Tag Archive | photos

I never inhaled – honest!

May30

TIME AND OTHER NONSENSE
280802_118933548201127_1367562_o (2)

Sometimes you gotta share the truth, even when it’s embarrassing as all hell. Remember back in the late 60s and early 70s when everyone of a certain age was smoking? And I don’t mean tobacco. I mean pot. Grass. Weed. Whatever you called it, virtually everyone was doing the stuff. Rolling joints, passing the stash. Experiencing mellow, and the hungry horrors. Man, that weed was groovy. Laid back and cool.

Everyone but me. To this day, it is literally impossible for me to chill. I am the most uptight chick on the planet. Back then, I really was trying to get high. It’s not that I didn’t try. I mean, I tried to dig that scene as much as anyone. But the truth was, I couldn’t inhale. I could not force my lungs to breathe in that grey smoke, that foreign material that might as well have been composed of neon red lights screaming: STOP! DO NOT PASS GO! DO NOT COLLECT $200!

So now you understand why I wasn’t, shall we say, the most popular girl in town. In fact, I had to be one of the most lame, nerdy, geeky kids in school. They didn’t use those terms then. Those are 80s, 90s, and new millennium words. What were the words? Uncool. Uptight. Weird. One of the smart kids – social death for a girl. Okay, and for purposes of full disclosure, I was a theater kid too. I could emote. I could debate. I looked ahead and tried to ignore the eye rolls and snickers behind my back as I dressed like a hippie but somehow never pulled off the look. A virgin in the days of the sexual revolution, scared to death of any contact with a male creature. A girl who didn’t go out in the woods to party, to drink and get smashed or laid. A complete social flop.

While I’m admitting to my teenage indiscretions, I’ll skip to my late 50s and say that it was only a few years ago that I first and ever rode in a limousine. Nowadays, people hire limos for 12 year old birthday parties, for crying out loud! Girls have ridden in limos six times by the time they are sixteen! But somehow, that doesn’t seem quite so bad because my 60s hide an even worse secret…

Here is the embarrassing thing I want to admit today. Last week was the first time ever – ever! – that I had a manicure in a salon. My daughter was in town and she wanted to treat me to a facial or a massage, neither of which I have ever experienced before. But I couldn’t bear either one. The manicure seemed the most mild, the least invasive of all the choices. The most true to my body, to those lungs that couldn’t inhale, to that girl who was too uptight to get high, and who never got her groove on.

I chose Bora Not So Boring Pink nail polish. An all-dolled-up 57 year old woman who was probably a Victoria’s Secret model only last year scrubbed my hands, arms, and nails and chattered nonstop while I realized just how short, plain and overweight I really am. I’m a senior citizen with wrinkles! It was like being in middle school again. But I have to admit, she was quite nice and didn’t mention my frumpiness. She acted like my new BFF! She pretended my nails weren’t so ugly as I imagined them to be, and she polished them till they gleamed with Bora Not So Boring Pink.

I spent a few days staring at my newly pretty hands. And attended a wedding where not one person even mentioned my nails. What’s with that? Now the polish is beginning to wear off at the tips, and I am returning to my real self. The one who never inhaled because her lungs refused to allow foreign objects to invade. The one who went to proms in the back of Dad’s old car. The one who was afraid to walk into an upscale day spa just down the street. So uncool, chipping nail polish is. Reminds me of my high school days. Maybe next week, once the blisters on my over-danced wedding feet heal, I’ll walk back and ask for a touch up. We’ll see. I don’t know. Will think about it.

Cracked in Half

May8

AS SPIRITUAL AS I GET

I am nutty, meaty
split in two
half hard hat shell
half kernel of truth

split down a middle
only I can see
wishing nuts wouldn’t fall apart
so easily

wanting to repair the seam
wishing for a cleaner being
begging for a softer shell
finding love the truth to tell

prepared to join together the whole
full attachment, that’s the goal
no more half that, half this
soul unites in coupled bliss

 

Crocus Jackpot

Mar15

MOTHER NATURE

20170315_151025

 

That first crocus of the season – what can make you feel like a million bucks more than spying that first fresh flower of early spring? Maybe winning the lottery for actual millions of bucks would be better, but honestly, today I feel as though I’ve hit the jackpot.

Why? Well, I was walking out in the cold this late morning, after a nor’easter of a storm yesterday. No, not for daily exercise. That would be nice but if I’m being honest, I’ll admit I haven’t done much walking since my ankle-turning trip to San Francisco’s hills a few weeks back. No, I was simply collecting my mail from the mailbox by the road. I was favoring my left ankle a bit, giving it some room to breathe and stretch and find its way back to the flat sandy coast of Massachusetts. To even ground. Maybe I was looking more carefully for the inevitable dips and bends in the pavement that can catch a person unaware and send her flying.

So maybe I wouldn’t have seen it at all if not for my slightly worn foot. Maybe I’d have been absorbed in all the junk mail and looking for that surprise million dollar check from Publishers Clearing if not for the ache in my ankle. I guess those hills gave me a workout on purpose? Or maybe I’m just not meant to be the next winner of that prize if only I have the matching number? Who knows?

But in any case, I collected my mail and started back up the driveway, when I looked down and over to the shade of the arborvitae, past the snow bank and ice, into the lawn. Why I glanced that way, I couldn’t tell you, but I moved my eyes past my own bodily sphere, my own perceived interests.

And shock of shocks! There is was! A tiny little purple flower, cup-shaped, unfolding to catch the next rain. Green-y striped leaves bursting into the air like spears challenging the white stuff nearby. First out! Keep me down if you can! A daring, living, breathing entity that braved the storm. This bud reveled in life, taking the ultimate risk of survival, of growth, of desire to succeed. Freed itself from the frozen earth, as though anyone could do it. (All this confidence makes a crocus the loveliest of spring flowers.)

And you know what this makes me think? I think that from this desperate, spring-bound bud, I’ve hit the jackpot. It’s a crucible of understanding. Knowing that if a crocus can behave so courageously, so morally, so intentionally, then so can I.

If a bloom can find shelter in the icy cold and continue to blossom, certainly I can match this strength.

If a tiny purple and green flower can exhibit hope for the future of its existence, then surely, so can I discover my own hope.

Sore ankle or not, junk mail or a million dollar lottery ticket, no matter, I can do it. I can find my own reason for being.

And I promise to at least try to keep looking beyond myself for the secrets and wonders that make our world.

 

 

Little Bits from Past Travels

Feb5

TRAVELS

 

 

 

A few years back, my sister and I experienced a wonderful two weeks touring Greece and Rome. We laughed, we drank, we ate, we saw many a splendid sight. It really was heaven. Our trip was not without its adventures, however. We both love to laugh, but there were those times, I’m afraid, when we were sorely tested. Here are a few of those moments.

Roma is a stranga place

Did you know that the railway unions are on strike in Rome, and therefore there are only 2 trains to Rome’s airport on a Saturday? A 9:22am and a 9:53am, then they are done for the day! Alternative is to take a taxi from wherever you are or a van at 55 euro ($100 bucks). If you get on the train without a ticket you get charged 100 euro ($150 bucks). The train going from the airport into Rome closes at 9pm. No trains into the city after that. So if your flight gets in later, or by chance AL ITALIA loses your luggage, there is literally no way to get out of the airport without taking a taxi. Better people than I (namely, my traveling companion, my older sister) have had to sleep on the airport floor until the next morning when the first train for Rome leaves for the city. My sister, who by the way has Multiple Sclerosis, didn’t need the experience of sleeping on the cold floor of AL ITALIA hell.

Score: Rome ONE, Venice ZERO

Okay, we missed our flight from Rome to Venice. I’m not whining because apparently it was our fault, but we don’t know how it happened. We arrived at our gate in Rome a full hour before our flight. Sat in the extremely crowded food court area, in eyesight of our gate, eating inedible fries. Loudspeaker shouted out constant news in Italian language, which neither of us understand, and besides, the noise level was blaringly high.

So half hour before our flight, we casually saunter over to the gate, where they tell us we’ve missed our flight! How can that be? we ask. We’ve been calling you and calling you, they say. This is not your gate, they say. The flight left from another gate. But…but…we looked at the board and it said this gate. Well, they changed it and we tried to call you but you didn’t answer. We held the plane for you! You made the plane late! But, we didn’t hear our names being called. Well, we called you several times, you made the plane late, and now you’ll have to take another flight to Venice. And since it was your fault, you idiots, you’ll have to pay all over again.

Well, can we get on this flight to Venice, which says it’s leaving in 45 minutes? No. You mean, there’s a plane going to Venice right here but you won’t let us on? No. Why not? Because your luggage won’t be on the same plane with you, and that would violate our policies. When is the next flight? Not until tomorrow, they reply. Where is our luggage? We pulled it off the flight, which made the plane late! You ruined our schedule! Well, how can we get our luggage? You’ll have to go to customer service. Where’s that? Down at the other end of the airport. But my sister has MS and she can’t walk that far. Not our problem. Can you put us up at the airport hotel? After all, my sister is a senior citizen with MS and we have nowhere to go. Not our problem. And her medications are in her suitcase and we don’t know where her suitcase is. And we didn’t miss the plane on purpose. We thought we were in the right place at the right time. Not our problem.

So we traipse back and forth, back and forth, up and down the corridors of the nightmare that is AL ITALIA, trying to find our luggage. After five (FIVE!) hours, we collect my bag. My sister’s is still nowhere in sight. Can’t take a 100 euro taxi into Rome to find a hotel, because we can’t leave without her bag. We don’t buy more plane tickets to Venice, the prices are astronomical and besides, why are they charging us again when they’ve clearly lost our luggage? Not to mention the Gestapo-like security officers and insanely inept customer service staff. (That’s another story in itself.) Airport closes down for the night and we have no choice but to sleep on the cold, cold stone floor of the airport. We build a barricade with the one suitcase and our various belongings, pull t-shirts and other clothes out of my bag to serve as mats and blankets, and settle in for the night. Sister is exhausted and falls asleep without trouble. I lie with my purse underneath me and an eye open, scanning for thieves and rapists. Desperately plotting my revenge on the airline from hell.

Where is Athena when you need her?

Second excellent way to get robbed, Athens style. This is a true story, happened to my sister on the very first day of our trip. She lost 300 euro, $450 approx, plus her wallet, credit cards, driver’s license. Thus we spent much of that night on the phone with the credit card company and the next day searching for the Athens police station to report the crime. Because it’s so difficult to locate addresses written in Greek, this takes most of a day out of our precious vacation. The police were nice enough but basically shrugged. What can you do? It’s these Gypsies. The Greeks would never do this to American tourists. It’s the Gypsies, I tell you. A few days later, we were buying trinkets in a gift shop, told the Athens store keeper about our being pick pocketed. She shrugged. Eh, whoever robbed you probably needed the money more than you do. Looked my sister right in the eye and basically says you deserved it. My sister says, uh, what? Pushes all her little conservative capitalist buttons, for sure. Hahaha! Ah, nothing like travel!

 

 

Perfection, thy name is Apple

Jan24

CALMLY RANDOM

apples

 

I’ve decided that an apple is the perfect food. Why, you might ask?

1. It’s round, and I identify with that.
2. It’s sweet, and no matter how much we’re told that sugar is evil, we all like it and it makes our lives happier.
3. It’s crunchy: my teeth, gums, jaws, and esophagus are all getting a great workout, which I count as my exercise for the day.
4. There is a star in the middle if you cut it in the right way, no doubt the universe confirming what I already know about myself, dahling.
5. Everyone has a favorite apple. A totally scientific study I just conducted did not come up with even one negative answer stating s/he doesn’t have a favorite because s/he hates them all. Given it’s the internet, I was expecting just such an answer (you $@&””ing !!/@! you must be working for the apple lobby!!!!) Nothing even close to that was stated. Honest.
6. You can take an apple with you when the mobs start chasing you down with torches and pitch forks. Totally mobile and easy to cling to.
7. I like the color red.
8. Teachers like them, and who doesn’t like teachers?

That might be it. Signing out. Crunch. Swallow. 🍎

 

 

Home Sweet Kitchen

Jan7

CALMLY RANDOM

My fiancée and I recently bought a coastal farmhouse built in 1901. The house is spacious with high ceilings, hardwood floors, and elegant woodwork. The property was love at first sight for both of us.

But I hated the kitchen! Cramped and crowded into one small portion of a large space, the kitchen had dark brown cherry cabinets on one side and mismatched glossy white utilitarian cabinets on the mud room side. It was a visual disaster. To make things worse, a kitchen peninsula was set diagonally into the room at a height that was substantially lower than standard. The peninsula blocked light from the beautiful windows over the sink. It cut the room into sections, visually and literally. There was nothing in the kitchen that honored the 1901 house. It was as though a 1990s oddly placed but upscale suburban kitchen had come for a very long visit.

I asked my friends and sisters for advice on how to fix this disaster. Most said to live with it the way it was. Several thought the dark cabinets looked good enough. Everyone said I was being too picky. Of course I didn’t listen to them. What else is new? I have a strong sense of style and knew I had to fix the problem or I’d never enjoy my kitchen. So I asked my son the architect for advice. His pay for services rendered was a pizza dinner.

He immediately suggested that the diagonal sun-blocking peninsula had to go. We agreed, but I needed the cabinet space that it provided. He recommended an alternative: take the peninsula out, and build a new, straight, standard height peninsula at the corner where the kitchen door leads to the dining room. He felt this would open up and extend the kitchen into unused space. Furthermore, by painting the entire room the same color, the kitchen would appear more integrated with the mud room side. He also suggested we install a small sink preparation unit into the peninsula.

It was a lot to think about. I realized we had been thinking of the kitchen as it was already defined; that is, crowded into one small part of the overall space. His idea to extend the kitchen visually by utilizing empty space was the inspiration for the eventual design. I didn’t use his specific idea for a peninsula. But the concept of opening up the space was freeing to me. It inspired us to build an island that fit perfectly into the extended space. We even used the same granite countertop and cabinets from the existing peninsula to craft the new island! We painted the entire room the same color, built new closet doors and painted every door and cabinet frame the same color, and installed all new hinges and door pulls. The result is a gorgeous kitchen that looks like it belongs in our beautiful house.

I’m proud that my son’s instinct and design skills helped us get the kitchen that I happily spend time in every day. If you’re looking for an architect to help you achieve the home of your dreams, email me on the ABOUT page, and I’ll pass your request on to him. I imagine, though, his fee will be a bit more than a pizza dinner!

old-kitchen-pic2

BEFORE: Old dark, congested kitchen

new-kitchen-pic

AFTER: New kitchen is open and light-filled

new-kitchen-pic2

AFTER: New kitchen with island

 

Temple Athena

Dec14

AS SPIRITUAL AS I GET

d2bd9-p1000234

Time change
Athens to Rome
Is it one hour, or two?
Ten thousand hours
Or rocket time
How many minutes to wisdom
Eons to Mount Olympus
Seconds of knowing.

Dry olives, thirsty cypress
Hard rock staging cuts into the hillside
Steep incline steps
White dirt dust howls at the Parthenon
Twenty five hundred years of time
And grit is still grit
Parched throats are nothing new.

Wind of the ancients blows today
Acropolis sand, carved from the rock
Gift of the gods
Limestone harvest, marble dust
Wind
Sand
Time
An immortal Greek chorus
Choked with fossil specks of ancient seas
Hair tangled with abrasive sand
Tiny follicle columns eroding
Goddess-sized pillars alike
Losing definition
Fading beauty
(Too much time is not good for stone statues or shiny hair.
Even the gods understand that.)

And flat sandal feet
Slapping the goddess ground
Slap slap leather feet
Finding purchase on the slippery rock
So worn, so weary
This sandstone perch
Higher than the city
Lower than Olympus
Cast in crippled revery.

Temple Athena
Where time is uncertain
Holding secrets of the ages
How many hours till one grows wise?
Is it an hour, or two?
Confused time
Airport time
Bewildered rock
Timeless hill
Forgotten goddess blowing away
Sad beauty
In a minute or two, featureless
Time change, and gone.

 

The Elephant in the Room

Dec4

AS SPIRITUAL AS I GET

hanukkah-menorah-2

It’s Hanukkah, the time of year when Christmas is all around us. Some may say relentlessly so. Decorations and lights, music, shopping opportunities are everywhere. They prompt me to think a bit more than usual about being Jewish and what that means. For better or worse, I’ve never “looked Jewish,” and many people are surprised to find that I am. I don’t talk about religion much, and I don’t practice the faith outwardly. I tried the Unitarian Universalist church for a long time, but it didn’t take, not in any deeply connecting way (not their fault – I felt like a traitor to my people, a nice Jewish girl going to church on Sundays. What was I thinking?) Living in an area with a heavy Roman Catholic presence and a tradition of Yankee Protestantism, I simply don’t fit in and never have. At least that’s how I feel. I don’t fit in. Never have. Unlikely that I ever will.

In an excerpt from my novel set in 1968, PERSEPHONE IN HELL, Sammy is Glory’s older brother. He’s had a thing for Denise throughout high school and makes no secret of it. Denise is pretty but dull and unaccomplished. She looks good in tight sweaters; that’s the attraction.

“Everyone knew how much Sammy liked Denise, even though he was going off to college in only a few months and Denise would be left working at the dry cleaner in town.

Denise wasn’t so sure about who she liked, especially as she was an inch or two taller than Sammy. She had wanted a taller beau. But her mother said Sammy was a good catch. A college man, destined for success. Didn’t the paper say he’d graduated number three out of the whole class? A brilliant boy, an Ivy Leaguer, maybe law school after that. Good enough by far for her under achieving daughter.

Then Denise told her mother the truth, that Sammy is Jewish.

“He doesn’t look Jewish,” her mother had replied. “He looked perfectly normal, handsome even, in his tux on prom night. And he was so polite. You must have heard wrong, Denise. You must be mistaken.”

Denise told her mother there was no mistake – Sammy is Jewish. You don’t have a name like Samuel when you’re Christian, she’d said. That’s a Jewish name. And she’d driven by his house last winter and had seen blue candles in the window, but no Christmas tree, no wreath on the door. She’d thought that was oddly strange, but then heard that Jews don’t celebrate Christmas. She didn’t know what Jews do celebrate, but it is some weird thing involving blue lights. They don’t believe in Jesus, Denise had said.

Denise’s mother didn’t know how Denise knew such things, but she was shocked by the report. She instantly reconsidered her daughter’s future. What had been a clear, smart scenario dissolved into a murky, uncertain view. And she wasn’t about to incur the wrath of Father O’Brien. God forbid her daughter date a Jew.”

Now, times have changed…they’ve changed….times have changed….haven’t they?

Best regards to everyone of every religion, race, nationality, gender, age, weight, height, and sexual preference. It is the content of one’s character that matters. And have a very happy holiday season. If it bothers you that I’m using the word ‘holiday’ instead of ‘Christmas’, well, I mean it with all good will and no, I don’t plan to change the way I wish you well.

Snow in Massachusetts

Dec2

MOTHER NATURE

snow-drift

There are people all over the world who live in climates where snow never falls. They don’t experience snow except in movies. They don’t know the cold that comes with snow. Some have never seen it for real, never touched it, never been closer than a picture in a book. I am decidedly not one of those people!

Some get a dusting of snow and think they understand snow. They don’t know snow. I know snow. I know snow in the most intimate, most familiar, most embarrassingly common manner. I know snow in the Platonic sense, that is, in its quintessential form.

I have known snow for so long, you’d think we’d be comfortable partners by now. You’d think we’d be caring for each other, helping each other thrive, wishing each other well and long life. You’d think so – you’d be wrong.

In this scene from my novel PERSEPHONE IN HELL, four year old Glory and her older sister Penny are running home from the candy store, through the snow to their protected play house under the pine trees in their yard.

“They had a good long walk ahead of them, three quarters of a mile or more. Just outside the store, Glory stopped…Must take off my mittens. They’re ugly orange and there’s a hole in the thumb. They’re not beautiful. She took off her mittens, stuffed them into her pockets, and continued on, holding her little bag tightly in her bare hands. Penny ran ahead, but Glory couldn’t run. She could barely walk. Her bare hands were frozen.

I’m so cold. My hands hurt. They’re all red. She wouldn’t let go of her candy bag to put her hands inside her pockets or put on her mittens…The snow fell a little harder. Glory’s hands couldn’t move. They were frozen to the bag. My legs are sore. I don’t want to walk anymore. My eyes are tired. She leaned against a telephone pole and decided to rest.

Just then, a man in a felt hat and top coat walked by. He stopped and looked at Gloria. I’m cold, so cold. And where is Penny? He said, “Little girl, where do you live? I’ll take you home.” Glory pointed down the street. Not supposed to talk to strangers.

The man picked her up and carried her down the street. Glory closed her eyes. So tired and cold. Need to rest. The man didn’t ask if they were close to home. He held her tightly and kept walking.”

Mother Nature and I, we don’t always get along. Like mothers and daughters everywhere, we don’t always agree. We disagree often, in fact. Every summer when the air is hellishly hot and humid. Late spring when the mosquitoes and black flies come out. Autumn was my favorite for the longest while, but then I noticed the leaves die off in fall. (They do so quite dramatically here.) And she and I fight outright every winter when the snow and cold and the early dark sky make me wonder how I am to survive until the seasons change again.

 

 

My Life on a Space Station

Nov26

TIME AND OTHER NONSENSE

489574cdbb0cc90bc72578b32f8a55d2d7c61963

What would my life be like if I lived on a space station? I mean a station orbiting high above the earth, rolling gently through our galaxy, rocketing into outer space. I mean an enclosed world all to myself, a world with no one but me.

On my space station, there’d be no conflict. No arguments, no yelling. Peace, calm, my mind at rest. Would it be freeing? Would I feel like I did as a child at the end of each summer, waiting in boredom for school to start again? It could be an eternity of boredom.

I’d need to stay busy, I suppose, or go mad. Ballroom dancing? Fun, but not without a partner. Gardening might be essential for survival, but I doubt I would find joy in weeding. I’d need to exercise. Treadmill, yoga. And meditation. I could watch my own navel.

How would I spend my time? Would I bring the complete works of Shakespeare with me to fill the hours? Would I choose great literature, opera, ballet? Mozart? Yum Yum and Van Gogh, Monet? Star Trek? Anne-girl and her Gilbert? Jo and Beth, Meg, Amy? The Big Bang Theory? Would I study string theory, quantum physics? The stars? Or would I discover them for what they all are, points of light too far away to reach.

Why would I choose to live by myself, in the middle of nothing, without company from any other human being? Would the melancholy become intolerable? I might crave affection to distraction. I might get all the way out there, billions of miles from anyone, only to find that I miss humanity. Of course I would miss my children. I would miss Paris, and the beauty of a New England autumn, the Acropolis and Rome. Mont Ste. Michele, Giverny. Would I miss you? Would I grow old and in the utter silence of a frozen universe, think of you?