then did a few of the more popular hikes, “Windows,” “Devil’s Garden,” (short version) and “Delicate Arch View” loving the strange formations but feeling a deep awe and reverence for every monumental rock that extends toward the sky and every pebble that rotates under our boots. This happens the next day when we head to Canyonlands and hike the “Grandview Point” in “Island in the Sky.” When we pull over to an unmarked stop and look out over the Green River winding its way through the canyon, we’re in touch with something extraordinary, like no place else on Earth.  

Unmarked pull-off in Canyonlands towards Grandview Point

 There are wonderful restaurants and side trips and fun places to stay I could tell you about here, but the heart of what happens when we go on these trips, is not in those details. It's a transformation of thought and presence and being that transcends travelogue. It's an awakening to an extraordinary past, an understanding of how small we are in the scheme of things, and a window,an arch, a bridge and a canyon that invite us to countless possibilities.
Greg’s way of staying connected is through his photos that he lovingly edits and perfects when we get home. For me, there is no photo that quite embodies the essence of being there and it’s the closest I get to feeling something spiritual. The god thing, I don’t really get, but being lost in nature is where I feel something mysterious, ancient, deep and connected. I haven’t quite figured out how to bring that essence back home with me yet and maybe I never will. So I guess I'll just have to keep going back!

There’s something out there and for me it’s a place. I just have to keep following that path and see where it leads.

           

All photos in this post were taken with my Nokia Windows Phone. Greg's are much better, trust me! Or better yet, get out there and take some of your own!

Colorado/Moab Part 1: Writing Here...

This is the first time I’m trying to write from the road. It’s harder than I thought because I have to take time away from vacationing to sit down and do it and somehow have perspective on what’s going on while it’s happening. To live in the moment and reflect and evaluate all at once is not such an easy task, like a photographer trying to take and edit and process photos all at the same time. Why photographers, you say?  Because right now I’m sitting in our rented Ford Edge at Arches National Park with the sun streaming in behind me, a panoramic view of the park and LaSal Mountains in the distance. When I look up from my computer, there are at least eight, no twelve, no twenty photographers in view  (Greg amongst them) all trying to capture this perfect light, what they call “the golden hour.” Writing while this is happening both puts me in and takes me out of the experience.

Though I always keep a journal whenever I travel, it usually gets littered with all the worries that cling to me when I leave home, so I’m trying to do something different this time, as in only write about the trip and get it publishable by tomorrow. It’s a challenge that I’m forcing myself to meet because one of my imaginary futures is that of a travel writer who writes while touring the world, all expenses paid by my wonderful insights, style, knowledge, and enormous and dedicated following.

In the real world, as in the one I’m living in right now, travel is a mixed bag. It gives me a lot of time I don’t usually have to sit around in a car or plane and think about things I haven’t quite worked out yet. Small issues, like what will I do with the rest of my life? Or why do I even think I can afford being on this trip right now? And because the sun has just set and the golden hour/15 minutes is almost over, I’ll backtrack and tell you how this whole trip started.

We left Buffalo on Saturday heading to Denver for a trek up to Estes Park for some strolling, scribbling and picture snapping (aka hiking, writing and landscape photography). The plane had some weirdness but I actually slept that deep sleep that only happens in the comfort of an airplane seat where you’re sitting pretty much upright so your head occasionally bobs forward like it’s about to fall off, startling you into wakefulness. But when the plane finally lands you get off fully rested (right?) and begin the search for your luggage which in Denver involves a long train ride to the baggage claim followed by crowds and confusion, hoards of lumbering sheep who are practically begging you to clock them in the knees with your suitcase as they hover close to the carousel refusing to move as you squeeze in to grab your bag weighing only slightly under the 50 lb. weight limit.

On to another moving vehicle, a bus to the car rental pick-up where the agent who couldn’t seem more disinterested asks how we are and where we’re going, then proceeds to skillfully hustle us into upgrading our vehicle to something bigger that will be more powerful, safer and more expensive for taking us into the mountains. I keep saying, “Budget, budget…” and Greg says, “But we really could use a bigger…” and we wind up with a full-size SUV that is quite nice but $125 over what we were planning on spending, a fantastic bargain by our crafty agent’s standards.

But we’re on our way, a mere hour and a half after landing at 4:30 and we get to see a few streaks of purple and pink through wispy clouds as we head up to Estes Park on a dark and winding road. This time of year in Colorado can bring any kind of weather, but one thing you can rely on when you’re at this elevation is an early sunset and a bit of time allowed for altitude adjustment.

We arrived at our small hotel called “Nicky’s Resort” at about 7:30 PM, a place we found on Expedia for $79 a night in an area where rooms can cost much, much more. But we read the 95% approval rated reviews, which we know can be fake, but in this case, we were in complete agreement with what we saw described on the Internet. The room was small, but clean, and  had a really cute knotty pine decor. We got the cheapest room with a king bed, but if you wanted to pay a bit more, you could get two queens, a fireplace, that kind of thing. We weren’t planning on spending much time in the room so what we got was fine and the location was perfect, quiet and off the road a bit, a short distance from town and Rocky Mountain National Park. The one negative thing we read about was the restaurant which was reported to be expensive and not very good, so we drove five minutes into Estes Park and had dinner at “Mama Rose’s,” one of the many good restaurants there where we enjoyed reasonably priced comfort food in a warm atmosphere with good service.

After a decent night’s sleep Greg left in the dark at 6:05 AM to get his sunrise shots while I stayed back and slept in until 8:30. It was a bit cold when I ventured out wearing my warm weather gear and discovered a lovely path of pine straw and pebbles next to the Fall River complete with the sounds of rushing water over rocks and aspens bright with yellow leaves dappled in sunlight.

That’s when I got it, the realization that whatever this costs money, aggravation or time-wise, is completely worth it. Not only did I need to get away, but I needed to come specifically here, to sit and stare, and dream and write, and reconnect with the beauty of the natural world.  

 

Invisible

Deer at Bryce Canyon by Greg McGill

I recently drove on the New York State Thruway on a sun-drenched autumn afternoon and couldn’t help noticing an astounding number of dead deer lying in various uncomfortable looking positions along the highway. I was traveling at sixty-five miles per hour so I was catching a quick glimpse of contorted corpses, blood and body parts, scattered remains of these lovely creatures strewn across the shoulder of the highway. I kept thinking about how this horror contrasted with the beauty of the leaves changing, the rolling green hillsides and puffy white clouds in a sky the color of morning glories.

I also noticed one young deer against the guardrail in the median whose head was upright and resting gently against the metal, so peacefully, it looked like he was sleeping. Maybe he was dreaming of being reunited with his parents who I’d probably passed on the road before reaching him. 

When I drove home a few hours later, it was pitch dark and I didn’t see much of anything except headlights coming toward me, tail lights in front of me and the white lines guiding on either side of my vehicle. I think it was a moonless night, but when I passed a clearing off to my right, I saw three glowing deer standing on a hillside, just for a second. It was the strangest thing because I couldn’t figure out where the light was coming from. Certainly not my headlights, they were pointed in a different direction. But there they were, lit up like that old “Green Ghost” game I used to play when I was a kid.

The image stuck with me but I didn’t think too much of it until I was safely back home in bed, trying to fall asleep, unsuccessfully, as usual. I thought about the three glowing deer and the ones slaughtered on the highway and wondered if there was any connection. I knew I’d witnessed the secret world of the night deer standing in the field but I also started thinking that what I’d seen glowing might not be of this world at all. That perhaps the ghosts of the slaughtered deer were standing still watching us, trying to make sense of the rushing wheels, why we all needed to get somewhere so fast, while they stood caught in unearthly stillness between this world and another.

I believe in an afterlife, though I’m not a religious person. It’s because of the experiences I’ve had with people close to me dying. My friend, Angela, who died at age 39, was put on life support for a few days after a brain aneurism, and I swear I felt her presence everywhere, except in the hospital room where she lingered. I especially felt her when I was near the lake, but shortly after she was officially dead, her presence faded. I felt that after my mother died too, that she was around for awhile, a white butterfly fluttering through my backyard, but then moved on once she’d checked in on us enough to know we’d be okay.

I don’t know why the deer would stick around. Maybe they too were looking out for their loved ones. Yeah, deer. I think they have feelings. And they certainly have reason to be concerned. The highway is a dangerous place, especially if you’re a wild animal trying to get to the other side in this life or the next. But I also think that the deer, and other things too, are looking at us, noticing what we humans are up to, even if we’re not too keen on looking back. There’s a lot out there, though it sometimes goes by in a blur. There's so much more we could be getting in touch with, if we would just slow down enough to appreciate what's going on around us.

A Small Thing at the Playground

My beautiful young Mom

            I’m walking back home from the grocery store across the field near the playground and I notice this sign that says, “No smoking, young lungs at play.” It makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time because when I was growing up and all the horrors of secondhand smoke were known and ignored, people smoked everywhere. And God forbid anyone should object to people smoking outside! It’s outside for Christ’s sake! What could be the problem with that?

My mother was a smoker so I got to enjoy secondhand smoke in my very own home. Everyone smoked back then, (except my dad) especially on T.V. and in movies, so it seemed like the most glamorous thing for my beautiful young mom to be holding a cigarette in her hand or to her lips nearly all the time, except for when she was drinking or eating. The way she would hold it, just so, was nothing short of graceful; Ingrid Bergman Casablanca graceful. Smooth, romantic, utterly cool.

I think I was around five when I started picking up my mom’s cigarette and pretending to smoke it, holding it exactly right between my two stubby fingers then sweeping it to my lips, where I just, you know, placed it gently and kind of puffed. This was all fine and dandy until my dad saw me one day and decided to teach me a lesson or kill me, I’m not sure which. He told me to suck in on the cigarette like Mommy did and low and behold I nearly choked to death. I don't know if I turned blue, but I never did smoke or even touch a cigarette after that. Lesson learned. Stay away from Daddy.

Though my Mom was the lone smoker in our nuclear family we often went to my grandparents’ house where everyone (except my grandfather) smoked. My mother had three siblings and among them were more than ten marriages so it’s hard to keep track of how many of the spouses smoked, but I know that my sister and I and our revolving door of cousins often were stuck in a fourteen by eighteen foot room with as many as fifteen smokers. We repeatedly complained of headaches and were told to go outside or down cellar to my grandfather’s office but not without first being reprimanded for whining and complaining about something that had nothing to do with their smoking.

My grandmother believed in smoking like her mother believed in Jesus. She allowed her children to start as early as they wanted, my mother at eleven! She also encouraged my sister and me to try it and not be such “goody-goodies.” We would have nothing to do with it, but I did enjoy eating the gin-soaked olives she left in her martini glasses that (sans pimentos) fit very well on my tiny little fingers.

I know this sounds like child abuse by today’s standards but these are not unpleasant memories, except for the smoking. We also ate at these gatherings and my grandmother, “Gammy,” made this salad we called “Gammy Salad.” It consisted of soggy iceberg lettuce, mayonnaise-drenched tomatoes, onions, and (here’s the really good part) little slivers of Swiss cheese! The reason it was so soggy was because of the endless cocktail hours that preceded dinner. There were pitchers of martinis that kept getting emptied and refilled, I kept eating the olives as an appetizer, and before you knew it, the main course, “Gammy Chicken soaked in French Dressing” was so over-cooked that it was falling off the bones (yes, chicken had bones in those days) and it was delicious!

Gammy never quit smoking, even after several operations to reopen the collapsed veins all over her body. She never got lung cancer. She did have emphysema, but I don’t ever really remember her being very sick. Near the end of her life, she brought a handsome young man as her escort to my mother’s third wedding. This same guy was a pall bearer at her funeral. She did whatever the hell she wanted. She was not a nice person, but she was an accidentally amazing cook!

My mother was the only one amongst her siblings who died directly from a smoking-related illness; emphysema at the age of 64. She did quit smoking in her late 50’s but by then it was too late. Her husband died of lung cancer seven months before her death.

Smoking kills people. It really does! I’m glad that a few young lungs will be spared by the sign next to the playground. But I also wish that the people I loved who got killed by cigarettes were back with us to enjoy a few moments of smoke-free air around most everywhere now. I’d stand in the sunlight with them, watch the children play and just breathe in all that fresh air.

***

This week’s blog post came from reading (well, skimming) William Zinsser’s The Writer Who Stayed. At age 87 he offered to write a personal essay once a week for the web version of the Scholar and wound up doing so for 19 months! Like me, he also taught writing and loved helping other writers find their voices and get over whatever it is that’s holding them back from writing. For me, it’s finding a subject that I feel comfortable writing about each week and keeping to the deadline like the word dead means something.

I thought about small hands, young lungs, the little mouth that puffed the cigarette and slurped the salad. The joy of childhood, the weirdness, the photos and fragrances (acrid sometimes) that take me back there. And Gammy. She surprised me.

There’s always something worth writing about, if you think small and dig in.

The Playlist

James Taylor and me circa 1970

I’m listening to my Spotify “starred” playlist on shuffle through a bluetooth speaker propped on my kitchen counter. This is all thanks to my son, Zach, who got me an ad free premium membership and the speaker last year for my birthday and I’ve been hooked ever since. It was a little bit of a learning curve for this old girl who’s just figuring out her IPOD, but I’ve enjoyed being able to find all the old music I used to listen to as a kid as well as a good deal of new stuff that really is quite good. I know I’m betraying my generation by saying this, but there is some pretty brilliant music that was made after 1975 and I’m fortunate to be in touch with younger people, like Zach, who point me in the direction of stuff that appeals to me.

I don’t remember a time in my life when there wasn’t music. Starting with my crazy grandfather playing Beethoven symphonies loudly on his RCA console stereo when we visited, to my very young parents introducing us to vanilla early 60’s music, like Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checkers. Yes, I grew up on songs like “Swingin’ School” and “Wild One,” as well as “Twist Again” and “Ballin’ the Jack.” My parents also listened to Barbra Steisand and I learned to comically lipsinc to “People” and “Don’t Rain On My Parade” in an effort to lift the spirits of my often depressed Mom.

But the music we first took ownership of came from Broadway musicals which topped the charts in that era and while we loved “The Sound of Music,” “Oklahoma,” and “My Fair Lady,” our favorite musical was “Oliver!” and we listened to the Lionel Bart version repeatedly until we learned every line of every song. We even invited neighbors to an evening of “The Parkwood Summer Theatre” which featured my sister and I, the Franks, the Creans, or basically anyone on the street who thought they could sing and dance. For fifteen cents we treated or annoyed them with our special renditions of “I’d Do Anything,” “Where is Love,” “As Long as He Needs Me” and Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots are Made for Walking” performed by my sister, Terri, who I don’t think sang as much as wore really cool boots. The money we made (I think $3.15, we also sold popcorn) was donated to charity which assured that our picture got in the local paper. I don’t think anyone has this picture, or any evidence of our remarkable productions, as this was not the age of selfies and cameras on everyone phone or phones on every person, thank heaven for small favors.

Then came “The Monkees.” While teenagers listened to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, us younger kids (let’s say 10 and under) listened to this thrown together boy band (with grown men) that wasn’t assembled for its talent as much as its appeal to young girls. Apparently, I fell victim to this marketing ploy, watching their T.V. show religiously each week(sometimes twice when we would go to a neighbor’s to see it on Canadian T.V.) and buying albums which featured songs they mostly didn’t write with instruments they couldn’t really play and singing well enough to fool ten year olds into thinking they could sing.  I am still proud to say that I traded my “Meet the Beatles” album for “Meet The Monkees,” which says a lot about my musical taste then and now.

My real musical awakening came in 1968 when I was eleven and was asked to babysit at the home of my neighbors, Doug and Barbara Hunter, who were totally into the folk rock scene exploding at that time. While their darling little boys, Gerry and Geoffy slept, I was REQUIRED to listen to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin, Simon and Garfunkel and anything that was played on the F.M. radio station then called “WYSL.” Upon their return, I was asked to critique the music they’d left me and I can only imagine how intelligent my eleven year old response to “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” must have sounded.

But they started me on a path, so by the time I hit twelve, I was sitting in my room listening to EVERYTHING, mostly folk music but also blues and southern rock, all of which felt like it was written specifically for and about me. Hearing “hello darkness my old friend,” and “how terribly strange to be seventy” has an even more haunting effect on me now than it did when I was still a young girl.

I’m skipping a lot here about how music has influenced me in every way imaginable but it’s hard to summarize how having music that spoke to me on an emotional level added to and in some ways saved my life. I honestly don’t know where I would have been without it and even now, some days, all it takes to get me out of a funk is hearing a really good song.

 So whether I’m bopping along to Robin Thicke and Pharell Williams singing “Blurred Lines,” or screaming along with John Mayer's “The Real World” or swirling into the romantic orchestration and lyrics in Judy Collins’s “Albatross,” the playlist takes me forward and takes me back, lifts me up and centers me. It’s the greatest thing ever to be able to connect and reconnect and know that no matter how old and feeble I get, the music will always be there for me.

For the Birds

Photo by Brad Anner

I haven’t slept well for the past three nights which is making this week’s post difficult to write. But then there are things making it difficult for me to sleep which in turn makes it difficult to do almost anything.

            What is it about this time of year? It’s the first day of autumn. My auto-correct wrote autism. Is it the first day of autism? Imagine that. The weather’s changing, leaves are falling, and guess what else? Not a very jokey subject, but there is this feeling of not being able to communicate whatever the hell is going on out there, or for that matter, in here.

            Today’s a gorgeously warm, sunny day and my yard is full of small brown birds fluttering and darting about from the trees to the bushes, to the fence, to the feeder. After sorting and picking through the seeds Greg generously provides for them, they drop a huge mess on the ground of broken and discarded shells.

I hate these birds and I want to be one of them.

            These birds have no future and no past and as far as I can tell, none of them are aging. They probably got a good night’s sleep, their chins look taut and beauty is of no concern. You can barely tell one from the other. They have no jobs, no names, no expectations. They simply eat, sleep, fly around, sing a bit, begin again.

            Actually, there is this one that seems a bit worried. He’s teetering on the clothesline, bobbing back and forth, looking apprehensively over his shoulder at the other guys at the feeder. He sees Hal who got that promotion he wanted, and Joe who’s been checking out Maybeline behind his back and what the hell, why not just go over and show them what’s what? So Bonsoir makes his move and heads over to the feeder where Hal and Joe pretend not to notice him at first. Then there’s some fluttering, spitting, and before you know it...

            Bonsoir is back at the clothesline singing. Those guys aren’t worth it, Maybeline is a two-timing floosy and what was that that just flew by? A butterfly, small, white, delicate…Hold the phone there, perverts. Inter-species relationships are a bit too advanced for young Bon here. But he can appreciate beauty and grace when it practically flies in his face. Doesn’t everyone?

            He continues to sing, focusing now on shivering shadows of leaves on the ground, tall grass bending in the wind, a low swooshing sound like waves on an ocean, though there’s no water near.

            Turns out Bonsoir is the Josh Grobin of songbirds, if you’re into that kind of thing. And now he’s joined on the line by Babette, a real looker by dull brown bird standards. Feathers, beak, head that bobs around aimlessly, the whole nine. They look into each other’s small black dot on the side of the head eyes and it’s immediate, intense, and ultimately real.

            There’s no time for talk here. A couple chorus’s of “People will Say We’re In Love” and they’re back at Bon’s place, chewing on some worms and throwing down some eggs and heating things up with some hot brown bird love (that’s probably out of order, but I told you I was tired and these damn word processors! You know how they don’t change things. Once it’s written, it’s THERE! Remember white-out? Who remembers white-out? Can we install white-out on my computer, like, NOW)!

            Bonsoir and Babette Bellagauche are getting along swimmingly. Bon has become a Castrato in the Italian opera of Chicago and sends his checks back to Babette and the brood who visit my yard daily as Babette recounts the beautiful love story of meeting Daddy on the clothesline and well...there they are. More ugly brown birds filling my yard.

Maybe someday they’ll all move to Chicago but until then, I welcome them. Though their manners are not much improved, I am happy to be supporting a young gifted family struggling in the arts and for now, my autumn is filled with song.

           

Of Bumblebees and The Big Bang

Designs by Masha Dyans

My older son, Brad, and I were sitting outside on our backyard deck when a bumblebee darted dangerously close to our heads. We both ducked before it landed on a nearby geranium and Brad said, “Don’t worry, bumblebees don’t have stingers.”

To which I inquired, “They don’t? Then how do they pollinate the flowers?”

 He stared at me incredulously. “Not with their stingers!” He proceeded to play around with his phone for a few seconds and then declared, “Oh, they do have stingers, but they’re non-aggressive.”

            “I don’t know things about facts,” I stated clumsily and I think that’s when Brad went back inside, locking the door to our house behind him.

Aside from being awkward, the preceding statement was mostly untrue. I do know some things about facts. For instance, it is difficult for me to remember the ones that hold little importance for me like those concerning science or technology, most periods of history, and anything having to do with my keys.

            I studied Literature and Theatre in college, wonderful subjects that I do know quite a bit about. But I guess that makes me more of an ideas and feelings kind of person. I like figuring out what makes people tick, why they do what they do and think what they think. What motivates them. I’m also a big fan of living in the moment. Noticing things, like the wind in the trees, or the sun on my face. I don’t need to know why the wind is blowing or the sun is shining, just that we’re there together, blissfully sharing our ignorance.

            Granted, my research habits may be a little on the lazy side. In a scene for a play I was recently writing, I wanted to transform the “sharks” from the T.V. show “Shark Tank” into real sharks, my idea being that contestants would stand in front of an actual tank with the different sharks swimming around, insulting them and their innovations, and trying to entice them to come into the tank and be eaten. In order to write this, I needed a few more facts so I went to my local library and took out some non-fiction children’s books about sharks and other sea life. And then I walked to my grocery store, books in hand, and the check-out lady who I see almost daily who always says in the same sing-songy way, “Thank you for shopping at Dash’s. Come and see us again,” looked at me! And for the first time ever asked, “What are you reading?”

I was so taken aback by this personal contact and embarrassed by the actual reason I had checked out these books that I said, “Oh, they’re just some children’s books for my niece and nephew. They’re really into sharks right now!”

And then I walked home, marveling at how easily I had turned into such a proficient liar. Truthfully, I do have a niece and nephew in their late twenties who might enjoy me visiting them with these titles and inviting them to sit on my lap for storytime, and younger ones in Connecticut who will never lay eyes on these books. But the fact that I knew how stupid my endeavor was, enough to cover it up, did not stop me from using the simple facts in those books that any eight year old would understand to inform my scene, which by the way, turned out great!

So how much do we really need to know?

While visiting South Carolina with Brad in late July, we encountered a rainy day and stayed inside watching a documentary on Netflix of his choosing. It was about the Higgs Particle and after less than two months time, here is what I remember about the film. There were these physicists and they were really excited about some theory this guy Higgs came up with. Something to do with the Big Bang and something they didn’t know about it. So the physicists were writing long equations on blackboards in classrooms with numbers and letters and squiggly lines. And then they built these huge machines underground and they wanted to replicate the Big Bang so they made all these explosions occur in the machines that were built in these huge buildings that cost billions of dollars. And all the physicists all over the world were watching and the first time they tried it, it didn’t work and the second time it did. And everybody was happy. And now they know...something.

Did I get too technical for anyone? Lose anybody with my commanding mastery of the details? If I had taken notes during the film and had studied them while writing this, I might be a bit a more specific. But what I remember most about that afternoon is how surprised I was that Brad wanted to learn about this and while I was getting lost in all the scientific concepts presented, Brad was clearly interested.  I kept looking over at him whispering, “Are you getting this?” And he would nod and say, “Yeah,” trying not to miss the next step of the process being explained on the screen.

So maybe that’s what I need to know; that I have a son who is sometimes interested in different things than I am and is intellectually superior to me about certain subjects. And we’re both willing to spend time with one another working this all out.

And when the rain stopped and the sun came out, we both enjoyed swimming.