A Minor Miracle

A minor miracle: I arrived safely while holding the speed limit as the motorcycle, the Tesla, and the SUV drove over and above. Or – as I heard on the New Yorker radio hour en route -  it is the miracle of two - young then but older now - Black men wrongfully accused of a murder in the 80s. One was only 16 and the other in his early 20s. So much promise and then the corrupt and unfair justice system failed them. Finally years later they had served their horrendous sentences and were home free… or so it seemed. But not quite, as they were still being called “guilty. “

The case was reopened and Alvin Bragg,  now New York DA and Trump’s nemesis, exonerated both of these Black men who had been wrongfully accused. Having been framed by the police just looking for a win. Sad that the state’s “star” witness whose false testimony – given with the promise of a pardon for his own crime – had recently died. So, a minor miracle that even without his words, the two men had their integrity restored and perhaps they could finally carve a life from the debris and detritus of years in the New York State prison system, in two different prisons where they could only exchange monthly letters to keep the connection which represented their loyalty to each other, as it would take years before the truth would truly set them free.

Here's the thing…their minor miracle was a weightier one than mine of just over a week ago. I hesitate to represent it as a miracle, certainly much more minor than the cross your fingers and bite your nails miracle that Trump doesn’t win the election. I hope there is a  landslide which finally puts Trump to rest and maybe even in jail, but some would say it will be a minor miracle if Biden wins. But really, too soon for predictions even if the polls and predictors are out in force.

Here's the thing…I submitted a creative non-fiction piece to a range of literary magazines. It was accepted and immediately thereafter it looked like the publication never existed or the website was fake or the prosecuting attorney bribed a witness to say that such publication never existed. I was traveling at the time of said acceptance, focused instead on a college graduation. Returning home to face my inbox, I did my own sleuthing and it seemed in fact that my piece had gone into the ether where scammers and Martians lurk behind web pages, unseen and anonymous, creating havoc and disappointment for a writer who must contend with competition from AI and Tic Toc and any number of entities who imagine they are writers after a few short days or hours or even minutes.

But here comes the minor miracle part…just 48 hours later I learned that though the site for Adelaide Magazine had been hacked, the publisher was in the process of repairing and rejuvenating the site so my piece had actually been published in the magazine  which has been in existence for many years, in print and on-line.

Here’s the thing…arriving safely to one’s destination, restoring justice and carving a space for creative excellence are minor miracles. Not one, but three. Writing outside on a sunny day is another minor miracle In the midst of worry about elections and wars and famine and the noise of 4th of July fireworks awaiting us in the Mission. But Asher and Robert and I will be far away in Occidental where it will be a minor miracle if it is indeed quiet.

Setting the Table

What is it about setting the table? I have no childhood memories of my mother setting the table or that we kids were given the chore. Perhaps for me it dates back to the shutdown and to having my life shut down in so many ways. But at least I could count on the meals and the cooking and the setting and the sitting at the table. Was it then that Robert and I took the places we still occupy each evening we are home to sit, arranging ourselves habitually. I have a view to the garden. The one he rarely goes out to unless throwing a ball for Asher, down the breezeway with not much glance to my pots of perennials or the blooms on the Hellebores or the lemon tree which refuses to lemon or even to the wall of Jasmine he helped to create. His place is in view of the kitchen and Asher’s bed so he can note if the dog is napping or chewing on the soft corners.

Some time ago, maybe even predating Covid, a time which is sometimes hard to remember, I started purchasing cloth napkins. In person, while traveling or at a local crafts fair or at my favorite store on 4th street in Berkeley. Nothing very expensive, cotton or linen and machine washable. Maybe to pick up the orange in the one dining room wall, maybe to set off the placemats I bought in Italy or the woven ones from my childhood. Or the ones from our trip to Madagascar, many years before Covid.

I set the table every night. Though Robert would volunteer, I think for me it is a chance to control my environment and to make something peaceful and coordinated and colorful when so much of the world is not. I stand back and evaluate my choices, occasionally making some last-minute change. When Nico comes to visit, or Nathaniel or both of them I set 4 places at the table. And I distinguish their napkins so they return to the same place for the next meal. I have never thought of myself as any kind of germaphobe, but it settles me to see that each of us returns to the same place. Robert still faces the kitchen and me the garden, so the kids – as I still call them at 29 and 30 – take what is left.

Last night I took out the tablecloth my grandmother embroidered which I will use for tomorrow night’s Seder. And her elegant, cut crystal wine glasses that I rarely use. I always combine that tablecloth with white, linen napkins of the Crate and Barrel variety. But this year I decided instead to use a mix of linen ones, fringed. Half are a pale grey and half a mustard yellow. It has been hard to think about Passover this year. I recently said to a friend that I am equally proud and ashamed to be Jewish these days. I have wondered if and how to interject some relevance into tomorrow’s service.

A friend sent a suggestion from an action network. My Quaker guest was wondering about mixing in politics. I want to read an editorial by Jose Andrés, founder of World Central Kitchen, about the unspeakable horror of denying food…to anyone. Like recipes, I have a collection of clippings from the New York times. The editorials I admired during the early days. By Nicholas Kristof and Charles Blow. I have stopped clipping, there are too many.

Next year in Jerusalem. I think not. But next year I imagine I will still be setting the table. Each night for Robert and me and hopefully, often, for the kids , the boys, and the lovely Dasha. Nico teases me sometimes. ”Mom, are these new napkins? When did you get these?” He notices everything!

The shelf on which I keep the napkins, in orderly stacks on top of the placemat collection, is full. The last set from my trip to Italy last year. Before Oct. 7 when Passover only meant who would cook what. I wonder if this ritual of setting the table, purchasing napkins and changing the layout  - which I do weekly – for another pair of napkins to couple with two different placemats is a wish for peace, control and order. Something predictable that I can rely on to change only in appearance from floral to solid and back again.

Not Celebrating

My brain is buzzing. Can I even hold in the same breath my friend’s multiple myeloma and my son’s engagement? I am zigzagging among the weeds or the bulrushes or the fields of bright dahlias.  I wish the field of multi colored blooms was still available in Pescadero. The field of many years ago. Pick your own. Create a bouquet. Pay as you leave. Take your time. Dive right in and wander.

This morning I brought him a plate of toast. Mild cheese and a banana reminiscent of his childhood in Australia. He explained that when the fruit got brown his mother cut slices into a glass or cup or bowl of milk. And sprinkled this treat with sugar. “ We loved it…because it was sweet.” He was more animated than I had seen him in days. Crouching on his hospital bed in his private room on 11 Long. The quiet floor for blood and lots of IVs. He is getting a stem cell transplant.

The stem cells go out and then - as I will now explain without the benefit of any medical expertise - they are cleaned and then they are returned. With, hopefully, a theater full of healthy white cells. The ones that do battle with the evil cancer ones. He stayed with us during the outpatient procedure of removing the cells. And then storing them into test tubes carefully labeled I imagine. I never saw them. But I picture them, perhaps a rainbow of colors, maybe glistening, but probably just a standard red.

 Once the test tubes were full, he returned two weeks ago to remain an inpatient while a mega dose of chemotherapy ripped into his immune system. To leave him like a newborn with no immunity. No memory of a childhood case of the measles or a bout with strep throat. Years of flu shots and more recently the Covid vaccines were wiped from his body’s memory. Weak and tired and nauseous he remains in the hospital still, but hopefully to go home on Tuesday. Each day stronger, more able to walk the halls and chat for a few minutes with visitors who are encouraged.

Robert and I have visited. Me more recently as Robert’s cold is not allowed on the sterilized floor full of masks. It‘s ok. I want to be there, perhaps as much because his wife, my dear friend, passed just before the shutdown. Her cancer having returned after many years. She was angry and depressed and though we all did what we could, she perhaps preferred to retreat as of course entitled. So now I am present for him, as much because of  my affection for him and his family, but perhaps also in Sandra’s memory. Finally I can help.

I twirl among these cancer memories and the news of my son’s engagement. This truly is the thing to celebrate. I knew it was coming, he and Dasha are on year #6, but the reality is still slowly melting into my frontal lobe. Today, after toast and cheese delivered to the hospital on Parnassus, we chatted about the engagement party Robert and I will host later in April.

The thing is…the details aren’t important and explaining is not necessary. Suffice it to say that there was more twirling here. About the food, and the guest list and whose party is it anyway?? A bit of mother/son anxiety which passed. We care so much about each other, that sometimes I dive into the past and forget that he is 30 and sane and fully capable even when anxiety surfaces.

I am celebrating the marriage of these two ….the son whom I will always love to the moon and back, and the lovely Dasha whose golden hair and crystal blue eyes must mean she surely is a star who discovered Nico in her travels through the extraterrestial. First there was darkness and now there is light.

I am not celebrating my friend’s cancer. But perhaps the hoped-for recovery. The miracles of medicine which could not save his wife,  but will hopefully  program many more years for him. So he can join us for a cappuccino when we visit him in Nevada City. Or as we  hike along the Yuba River. Or for the mandatory foray into that fabulous kitchen store in Grass Valley where we each bought the most perfect, hand held pepper grinder. We will sit in his backyard hot tub after walking back and forth over the swinging bridge.

To care so deeply for my son and for my friend all at once, in the same day, the same morning. To know that I cannot control the health of my friend’s cells or my son’s emotional landscape. I can only control my attitude and my own side of the street. I cannot control the outcome of the Super Bowl and which exits will be blocked as I return to San Francisco and the small slice of life that I call mine.

A Letter…lost and found!

I have verification. Barbra Streisand was a patient of my father’s. His dual practice In cardiology and internal medicine in Beverly Hills included a number of Hollywood types. Steve McQueen – a story for a different day - Groucho Marx and company – again for another day – and Richard Crenna. Remember The Real McCoys? Someone once referred to my Dad as , “doctor to the stars.” But my father was very understated. He wasn’t in awe of those who often had such troubled and unhappy personal lives. We, my siblings and I, were hardly aware of those he ministered to.

Back to Barbra. There was a framed photograph of Barbra and my father featured on a shelf  in his home study. It was taken many years ago. She has beautiful hands with long fingernails. She is holding his and they are both smiling. She looks grateful and warmth emanates from the picture. Over the years since my father died in 1990, I had fantasized meeting her. I loved her music when I was in high school and pledged that I would remarry just as she did before I turned 60, which I did.

Some years ago I finally decided to write her a letter. To introduce myself and to share that we were both married by the same rabbi, which we were. I was sure she would respond, having adored, in a way, my father. When he died she sent a beautiful wreath of white flowers to the cemetery where we had gathered. Jews prefer small stones to flowers when it comes to a gravesite. In Prague, I went to a centuries old cemetery with leaning gravestones, crumbling and crowded. It was said there were coffins riding piggy back and I am sure the Nazis had tried to obliterate this small, overgrown and poignant piece of history.

So at the service Barbra’s wreath stood near the podium from which we paid tribute to my father. At some point over the years my mother had shared her own Barbra story. This famous woman would call my father at home, such a phone call to a doctor’s house certainly dates me, and say,” Hi Bernice, this is Barbra. Is Morley there?” And Mom would hand the phone to my father as if such a call was most casual and commonplace. Sometime during those years we all went to New York and saw Funny Girl with Barbra in the lead. I still have, and play, the vinyl recording from the musical.

After such a storied history, I did write a letter to Barbra. Our rabbi gave me her address and I sent it off to Malibu a few years after she and I had each married successfully for the second time. Of course, she never got the letter and I can only imagine how much mail arrived that she never saw. A few years later, through a medical connection at the hospital where my father had worked, I was able to contact one of Barbra’s assistants who emailed me to say he was sorry she had never seen the letter, but if I resent it, she would get it. I did and she did.

A few weeks later, I received a letter, not electronic, but on paper with her name embossed. She apologized for not getting the first letter and thanked me for my thoughts. She said I was lucky to have Leonard (the rabbi) as my friend and Morley as my father. I framed the letter and it sits among the bits and pieces of my parents’ lives that adorn the top shelf of the bookcase I brought to my house in San Francisco after my mother died, now too many years ago. My son was recently surprised when I said I had no intention of reading the 950-page tome that Barbra has just written. I said it was because I have so many other books I would rather read. The recent review in the New York Times was enough and it provided a very gracious glimpse into the book and her life. I think it is crazy that she cloned her dog and I am disappointed she never invited me to tea and for a walk on her piece of Malibu coastline. But the fact that she loved my father is enough for me. I don’t need to read the book. I saw the movie!

Freezing and Thawing

The door locks were frozen on the driver’s side of my grey BMW. The 2002 model  my parents had bought for me, years earlier. I was living in Greeley, Colorado with the husband I would later wonder why I had married even when voices inside expressed my mixed feelings from the moment he proposed. Seeking security and some separation from my family, I agreed to the marriage and the move to this cold piece of landscape in the flatlands of Colorado.

 I had to drive each morning to my job as Public Relations Director at the small, community college which was more about auto body and nursing prerequisites than what I thought was the more valuable liberal arts curriculum I had pursued. Deicer, some chemical in a spray bottle, was useful and the locks thawed so I could begin the drive. Across the plains, with the mountains far ahead, I composed the kinds of conversations I would have liked to have with my husband about how I didn’t feel connected or valued.

They never happened, these conversations, frozen in wait for deliverance a few years later. Frozen locks and frozen ideas were a theme, for some years. Before the wedding and all that followed, I lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan. During those academic winters I hardly ever drove the grey 2002. How could I move it from the small parking lot adjacent to my apartment when drifts of snow had planted themselves in front and around and in back? I walked mostly. Through the law school quad, up to the pristine Rackham library or to the labyrinth of classrooms in the Journalism department.

I was seeking a life apart, hoping to find a path that was somehow my own. But the influence of my well-meaning parents, particularly my mother, challenged my ability to wonder, “what if.” So the path from graduate school to marriage was almost seamless. Until a weekend, a cold, snowy weekend when my husband had left town to mull over my claims of incompatibility. My therapist at the time challenged me to spend the weekend doing what I wanted, without concern for what would be useful, or creative or helpful. I was pretty good at freezing my thoughts to fit neatly into the ice cube trays of other people’s expectations.

On this particular weekend I spent most of Sunday trying out various options. I put on my cross-country skis to move silently to the neighborhood park. It was beautiful, the snow-covered branches and the silence. Unfulfilled, I returned home to thaw and try again. I must have cooked something or sorted something or cleaned something in the ensuing hours,  but not much happiness or satisfaction to report. Just before dinner I decided to hand wash the collection of underwear and pantyhose   - yes, in those days – and whatever odd pieces had gathered in the red, drawstring bag I reserved for what wasn’t appropriate for the washing machine. Woolite, cool water, a bathroom sink. The rhythm of dipping and soaking and wringing. Of hanging. The ice cubes began to melt as my inaccessible thoughts and feelings began to thaw.

War is not healthy…

War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things…a poster from 1966. To protest the Vietnam War. I was in high school and it all seemed so very far away. Israel seemed closer. I still can’t sort the history though a Mezuzah graces my front door, and I wear the small, gold one my parents gave me whenever I travel. A talisman to keep me safe.

Several girls I knew in high school - we didn’t yet call ourselves “women” – lived for a summer on a Kibbutz in Israel. They returned with glowing reports, particularly of the young men they met: tall and tan with muscles and commitment. Sometime later my sister spent a summer in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem…I can’t now recall. But I know she studied Hebrew and thrived while I was trying to find my way through a first marriage to “a nice Jewish boy”  who checked all the boxes but was not destined to be my soul mate.

Over the years since that marriage dissolved and another succeeded, I have wondered  about traveling to Israel. My son considered a birthright trip. I considered a tour which would present all sides. He got a Bar Mitsvah and our family rabbi married me for a second time to the Jewishy psychologist from the Upper East Side. No matter that his roots go back to Benjamin Franklin and he had a stint as a choir boy in Manhattan. He is Jewish enough for me.

My cousin and I have talked about going to Israel, as we age into our sixties and seventies. I hear they have great food. I always wanted to believe that the horrific history of the Holocaust rendered all Jews great humanitarians. That they would most naturally be progressive and compassionate with a strong moral compass always pointing towards inclusion and peace.

I have always known that the Middle East is a complicated web of countries and religions, of secular divisions and extremist strongholds. It is a puzzle I have rarely sought to piece together.  I just know I am Jewish, of the progressive, holiday sort. And the food: latkes, honey cake, gefilte fish, matzoh ball soup, lox and bagels. And the challah we share with our dog, Asher, after lighting the candles and reciting the Friday night prayers.

It was important to me that my son take my father’s Hebrew name which was Moishe. Whether my partner was Jewish or I fasted on Yom Kippur was of less importance than the inextricable fact that I am Jewish: proud, honored, humbled and grateful for this identity.

This week I  have been mesmerized by the news: Hamas  invading and terrorizing  innocent Israelis …kidnapping, maiming and murdering. Israel fighting back with a full-scale invasion of Gaza whose residents have for years been without and at the mercy of the Israeli government and Hamas. Neither political entity showing much concern for the people living in this crowded incubator of sadness and deprivation.

There is war now. Again in the Middle East. Thousands have died, Israelis and Palestinians. The children and the other living things are suffering in unimaginable ways. A father held his son as both died in a Gaza hospital where the  generators will lose all power to save lives within the week. Twins were found alive in an Israeli village, though their parents were slaughtered by the terrorists.

And a few miracles. The elderly Israeli woman who gave coffee and cookies to the invaders, distracting them until she and her husband were rescued. The retired Israeli general who left his lovely, peaceful home to save a friend’s son and so many others who were also trapped.

Our rabbi spoke about mourning. That we will sit Shiva for the Israelis who have died. And then we will make light from the darkness. Like Adam and Eve to whom God gave the ability to ward off darkness by creating  their own light.

I pray that there will be enough light for Israel and the Jewish people to sit together with the residents of Gaza and all Palestinians to put the pieces together so this complicated Middle East puzzle can finally not be about war, destruction and hatred. When the puzzle is complete, I will make my pilgrimage.

Mixed Drinks

You could say that rescue dogs, the ones of various or unknown breeds, are like mixed drinks. Like the ones I served years ago to the mixed breed of customers, often men, who appeared in my station at the Coffee Cantata on Union Street. Long before I even knew of any such dogs entangled from birth.

I like an occasional mixed drink. My favorite is a lemon drop, probably because it is the closest thing to lemonade which is my most favorite beverage. My husband recently informed me that the salad dressing I make almost nightly is too lemony for his taste. He prefers lime flavor to lemon…who knew?

 You could say that I am digressing here, but I will reverse and converse on the topic of mixes. I share my home with my husband and our mixed breed, Asher. Of the Hebrew name as the New Year approaches. He sits for the candles on Friday night and loves challah. He does not worship with us in the synagogue, but we worship him. You could say he is the child who has not yet, and will never, leave home. We brought him to our house a month before the world shut down and life came to a standstill. We were not among the multitudes of the untutored who adopted a dog just because. Our precious Cinnamon, another mixed drink, had passed the year before and our bed was getting cold for a new bundle of love and fur. As a result of the now popular genetic testing for dogs, we learned that Asher, also from the SPCA,  is a tangle of breeds: German Shepherd, St. Bernard, Labrador Retriever,  Australian Shepherd … and some part mutt!

Upstairs in our two-unit castle ,which we are grateful for, live a delightful couple who have just brought home their own, furry bundle.. A male, unneutered child, only a few months old, but definitely not of a questionable breed. More of a cocktail than a mixed drink of the unknown. A Bernedoodle from the Amish Country, from Ohio, delivered to them via an airplane ride in the company of a doggy nanny.

When he was first born, Asher was in a kill shelter with his mother and siblings, rescued from Fresno or somewhere in Tulare County. Brought to the SPCA where he was named “Presley”  because new, rescued litters are given names beginning with the same letter. For the ease of adoption and for the shelter’s staff. Two months old,  he came home with us and became Asher. Now, almost 4 years later he is being called upon to share our small, but green and flowery backyard. A trainer came today to introduce the dogs, to show us the path of least resistance towards friendship. So far…well, it is a lot of work.

Can a cocktail, curated and male with a fluffy coat of  noble hair, become besties with an almost 4-year-old, quite neutered male who is sometimes equal part love and insecurity? Milo, the newbie, is keeping his name as he reminds his Australian human of the chocolate drink she had every morning as a child in Melbourne. We are all  hopeful that Asher of the rough and tumble mix, served over ice in a short, stocky glass, and Milo will become friends just as the adults have. That they will both benefit from sidling up to the bar and being lavished with love and endless treats.

Overrated or Underrated

Tact is overrated. It is a fine line…this business of choosing ones’ words carefully or just blurting it out. Is it possible to forge a path between the two? A gentle, sloping path through the morass of words and feelings and opinions. Driving over the bridge today I was almost mesmerized, but not dangerously so, while listening to an interview of Robert Kennedy, the son of the first and the nephew of Jackie’s husband. He was being questioned by David Remnick of the New Yorker. Robert Jr has a rough, hoarse voice as if he is ill or the victim of years of cigarettes. I am not sure which or even if.

I have read briefly about his decision to run for President as a Democrat. His choice of political party distracts perhaps from what a nut I think he is. Well, maybe not entirely nutty, but much more than just interesting. Remnick used a lot of tact. I could feel it  even through the limitations of the car radio. I imagined he  was struggling to balance a necessary condiment of respect with his own frustrations, impatience or even bemusement.

Remnick has a very autistic child, as he put it. Kennedy believes that vaccinations are a hoax, autism is the result of such and all of the above is a conspiracy on the part of the government. Such a view orients him to the assassinations of his father and uncle. His raspy, odd voice was a combination of sad and ridiculous. It is not tactful for me to say here that I wonder how such a voice could really be president. But after all we had Trump.

As the interview progressed Kennedy turned to refer to his former, 14-year heroin addiction and the 16, 12 step meetings he attends weekly. And that such a program taught him how to live a life and that after all, couldn’t we all benefit from such? This important tangent did distract me from my distrust and anger. Of course I forgave his stupidity for the moment as I pictured my own son. Almost 8 years sober and newly graduated from UCLA.

And then Kennedy exited the personal to criticize the war in Ukraine as something about US meddling and why doesn’t Biden and his entourage do more negotiating with Putin and somehow put ourselves in the shoes of the other. I doubt very much that Putin is capable of wearing anyone’s shoes except his own pair of black, rigid lace ups.

Perhaps, however, this other shoe business is the key to tact, the balance between too much and too little. If the shoe fits, wear it and walk amongst the bits and pieces of conflictual information. To find the balance, something in between. Neither over nor underrated.

As I write I hear a voice, “Put it over there! Not there, over here!!” She is yelling and adamant on the other side of the trees and the scampering squirrels. The blue and the clouds and the breeze carry the sounds. Didn’t sound tactful. But it gets the point across.

As he spoke, Kennedy didn’t seem to be  filtering his responses to Remnick’s questions. He didn’t seem to be sorting through what might get him elected... or not. Depends of course on who is listening. But the New Yorker audience probably leans more to the left than the right. This Kennedy…such an odd mixture of those from the castle and from within the rooms.

My son got sober and it is not overrated. Sobriety saved his life. It is good that Kennedy found his, but it is too bad that he pretends to be capable.

A Train Wreck

I don’t want to think about a train wreck. Sometimes it is a euphemism for a collision of ideas. Or some crazy life situation that backfired, overturned, rolled and landed in a heap of emotional wreckage.

It wasn’t a train wreck, more like a train stoppage. A stall, a long lull. Heading back to Emeryville so many years ago. Robert and me and the boys…they were boys then. Now almost 30. We had carved out this family time in the middle of blending and joining together. The two single parents and their offspring. We went to LA…home of more sunshine and some of my family.

We monitored the boys as they paddled their energy between cars. It was an 8-hour trip at least. I am sure there were lots of snacks. Robert and I were still  discovering  how we could harmonize our lives. His of understatement and quiet. Machines he favored. Mine full of emotion and expressive, whether it be joy, discontent or worry.

Sitting together as the sun set…the train stopped. Maybe only a couple of hours from landing. There was a car stalled on the tracks. I don’t want to think about what would have happened if the train had not been squeaking along at such a speed that the engineer could brake. Were there brakes then or was it all computerized? Thankfully AI was not yet running the rails. I shudder to think about that as a future scenario. I don’t want to think about the screens that are already substituting for fleshed out companionship. Recently Robert described the state of relating to the screen, the AI romance which some are courting. I don’t want to think about that. More of a train wreck than the one that didn’t happen.

We stalled. The boys mostly oblivious with more time for Oreos and watching the Disney screened in some sort of kids’ car. Did I make that up? We had already enjoyed a real-life ranger describe the scenery along the Pacific Coast as we left Santa Barbara behind, the inland farms and ranches.

Robert and I sat silently after emptying our pockets of chatter. We were now  forced to carve out some more time together. It was long and we were tired. I never really knew how and just when the car was towed or pushed or lifted from its railroad perch. I never knew who was in the car.  How many people? Was it a family? Young lovers who had forgotten to check the gas in the midst of hormones racing to someplace far, far away. Did they have Oreos too? Maybe Skittles or better yet a sandwich. Hopefully water at least.

Last night, so many years later, we watched the car chase scene in Bullitt. Robert had a map of  the route, the meandering mess of San Francisco streets that Bullitt and his suspect careened on, until the bad guys, of course the bad guys, crashed into a gas station engulfed in flames. That was indeed a train wreck. A car wreck. A fire storm.

After 7 or 8 hours, or some period of time I am sure I have  exaggerated, the train pulled into the Emeryville station. Probably two tired boys, but certainly two exhausted adults. It was a long day, and the sun had faded long ago. We harmonized our time, suspended and immobilized due to a car which delayed our journey home. Robert and I mostly tired, the boys mostly running on cookies. We are all still a family, years later even closer as we have paddled on. There have been a few trains since. No more cars on tracks, and thankfully no train wrecks. Some tumultuous  years, some disappointments but mostly gratitude that the engineer had brakes.

Il Viaggio

Travel changes the texture of your life. The texture of my life has sometimes been smooth, silky, soft. A slip which is barely felt or the nightgown I wore on my honeymoon. It was made of  crème silk with an abstract print. A loose watercolor of pale pink flowers. Roses maybe. At other times the texture is one I can hardly tolerate.  Almost repulsive, but not quite. I can’t remove the scratchy wool or smooth the nubbiness which refuses to lie flat. Lots of earth colors which are often my favorite but when hot, heavy and oppressive, I want only to shed them. And there is everything in between. Years of dance and travel, relationships with a full texture of men and the birth of my precious son.  Birth and death, divorce and reconciliation. The textures continue to vary and my emotions reflect this constant change of wardrobe.

A chance encounter while traveling in Italy a few weeks ago turned out to be the most magical among many such moments during my solo odyssey. I was returning to Rome after a 10-year hiatus and not been to Florence for over 30. The anchor for this trip was a writing retreat  in Tuscany which was bookended with visits to the two cities.

Bound for Zurich in the most economical of airplane seats the hours crawled. An annoying bout of lower back pain had me standing as often as possible, stretching limbs in the crowded vestibule outfitted with bananas, chocolate bars and packaged cookie duets. Finally, we touched down. A brief layover and a less arduous flight to Rome. I had arrived!

Over the next number of days as my back pain lessened with each espresso, I rediscovered the brilliance of Italy…the food, the art, the history, the people, the gelato. As my long-studied Italian improved I made friends among the hotel staff and the lovely women who scooped my gelato at Come il Latte. After five glorious days, with a few tears and some hugs, I joined the coterie of writers for our Tuscany retreat. Like Rome, but different, this time for writing, feedback and reflection unfolded almost seamlessly.

Early on day six my fellows departed for the airport or other points to conclude or continue their Italian adventures. I had reserved a 3 pm train for Florence so after packing and a round of goodbyes, I decided to walk to Trequanda, the tiny hill town we could see from the grounds of our Fattoria del Colle. I had traversed the route previously with Suzanne, a new friend, so was confident I knew the way. Unbeknownst until much later, I took an alternate path which led to the two-lane road still at least 20 minutes from town. Two women came walking as I approached and we conversed in a mix of Italian and English, I learned their names and that their destination was also Trequanda where they walked several times a week for groceries and other necessities.

We chatted. Chiara and her mother Silvano. The daughter younger than me and the mother somewhat older. In town I suggested coffee or lunch to thank them for guiding me, but they proposed lunch at their home which was just a few meters from where we had first met. And so the texture of feeling somewhat frustrated that being lost might compromise my morning evolved into absolute joy. We returned to the front gate of the property they had owned for 35 years. Replete with olive trees, an ancient oven and a stone well. Two small cottages outfitted with antiques and a multicolored cat. In a small kitchen Silvano prepared lunch as the duo discussed options. Risotto or pasta? Some homemade bread, local cheese and a special prosciutto.

We decided pasta would be quicker as Chiara and I departed to walk the property with its breathtaking views of the landscape. I photographed all of it, including the vista leading back to my Frattoria del Colle. Of course, I said, I would not put any of the pictures on social media. They were not interested in visitors or Airbnb. Chiara talked about her family including a brother in Paris with a wife and  3 sons who often visited. She was obviously so fond of her nephews. She worked in Milan where she and her mother lived when not tending to the olive trees. Her father had died five years earlier, and mother and daughter were committed to maintaining this family acreage.

Lunch was delicious. I marveled at how effortlessly it all appeared. The table was set with amber glassware and  white linen. “My mother always likes a bit of wine,” Chiara smiled. I declined with the prospect of needing to be fully present to navigate the upcoming journey. My Italian had become easier and more natural since my arrival, and so I chatted with Silvano who did not speak English. She had been a Classics professor and I shared family stories. There was time for an espresso and then they escorted me to the front gate. There were hugs, a What’s App number exchange and invitations to meet again someday…Milan or San Francisco. Chiara escorted me to the trailhead and Silvano waved enthusiastically from  behind the gate.

Chiara said it had been so wonderful to meet me. That they rarely met anyone outside the family when working, or relaxing, in the country. Within 20 minutes I was back at the Fattoria with time to spare before my train. I texted to tell my new friends I had arrived.  Later, as I watched the country side from the train tears of gratitude softened the roughness of leaving.

A Pair of Shoes

My mother always wore Ferragamo shoes. Her tiny, narrow feet. Size 6 ½. Shelves which glided open effortlessly to reveal pairs of heels, flats and everything in between. Black suede, brown leather. She never detoured unless it was to buy tennis shoes, which she didn’t play, or golfing cleats to join my father. Exquisitely dressed…always…was my mother. Understated elegance could have started with her.

Years ago I bought my first pair of Ferragamos. My first and last. They were black flats and I thought I needed a more appropriate pair for the High Holy Days. I detoured from my local, hipster shoe store downtown to go to Arthur Beren, now long gone. It was just across from  Union Square and the large, department stores which usually overwhelmed me. The sales person, as I don’t remember gender so many years later, kneeled before me. Maybe like taking communion in the Catholic churches I found solace in while traveling through Europe. Here in San Francisco it was only Jewish synagogues, and only on the holidays. I don’t recall if I loved the shoes, or more the idea that I was inhaling my mother, if only via a pair of expensive, black leather Ferragamos. Maybe the shoes would make me more like her. Confident and all knowing.

A few months after such purchase I drove to Yom Kippur morning services at the repurposed church on Franklin street. It was big enough to hold the multitudes who, like me, collided with each other at the beginning of each Hebrew year.

I can’t now remember how the pieces fit together. Did I change from the Ferragamos into something soft and laced? Did I accidentally leave the car unlocked? I do not want to say that I was careless with the pristine pair which came in the same kind of red box which housed my mother’s collection, even when they rested on the glide out shelves in her meticulously ordered dressing room. The one with a wall of closets and drawers looking directly across from my father’s identical set.

What happened was my Ferragamos disappeared. They were taken from my car, at least that is what I recall. The point is, they were gone. And I never saw them again. I had only worn them a few times, saving the smooth and spotless leather for any occasion I deemed special.

I was shocked. Looking everywhere as I repeated my steps, tracing my trajectory before, after and during the long, tedious afternoon. Of fasting. Of some semblance of repenting. Though not of the Catholic variety. I tried not to feel that I had abandoned my mother.

I think she was still alive then. Now I have only memories and a few of those empty, red Ferragamo boxes collecting dust. But I will not abandon them. It is hard to believe her shoes fit inside such small boxes. My Blundstones, Hokas and Birkenstocks surely would not. If I still had the missing pair, I am sure they would collide with mine and perhaps be overcome by heavy soles and chunky height. And my size 8.

I detoured from my own preferences to taste my mother. So we could share the weather, our inner weather as represented by an expensive, not very useful pair of shoes. Sold to me by sales people more reminiscent of the private shoppers Mom favored at Saks Fifth Avenue on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

I can picture those shoes, the missing ones, even now so many years later. I can see Mom’s tiny feet and her pedicure. Only clear nail polish. Nothing to draw too much attention. When I so indulge, of course there is color.

Unexpected Magic

Visiting the Galapagos had been on our bucket list for years. We imagined it would be wise to go while we were still in good shape, getting older but no less fit. There was some back and forth about exactly which boat and the dates. I hoped to avoid seasickness and anything resembling a cruise ship. A trimaran for 16 was chosen. Visits to Cuenca and Quito before and after 8 days among the islands.

Only home for two days, I am tired and cold just as San Francisco is damp and grey. Images float among the raft of emails waiting to be answered and the refrigerator to be filled. I am more there than here.

Cuenca was first, after a night at the Guayaquil Hilton. First thing after our arrival was a swim in the large, warm pool with a bar one could sidle up to without getting out of the water. We chose snacks to be delivered to our chaise lounges. The first ceviche and something other than for Robert. Happiness is not being on an airplane.

The next morning Gustavo and Diego picked us up for the drive north. Gustavo was handsome, charming, friendly and kind. A father who was already missing his only daughter who would soon move out to marry and begin a life separate from her dad. In the moment of his sharing I felt the link I would note throughout our trip. That differences are more about location and less about the other being anyone to fear.

Diego drove seamlessly as Gustavo narrated. His knowledge not just encyclopedic , but full of personal anecdotes and details unavailable in any guidebook. We stopped for lunch and a gentle hike around Llaviucu Lake, a lagoon in Cajas National ParK  a visit to which was on our itinerary en route to Cuenca. At 12,000 feet our lungs were working.

Three nights in Cuenca, which Gustavo described as the cultural center of Ecuador. Guayaquil being the commercial center and Quito, the capitol,  the political center. We would visit them all, as bookends to our 8 days among the islands.

Part of the joy of travel with Robert is that occasionally he can choose to nap with a good book and I can choose to venture out. On day 3 we did such as I joined Gustavo and Diego to circle the city visiting a number of small villages where families of artisans made guitars from locally grown wood, crafted pottery and silver filigree, and wove scarves and shawls colored with the dyes made from the plants in local gardens.

Our first stop was for tea in San Bartolomé. Having been a guide for over 20 years, Gustavo had established relationships which offered his clients the option to connect with other than foreign tourists. Years ago he had met Selmyra whose garden held the ingredients for an herbal tea she made whenever Gustavo arranged to visit with one of his charges. She selected flowers and herbs from her tidy fenced plot, piled them onto a plate and then disappeared to steam them into tea. In the meantime her daughter escorted us to a small dining room set with slices of lime and cookies.

Before leaving I asked to use the bathroom and was directed to a tiny space which I assumed served the entire family. A bedroom door was open as I entered the hallway and Selymra’s son  closed the door, retreating to his privacy; just a teenager no matter the locale. Above the sink I noted a number of toothbrushes, floss and paste. Here in this home with seemingly few of the trappings we have come to value, I surmised that the family’s  dental hygiene might be superior to my own.

After Cuenca there was a  flight back to Guayaquil and a second Hilton night. Early the next morning we joined others on a flight to Baltra Island. The airport, also known as , “The Galapagos Ecological Airport,” implements bio climactic strategies for natural air conditioning and the use of renewable energy.  Ecuador is the most biodiverse country on earth as it  has more plant and animal species per square kilometer than anywhere else on the planet. We were immersed in a country that protects its natural resources with extreme care and vigilance.

Our chosen trimaran, the Horizon, was spotlessly clean and well designed. Each of the 8 rooms had its own deck where I sat several times a day. I became mesmerized as I watched the sun, whether rising or fading, birds and sea lions. One day the captain spotted whales, another time it was dolphins and flying fish. Always warm, clean air and always the endless blue of the ocean.

The passenger list included a couple pregnant with their first child, a cardiologist and his wife from Indiana and a Russian family of four now living in London. Several other couples and a mother and son combo from the East Coast. Friendly, easy going and supportive. Not a kvetch among them.

I was most impressed with the ship’s crew. We met the captain only once at a meet and greet on the first night. Others like the hostess, Anita, and the naturalist, whose name was also Gustavo, ,we saw several times a day. They were all a perfect combination of warm, friendly and helpful. I liked to believe that they enjoyed tending to us. Nothing seemed forced. At least they seemed to be enjoying the pace and rhythm of  this life aquatic. Gustavo said several times how much he loved his job.

We hiked and snorkeled daily. We swam among a panoply of tropical fish and baby sea lions at play. Sea turtles, and  a pair of hammerhead sharks normally seen only by deep sea divers. In the clear, warm water there were penguins, cormorants and marine iguanas who were equally comfortable relaxing on land and swimming below the surface for nourishment. One early morning  we were privy to a group of pink  flamingos usually only seen briefly while in flight.  Their quiet elegance personified our extraordinary journey.  Blue footed boobies, a range of land iguanas, lava lizards, birds, and baby sea lions with their mothers nursing on soft, wet sand. We even shared some hiking trails with giant, slow moving tortoises and their offspring.

It was not easy to say good-bye. To the animals, the serenity, the joy and the magic. The past few years have been challenging. There was Trump and the pandemic and still there is war in the Ukraine. For just a few weeks I didn’t worry or overthink and stayed, mostly, in the moment of discovery.

Starting Over

Starting over. The concept brings to mind regrets and beginning again. Rather than feeling blessed, one feels condemned to live in the past with the necessity of needing to move forward year by year. I would like to start over with my father. To have had more time with him. For him to know me as a mother, as happily married, living in the beautiful home which his passing helped me buy.

Regrets and reruns. I am in the dance studio. Rehearsing for a concert. I keep detailed notes  of the choreography and rent the small space on Hugo Street. I practice over and over. It takes time and many repetitions to solidify the choreography.  In classes and rehearsals I stand back until I feel confident. Following until I am sure.

So I practiced on my own, renting the immaculate studio which Flo owned. She was very particular. No eating on the pristine wood floors. Of course not. I could, however,  go into the small, green and manicured backyard. Back inside I always started with Cat Stevens.  It was an album so of course there was a record player. I warmed up and then started to repeat again and again whatever piece of choreography Lucas or Mary or Betsy had assigned. It was lonely at first. Until I found my body and stopped the tapes in my head. That I had started dancing too late, that I had not been training since I was very young, that I had not gone to some California version of the North Carolina School of the Arts or Juilliard.

 Many times in that studio, I started over. Repeating and repeating a series of movements and finding confidence in the repetition. Trying not to condemn myself for coming late. Always behind. Marrying too young. Dancing too late. Traveling the world at 40, rather than in my 20s as a recent college graduate. Giving up was not what almost happened. I was determined to find my place even when not called upon to be in the front row. My stage presence and energy healed the gaps in my training.

I started taking “Absolute Beginner Ballet” less than a year ago. Ballet had always been intimidating. My former teacher, Beth,  encouraged me to perform as a modern dancer, even though I could never remember each port de bras in my weekly ballet class.   I was sometimes late to class in Oakland, so many years ago. Wanting to be there but shy about what I didn’t know. I couldn’t start over as a ballet dancer.

In Chris’ class now, the absolute beginner one, it seems all about starting over. All of my dance training reassures me I deserve to be standing at the barre every Friday at 1:00. We are all beginners, as Chris says. It takes 700 tendus done one after the other to even begin to master the technique. I won’t go home and do even a few. Well, maybe some as I stand center floor waiting for my favorite modern classes to begin. We are all equal in this class.

Chris tells wonderful stories of his days in the Australian ballet. Over 40 himself, he demonstrates flawlessly with beauty and grace. He talks about the Russians who emote, the French precision and the Italian abandon. He encourages questions and for some reason, I feel comfortable to ask them: “Where does the movement come from? I get nervous when I have to balance;  what is in your head when you balance?” And on and on. He says he loves my questions because they help him become a better teacher. I am starting ballet again. After so many years. And for this hour I do not regret anything, neither my  late start or imperfect flexibility.

I am not looking back to wish my father had lived longer or that I had had more children. That I had not married so young only to generate all those years of uncertainty, longing, searching. I feel blessed to be in the moment. To look at my hand lovingly as Chris instructs us to do as a port de bras accompanies a plié, a bookend for the combination he meticulously explains will be danced  to the prelude of Romeo and Juliet. He talks more than we dance. Ballet history. He repeats himself and I find that I have memorized much of his litany. But I have absolutely no regrets about starting ballet over.

To be an absolute beginner is a blessing now. What almost happened was I couldn’t imagine taking ballet after so many years. My flexibility and stamina have changed. But in Chris’ class I feel absolutely present. I only want to start over so I can find my balance, shift my weight and feel completely anchored in now.

A Side Effect

 Every once in a while I make the mistake of reading the long list of side effects that parade alongside a particular prescription. Certain death is always on the list. Whether it is vaginal cream or a statin. Side effects? My right side is always the one. Sensitive to leaning right while  stretching into a second position plie. Every once in a while a tug, a moment of pain. Then it is gone. I found out that my right foot is bigger than the left. Only a bit. Measured on a metal foot detector the last time an overzealous shoe salesman at REI suggested we check. He was right. I got the bigger pair to accommodate.

Recently Dr. M. suggested a tiny lift inside my right shoe. To even things out. To minimize the side effect on the right. She was recommended to me a few years back. When my right side was acting up after a set of large, open, sweeping movements coalesced into a point of pain.

 She is probably close to 80, Jewish, from Belgium. She and her husband, who is also a doctor, have an office in the same building where Nico’s first pediatrician practiced. Every once in a while I have discovered a doctor who feels like a benevolent parent. I want to curl up and never leave.

Dr. Luz let Nico crawl on the floor of his office. Down the hall, Nico would find himself in the supply room. Nothing harmful that he could reach. I think there were bottles of formula. I picked this doctor because he was older and balding like my father. He was kind and gentle,  but definitive. He reassured me, single and working so hard to be perfect. When the breast milk stopped flowing he told me to add a bottle. “Don’t listen to anyone else. Not to the La Leche league.” I had been admonished by the zealots of the breast-feeding world to stay in bed all day with my newborn. To let him nurse at will. But Dr. Luz cheerfully suggested alternating a bit of soy formula with the breast. It worked. I wasn’t refused and my son thrived.

Dr. M. came years later. After the side effects of mothering. When the fatigue and the feat turned into pride and joy. Like the band. Remembering the music of the time before nursing a baby. Now that my son  is grown and launched, I find myself going to the third floor of the same office building to see Dr. M. in a softly lit examining room. The furniture is simple, a bit dated and comfortable. A poster on the wall depicts the human from a crawl to a stoop.  Admonishing perhaps that we maintain good posture. She enters the room with a warm smile. Appearing always both elegant and comfortable. With a slight accent. “I love your skirt,” I said yesterday. “It is from Molly B,” she smiled. We both know the store. It is our custom to chat about clothes and jewelry for a moment. To admire each other. Once I saw her at a clothing outlet in my neighborhood. She was with her daughter and looking for the same pattern I had worn into her office for a previous visit.

“I love your mother,” I said after being introduced. “Everyone does,” said her daughter. I remembered shopping trips with my mother, and the brown wool coat I still wear that we chose together at Saks Fifth Avenue over 50 years ago. Only altered once, it holds me still. One time Dr. M. introduced me to her husband. He works magic on his patients as well. She wanted me to encourage him to see a film I had recommended, but one he was reluctant to see. That came before meeting her daughter on Valencia Street. I have never met her son. But I feel enveloped in their family.

Dr. Luz was our father. Mine and Nico’s. For those years. Dr. M. is now like my mother. But without the complicated pieces of blood and genealogy. A side effect of getting older is wanting not to be alone as the aging continues. I have my family and friends, but there is something about this intimacy that soothes in a different way. She gave me some tools to level out my right side. To equate it with the left. To feel equal and as good as. I brought her tulips the other day. I have never brought flowers to a doctor. Lester Luz died sometime after retiring, and we moved on to another pediatrician, a kind man but not my father. Perhaps I didn’t want my doctor to die before I had said thank you. A side effect of attachment is loss.

A Recipe

I didn’t know just how many recipes my mother had collected.  I rarely recall her poring over the New York Times  food section or Sunset magazine.  Like I do.

 After she died, Charlie and Kathryn and I oriented ourselves to what was left behind, exhibiting the pieces of our parents’ lives. The three of us deciding what we did not want to forget or leave behind. We oriented ourselves to their estate and what we would each decide to keep or offer to another. For some reason, I ended up with the red, striped Saks Fifth Avenue box full of those recipes I didn’t know existed. We divided up the well-worn cookbooks including the New York Times menu cookbook,  “Thoughts For Food,” and McCall’s.  I also had the Saks box which included lots of cards from Phil’s Poultry where Mom shopped more than weekly for poultry and fish. No, not meat.

On the counter at Phil’s  there were stacks of recipe cards. Index size in pink or blue. Not to designate male or female. Maybe for phish or fowl? They always spelled fish starting with a “p.” The humor of Phil’s. The consistency in my mother’s life. Sometimes I went there with her. Just tall enough to look into the refrigerated display case while Mom talked to the Phil of the moment. Whoever was available to answer questions and wrap her choices in white, butcher paper. But Phil’s wasn’t a butcher. Not really.

I didn’t know I would find so many of those recipe cards in the Saks box. I also found clippings from magazines and newspapers. Beef barley soup, sole meunière, Italian bread salad, Aunt Sue’s coffee cake, hors d’oeuvre with cream cheese that I wouldn’t make today. But I make that sole often. Friday night we eat fish. As if we are Catholic. I always open the large, black looseleaf to read the recipe. As if I haven’t memorized it. It is in my copy of the three books I made after Mom died.

I took those recipes, the Phil’s ones and the other tidbits, and made a recipe book for each of us: my sister and me and my sister-in-law. It took months to xerox copies and to evenly divide up the originals so each of us would have some. Copies and originals were affixed to the large, black pages in the albums I made. Pages protected under plastic.

My mother never put plastic on the furniture, unlike some strange habit of a few St. Louis relatives. But here plastic signified my promise to protect. When Covid struck I spent a lot of time making food for us. Lots of baking. Rediscovering Mom’s recipes. I think of them as hers, but really they were for us, she made them for her family. As the world shut down, I became focused on deciding what we would eat so I wouldn’t have to go to the germ filled grocery store very often. Mom’s recipe collection includes too much fish for Robert’s taste. Though I would eat it much more often than on Catholic Friday.

Dad recommended fish as often as possible. His research on cholesterol and heart disease didn’t necessarily lengthen his life, but we all benefit now. My brother has segued from full-time doctoring to fishing as often as he can. My father would be proud of how much fish they consume, even if my sister-in-law would occasionally prefer to make Mom’s beef barley soup. She wondered some time ago if I had the recipe. I was happy to remind her it was behind plastic in her black binder.

Tomatoes. I could never eat enough. Mom’s recipe for Panzanella. I made it all through that first Covid summer, and have done so during each one since. On New Year’s Eve Mom and I would eat tiny white toasts topped with sour cream and caviar. Her last one too. She wasn’t speaking, but she grinned as I offered her another and another. Each New Year’s Eve I still buy myself a package of those toasts, a somewhat affordable jar of caviar and crème fraiche. I don’t think Mom knew about crème fraiche. She would have liked it, I am sure.

A Chance Encounter

It seemed as if the window seat might remain empty.  I would have an uninterrupted view and space to stretch, but I hesitated to lay claim to the extra until take off. A young woman approached with a smile and indicated her place next to me. She looked a bit harried and perhaps embarrassed that her tardiness had led me to believe 4D would remain vacant.

She was maskless, and though my immunity was still high due to my September bout with Covid, I had no doubt about continuing to mask indoors and certainly when flying in the company of strangers.

The young woman was sniffling, and I assumed she was nursing a bout with her upper respiratory system. Hopefully not Covid. I wanted to believe no one would travel while testing positive, but I knew there were those who balked against what I regarded as the decency to protect others while suffering the minor inconvenience of a KN95.

We stay tuned to our cell phones and it was not until we were safely inflight with no option to turn back that I realized my companion was crying. Probably not sick, but very sad, upset, perhaps inconsolable.

She began talking, comfortably as if we were less than strangers. She told me she had been in Boston to visit her parents who had just today told her that her father was very sick with cancer. They had dropped her off at the airport and she was on this flight to New York only as a go between in order to return to her home in Chicago.

“We had brunch. I drank too much. I am really close to my Dad. He is only 67. He has been sober for 17 years. I guess I am going to be going home a lot to be with him.”

Her story tumbled out in between apologies for the tears and inebriation. I reassured her that it was okay and I was so sorry to hear about her father. As her story unraveled I recognized the range of my reactions.

First I was angry. How could her parents wait until a farewell brunch to share such difficult news? Where was the time to process, to hold each other, to stay present long enough to at least begin sorting through both the emotions and the facts? I wanted to listen and to comfort. Then I wanted to pull away. Was I judging her decision to drink to assuage her fear, anger, sadness? Was I remembering years ago when my own son lost himself in alcohol?

Sadness and maybe envy came next in a way I had not expected. I had lost my father when he was 74 and I was 40. Long before we had bridged the gaps between us. Long before I became a mother, happily married and living in the beautiful home his legacy helped me buy. He would have been proud of all of it. I imagined that she and her Dad had really bonded since his sobriety, that whatever rough patches had been smoothed over. Perhaps her mother was more distant and judgmental. But not her father, he adored her and this diagnosis was excruciating for them both. She was too young to lose her ally. Perhaps her best friend.

I wanted to stay present, in my aisle seat on this short flight to New York. I excused myself to read, needing the space that remained.

She stayed tethered to her phone, but I could hardly blame her as I had retreated. Tears and sniffles even as we were offered water, juice or coffee. The pause was enough and I turned to invite her to join me. She began describing her job and her boyfriend.

“I teach first grade. They are so cute. It’s a private school,” she said, also sharing that the wealthy parents were less appealing than their adorable offspring. I told her I lived in San Francisco,  but that I had grown up in Los Angeles.

“My boyfriend is from LA; he went to USC.”

I told her my son was at UCLA and she laughed as she described how much her boyfriend and his cohorts hated UCLA. She was describing the rivalry that echoed back to my childhood. I didn’t want to tell her that my entire family’s allegiance was to the public university on the Westside.

She giggled and took a picture of us. Quickly, before I wondered if I wanted to end up as a tweet or a twitter or a Facebook flash. More giggling as if we had a secret. I had told her I was going to New York on my own to visit family and friends.

“You are going to have so much fun. You and your girlfriends. Going out…”

I think she imagined late nights at downtown bars and discos. I mentioned my 94-year-old aunt, and college friends from years ago. I think she wanted to identify me as a peer and a companion as we navigated her grief, cocooned  together in row 4.

Her name was Claire. Introductions always seem to come after conversation. The hour ended and the plane landed. In those few minutes before we could leave our seats I wished her luck and repeated how sorry I was about her Dad. She smiled, giggled again and repeated that she was sure I would have a great time in New York with my girlfriends.

In Hindsight

It was only in hindsight, from behind. After all the years of letters from her, just a few weeks ago she wrote: “ I love you Elizabeth and I always will.” I was touched, surprised, but not really. I let myself acknowledge that over all these years of letters, gifts, and then long silences, I had been there for her. I send her one of our holiday cards every year, so she can see my family. How we have changed, or not. I sent a special tea towel recently and periodically a birthday note …when I remember.

 For the first time, I felt a need, a desire, maybe even the necessity of writing about her. To make sense of this relationship. The distance and yet the closeness. We met in 1981 at The American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina. I was 31, she was somewhat younger. I was in between a divorce and a move and the beginning of something other than.

We lived on the same hall in an old, brick dorm. The heat and humidity were decidedly Southern and vastly different than the Western dryness. No air conditioning. Only large fans in the dance studios. I had never known such humidity and it was difficult to sleep.  Hot and sweaty, I would get out of bed to take a cold shower. Standing under the water until I shivered and was comfortable enough to fall asleep.

She was slim, lithe, light. She floated. Smoking cigarettes with a wide smile and a giggle. We took Kenneth King’s choreography class. I just looked him up. 74 now, to my 71. “King's work was both reflective and innovative in his time in that he developed choreography with generally non-technical based movement, unique to the 1960s post-modern era, King believed that a dance could still have content even without point of view, stress and emotion. His works are often considered to be very personal and an overall poetic experience.”

He seemed so wise then. I don’t recall the piece he created for us. I wanted structure and predictability as my first husband and I had separated and dance was the only thing I could love at the time. I hoped it would help me feel closer to myself as I moved away from him.

She and I became friends that summer in the steamy dance studios. We met Lucas Hoving whose devotion to the Sufi community in Marin lured him to San Francisco. Away from Graham and Limon. I followed  to make my new home back on the west coast near the ocean I had grieved since marrying only to find myself in rural Colorado. She also lived in the city, in my neighborhood.  At some point she acquired a boyfriend of the tall, dark and handsome type. I was envious perhaps. They lived together. Only in hindsight when she broke it off and said she was moving back to Wisconsin and to her mother did I realize and learn of her visions and wanderings. Of her conversations with Henri Bendel, a designer long dead. She had never met him. But he moved into her mind and there was no room for the boyfriend or much of anything else.

It made sense that she was in conversation with a fashion designer. She loved clothes and had a casual, bohemian style, but definitely a curated one with taste and individuality. I never saw her in tailored suits or the kind of 5th avenue fashion that Bendel’s department store must have featured. But Henri had lost his father when he was young, just 6 years old. And her father had also died when she was young. I wonder if she and Henri talked about their missing fathers and thus it was loss that drew them together? Even if he was only a voice inside her head.

I can’t recall if there was an exact moment when her mind began to unravel. She became distracted and spacey and always seemed to be somewhere other than the present moment. Her boyfriend was worried, but not entirely sympathetic. She was different and he was caught off guard.

 She left San Francisco and only later did I learn she was hospitalized once back in Wisconsin. She was very close to her mother who was committed to helping her daughter with whatever angels or demons lurked inside. She was one of 5 or 6, I believe, and her siblings were protective of her.

She was safe in Wisconsin, in a small town away from the fray of San Francisco. She has visited me twice since leaving the Bay Area. The first time to my tiny studio apartment. We sat at my round, folding table. She was wan, sitting with her legs crossed tightly. Maybe trying to keep the voices in her head at bay and out of my house. It was awkward for me. I wanted to be supportive, caring, kind. I was curious, but asked no questions. I didn’t want to intrude or offend. She stayed a couple of days and went back to Wisconsin.

Years later she returned once more. To my home on Fair Oaks where I lived with Nico. I had arranged a play date for him so he wasn’t home for her visit.  I wasn’t sure how my small, energetic, curious boy would respond. She had gained a lot of weight. From the drugs to keep the voices from getting too loud. The body of a dancer was hidden. I wondered how she felt about the changes, though as dancers we are at times too self-absorbed.

I drove her to Marin where one sister and her family lived. I was reassured by how she was embraced and accepted by this family. Their kindness and patience,  I wanted to feel comfortable in her presence, but I felt inadequate to understand.  She returned to Wisconsin after that brief visit to the ocean, and not long after, her mother died.

 Off and on she would talk about wanting to move back to California. Over the many years since her last visit,  she has written to me from one or the other of the group homes she lives in. She has beautiful handwriting. Each new residence is scrutinized by one of her brothers.

Sometimes she sends me something she has knitted. Not functional, but I know these pieces are from her heart. She refers to the aid who takes  her shopping. The banana  bread she is baking, the organic groceries, the beautiful, vintage flowered dress. Does she imagine dancing with Henri? Or Kenneth? She would like a partner, she indicates. I can’t respond. It makes me sad.

Her poems come too. And some drawings, always thin, wispy nudes. I think about hanging one up. Recently she wrote about the nurse who comes to administer her regular injection of Haldol. Robert said it is a strong Antipsychotic. I am of course reminded  of when Nico was taking a raft of pills to quiet his mania or the anxiety. So much his doctors were trying to keep at bay. But eventually his mind settled, the drinking stopped and he inhabits my heart like no one else. Sane and sober.

In the same letter in which she told me she loved me, she said she couldn’t believe she had been talking to Henri Bendel for the past 30 years. “He is so funny and I can hear his voice.” The “real” Henri died in 1936 and is buried in New York. I have never asked her how they met.

 I only recently understood that perhaps she is not alone or lonely. That her garden is familiar and comfortable. It is only in hindsight that I have come to know that my friend from the humid halls of Duke has a mental illness. And that in one way or another, I have been there for her. It is only in hindsight that I can acknowledge and  be grateful for her presence in my life.

Covid: My Turn

It started with goat cheese. A log of Laura Chenel. I would never have bought such a big one. Would we use it in time? Would I like it enough? Would it become boring, moldy or useless? Acknowledging the goat cheese in my refrigerator full of the unfamiliar was the final straw and the nail on the coffin as the reality of my Covid diagnosis could not be ignored.

Robert had gone to the grocery store. The expensive, local one which has delicious, homemade chicken soup. I assumed such Jewish penicillin would speed things along. He returned with a large bag of groceries. Of course there had been a list and he was most attentive to my cravings. Still, individual choices naturally reflected his mindset, not mine.

“Is it too big?” he asked quizzically as I tentatively remarked on its size. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings or to complain in the face of his good nature and willingness to shepherd me through these Covid trenches. But I was curious how his mind worked in relation to mine.

“I don’t know…the other ones were so tiny. There were so many. Is it ok?”

I said it was and spread some on a piece of toast. Delicious and eaten quickly, so I could get back downstairs to our bedroom, my holding cell, the one set aside for my five-day quarantine.

I tested positive on Thursday night at 10 pm. I had been coughing without cause, or so it seemed. We had a stash of tests ranging from the free ones sent by the Biden folks to fancier ones from the Amazon world. So many they were beginning to expire. When one of us felt out of sorts, we swabbed.

Tonight it was my turn. Two different tests, both positive. I cried and wondered, “how?” Waves of shame followed by disbelief and the reassurance from Robert that it is everywhere and of course I have been careful. So many dance classes behind a mask. KN95s always available at a moment’s notice. No change in my daily habits even as the local case load declined and restaurants got crowded. Indoors.

We still ate outside, with minimal recreation. No changes for us. But that sneaky virus had obviously found me.

I couldn’t sleep that first night. Robert had retreated upstairs to a spare bed room with a bathroom down the hall. I had the en suite. Asher, the pandemic puppy who has morphed into a 2 ½ year old was confused. Where did he belong? On whose bed? Never had there been a choice. He was always in between the two of us, closer to Robert who had become accustomed to sleeping within a small amount of nocturnal real estate. Asher liked to put all 67 pounds of his warm, furry body as close as possible to another human. I needed space from both of them, so claimed a majority of the property. Most nights we slept peacefully.

But now Asher was faced with a choice. He stayed with me, selecting the familiar even as he paced with a soft whine before jumping on the bed. He knew he couldn’t stay too close, though he knew I would kiss and snuggle before turning my back to him.

I was awake. For hours, for the duration. My son and his girlfriend were coming from Los Angeles. To celebrate his birthday. We had plans and they had plans. All had to be reconfigured as they couldn’t stay here in this Covid positive space. Appointments to cancel and priorities to be shifted in favor of healing. I made a list of all those I had been in contact with,  those who might now also test positive. I felt guilty and tired and sad and I couldn’t stop coughing as Asher slept through it all.

Friday morning. I Zoomed for one hour with a kind, knowledgeable nurse practitioner. I took copious notes. She answered all my questions and agreed that I was a candidate for Paxlovid, the miracle anti-viral. I call it Pavlova. Easier to remember and a positive association with a desert in Mexico City and my Australian neighbor’s tour de force which she made and shared on her husband’s birthday.

I was now officially in quarantine. Day one. There would be five days under house arrest plus an additional five for good measure. These last five with more privileges if I tested negative. Walgreens delivered my meds, asking that I not come into the store to prevent the migration of my Covid germs. Of course. I had to rework any and all in person plans. Mary’s gift left in a bag by the front door. Asher’s dog walker would wait for him on the sidewalk,  no more personal escort from me. No dance classes or my routine Saturday morning visit to the Farmer’s Market. In fact, no visiting anyone, anywhere.

Such restrictions left Robert in charge of life outside. And that brings me back to Laura and the cheese. I am the one who procures the food, pours over recipes, and cooks. Until Covid. Now I can only leave my room with a mask on. And I cannot go anywhere that is not medically necessary. Food is, but grocery shopping is not. Do I trust an anonymous Instacart runner? Friends offered to pick up what we needed. Granted and appreciated. But not for a major shop.

Another good friend, also a Covid survivor, spoke highly of the chicken soup. So I sent Robert with a list. He returned with the cheese and the soup. And more.

First, years ago, there was the citywide shutdown. In the worst of days. Now the variants and their disciples only shut down the individual lives of those whose swabs read “positive.”

My shame was short lived. As my niece, the doctor said, “everyone has had it whether they know it or not.” Maybe not. But she certainly underlines how much is so out of our control.

My control. I am staying out of the kitchen for now. Forgoing going hither and yon for the right smoked turkey, multi grain bread,  chocolate cherry rugelach and wild fish filet. On day two of five I did, however, bake a plum torte. I certainly couldn’t let those pre-Covid plums go to waste.

Holding Hands

I used to believe that Nico would always want to hold my hand or my hair. When walking became available to him, he would take my hand. Easily and naturally. Walking on 24th street near home, crossing an intersection. As soon as we left the house, our hands met as we meandered.

He moved between my breast and the bottle until he was one. I held his tiny warm foot as he nursed. When he found his words he would announce, “Give me some hair,” as the bottle was presented. I always loaned him some of my long, still red hair. He held his bottle with confidence as he held tight to my tresses, as if doing so would make the milk flow. We had to strike a bargain about releasing the bottle when he was 4 or so. I can’t remember and wonder now if there was a right time to negotiate with him. It seemed almost seamless, this leaving the breast and then the bottle. But thankfully holding hands continued.

Warm and small and then somewhat bigger. I used to believe he would always want to hold my hand. To have me guide him through the world or up a hill or down the street. I don’t remember when his tiny hands grew bigger than mine or when he held other hands. Or the paraphernalia of adolescence. A tennis racket, a burrito, the girl whose name I can’t remember who he shyly brought home one afternoon. I am sure he held her hand.

Out at Slide Ranch he loaned me his hand as we scrambled down a path to the beach and scrabbled over the rocks. I don’t remember if I was in danger of twisting a limb or meandering off the path, but his hand outstretched with fingers and a palm much longer and broader than my own. The contact was relatively short, but the memory is as if it happened yesterday. Perhaps he was returning the favor of a safe childhood. Holding hands and hair and feet.

Some years later, as his mania enveloped both of us and the alcohol announced that it wasn’t leaving, at least not yet, he lay on his bed in our hotel room and wondered who he was. Feeling alone and scared, but not yet ready to carry the responsibility for his mania and addiction. His vulnerability, his fear and his bravado were equally present. He talked as he fell asleep. I held his bare foot, the one with dry, cracked skin and unkempt toenails, the one neglected almost in protest of the call to sobriety which he was not yet ready to heed as his own.

His foot was so much bigger than the one I had held close to my breast. The tiny foot was soft and smooth and fit into the palm of my hand. This foot, now on his bed at the hotel in Portland where I had come in hopes of rescuing him, was a size 12 to my 8. My hand could not reach around to hold all of him. Different than my heart, which still and always carries his 5 foot, 10 inch frame inside.

 We hiked together recently, now that he is almost 6 years sober, I worry less. Much less. But still there are moments when I fear for the world that is his future. The crazy unknown.

I know I will always be holding him. Even if his big hands and large feet move further from San Francisco than the 8-hour drive to Los Angeles. I will be holding his hand and he will be holding mine. I used to believe that Nico would always want to hold my hand. Or ask for some hair or a foot rub. I knew he would grow up and separate as is right and appropriate. I could only hope that we would stay close even if his room wasn’t just down the hall. This mother’s day he wrote, “thank you for being the greatest Mom in the world.” Tears present themselves every time I read this line. I keep the card on my desk, still in its envelope. Available when I miss his tiny, soft, warm hands. Perhaps holding his hand has become these words which will forever keep us in each other’s hearts.

Self-portrait With…

My inclination is to write about all the self-portraits in all the museums I have been to. Most recently Alice Neel’s at the De Young. I had never seen one like it. She painted herself as older, naked.  Sitting on a chair. A Victorian arm chair. Was it covered in purple velvet? She is holding a paint brush. Her breasts hang and her belly is loose, a bit jelly like. She looks satisfied, whimsical, as if we are included. I had never seen a self-portrait like it. Modigliani was elongated and wan. Van Gogh was colorful, but we know he wasn’t well. Mostly men.

I don’t think I will soon forget Alice’s. A self-portrait with honesty? Without fear or apology? With humor? With warmth and humanity? Explaining oneself, myself. How do I want to be portrayed? But am I talking about how I will be seen after I am no longer here to portray myself as I would like?

 No, I think too much about death these days. As the world keeps crumbling while I try to patch it together with my optimism which was certainly an integral part of my mother’s self-portrait. An optimism which could sometimes annoy me as it didn’t leave much room for my sadness and self-doubt.

Could I sit naked like Alice? As my body changes, could I allow a self-portrait with wrinkles? A belly which persists in spite of all the ab work? What about a self-portrait with regret? That I started the motherhood journey a bit late and in such unconventional circumstances. There wasn’t time for more babies. Even as I continually marvel at the one precious being who did crawl out of me.

Perhaps a self-portrait with fear? Of dying? Of leaving Nico in a world which feels so fragile? But just as quickly the optimism simmers below the surface as I attach myself to the immense gratitude I feel. For all of the opportunities I have had. The dancing, and the writing, and the home I have created. For the friends and the family, all of the travel and adventures.  

How does all of this translate into a self-portrait? And is it “one with?” And if so, with what? In this one I am confident, in this one I am afraid, in this one I am sad, in this one I am relieved, in this one I am hopeful, in this one I am dancing…and on it goes.

What I really want to say is that I am rambling and I can’t quite find what I can attach to. Perhaps that is the self-portrait. It is one with attachment. To the self in whatever moment. Now there are two deer quietly grazing below Liz’ deck, here on this Sunday afternoon.  I am smiling as I watch them, seemingly unafraid. We gaze at each other. Are they eavesdropping? Am I?

I am distracted as they move. Tails flicking. Staring at me. She sees me. What does she see? What is the self I want to portray to these animals? Kind, gentle, no one to be afraid of. They run off.

I hope they saw me as I would like to see myself. But I am not sure I would ever let them see me naked.