Here's to Pete S., Wherever you Are.
In the small town where I now live, there are a series of independent coffee shops. It was a scandal when the local satellite of a national food chain remodeled and installed a Starbucks. The coffee shop I favor has a very eclectic decor. Old Formica tables, very few matching chairs, dark old wood floors and an old sofa with books and magazines on the table in front of it. There are several groups of people who meet there for coffee quite regularly in the mornings. Another gaggle of groups meet for lunch and the after school hours find it filled with moms and kids getting snacks while waiting for church group (Wednesdays), music lessons, sports practices, or other after school activities to begin. The local university supplies a steady stream of students throughout the day.
On the front door is an unofficial calendar of a selection of the events pending in the near future. It was one of these that caught my eye the other day. The local university is presenting a madrigal dinner right before Christmas. I was immediately transported backs about twenty, no, wait, THIRTY years ago.
The end of the semester was in sight at the Big Ten University I was attending. Only finals loomed large before us. The pressure was on for the home stretch before Christmas. This can put a major crimp on the Christmas spirit as you are toting books to the library to pour the last bits of important knowledge into your brain and hope that it is enough to carry you through to the finish line.
So Christmas was far down the list, right next to the ho ho ho's at that particular period of time. Though I am sure that Christmas cheer was catching on elsewhere.
That is when Pete called.
As a freshman, I had become a little sister at a local chapter of a national fraternity. Think "Animal House" on steroids. Though I had drifted away from the house and the antics inside, I still kept in touch with a couple of the saner members of the frat. One of them was Buzzy.
Buzzy built his own small pipe organ and played classical music in his dorm room. He opened up a whole world to me well beyond the standard classical selections we were introduced to in secondary school.
One of the other guys was Pete.
He was a soft spoken, hard studying and very smart and directed guy. He was several standard deviations off the mean of the typical profile of the fraternity brother. He was the kind of guy that always had interesting topics of discussion ready to launch at me. He was the kind of guy girls like to have as a friend.
It was the weekend before finals. He had two tickets to a Madrigal dinner to be held at the student union on Saturday night. Would I like to come?
As I had a serious shortage of hot dates, it sounded like an interesting thing to do. I agreed.
We met at the frat house, across the street from my dorm and walked to the quad and the Student Union.
The room we were directed to was transformed from a large meeting room to the 15th century. I couldn't believe my eyes. Garland was draped everywhere, sending a soft pine scent throughout. The lighting was entirely candled.
Above us, in each corner of the room were musicians. Tamburo, Crumhorn, Lute, Recorder, Sacbut, Harp and several other instruments were filling the room with lively, festive music as people began to gather. We were not, however, allowed to enter.
First, four sentries in authentic costume marched out, and placed their heraldry trumpets to their lips played a processional and marked the occasion to begin.
A small, puckish gentleman came forward. He introduced himself as the king's fool. He then informed us that we were to come in and be shown to our seats as we awaited the arrival of the king and queen and their court.
Led to our seats, after settling, the servants quickly filled our cups with Mead. Again the heraldry sounded and we arose as the court filed in donned in the medieval garb of royalty and singing a song from the period.
The fool was the master of ceremonies. As each course was served and during the interims, period songs, some skits, tales of courtly love served to explain the history, customs and ceremony that was both unfolding before us and allowing us to suspend our disbelief and participate.
To say it was magic was an injustice. The prestidigitation was subtle and drew us all into the period. We WERE at a medieval court, honoring the lord and lady and dining on fine fare.
But the best was yet to come.
The ceremony was heading toward its closing. As the servants brought in the flaming plum pudding and the wassail, the lights dimmed and the king arose and sang "Good King Wenceslas".
It was over far too soon. The court adjourned in a formal recessional singing to us all, acapella, "Silent Night". They bade us good evening.
The return to the modern world and present time was done softly and gently. The lights came on slowly as the candles were snuffed. It was with great reluctance that we stood to leave.
But, the magic hadn't ended.
As we were leaving the union, back in modern space and time, for the long walk home, it was snowing.
Not just snowing. It was the kind of snow that falls ever so gently, drifting slowly from the night sky; kissing the ground and everything and everyone with large fluffy flakes. The kind of snow that is too dry and soft for snowballs or any other form of spirited frivolity. Just large flakes that accumulate ever so gently and make you stop and gasp at the silence and the serenity of the moment. Each snowflake was a gentle temporal blessing and acknowledgement of the presence of God, the peace of the world. Pierre Teilhard De Chardin called it an "evolutionary moment that inspires us to unite with God." As each flake touched my cheek, I understood the angels were kissing me ever so gently.
I understood that at that moment. I can recall the feeling perfectly. It brings an indescribable serenity and peace. The Alpha and the Omega. Finals didn't have any relevance. We had been "transported" back in time to see the traditions of Christmas superseded mere mortal and temporal concerns. My heart was full.
We said very little on the way home. I think Pete was as immersed in the incredible beauty and magic that the evening had presented. He walked me to my door and gave me a peck on the cheek.
I lost touch with Pete pretty soon after that. Graduation came and the disconnect was complete. But as Christmas roars around the corner and the commercials begin to blare and the have to's begin to loom, I find myself thinking of that evening and the enchantment we were lucky to experience. It stills me to the core. It brings back a memory that will be treasured as long as I live. It brings a true understanding of what Christmas can be. When we pause to breathe.
Every time I think of that evening, I thank Pete, wherever he is.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
The Power of Illusions
I have personally come to believe that we all have one great illusion that weaves itself into the fabric of our lives. Maybe some people have more than one. Perhaps there are even people who have so many illusions that all of them collectively weave together to become the entire fabric of their lives rather than just a pattern within it. But I am talking about the kind of illusion that blindsides you. The strands of it’s fibers commingle with your world until it all becomes one, for a period of time. If you are lucky, you get one of those illusions.
I did.
Ultimately, the fantasies I created from this illusion made my world then, and the one I live in now, a better place. Or so I believe.
But because they can disguise what is real from what is imagined, illusions can be a dangerous chimera. The especially dangerous ones are about people. Illusions have no flaws. People always do. Still, within danger is the opportunity for growth; whether you want that growth or not. I did. At the time, however, I didn’t realize it. You never do with the truly special illusions.
If you are extraordinarily lucky, you can look back on the illusion, as well as the ashes of the fantasy it helped create, and smile.
I can.
There are times when you reveal and speak your truth. There are times when it is stashed away and stored in the smallest trunk of your heart in the dustiest corner of the soul’s attic. The truth becomes a scrapbook. It can be brought out casually at cocktail parties and mentioned offhandedly. This protects its importance. But you know. You always know. There are times you take it out of that attic on an ordinary day and view it with a fond smile. Such is this truth with me.
By the time I was nineteen, I can very honestly say that I was a mess. Not a felonious mess, or an uneducated mess, or even a going nowhere fast mess. I was the worst kind – a lost and scared mess. I could function in the bounds of society rather successfully. There were many times I could fool the world along with myself that all was great and I was coping with impending adulthood quite nicely, thank you.
Nor was I an unambitious mess. Once again, quite to the contrary. I was going to conquer the world. After all, I was just fine the way I was. It was everyone else that had the problem. Not me.
And that, as you may well have surmised, was just exactly the problem. It was genetic. We had a long standing family tradition to never accept responsibility for or the consequences of one’s actions.
It was my senior year at a large university. As each year gave way to the next and the big world loomed larger and larger, the cracks in the spackle of my façade of perfection spread and multiplied. They formed so many fissures in the mask that I wore for the outside world that it was obvious to everyone but me that in no way was I prepared to graduate and move to the next phase of life’s journey. Indeed, I was so busy fighting the mask my father was trying to put on me, that I couldn’t begin to face anything.
Even when he was sober, the old man was pressuring me by any means possible to become an accountant. An accountant!! When I couldn’t even add without a calculator? Wait, an accountant and then on to law school to be a tax attorney? Surely, there was a room in hell for me with just such a set up.
But, it was what the old man had always wished he had done before his parents had demeaned him into a bottle of scotch as the solution for all the world’s problems.
I was his chance to right some obscure karmic wrong, balance the scales of inter-generational injustice. Even though his parents had been dead lo these twelve years, he was still fighting the battle.
And he was determined that I take up the sword.
So, in addition to the major angst of not really knowing what my path should be, I was dodging the bullets of Catholic guilt and his sodden threats of suicide if I didn’t fulfill his destiny.
Not the best senior year one could hope for.
All this battling on so many fronts was exhausting and taking all my focus and a great deal of my time. The old man was relentless. It wasn’t too late for dual salvation, if only I would listen. He would fund this mutual salvation if only I would comply and switch to a business major. Otherwise, I would be on my own.
I was on my own.
It is well known to be impossible to win a war fought on two fronts. Despite the bravado I exhibited when facing the old man, I had taken the bait. The battle had become both internal and external and left me wallowing in doubt. I was fighting to maintain appearances as well. Covering myself with the ever more fissured mask of the all American kid had me coming and going at the same time.
On top of it, money was running out just a bit ahead of the last of the tuition bills.
So I applied for a job.
I sought a proper job, one befitting my station in life as the daughter of a “successful” attorney. No beer slinging or pizza wench for me. The job board at the student union had one posted for a “girl Friday” (still a mostly acceptable term in the mid seventies, especially in the College of Engineering). The interview went well. After pestering the daylights out of the man, a portent of the future, he got the funding for the position and I got the position.
It was easy. Mostly, my duties entailed running to various libraries around the campus to pick up research articles, along with a bit of phone work, typing and other miscellaneous errands. I felt competent. I also wasn’t home to receive the old man’s calls.
HM was European in birth and education. He spoke five languages with fluency and had lived in several countries while growing up. He was ruggedly good looking in every sense of the cliché. He was also a private man. He was a very private man. Whatever and whoever he was in reality, I immediately saw him as a very sophisticated and educated older man, an enigma.
He was fascinating to me.
I began to wonder what was behind the enigma. Like a pit bull on a meat truck, I became determined to find out. On one occasion, several months into my employment, I had to drive him home from campus. Even his house was unique. At least it looked like it from the outside. I was not allowed inside, though had he crooked his finger I would have followed him to Mars by then.
And then I found out about the dancing.
One Friday as I was leaving his office and lab, I mentioned that I was going out dancing. With a smile, he told me he taught ballroom dance at the University center.
The illusion was complete. The perfect man wished me a good evening as I closed the door behind me.
I was in love.
There is a saying in the ballroom dance world that the dance begins with the dancer’s feelings. There is another saying that dance is foreplay in public.
To my eyes, this man was the be all and end all of masculine perfection and élan. Life and my guardian angels had put this man before me to answer all my prayers, right all my wrongs, and solve all my problems, even though these problems were not of my doing, as our family creed dictated. It would all magically get better.
Finally, I would learn to dance. All the grace, elegance, and sophistication I longed to possess would come to me naturally, commencing with my feet.
I don’t remember how it came about, but HM and I went dancing. He was patient. I was awkward. As a good partner does, he kept me on track and restarted when I went off count or off step.
The evening was heavenly. Like sampling laudanum, I was hooked and had to have more.
The dance nights became a regular thing, in a sporadic sort of way. The nights in his dance framed arms would occur whenever I could hint, finagle or arrange them with him. I got better at the dance. When we would step out to the dance floor and begin our revolutions, others would stop and watch. Occasionally, there was even applause. Cinderella, Isadora Duncan, and Ginger Rogers had nothing on me. Nothing.
As a concession and to gain some breathing room from the military maneuvers with the old man, I did take the LSATs during this time. My scores made him redouble his efforts on his relentless quest for salvation via progeny.
The sprint to the finish line of my senior year became endless.
The awkward ritual of my dance with HM and our elaborate moves carried me through the rest of my college days. As I fought the increasing panic that came from the impending prospect of graduation and of the real world, I found solace in the dances and the dancing with him. It was, in part, because of my illusion of HM that I managed to graduate on my terms.
My graduation ceremony came. My parents came down for the momentous occasion. The old man arrived with a gallon bottle of vodka under one arm and a gallon of Bloody Mary mix under the other. My mother carried the limes.
The old man fell down at the ceremony.
My college days ended and I went home. I found an entry-level job and stayed away from the house as much as possible to avoid the daily wars with the old man. Even if I was destined to be the greatest lawyer in the history of jurisprudence, there was no way I would give law school any consideration. Doing so would have cost me my soul. The contrast between who I really was and who I felt I was while on the dance floor hit me like a cold, wet towel. There was no doubt. I was still a mess.
Having kept in constant touch with my elegant illusion, I poured my energies into finding a way to have HM make me a part of his life. This would solve everything. I knew I could make him happy and thus make myself complete.
That is where I would have to say that the music and the dance lost the rhythm. But a good dance picks up the beat and maintains the dance frame of the two dancers. Not too close, firm grip, leave a firm space between partners.
Every opportunity that arose, I would drive down to the university town and stay with my former roommates and go dancing with HM whenever he would allow it. A good dancer moves gracefully and gratefully into her partner’s awaiting arms. All the while the dance frame is maintained.
HM would not allow these moments too often. Just enough to keep me hooked. The tempo slowed considerably.
Things began to shift a bit. I moved into my own apartment after a short, ugly stint at home. Eagerly, I collected hand me down furniture and pots and pans and began to decorate in the style of early Salvation Army. It was my own space to grow in any direction I chose.
It was then that he called me.
He was coming through the city on business and would like to see if we could get together. Last minute? Not a problem. As usual, I would drop everything to be with him. At last, he was coming to see me. He was making the effort this time. The pace resumed and still, as always, he commanded the pace. It left me alone most of the time. It left me empty and waiting with anticipation for him to crook his finger in my direction and beckon for a meeting. Each time, it would be last minute and I would drop any plans and go to wherever he happened to be. Of course, we would dance.
My need for this illusion increased with each time we were together. But I also chafed under the strict but unspoken rules I was always following to be in the pleasure of his company. My calls were taken but only at his convenience. I needed him to remember my birthday and it went unnoticed. I needed him to transport me away from the disappointments of my life and make me a better person. The fortunately unfortunate part of all of this was that I had never discussed whether or not he wanted to participate in anything but a dance. I only knew that if I wanted this illusion to maintain itself, I had better not ask any questions. My silence and complicity brought me the moments in his company and the snippets of time.
I even ceded control of our mode of communicating. As I was traveling with my job, I would send postcards or notes, but never call. I wrote long letters sharing my naïve and idealized outlook for my world. It earned me my pet name from him: Poppins.
On one trip to the homecoming football game with friends, I broke all the rules and called him at home. When he answered, I chose to use the wee bit of French I had learned in his company.
“Hello, H____? C’est moi, Poppins.
“Pardon?”
“C’est moi, Poppins.”
“Quoi?”
“Poppins. I’m in town.”
“Il est non ici.”
“I’m sorry, H____, what did you say?”
“He’s not here.”
“But you are talking to me!”
Obviously I was not good at grasping such subtle hints. That conversation should have made a rather large dent in the illusion. It didn’t. It never occurred to me that I was a sidebar in the relationships in his life. I was far too focused on making him the center of mine. I realized that there were never any other relationships discussed. I never met any one of his acquaintances.
Though beginning to puzzle over this, the relationship puttered onward on his clock and I continued to try to surrender all my power to this illusion of mine.
But he always chose the music that we danced to.
There continued to be trips and candlelit dinners and always dancing. That was all. I suppose, as I reflect, that it could have been enough. It was enough for the faceless, unknown others that dance with HM. It wasn’t enough for me.
I began to date occasionally and be more open to social life with people my own age. I made new friends in the business world and reconnected with old friends I had neglected. My life was full. I began to unravel the warp and woof of the relationship with my father with the assistance of a professional wise enough to ask me the right questions.
Learning to dance had been much easier.
I didn’t talk about HM with any of them. Any dates I chose to accept were always a disappointment. Even then, I was still holding fast to some corner of the illusion and still, no one could hold a candle to him. He still wore the cloak of this illusion easily and at his convenience. He remained patient with me as always. His hand kept gently holding me at arm’s length, within the dance frame, as I fought to shorten the leash.
My path was not without bumps and I did make enough mistakes that the music stopped and I had to take a long hard look around the dance floor until I caught my own reflection in the mirror. But I did one thing right during this time. I called HM and told him that the ball was in his court and I would no longer diminish who I was becoming by calling regularly and desperately flirting in hopes of a rendezvous.
The offer was accepted with the usual grace and poise. I had tried to become too intrusive in his private world.
This left me with no alternative to begin the hard and intense introspection that would lead me down a new path. The fabric of my life was rewoven on my loom. I learned to be comfortable in my own skin and own not only my liabilities and imperfections, but my assets as well.
One of those assets was my acquired knowledge of the art of dancing. My quest taught me to apply the dance frame to my old man. Firmly, with the proper distance, I kept Dad in my life. Whenever he pushed too hard or tried to step over the boundaries I had established, I would walk away. I would not dance to his discordant tune. When his drinking finally put him in the nursing home with alcoholic dementia, I paid the bills and saw that the staff met his needs.
My life experiences were no longer laced with drama and desperation. I found what I was looking for within my own space. I soloed.
The illusion that I had craved so badly became a very colorful spot on the cloth that is my life. The loom continues to weave.
I wouldn’t say, all told, that whatever it was I had with HM ended badly. I don’t think the dance ended at all. Rather, it just faded away. Several years later, I met the man whom I would marry. But I only met him after my own skin fit like a comfortable dance shoe.
I like to believe that the numbers of women who have had, or are having an experience such as mine are legion. Most of us have locked away these memories in the secret trunks in the attic of our souls. They gather dust, but remain intact and can be called up on the odd instance. Now we are all older, hopefully wiser, and hopefully in a place of peace. Some women, I am sure, dismiss this as a one-that-got-away story. Other women have these trunks of memories locked and padlocked very tightly against the light of introspection. Me? I like to occasionally open my secret trunk and look at the scrapbook of what is now a fond memory. There is just a tinge of embarrassment and remorse that the lesson took so much effort on the part of HM.
We are happy, my husband and I, though the music comes and goes. As it should, I suppose. The magic I was looking for in sharing life with another, the magic I demanded from HM, was found when I stopped looking. Then it was placed before me.
When the music leaves now, or fades, there is warmth and substance still present. Not emptiness. The laughter of our children adds depth to the music. It is a good life. I still have some of the moves I learned with HM’s tutelage. My husband and I dance very well together. But within the music and the dancing, there is honest discussion and complete exchange of respected needs and emotions. The volume goes up and down as circumstances demand, but the tune gets heard.
I have always felt, however, that there was one more thing to say to HM. I wanted to thank him for not becoming my myth. I wanted to thank him for not participating in my illusion, and thus keeping me on my path to where I am today – self contained.
Finally, I decided that I would act on this feeling. I reconnected electronically several years ago in an attempt to accomplish this one moment of truth with HM. He had left the academic world and become someone very technologically important in the years that had passed between that time and us. I have traded my dance shoes for a computer and a keyboard and my life circumstances. Though these circumstances are safer, there is also much more contentment within and without. I would not trade back for anything or anyone. Even HM.
Through e-mails, it came to pass that he would be passing through the airport in our city and had some time. With my husband’s knowledge, it was arranged. I was to meet him between flights at the airport and, during this layover; all would be wrapped up. I was there. He was not. At the last minute, he changed his travel arrangements to something more convenient with no layover. Though he could have contacted me to alert me, he did not. I was inconvenienced. He was not. Again. That was the last lesson he taught me.
A friend recently showed me a cartoon that said, “Sure Fred Astaire was a great dancer. But Ginger Rogers had to do everything he did backwards and in high heels.”
Sometimes, backwards is an effective way to one’s destination.
The talk will never take place now. I know that. HM doesn’t want it. He wants the memory to stay in place with no new impressions upon the past. In our brief e-mails before the abandoned rendezvous, he admitted that he had gained “a great deal of weight”. So, it seems, he wants me to keep my memories intact as well.
I do have to admit that I would have liked to meet him vis a vis. It would not be to renew this illusion I once cherished at all costs. It would have been to be honest and real and true and most of all, to thank him. Clearly, illusions can only end by mutual consent.
Some illusions do not want to be discovered. The illusion was as much for him as it was for me.
Occasionally, when I dance, I think of him and thank him.
Je ne regretted rien.
Merci, wherever you are.
I did.
Ultimately, the fantasies I created from this illusion made my world then, and the one I live in now, a better place. Or so I believe.
But because they can disguise what is real from what is imagined, illusions can be a dangerous chimera. The especially dangerous ones are about people. Illusions have no flaws. People always do. Still, within danger is the opportunity for growth; whether you want that growth or not. I did. At the time, however, I didn’t realize it. You never do with the truly special illusions.
If you are extraordinarily lucky, you can look back on the illusion, as well as the ashes of the fantasy it helped create, and smile.
I can.
There are times when you reveal and speak your truth. There are times when it is stashed away and stored in the smallest trunk of your heart in the dustiest corner of the soul’s attic. The truth becomes a scrapbook. It can be brought out casually at cocktail parties and mentioned offhandedly. This protects its importance. But you know. You always know. There are times you take it out of that attic on an ordinary day and view it with a fond smile. Such is this truth with me.
By the time I was nineteen, I can very honestly say that I was a mess. Not a felonious mess, or an uneducated mess, or even a going nowhere fast mess. I was the worst kind – a lost and scared mess. I could function in the bounds of society rather successfully. There were many times I could fool the world along with myself that all was great and I was coping with impending adulthood quite nicely, thank you.
Nor was I an unambitious mess. Once again, quite to the contrary. I was going to conquer the world. After all, I was just fine the way I was. It was everyone else that had the problem. Not me.
And that, as you may well have surmised, was just exactly the problem. It was genetic. We had a long standing family tradition to never accept responsibility for or the consequences of one’s actions.
It was my senior year at a large university. As each year gave way to the next and the big world loomed larger and larger, the cracks in the spackle of my façade of perfection spread and multiplied. They formed so many fissures in the mask that I wore for the outside world that it was obvious to everyone but me that in no way was I prepared to graduate and move to the next phase of life’s journey. Indeed, I was so busy fighting the mask my father was trying to put on me, that I couldn’t begin to face anything.
Even when he was sober, the old man was pressuring me by any means possible to become an accountant. An accountant!! When I couldn’t even add without a calculator? Wait, an accountant and then on to law school to be a tax attorney? Surely, there was a room in hell for me with just such a set up.
But, it was what the old man had always wished he had done before his parents had demeaned him into a bottle of scotch as the solution for all the world’s problems.
I was his chance to right some obscure karmic wrong, balance the scales of inter-generational injustice. Even though his parents had been dead lo these twelve years, he was still fighting the battle.
And he was determined that I take up the sword.
So, in addition to the major angst of not really knowing what my path should be, I was dodging the bullets of Catholic guilt and his sodden threats of suicide if I didn’t fulfill his destiny.
Not the best senior year one could hope for.
All this battling on so many fronts was exhausting and taking all my focus and a great deal of my time. The old man was relentless. It wasn’t too late for dual salvation, if only I would listen. He would fund this mutual salvation if only I would comply and switch to a business major. Otherwise, I would be on my own.
I was on my own.
It is well known to be impossible to win a war fought on two fronts. Despite the bravado I exhibited when facing the old man, I had taken the bait. The battle had become both internal and external and left me wallowing in doubt. I was fighting to maintain appearances as well. Covering myself with the ever more fissured mask of the all American kid had me coming and going at the same time.
On top of it, money was running out just a bit ahead of the last of the tuition bills.
So I applied for a job.
I sought a proper job, one befitting my station in life as the daughter of a “successful” attorney. No beer slinging or pizza wench for me. The job board at the student union had one posted for a “girl Friday” (still a mostly acceptable term in the mid seventies, especially in the College of Engineering). The interview went well. After pestering the daylights out of the man, a portent of the future, he got the funding for the position and I got the position.
It was easy. Mostly, my duties entailed running to various libraries around the campus to pick up research articles, along with a bit of phone work, typing and other miscellaneous errands. I felt competent. I also wasn’t home to receive the old man’s calls.
HM was European in birth and education. He spoke five languages with fluency and had lived in several countries while growing up. He was ruggedly good looking in every sense of the cliché. He was also a private man. He was a very private man. Whatever and whoever he was in reality, I immediately saw him as a very sophisticated and educated older man, an enigma.
He was fascinating to me.
I began to wonder what was behind the enigma. Like a pit bull on a meat truck, I became determined to find out. On one occasion, several months into my employment, I had to drive him home from campus. Even his house was unique. At least it looked like it from the outside. I was not allowed inside, though had he crooked his finger I would have followed him to Mars by then.
And then I found out about the dancing.
One Friday as I was leaving his office and lab, I mentioned that I was going out dancing. With a smile, he told me he taught ballroom dance at the University center.
The illusion was complete. The perfect man wished me a good evening as I closed the door behind me.
I was in love.
There is a saying in the ballroom dance world that the dance begins with the dancer’s feelings. There is another saying that dance is foreplay in public.
To my eyes, this man was the be all and end all of masculine perfection and élan. Life and my guardian angels had put this man before me to answer all my prayers, right all my wrongs, and solve all my problems, even though these problems were not of my doing, as our family creed dictated. It would all magically get better.
Finally, I would learn to dance. All the grace, elegance, and sophistication I longed to possess would come to me naturally, commencing with my feet.
I don’t remember how it came about, but HM and I went dancing. He was patient. I was awkward. As a good partner does, he kept me on track and restarted when I went off count or off step.
The evening was heavenly. Like sampling laudanum, I was hooked and had to have more.
The dance nights became a regular thing, in a sporadic sort of way. The nights in his dance framed arms would occur whenever I could hint, finagle or arrange them with him. I got better at the dance. When we would step out to the dance floor and begin our revolutions, others would stop and watch. Occasionally, there was even applause. Cinderella, Isadora Duncan, and Ginger Rogers had nothing on me. Nothing.
As a concession and to gain some breathing room from the military maneuvers with the old man, I did take the LSATs during this time. My scores made him redouble his efforts on his relentless quest for salvation via progeny.
The sprint to the finish line of my senior year became endless.
The awkward ritual of my dance with HM and our elaborate moves carried me through the rest of my college days. As I fought the increasing panic that came from the impending prospect of graduation and of the real world, I found solace in the dances and the dancing with him. It was, in part, because of my illusion of HM that I managed to graduate on my terms.
My graduation ceremony came. My parents came down for the momentous occasion. The old man arrived with a gallon bottle of vodka under one arm and a gallon of Bloody Mary mix under the other. My mother carried the limes.
The old man fell down at the ceremony.
My college days ended and I went home. I found an entry-level job and stayed away from the house as much as possible to avoid the daily wars with the old man. Even if I was destined to be the greatest lawyer in the history of jurisprudence, there was no way I would give law school any consideration. Doing so would have cost me my soul. The contrast between who I really was and who I felt I was while on the dance floor hit me like a cold, wet towel. There was no doubt. I was still a mess.
Having kept in constant touch with my elegant illusion, I poured my energies into finding a way to have HM make me a part of his life. This would solve everything. I knew I could make him happy and thus make myself complete.
That is where I would have to say that the music and the dance lost the rhythm. But a good dance picks up the beat and maintains the dance frame of the two dancers. Not too close, firm grip, leave a firm space between partners.
Every opportunity that arose, I would drive down to the university town and stay with my former roommates and go dancing with HM whenever he would allow it. A good dancer moves gracefully and gratefully into her partner’s awaiting arms. All the while the dance frame is maintained.
HM would not allow these moments too often. Just enough to keep me hooked. The tempo slowed considerably.
Things began to shift a bit. I moved into my own apartment after a short, ugly stint at home. Eagerly, I collected hand me down furniture and pots and pans and began to decorate in the style of early Salvation Army. It was my own space to grow in any direction I chose.
It was then that he called me.
He was coming through the city on business and would like to see if we could get together. Last minute? Not a problem. As usual, I would drop everything to be with him. At last, he was coming to see me. He was making the effort this time. The pace resumed and still, as always, he commanded the pace. It left me alone most of the time. It left me empty and waiting with anticipation for him to crook his finger in my direction and beckon for a meeting. Each time, it would be last minute and I would drop any plans and go to wherever he happened to be. Of course, we would dance.
My need for this illusion increased with each time we were together. But I also chafed under the strict but unspoken rules I was always following to be in the pleasure of his company. My calls were taken but only at his convenience. I needed him to remember my birthday and it went unnoticed. I needed him to transport me away from the disappointments of my life and make me a better person. The fortunately unfortunate part of all of this was that I had never discussed whether or not he wanted to participate in anything but a dance. I only knew that if I wanted this illusion to maintain itself, I had better not ask any questions. My silence and complicity brought me the moments in his company and the snippets of time.
I even ceded control of our mode of communicating. As I was traveling with my job, I would send postcards or notes, but never call. I wrote long letters sharing my naïve and idealized outlook for my world. It earned me my pet name from him: Poppins.
On one trip to the homecoming football game with friends, I broke all the rules and called him at home. When he answered, I chose to use the wee bit of French I had learned in his company.
“Hello, H____? C’est moi, Poppins.
“Pardon?”
“C’est moi, Poppins.”
“Quoi?”
“Poppins. I’m in town.”
“Il est non ici.”
“I’m sorry, H____, what did you say?”
“He’s not here.”
“But you are talking to me!”
Obviously I was not good at grasping such subtle hints. That conversation should have made a rather large dent in the illusion. It didn’t. It never occurred to me that I was a sidebar in the relationships in his life. I was far too focused on making him the center of mine. I realized that there were never any other relationships discussed. I never met any one of his acquaintances.
Though beginning to puzzle over this, the relationship puttered onward on his clock and I continued to try to surrender all my power to this illusion of mine.
But he always chose the music that we danced to.
There continued to be trips and candlelit dinners and always dancing. That was all. I suppose, as I reflect, that it could have been enough. It was enough for the faceless, unknown others that dance with HM. It wasn’t enough for me.
I began to date occasionally and be more open to social life with people my own age. I made new friends in the business world and reconnected with old friends I had neglected. My life was full. I began to unravel the warp and woof of the relationship with my father with the assistance of a professional wise enough to ask me the right questions.
Learning to dance had been much easier.
I didn’t talk about HM with any of them. Any dates I chose to accept were always a disappointment. Even then, I was still holding fast to some corner of the illusion and still, no one could hold a candle to him. He still wore the cloak of this illusion easily and at his convenience. He remained patient with me as always. His hand kept gently holding me at arm’s length, within the dance frame, as I fought to shorten the leash.
My path was not without bumps and I did make enough mistakes that the music stopped and I had to take a long hard look around the dance floor until I caught my own reflection in the mirror. But I did one thing right during this time. I called HM and told him that the ball was in his court and I would no longer diminish who I was becoming by calling regularly and desperately flirting in hopes of a rendezvous.
The offer was accepted with the usual grace and poise. I had tried to become too intrusive in his private world.
This left me with no alternative to begin the hard and intense introspection that would lead me down a new path. The fabric of my life was rewoven on my loom. I learned to be comfortable in my own skin and own not only my liabilities and imperfections, but my assets as well.
One of those assets was my acquired knowledge of the art of dancing. My quest taught me to apply the dance frame to my old man. Firmly, with the proper distance, I kept Dad in my life. Whenever he pushed too hard or tried to step over the boundaries I had established, I would walk away. I would not dance to his discordant tune. When his drinking finally put him in the nursing home with alcoholic dementia, I paid the bills and saw that the staff met his needs.
My life experiences were no longer laced with drama and desperation. I found what I was looking for within my own space. I soloed.
The illusion that I had craved so badly became a very colorful spot on the cloth that is my life. The loom continues to weave.
I wouldn’t say, all told, that whatever it was I had with HM ended badly. I don’t think the dance ended at all. Rather, it just faded away. Several years later, I met the man whom I would marry. But I only met him after my own skin fit like a comfortable dance shoe.
I like to believe that the numbers of women who have had, or are having an experience such as mine are legion. Most of us have locked away these memories in the secret trunks in the attic of our souls. They gather dust, but remain intact and can be called up on the odd instance. Now we are all older, hopefully wiser, and hopefully in a place of peace. Some women, I am sure, dismiss this as a one-that-got-away story. Other women have these trunks of memories locked and padlocked very tightly against the light of introspection. Me? I like to occasionally open my secret trunk and look at the scrapbook of what is now a fond memory. There is just a tinge of embarrassment and remorse that the lesson took so much effort on the part of HM.
We are happy, my husband and I, though the music comes and goes. As it should, I suppose. The magic I was looking for in sharing life with another, the magic I demanded from HM, was found when I stopped looking. Then it was placed before me.
When the music leaves now, or fades, there is warmth and substance still present. Not emptiness. The laughter of our children adds depth to the music. It is a good life. I still have some of the moves I learned with HM’s tutelage. My husband and I dance very well together. But within the music and the dancing, there is honest discussion and complete exchange of respected needs and emotions. The volume goes up and down as circumstances demand, but the tune gets heard.
I have always felt, however, that there was one more thing to say to HM. I wanted to thank him for not becoming my myth. I wanted to thank him for not participating in my illusion, and thus keeping me on my path to where I am today – self contained.
Finally, I decided that I would act on this feeling. I reconnected electronically several years ago in an attempt to accomplish this one moment of truth with HM. He had left the academic world and become someone very technologically important in the years that had passed between that time and us. I have traded my dance shoes for a computer and a keyboard and my life circumstances. Though these circumstances are safer, there is also much more contentment within and without. I would not trade back for anything or anyone. Even HM.
Through e-mails, it came to pass that he would be passing through the airport in our city and had some time. With my husband’s knowledge, it was arranged. I was to meet him between flights at the airport and, during this layover; all would be wrapped up. I was there. He was not. At the last minute, he changed his travel arrangements to something more convenient with no layover. Though he could have contacted me to alert me, he did not. I was inconvenienced. He was not. Again. That was the last lesson he taught me.
A friend recently showed me a cartoon that said, “Sure Fred Astaire was a great dancer. But Ginger Rogers had to do everything he did backwards and in high heels.”
Sometimes, backwards is an effective way to one’s destination.
The talk will never take place now. I know that. HM doesn’t want it. He wants the memory to stay in place with no new impressions upon the past. In our brief e-mails before the abandoned rendezvous, he admitted that he had gained “a great deal of weight”. So, it seems, he wants me to keep my memories intact as well.
I do have to admit that I would have liked to meet him vis a vis. It would not be to renew this illusion I once cherished at all costs. It would have been to be honest and real and true and most of all, to thank him. Clearly, illusions can only end by mutual consent.
Some illusions do not want to be discovered. The illusion was as much for him as it was for me.
Occasionally, when I dance, I think of him and thank him.
Je ne regretted rien.
Merci, wherever you are.
Freud Lights His Cigar
Time to stop making little notes on life and go and get the muse that only comes to me at 2:30 in the morning. The little bastard, for that is now his official name, is a night owl. Hell, it’s an out and out insomniac. I have been waging war with it for years. I want my inspirations to come to me during school hours on engraved stationery from the muse Calliope, or, if she’s booked, then Thalia will do. A little flute music and a special cosmic delivery, by previous appointment, about fifteen minutes after I put my kids on the school bus. But no, not for me. Nothing. Bupkus. Instead I get the New York City cabbie of muses. He’ll take me anywhere I want to go, but I better have an idea. And the little bastard only works the night shift.
I retaliate to all of this creative injustice by invoking the tactic that has gotten me where I am today. When in doubt, passive aggress. I flat out refuse to get up and do what the little time challenged creative hack is telling me to do: Get up and write down the best combination of words that the western civilization has ever seen. The count of brilliant combinations lost forever to a ward of sleep is endless. There aren’t enough beads on the abacus. Oh well.
In lieu of pitch darkness, I agree to another form of torture as inspiration. I am at my mother in laws'. She and my husband, her third offspring, together are always a sight to behold. My mother in law is someone I refer to as the toxic avenger when I am feeling benevolent toward her. She is the antichrist when I am not feeling so benevolent. That is usually after an afternoon of ignoring her snipes and barbs. Right now, I am somewhere in between the two. But the damn cabbie/muse is telling me to do my version of caught on tape. “Get this down on paper,” it says to me.
It is probably the best way of working through this frightening scene unfolding before me. In addition to griping her way through life, the old girl is senile. She now either gripes about the same thing over and over (often times, me), or she tells that same story about some transgression that occurred in 1953 ad nauseum. Normally, I would leave the room. But I am transfixed and the little bastard muse is yapping.
My husband, prince of a man that he is, is answering back. They are having a twilight zone discussion of a dialogue. It gives Eric a forum to discuss his political views. For the record, I agree with most of them. It is the vehemence and rabidity that I can’t take. But I know that is borne out of a deep need to be understood and he is attempting to garner some understanding from the one person who has never and will never understand him. That’s right, mumsy. It takes so very little to trigger a rant when he is around her. Freud would love to pop popcorn and watch this one. Any news program will get him rolling and she tumbles right after him until they are splitting hairs on the back of gnat. Gradually the subject matter of these discussions will move toward topics that really make me nervous.
You see, my husband recalls with a great deal of fondness, his father’s philosophy that, when marrying and more specifically, mating, you should always “breed up”. When I met my hubby, in between bouts of incredible romance and some truly grand gestures of love, he would talk admiringly of how my large hips would translate into plenty of womb for his progeny to bloom. And he meant this most sincerely. To this day, he truly believes that he is bestowing the highest compliment he could ever give: that I have been chosen from a large pool of contestants to carry on and contribute to increasing his family’s tree. So, I know what he meant and that he meant it lovingly.
But no matter how you tell it to a woman, any woman, large hips translates immediately in our language into huge ass. Further, this “breeding up” indicates a foreknowledge of every potential candidate’s gene pool. I think they give out grades, my mother in law and my husband. In the eyes of my mother-in-law, I am a C-. I was married before. I have never sought to pursue my rightful position as a member of the Mayflower society; seeking instead to hold to the Groucho Marx maxim of never being a member of any club that would have me. I wear makeup – a travesty in the family creed. I am not Norwegian or even German in my ancestry. I went to a public university. The list is endless. So there they sit. They converse in something that can best be described as prattle, about the state of the world, the liberal media and it’s conspiracies, they move toward congratulating each other on the fine family to which they have contributed DNA.
I grab my pen. The little bastard muse can stand no more.
This is the safest tactic I can take. Anything else could quickly lead to a felony of some sort. What I really want to do is yell, “But I’M a DNA donor too.”
My alcoholic sot of a father and my neurotic, but well-intentioned mother are also branches of the trunk of my tree. Your deceased manic depressive daughter is a knothole on your trunk, lest you forget. Our children, your grandchildren, which you are, quite rightly, admiring are the new trunk of the tree and both of the above branches are providing them shade as they grow. Not to mention an awareness of how life shouldn’t be lived. This is breeding up?
I guess, and I’m feeling benevolent here, I can snicker and smile. But genetics be damned. I don’t want my husband to be sitting in a chair forty years from now, pontificating on the virtues of good genes. There may or may not be good genes, but I know to the core of my being that a lot of it all is karma, environment, and plain old Las Vegas type luck. There were only three guys who had the inside track. Jesus, Moses and Mohammed paid a very high price for their knowledge. I’d rather roll the dice, thank the karmic bank for the deposit I’ve apparently made several past lives ago for allowing my mother in law to have me killed. I also believe I put enough deposits in said bank to yield my husband, three great kids, a couple of good dogs and maybe another horse.
But, if he is still talking about good genetics like he’s some judge of it all forty years hence, I’ll have to kill him. To hell with the karma. But I promise, if this occurs, I’ll write him a great eulogy and give him a proper Irish send off.
As for my mother in law, there is a room in hell for her. If I’m bad, I’ll be locked up with her.
That’s incentive enough to live right.
Somewhere in the universe, Freud is lighting his cigar as their discussion continues.
I retaliate to all of this creative injustice by invoking the tactic that has gotten me where I am today. When in doubt, passive aggress. I flat out refuse to get up and do what the little time challenged creative hack is telling me to do: Get up and write down the best combination of words that the western civilization has ever seen. The count of brilliant combinations lost forever to a ward of sleep is endless. There aren’t enough beads on the abacus. Oh well.
In lieu of pitch darkness, I agree to another form of torture as inspiration. I am at my mother in laws'. She and my husband, her third offspring, together are always a sight to behold. My mother in law is someone I refer to as the toxic avenger when I am feeling benevolent toward her. She is the antichrist when I am not feeling so benevolent. That is usually after an afternoon of ignoring her snipes and barbs. Right now, I am somewhere in between the two. But the damn cabbie/muse is telling me to do my version of caught on tape. “Get this down on paper,” it says to me.
It is probably the best way of working through this frightening scene unfolding before me. In addition to griping her way through life, the old girl is senile. She now either gripes about the same thing over and over (often times, me), or she tells that same story about some transgression that occurred in 1953 ad nauseum. Normally, I would leave the room. But I am transfixed and the little bastard muse is yapping.
My husband, prince of a man that he is, is answering back. They are having a twilight zone discussion of a dialogue. It gives Eric a forum to discuss his political views. For the record, I agree with most of them. It is the vehemence and rabidity that I can’t take. But I know that is borne out of a deep need to be understood and he is attempting to garner some understanding from the one person who has never and will never understand him. That’s right, mumsy. It takes so very little to trigger a rant when he is around her. Freud would love to pop popcorn and watch this one. Any news program will get him rolling and she tumbles right after him until they are splitting hairs on the back of gnat. Gradually the subject matter of these discussions will move toward topics that really make me nervous.
You see, my husband recalls with a great deal of fondness, his father’s philosophy that, when marrying and more specifically, mating, you should always “breed up”. When I met my hubby, in between bouts of incredible romance and some truly grand gestures of love, he would talk admiringly of how my large hips would translate into plenty of womb for his progeny to bloom. And he meant this most sincerely. To this day, he truly believes that he is bestowing the highest compliment he could ever give: that I have been chosen from a large pool of contestants to carry on and contribute to increasing his family’s tree. So, I know what he meant and that he meant it lovingly.
But no matter how you tell it to a woman, any woman, large hips translates immediately in our language into huge ass. Further, this “breeding up” indicates a foreknowledge of every potential candidate’s gene pool. I think they give out grades, my mother in law and my husband. In the eyes of my mother-in-law, I am a C-. I was married before. I have never sought to pursue my rightful position as a member of the Mayflower society; seeking instead to hold to the Groucho Marx maxim of never being a member of any club that would have me. I wear makeup – a travesty in the family creed. I am not Norwegian or even German in my ancestry. I went to a public university. The list is endless. So there they sit. They converse in something that can best be described as prattle, about the state of the world, the liberal media and it’s conspiracies, they move toward congratulating each other on the fine family to which they have contributed DNA.
I grab my pen. The little bastard muse can stand no more.
This is the safest tactic I can take. Anything else could quickly lead to a felony of some sort. What I really want to do is yell, “But I’M a DNA donor too.”
My alcoholic sot of a father and my neurotic, but well-intentioned mother are also branches of the trunk of my tree. Your deceased manic depressive daughter is a knothole on your trunk, lest you forget. Our children, your grandchildren, which you are, quite rightly, admiring are the new trunk of the tree and both of the above branches are providing them shade as they grow. Not to mention an awareness of how life shouldn’t be lived. This is breeding up?
I guess, and I’m feeling benevolent here, I can snicker and smile. But genetics be damned. I don’t want my husband to be sitting in a chair forty years from now, pontificating on the virtues of good genes. There may or may not be good genes, but I know to the core of my being that a lot of it all is karma, environment, and plain old Las Vegas type luck. There were only three guys who had the inside track. Jesus, Moses and Mohammed paid a very high price for their knowledge. I’d rather roll the dice, thank the karmic bank for the deposit I’ve apparently made several past lives ago for allowing my mother in law to have me killed. I also believe I put enough deposits in said bank to yield my husband, three great kids, a couple of good dogs and maybe another horse.
But, if he is still talking about good genetics like he’s some judge of it all forty years hence, I’ll have to kill him. To hell with the karma. But I promise, if this occurs, I’ll write him a great eulogy and give him a proper Irish send off.
As for my mother in law, there is a room in hell for her. If I’m bad, I’ll be locked up with her.
That’s incentive enough to live right.
Somewhere in the universe, Freud is lighting his cigar as their discussion continues.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Prom Dress Moments
When my daughter was seven years old, we arranged to have her birthday party at a place called "My Secret Garden". Some enterprising ladies had rented an old victorian near our home and convinced all of their friends to part with their bridesmaid and prom dresses long lingering in forgotten closets. Some toy dress up shoes, a selection of old paste jewelry and plastic bracelets and garage sale accessories and they were up and running. A fashion show and tea party was included in the price of the party. All I had to do was supply a cake. These women, as far as I was concerned, were geniuses.
We scheduled the party, sent out the invitations and arrived on the appointed day and time. Anticipation reigned supreme. A bevy of little girls anticipating games, sugar in various forms and make believe arrived like bees just released from a dry hive.
After all of the gaggle of little girls arrived and began rippling through the vast array of "gowns" and accessories, I was left to wander around and help accessorize.
There it was. Hanging on a circular rack amidst some very dated eighties numbers, was an exact duplicate of my senior prom dress!!!
Now I graduated in 1976. For those of you who weren't around and those who are trying to forget despite incriminating photos tucked in albums to the contrary, it was the era of what were termed "granny gowns". I think the original motivation was to emulate late eighteenth century party dresses of the old west. Anyway, there was usually a smidge of lace, sometimes lace up bodices, floor length with some ruching and more lace. Other girls in my class, those with breasts chose something more elegant. This dress made me feel like the princess I wasn't and suited my self esteem, which was marginal.
It was powder blue and made of dotted swiss which meant that my prom date and fellow redhead, John Galligan would be reduced to wearing the classic 70's tux. Powder blue, wide lapels, ruffled shirt and HUGE bow tie.
As I stood in that sea of seven year old girls choosing and accessorizing, the memories of that magic night returned with a smile. We had a good time, John and I, innocent and good.
I pulled my daughter away from her friends. She had not yet made a decision on what "gown" she was going to choose as the belle of the ball.
"Honey, this dress was the exact dress I wore when I went to my senior prom! Don't you want to try this on?"
"No, Mom. That's really ugly."
Sigh.
I remember that day, party, moment fondly. I smile whenever I think about it. And my daughter, the truth teller was probably right about the dress. At the very least she is entitled to her own opinion.
It is one of the many memories I have accumulated, much to my good fortune, since marrying my husband and becoming a mom. As my daughter leaves for college at the end of this summer, I find myself documenting the memories and scrapbooking my brains out. My Creative Memories consultant loves me. But the fact remains that I was burping her and diapering her about a week ago. Or so it seems.
In the interim, she has grown up into an incredible kid who now has a couple of aging prom dresses hanging in her closet. Not out of fashion yet, by any means. But one day I will remind her of that story and we will both smile.
Because I don't want these stories to die. I want the memories I have made in my life to live on after I am gone. I may end up being just another link in the chain, but my link will be colorful and well documented.
I write about this because I have a friend with whom I grew up who can no longer do so.
George Bastable died on July 4, 2009. He was fifty.
We all moved into the same subdivision outside Chicago in the mid-sixties. We all went to the same elementary school, junior high school and high school. Because we were the baby boom, each of these schools was built for us and was brand spanking new.
George was one of a passle of brothers. He played basketball and football and always had a ready smile. He dated a girl one year younger for forever. It was sort of assumed it would always be for forever.
But in college, George apparently lost his way for several years. He got married, divorced and returned to working in the dry cleaning business that I think his parents owned.
It's not that we were ever close. But he was accepting of everyone and willing to call most folks his friend. He resurfaced at our thirtieth reunion three years ago. He had married happily, got his degree and became a coach and middle school teacher. I'm sure he was one of the best as encouraging others was his shining quality. He wrote columns for a local paper, and, apparently had some short stories and plays. I understand he was working on a screenplay. It was good to see him and catch up for what was to be the last time.
But what he won't have is prom dress moments. His three year old daughter and eight year old son will have to soldier on with out him. What I keep thinking about is the fact that George doesn't have those memories engraved on his soul. Wherever his soul is, it won't have those comforts and that thought makes me incredibly sad. I'm sure he has some great memories. But for leaving too soon, he has lost even more good ones. For his kids and for George.
Everyone chastises everyone else to "hug their kids" and "cherish each moment". Good advice, no doubt. Not always realistically executed. Just remember the memories that make you smile and perhaps pass them along.
God Bless, George.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Old Man's Shoes
THE OLD MAN’S SHOES
I can see them now if I close my eyes – my Dad’s slippers. They are pretty standard issue; brown, slip on, with red plaid flannel lining. In his case, the size was 8 1/2 EEE. You know the sort that I mean. Somewhere in the world at least a million pairs are on the feet of men even as I sit here. If I keep my eyes closed and concentrate harder, I can even smell and taste them.
Yep, I said taste them.
No, I am not weird. You’ll have to take my word on that one.
Different, perhaps. There are some damn good reasons behind that, if I chose to tell you. But not weird. Okay, maybe I am weird. But I prefer to consider myself iconoclastic chic. And it is not as if I have said that I LIKE the taste of slippers. Actually, I don’t, which should make you feel a bit more at ease. But I tasted Dad’s slippers on a moderately regular basis when I was growing up. It was one of the ways that we bonded. It was an act of love.
Dad was an Irish bachelor. He lived at home and loved the drink. He ran off and married Mom at age 35. In doing so, he left behind two broken - hearted parents who had worshipped him like the Holy Son himself, and a certificate of excommunication from the Catholic Church. Mom was a divorced protestant, with a kid. Worse even than all of that, she was not Irish. In 1957 you couldn’t rebel much worse than that, even if you didn’t get around to it until you were 35. Better late than never, as some would say. I figured all of this out with the help of this truckload interfamilial baggage at a later age. But between then and now, I took on a job in the family that put Flynnery, our Irish Setter out of work.
I would fetch my dad’s slippers for him. Not that the dog was all that smart. He fit the family profile of being good looking and just out of step with the rules. But after a hard day of flatulating, barking at air, and chasing a ball for eight solid hours, he needed reinforcements. It was part of my duty as a good little girl.
And I was meant to be a good little girl. It seemed to be ordained as my destiny. Never spoken, it was always understood that this goal above all others must be achieved. It was so much more than a job, as the commercial, blared, it was an adventure. Hell, it was an adventure just to exist in our house, with our own, privately labeled, brand of “sanity”.
Every night, when the old man came home to our seemingly respectable, middle class, suburban home, he would hit the scotch. I have acquired the skill of catching a whiff of scotch and pausing for just a moment to remember Old Michael Eagan fondly. Because, back then, I knew that if dad came home, sat down in his chair in the family room and the television was on the correct channel, then all was mostly well with the world. Somehow this was the way America operated. Homes all over the country were setting up their nightly routine in the same manner. Hell, Ward Cleaver had the Beaver fetch him his scotch when we signed off the air and let them get on with their lives in television land. That’s the way it really was, wasn’t it?
So, Dad would come home from a tough morning at the office, followed by a harsh afternoon at the blue movies, a rigorous dinner at the Elks club with mom, and plop his ovoid body down exhausted from the day’s chores. He was the dad here. It was time to begin service.
No matter what I was doing or where I was in the house, he would sit down first and then bellow, “Maura!!” (or if the Elks club scotches were beginning to do their job), “LITTLE BROAD!! Bring me a clean handkerchief!”
Sometimes it was, “LITTLE BROAD!!! Fetch me my slippers!”
What did he think I was, a retriever?
The stairs to his and Mom’s bedroom were a bit much for him by this time of the evening. The way to their bedroom would remain a mystery until about one o’clock in the morning. At that time, almost every night on the nose, he would roust his exhausted self from THE chair, turn off the thwacking tape of Tommy Dorsey or Glen Miller in the reel- to-reel tape player, and let the enlightenment from the sweet drop of the old craythur kick in. Then and only then would he find his way up the stairs with Herculean effort and flop into bed.
Somewhere in the midst of growing up with this routine, I came to understand that if I pleased my Daddy, he would be pleased. That was all that was meant to be. Ars gratia artis. Res ipse loquitor. Please Daddy. It was practically our family crest. If memory serves, I learned it by not pleasing Daddy a few times.
So, one night, alone with my thoughts and my TV dinner, I came up with the inspiration of fetching the slippers. More than that, I would create a perfect atmosphere for Daddy.
I put the appropriate Big Band tape on the player, poured the scotch just the way he liked it – straight with plenty of ice, grabbed Flynnery from his canine dreams and we waited with growing anticipation. The hum of the garage door would be my cue.
After what seemed to be an eternity, there it was!! The unmistakable hum of the garage door going up was the signal of my parents’ return. It was my call to spring into action. Flynnery hot on my heels, we raced up the stairs into Dad’s closet. I took his slippers and put them in my mouth. Flynnery looked at me as if to say, “Hey, I am a setter. This is out of my job description.”
Right on cue, “LITTLE BROAD!!!”
I was starting to drool a bit on the slippers. So I raced back down the stairs with Flynnery watching in fascination. I reached the landing an hunkered down behind his sacred throne. I took the slippers out of my mouth just long enough to swallow the collected saliva and put them back in. The flannel lining yielded a stale but powdery smell straight into my nostrils.
“LITTLE BROAD!!?” Then under his breath, “God damnit, where is she?”
Out I popped from behind the chair. Flynnery and I were a warped Normal Rockwell vision of Americana. Flynnery was happily wagging his tail as I assumed the sit up position I had been trying to teach him for months and months. The slippers rested perfectly in my mouth with nary a tooth mark on them. Dad had already fetched the pre made scotch and was halfway through consuming it. He smiled benevolently at me.
“I didn’t want my damn slippers, I need a clean handkerchief.”
In one fell swoop, he had cured me of what could have become a budding shoe fetish. I resumed respectability and wore it like a Salvation Army cloak for the rest of the time I lived under that roof. Never beg in order to appease. It is, I suppose, one of the things that I can thank him for.
I find myself wondering, thirty some odd years later, why I did this. Why I begged like Flynnery to me father in such ridiculous supplication. Because later on, when the scotch finally got to him and his feet, I certainly did not try to appease him. And, I had a custom fitted cloak of respectability that was truly my own. I came to realize that I may have been meant to be a good little girl. I ended up being a human being who was far more accepting of her own flaws and therefore came to accept everyone else’s.
Before he died, I even came to accept my father’s flaws. I learned to manage them so that his behavior in the care facility wouldn’t get out of hand. When he begged, I left. Even I couldn’t stand to see his weakness emerge so primitively. It was much better for all of us when it was just below the surface and operating behind the guise of suburban life. So what he gave me in that “Cinderella” non- moment, was probably the best lesson he would ever be able to teach me in his own inimitable way.
And in the end, I can only come to a place of forgiveness. There is forgiveness in the fact that every time I see a pair of brown men’s leather slip on slippers, I will think of my father and smile. I will envision that young girl with the slippers in her mouth, up on her haunches in supplication imitating the family dog from the movies, as ours couldn't and wouldn't fetch. Definitely the smarter of the two of us. My father is smiling benevolently down at me and the smile says what words will not – that it will never be enough. That knowledge perhaps is the greatest form of love after all: No pleasing the old man. Be free. Go and live your life. And don't ever supplicate again. Our lessons come to us in strange ways.
I can see them now if I close my eyes – my Dad’s slippers. They are pretty standard issue; brown, slip on, with red plaid flannel lining. In his case, the size was 8 1/2 EEE. You know the sort that I mean. Somewhere in the world at least a million pairs are on the feet of men even as I sit here. If I keep my eyes closed and concentrate harder, I can even smell and taste them.
Yep, I said taste them.
No, I am not weird. You’ll have to take my word on that one.
Different, perhaps. There are some damn good reasons behind that, if I chose to tell you. But not weird. Okay, maybe I am weird. But I prefer to consider myself iconoclastic chic. And it is not as if I have said that I LIKE the taste of slippers. Actually, I don’t, which should make you feel a bit more at ease. But I tasted Dad’s slippers on a moderately regular basis when I was growing up. It was one of the ways that we bonded. It was an act of love.
Dad was an Irish bachelor. He lived at home and loved the drink. He ran off and married Mom at age 35. In doing so, he left behind two broken - hearted parents who had worshipped him like the Holy Son himself, and a certificate of excommunication from the Catholic Church. Mom was a divorced protestant, with a kid. Worse even than all of that, she was not Irish. In 1957 you couldn’t rebel much worse than that, even if you didn’t get around to it until you were 35. Better late than never, as some would say. I figured all of this out with the help of this truckload interfamilial baggage at a later age. But between then and now, I took on a job in the family that put Flynnery, our Irish Setter out of work.
I would fetch my dad’s slippers for him. Not that the dog was all that smart. He fit the family profile of being good looking and just out of step with the rules. But after a hard day of flatulating, barking at air, and chasing a ball for eight solid hours, he needed reinforcements. It was part of my duty as a good little girl.
And I was meant to be a good little girl. It seemed to be ordained as my destiny. Never spoken, it was always understood that this goal above all others must be achieved. It was so much more than a job, as the commercial, blared, it was an adventure. Hell, it was an adventure just to exist in our house, with our own, privately labeled, brand of “sanity”.
Every night, when the old man came home to our seemingly respectable, middle class, suburban home, he would hit the scotch. I have acquired the skill of catching a whiff of scotch and pausing for just a moment to remember Old Michael Eagan fondly. Because, back then, I knew that if dad came home, sat down in his chair in the family room and the television was on the correct channel, then all was mostly well with the world. Somehow this was the way America operated. Homes all over the country were setting up their nightly routine in the same manner. Hell, Ward Cleaver had the Beaver fetch him his scotch when we signed off the air and let them get on with their lives in television land. That’s the way it really was, wasn’t it?
So, Dad would come home from a tough morning at the office, followed by a harsh afternoon at the blue movies, a rigorous dinner at the Elks club with mom, and plop his ovoid body down exhausted from the day’s chores. He was the dad here. It was time to begin service.
No matter what I was doing or where I was in the house, he would sit down first and then bellow, “Maura!!” (or if the Elks club scotches were beginning to do their job), “LITTLE BROAD!! Bring me a clean handkerchief!”
Sometimes it was, “LITTLE BROAD!!! Fetch me my slippers!”
What did he think I was, a retriever?
The stairs to his and Mom’s bedroom were a bit much for him by this time of the evening. The way to their bedroom would remain a mystery until about one o’clock in the morning. At that time, almost every night on the nose, he would roust his exhausted self from THE chair, turn off the thwacking tape of Tommy Dorsey or Glen Miller in the reel- to-reel tape player, and let the enlightenment from the sweet drop of the old craythur kick in. Then and only then would he find his way up the stairs with Herculean effort and flop into bed.
Somewhere in the midst of growing up with this routine, I came to understand that if I pleased my Daddy, he would be pleased. That was all that was meant to be. Ars gratia artis. Res ipse loquitor. Please Daddy. It was practically our family crest. If memory serves, I learned it by not pleasing Daddy a few times.
So, one night, alone with my thoughts and my TV dinner, I came up with the inspiration of fetching the slippers. More than that, I would create a perfect atmosphere for Daddy.
I put the appropriate Big Band tape on the player, poured the scotch just the way he liked it – straight with plenty of ice, grabbed Flynnery from his canine dreams and we waited with growing anticipation. The hum of the garage door would be my cue.
After what seemed to be an eternity, there it was!! The unmistakable hum of the garage door going up was the signal of my parents’ return. It was my call to spring into action. Flynnery hot on my heels, we raced up the stairs into Dad’s closet. I took his slippers and put them in my mouth. Flynnery looked at me as if to say, “Hey, I am a setter. This is out of my job description.”
Right on cue, “LITTLE BROAD!!!”
I was starting to drool a bit on the slippers. So I raced back down the stairs with Flynnery watching in fascination. I reached the landing an hunkered down behind his sacred throne. I took the slippers out of my mouth just long enough to swallow the collected saliva and put them back in. The flannel lining yielded a stale but powdery smell straight into my nostrils.
“LITTLE BROAD!!?” Then under his breath, “God damnit, where is she?”
Out I popped from behind the chair. Flynnery and I were a warped Normal Rockwell vision of Americana. Flynnery was happily wagging his tail as I assumed the sit up position I had been trying to teach him for months and months. The slippers rested perfectly in my mouth with nary a tooth mark on them. Dad had already fetched the pre made scotch and was halfway through consuming it. He smiled benevolently at me.
“I didn’t want my damn slippers, I need a clean handkerchief.”
In one fell swoop, he had cured me of what could have become a budding shoe fetish. I resumed respectability and wore it like a Salvation Army cloak for the rest of the time I lived under that roof. Never beg in order to appease. It is, I suppose, one of the things that I can thank him for.
I find myself wondering, thirty some odd years later, why I did this. Why I begged like Flynnery to me father in such ridiculous supplication. Because later on, when the scotch finally got to him and his feet, I certainly did not try to appease him. And, I had a custom fitted cloak of respectability that was truly my own. I came to realize that I may have been meant to be a good little girl. I ended up being a human being who was far more accepting of her own flaws and therefore came to accept everyone else’s.
Before he died, I even came to accept my father’s flaws. I learned to manage them so that his behavior in the care facility wouldn’t get out of hand. When he begged, I left. Even I couldn’t stand to see his weakness emerge so primitively. It was much better for all of us when it was just below the surface and operating behind the guise of suburban life. So what he gave me in that “Cinderella” non- moment, was probably the best lesson he would ever be able to teach me in his own inimitable way.
And in the end, I can only come to a place of forgiveness. There is forgiveness in the fact that every time I see a pair of brown men’s leather slip on slippers, I will think of my father and smile. I will envision that young girl with the slippers in her mouth, up on her haunches in supplication imitating the family dog from the movies, as ours couldn't and wouldn't fetch. Definitely the smarter of the two of us. My father is smiling benevolently down at me and the smile says what words will not – that it will never be enough. That knowledge perhaps is the greatest form of love after all: No pleasing the old man. Be free. Go and live your life. And don't ever supplicate again. Our lessons come to us in strange ways.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Childhood Gin Joints
It is a very strange thing that the true legacy of my dad -- the "gift" he gave to me -- is the ability to walk into a bar with confidence. I don't walk into a room confidently. I don't like walking into a room where I don't know anyone. It is a very anxiety provoking moment for me. One that I have managed to learn to hide very well -- like the way an alcoholic "hides" the monster in the box.
This is not to say I was particularly disturbed by this modus operandi. The saving grace of childhood is all you know is all you know. It was my normal and, like most kids, the familiar is comforting, no matter how odd to the mainstream. And, it gave me a life skill of sorts. To this day I am still more comfortable having someone else lead the way into a new social situation. Thankfully, I am no longer comfortable walking into joints. They give me the willies. But I hold back, watch, determine the lay of the land, and tentatively step forward into it. And if there is a drunk at the bar, making an ass out of himself, I can smile with pity and detached amusement.
But bars hold no fear. Sadly, it feels warm and welcoming, whether or not, in reality this is true.
Now I'm not talking a swanky place. I'm talking about a joint. A moose on the wall, Zeppelin AND polkas on the juke box, smoke-filled (or used to be), NASCAR on the television joint. A place where they may or may not ask, "What is a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"
Hey, I didn't say I blended, I said I could walk in, sit down, order a beer and wait for whoever I was meeting. It doesn't happen often, but it is a fond childhood memory for me.
It is the fondness that is very sad for me when I think about it enough. I was dragged to a bar just about every night of my childhood. I would be given a Shirley Temple or a coke and told to go sit by the tele while my parents sat at the bar and talked. They had their usual haunts. Ones where my dad would be thought of as clever rather than sarcastic and belittling. The bartender would know to keep 'em coming.
This is not to say I was particularly disturbed by this modus operandi. The saving grace of childhood is all you know is all you know. It was my normal and, like most kids, the familiar is comforting, no matter how odd to the mainstream. And, it gave me a life skill of sorts. To this day I am still more comfortable having someone else lead the way into a new social situation. Thankfully, I am no longer comfortable walking into joints. They give me the willies. But I hold back, watch, determine the lay of the land, and tentatively step forward into it. And if there is a drunk at the bar, making an ass out of himself, I can smile with pity and detached amusement.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
"Sliding Doors" and "P.S., I Love You"
New Year's weekend, with all chores, errands, parties done, I sat down to watch a movie. I don't even recall when the movie, "P.S., I Love You" was released. It was probably this summer. Further, I am not a particular fan of Hillary Swank. I think she has talent, but her movies appeal to a different demographic than mine.
Until this one.
It has everything a chick flick needs for me: a spiritual flavor, hot Irishmen with great buns, wonderful scenery of Ireland, my soul's home, and a redemptive ending. The basic premise is the fact that Holly's husband, Gerry, has died after a brief illness. But he had enough time to organize a series of letters to be delivered to Holly after his funeral under a variety of circumstances. In the end, Gerry accomplishes his post mortem goal. The journey they take while communicating from different spectrum, is wonderful.
It had been a long time since I had seen a good chick flick. The last one was ten years ago. It was called "Sliding Doors". A c.f. of a different flavor. Gwyneth Paltrow is Helen, the classic nice girl dating a philandering loser. On a particularly bad day, Helen misses the tube to work. And then, she doesn't . From there, the movie splits into two different scenarios: what happens after she misses the tube and what happens when she doesn't.
As a creative type, I really allow movies to resonate to my core. It doesn't happen often. Usually I just find the small sign or message I am supposed to receive. What resonated with these two in particular was the synchronicity of life. How things can turn on a dime. For example, through a series of odd circumstances I went to a Christmas party 21 years ago. It was in a location that held unpleasant memories for me, there were too many arrogant bankers with bad comb-overs, none of us wanted to be there. We were getting ready to leave.
And then, my future husband walked across the crowded room.
He wasn't supposed to be there either. Traffic "allowed" him to get back to the burbs in record time and this was an opportunity to introduce himself to the community. The comb-overs, who were his bankers, were just as snotty to him. And he walked across the crowded room to meet me.
We talked for quite a while and felt the instant connection that has never dimmed. It was a spark. Trite though it may be, just like in the movies.
Synchronicity -- Carl Jung's meaningful coincidences. Startling serendipity. It is with us everywhere. We need only to tune in.
Further, and this may be a stretch for some to accept, I think it allows us to receive messages from our guardian angels and loved ones. For many months after she died, we would be talking about my mother and a bottle cap would fall to the ground every single time. My husband and I always "trust your gut" and follow the voice of God that leads us exactly to where we need to be.
It led us to each other over twenty years ago.
That is why I love these movies. Oh, and yes, I am the ultimate incurable romantic.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Fast Food Creates Rude Behavior
I have been wanting to address this topic for a very long time. As do many folk, I feel that we, as a society are getting ruder, more self absorbed and more impatient. I am not casting stones here. There have been moments that I am not proud of and I like to think that I am ascending, not descending. Evidence concurs with this.
But people, maybe it isn't our fault. Like everything else that sniffs of unpleasantness about the human nature, we can make this a syndrome. Rather than correct it, we can fight to have it instated in the DSM-IV (or V?). That way, someone will write a book, others will read it and absolve themselves of all responsibility and need to improve. Think about it. There are syndromes for children of alcoholics, highly sensitive people, highly insensitive people, orphans, children who grew up without pets, people who can't stand plants, people who smoke for sixty years and then blame the tobacco companies. The lists is endless as is the book describing the syndrome, the manual and workshop offered for recovery, the author who gets a spot on a talk show. All this allows us to embrace the problem as an excuse instead of working out a solution.
I am not denouncing the wounded of this world. But many wounded do not embrace the syndrome du jour, but rather realize the need for change. "That sucked and I don't want to feel that way so how can I reframe my life for the better?"
But I have found the syndrome to end all syndromes: The Rudeness Syndrome. And the Fast Food industry is to blame.
We have precedent here. They already have fessed up for burning little old ladies with hot coffee.
The rudeness syndrome occurred to me as I was in the car with the kids going through the drive thru. The particular vendor doesn't matter, because this is pervasive and industry wide. I pulled up to place my order.
"Yes, I would like a number 7 with..."
"Medium or Large?"
"Large."
"Cheese or not".
"Not."
As I try to continue and finally complete the order, I counted 15 interruptions before receiving the dispensation to move ahead. This in a three minute time frame. If we had interrupted our parents that much, a saponification mouthwash would have followed.
But somewhere along the way, we gave up or gave in. I am guilty of interruptus impatiens (I think the DSM requires latin to make the syndrome official.) But I am a victim. I have been going through fast food drive thrus for the vast majority of my life. They caused it. I have been trained at the feet of the corporate motivation masters. All for their efficiency. Interrupting has become an accepted phenomena pervasive through all aspects of society: media, politics, ladies who lunch, men who don't, big business, entertainment. IT IS EVERYWHERE. We have become inured, nay even find it acceptable.
That teaches us all that what we have to say is too important to wait for while the other person finishes whatever is unimportantly coming out of their mouth. No one is listening. Everyone is just waiting to speak. It is the downfall of society and it lies at the feet of the companies who are teaching their employees to but in and ask, "Do you want fries with that?"
Couldn't these companies find people with enough ROM to remember to ask at the end of each value meal and sacrifice a couple of seconds to save what is left of proprieties in society? Appparently not. And that makes us all victims. We could get a big settlement. We could get a bigger one if the interruption syndrome got us so upset that we too spilled hot coffee in our laps.
C'mon people, help save the planet from complete anarchy. Let's start by telling these automatons that we will be happy to answer their questions at the end of the order and in the meantime, please let us finish.
Let's do it for our kids sake.
In the meantime, I am sure some pharmaceutical company is working on meds that will alleviate the stress we engender from fast food rudeness.
Friday, January 2, 2009
And so the next step in my journey begins. As usual and in perfect time, the inner muse has drop kicked me (persuasion and new age music just wasn't cutting it) into the world of blogging. I am doing what I usually do, jumping in with both feet, and trusting that my words will resonate with some people out there.
2008 saw a major door in our life closing. For over seventy years, there has been a "family" vacation home. In 2007, after several years of consistent rudeness and conflict, and after much rumination and mourning, my husband asked to be bought out. It took fifteen months and some microdramas within the larger venue as well as some petty maneuvers. But now it is final. And from what I understand about families, not that uncommon. I do not understand the conflict between sharing memories and making more as an extended family unit versus I was here first or you can't come now. The generation prior to mine and my husband's had the Act One of this karma. While we had hoped to put an end to the cycle, clearly no one else wanted to. It was a coincidence not lost on us that the death nell for the status quo came when my husband and I made a series of very major life changes. We did not expect it to shake the family tree, but it did. Right down to the roots.
But while we have been mourning the loss of good times that will no longer come, we have also realized that this is what is meant to be. Act Two is the final act that will involve our branch of the tree. Exeunt. I don't even think they noticed we'd gone.
This has allowed a door or two to open. It always does. One of these doors is this blog. So I begin by stating what was and making room for what will be. The fact that I am writing this is a big step in itself.
I recall a quote from Norman McLean's "A River Runs Through It." :
"Each one of us here today, will, at some time in our lives, look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: "We are willing to help, Lord, but what , if anything is needed?"
But it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give, or, more often than not, that part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them. We can love completely with out complete understanding."
Norman McLean (or the screenwriter) really liked to comma splice, didn't they?
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