Wednesday, February 25, 2009
"No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn." Hal Borland
SIGNS OF SPRING
for Susan
Nature’s winter dishabille;
Geese crying for joy.
Spider diamonds crawl;
Sunlight shredding winter glare;
Urban bouquet day.
Frozen pond creaking,
Sawtooth passage to the spring;
Warm haikus from you.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
“Where thou art, that is home.” Emily Dickinson
SANDCASTLES
As a girl I first recalled hearing the phrase “bailout” when it signaled my father's escape out the front door, first ritually checking for his wallet, lighter and his cigarettes before warbling in a modified W.C.Fields delivery: “Boy’s in trouble. Gotta bail out Louie” or “Looks like Frankie needs bailing out.” He didn’t mean he was actually going to have to put up money to get any one of the boys who belonged to his drum and bugle corps out of jail. Likely, one of them was in a jam for drinking beer on the street or a girl’s father had caught his daughter canoodling with the reprobate and threatened a charge of statutory rape, not an uncommon occurrence in my day. The beat cops knew my father. He was a life member in the VFW and self-made director of a drum and bugle corps in Astoria called “The Saints.” Playing in the band was an alternative to wayward street life but with my father’s dedication it evolved into a competition-worthy enterprise. The VFW post—a little white brick building on 41st Street in Astoria—was a safe place for boys to gather, learn to play an instrument and know more Broadway musical tunes than they surely ever would have. The boys would call ‘Billy’ before they would their own fathers to come and get them out of whatever scrape they’d happened into. He’d pull on his black wool band jacket (which I still treasure) and head out into the night—me thinking, he’s off to be a hero again and praying it wasn’t one of the boys in the drum line on whom I had a mad crush.
Many years later—unbeknownst to him—my father had a chance to bail me out. Married at the time to a man whose family’s prosperity was earned—a Park Avenue apartment, valuable antiques and a drawing collection of Italian masterpieces inhabited their nouveau riche world—me and the Ex were often offered VIP seats at Madison Square Garden from his uncle Maury, or Maury al Gusto as he liked to be called. A large-framed, gregariously generous Jew, he was a self-made millionaire with a string of printing presses and he fancied himself an Italian mobster. As a young woman, newly married into an alien world, I would cast furtive glances around Jilly’s saloon on West 52nd Street when he took us there, seeking out the celebrity and then any celebrity while Maury, without batting an eye, asked the maître d’ if Jilly himself—best known as Frank Sinatra’s chief aide and inseparable companion—was in the house. No one really knew where Maury’s nickname came from; stories of its origin varied over the years.
SANDCASTLES
As a girl I first recalled hearing the phrase “bailout” when it signaled my father's escape out the front door, first ritually checking for his wallet, lighter and his cigarettes before warbling in a modified W.C.Fields delivery: “Boy’s in trouble. Gotta bail out Louie” or “Looks like Frankie needs bailing out.” He didn’t mean he was actually going to have to put up money to get any one of the boys who belonged to his drum and bugle corps out of jail. Likely, one of them was in a jam for drinking beer on the street or a girl’s father had caught his daughter canoodling with the reprobate and threatened a charge of statutory rape, not an uncommon occurrence in my day. The beat cops knew my father. He was a life member in the VFW and self-made director of a drum and bugle corps in Astoria called “The Saints.” Playing in the band was an alternative to wayward street life but with my father’s dedication it evolved into a competition-worthy enterprise. The VFW post—a little white brick building on 41st Street in Astoria—was a safe place for boys to gather, learn to play an instrument and know more Broadway musical tunes than they surely ever would have. The boys would call ‘Billy’ before they would their own fathers to come and get them out of whatever scrape they’d happened into. He’d pull on his black wool band jacket (which I still treasure) and head out into the night—me thinking, he’s off to be a hero again and praying it wasn’t one of the boys in the drum line on whom I had a mad crush.
Many years later—unbeknownst to him—my father had a chance to bail me out. Married at the time to a man whose family’s prosperity was earned—a Park Avenue apartment, valuable antiques and a drawing collection of Italian masterpieces inhabited their nouveau riche world—me and the Ex were often offered VIP seats at Madison Square Garden from his uncle Maury, or Maury al Gusto as he liked to be called. A large-framed, gregariously generous Jew, he was a self-made millionaire with a string of printing presses and he fancied himself an Italian mobster. As a young woman, newly married into an alien world, I would cast furtive glances around Jilly’s saloon on West 52nd Street when he took us there, seeking out the celebrity and then any celebrity while Maury, without batting an eye, asked the maître d’ if Jilly himself—best known as Frank Sinatra’s chief aide and inseparable companion—was in the house. No one really knew where Maury’s nickname came from; stories of its origin varied over the years.
At the height of the war known as the Viet Nam conflict the Ex and I were courtside at a basketball game, within popcorn flicking distance of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman if memory serves. The audience stood in a rush for The National Anthem and I did not. The Ex, a self-professed anarchic, had to be prodded with a charged glare from me, a newly formed lefty, into passive seated resistance among a throng of rabid patriots who shouted at us to “Get back to Russia.” The commotion brought the Commissioner of Basketball—a friend of his uncle—to check us out. Needless to say we were banned from complimentary tickets until about a year later when Maury presented us with a pair to a hockey game and informed me, with a knowing nod, that it was a good thing my father was a life member in the VFW—something I had never revealed—and while he appreciated my fervent political protest, could we, from now on, arrive after the anthem had been sung, please?
My parents were not homeowners—far from it. We were one of the first families to move into the newly completed Jacob Riis projects at Avenue D and Ninth Street on the lower east side when I was two. Built by a pioneer for social change, it housed a multi-ethnic brew of humanity. Though I can’t remember witnessing any of it, I recall my dad’s stories about live chickens that ran in the hallways and the bleating kid (animal, not child) he was sure was destined for a ritualistic end and not the family pet. And I think that’s why we moved, for a ‘better life’ in a serviceable ground floor apartment in another housing project in Astoria, Queens. Life there for my unhinged family was played out like reality TV way before there was such a concept and we acted on our tumultuous dysfunction behind the living room window for the eager audience in the courtyard outside who took in every shouty argument. Everyone knew when the electricity bills went unpaid and playmates gathered around our darkened window on the stoop beneath to await my dad and me as I made my shame-faced way alongside him to the housing office.
Later, we followed my father to Hartford, Connecticut to an undistinguished rented apartment in a nondescript yellow-brick box on a street full of crumbling Victorians. Mark Twain’s house—a fanciful Victorian Gothic—sat at the end of the street, neighboring Harriet Beecher Stowe’s smaller, neater Victorian.
Owning a home was an alien concept growing up; still is. I don’t own now—not a house nor a condo. We don’t own a car or a summer getaway. When we can manage it, we escape to Montauk and rent a room with an ocean view having driven there in a rental car. Home ownership is not in my DNA. It just feels inherently grabby. Simpleminded, perhaps, but suited to a simpler life.
Relatives on my father’s side lived in a house in New Jersey—the only homeowners in the family. It was a porch-lined, shrubbery fronted Cape Cod and had all the exterior trappings we witnessed on family television like “Leave It To Beaver” and “Ozzie and Harriet.” But the inhabitants, despite the moralizing attitude of an insufferably God-fearing aunt, harbored painful secrets.
The Mister grew up in a semi-detached house, one of many in Leicestershire known as Jelson homes. On my first visit to his native village of Huncote I was struck by its smallness, possibly the tiniest house I had ever been in; a home where even the Borrowers living under the floorboards might feel cramped. But to The Mister it seemed just spacious enough for mum and dad and sister growing up.
Reading dire news about the current mortgage crisis is almost like reading news of a foreign country, that country of folks who aspired to the so-called American Dream, the very same dream that President Obama tells us is now threatened. Of the 70 per cent of Americans who own their homes, more than a million have been foreclosed and another million or so are facing a similar dangerous fate. Searching the news on the Internet I am struck by how many homeowners refer to their homes as ‘investments’ or ‘speculative ventures’ or ‘equity’ for their retirement. These homes, once castles, have been hit by an angrily destructive economic wave, sliding their owners into a sea of debt and paralyzing consternation.
And where do these homeowners turn? Where do the unemployed turn? Mark Twain, former neighbor: “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
In the stimulus bill just passed billions have been allocated for mortgage relief but there is no compulsion on the part of the banks to do the homeowner any favors. This bill, from what I can tell, creates work, and not jobs for the long term. Bridges will be built, and highways repaired but sustainable employment is not necessarily a guarantee. It seems, to me, like a gigantic workfare project. All it will do is get the infrastructure fixed at the expense of the humans deployed (not employed) to fix it. It may not fix the human beings in the long run. Both political parties have whipsawed citizens—homeowners and renters alike—with a faltering economy badly dealt with, threats of terrorism, and an astronomical war debt with no less human and monetary casualties.
I mean, who didn’t see it coming?
And then, to add to the foreboding of already tortured legions of nail biters (of which I am a card carrying member) were the statements made by Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, on a recent episode of Bill Moyer’s Journal in response to Moyers uttering the dread "O" word. "...an un-American term, as you know. It means a government by a small number of people. We don't like to think of ourselves that way."
Bill Moyers: Are you saying that the banking industry trumps the president, the Congress and the American government when it comes to this issue so crucial to the survival of American democracy?
My parents were not homeowners—far from it. We were one of the first families to move into the newly completed Jacob Riis projects at Avenue D and Ninth Street on the lower east side when I was two. Built by a pioneer for social change, it housed a multi-ethnic brew of humanity. Though I can’t remember witnessing any of it, I recall my dad’s stories about live chickens that ran in the hallways and the bleating kid (animal, not child) he was sure was destined for a ritualistic end and not the family pet. And I think that’s why we moved, for a ‘better life’ in a serviceable ground floor apartment in another housing project in Astoria, Queens. Life there for my unhinged family was played out like reality TV way before there was such a concept and we acted on our tumultuous dysfunction behind the living room window for the eager audience in the courtyard outside who took in every shouty argument. Everyone knew when the electricity bills went unpaid and playmates gathered around our darkened window on the stoop beneath to await my dad and me as I made my shame-faced way alongside him to the housing office.
Later, we followed my father to Hartford, Connecticut to an undistinguished rented apartment in a nondescript yellow-brick box on a street full of crumbling Victorians. Mark Twain’s house—a fanciful Victorian Gothic—sat at the end of the street, neighboring Harriet Beecher Stowe’s smaller, neater Victorian.
Owning a home was an alien concept growing up; still is. I don’t own now—not a house nor a condo. We don’t own a car or a summer getaway. When we can manage it, we escape to Montauk and rent a room with an ocean view having driven there in a rental car. Home ownership is not in my DNA. It just feels inherently grabby. Simpleminded, perhaps, but suited to a simpler life.
Relatives on my father’s side lived in a house in New Jersey—the only homeowners in the family. It was a porch-lined, shrubbery fronted Cape Cod and had all the exterior trappings we witnessed on family television like “Leave It To Beaver” and “Ozzie and Harriet.” But the inhabitants, despite the moralizing attitude of an insufferably God-fearing aunt, harbored painful secrets.
The Mister grew up in a semi-detached house, one of many in Leicestershire known as Jelson homes. On my first visit to his native village of Huncote I was struck by its smallness, possibly the tiniest house I had ever been in; a home where even the Borrowers living under the floorboards might feel cramped. But to The Mister it seemed just spacious enough for mum and dad and sister growing up.
Reading dire news about the current mortgage crisis is almost like reading news of a foreign country, that country of folks who aspired to the so-called American Dream, the very same dream that President Obama tells us is now threatened. Of the 70 per cent of Americans who own their homes, more than a million have been foreclosed and another million or so are facing a similar dangerous fate. Searching the news on the Internet I am struck by how many homeowners refer to their homes as ‘investments’ or ‘speculative ventures’ or ‘equity’ for their retirement. These homes, once castles, have been hit by an angrily destructive economic wave, sliding their owners into a sea of debt and paralyzing consternation.
And where do these homeowners turn? Where do the unemployed turn? Mark Twain, former neighbor: “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
In the stimulus bill just passed billions have been allocated for mortgage relief but there is no compulsion on the part of the banks to do the homeowner any favors. This bill, from what I can tell, creates work, and not jobs for the long term. Bridges will be built, and highways repaired but sustainable employment is not necessarily a guarantee. It seems, to me, like a gigantic workfare project. All it will do is get the infrastructure fixed at the expense of the humans deployed (not employed) to fix it. It may not fix the human beings in the long run. Both political parties have whipsawed citizens—homeowners and renters alike—with a faltering economy badly dealt with, threats of terrorism, and an astronomical war debt with no less human and monetary casualties.
I mean, who didn’t see it coming?
And then, to add to the foreboding of already tortured legions of nail biters (of which I am a card carrying member) were the statements made by Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, on a recent episode of Bill Moyer’s Journal in response to Moyers uttering the dread "O" word. "...an un-American term, as you know. It means a government by a small number of people. We don't like to think of ourselves that way."
Bill Moyers: Are you saying that the banking industry trumps the president, the Congress and the American government when it comes to this issue so crucial to the survival of American democracy?
Simon Johnson: I don't know. I hope they don't trump it. But the signs that I see this week, the body language, the words, the op-eds, the testimony, the way they're treated by certain Congressional committees, it makes me feel very worried.
Bill Moyers: Geithner has hired as his chief-of-staff, the lobbyist from Goldman Sachs. The new deputy secretary of state was, until last year, a CEO of Citigroup. Another CFO from Citigroup is now assistant to the president, and deputy national security advisor for International Economic Affairs. And one of his deputies also came from Citigroup. One new member of the president's Economic Recovery Advisory Board comes from UBS, which is being investigated for helping rich clients evade taxes.
Hmm, barn’s burnt down, let’s get the resident arsonist to rebuild it. And there will be no kvetching over the paltry dollars that will pad out your weekly paycheck as a result of the much touted tax cut. You can see the moon now, can’t you?
Christopher Dodd, the Democratic senator from Connecticut stated that, “…it's all window dressing.” Wall Street—those creative aquarium keepers—will still find imaginative ways to feed its sharky execs huge sums of money in the years to come.
At Goldman Sachs, if I recall reading correctly, retention awards are the name of the game now. So, don’t you be calling this no bonus, hear?
Say, what?
"The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than the aristocracy, more selfish than the bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes." Abraham Lincoln 16th president of the USA
At Goldman Sachs, if I recall reading correctly, retention awards are the name of the game now. So, don’t you be calling this no bonus, hear?
Say, what?
"The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than the aristocracy, more selfish than the bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes." Abraham Lincoln 16th president of the USA
WHEN I DON’T FEEL AT HOME
when I don’t feel at home
then I know she’s not home
everywhere I go
that isn’t home
i feel like a stranger there
feeling on my own
in a house of empty thought
in a house of empty force
in a house we’ve been before
in a world where
madness makes you
feel like a man at war
feel like we’ve seen it before
it makes you feel like
it’s everyone’s war
and then it’s real love
that opens the door
what it is to be loved
is the real roof above
anywhere I go
that she calls home
we’ll never be strangers there
never on my own
in a house of phantom walls
in a house of open doors
in a house we call our own
in a world where
madness makes you
feel like a man at war
feel like we’ve seen it before
it makes you feel like
it’s everyone’s war
and then it’s real love
that opens the door
our house casts no shadow
this I know to be true
our house leaves an impression
in a world where
blindness makes you
feel like a man at war
feel like we’ve seen it before
it makes you feel like
it’s everyone’s war
and then it’s real love
that opens the door…
© fairalldanz music
when I don’t feel at home
then I know she’s not home
everywhere I go
that isn’t home
i feel like a stranger there
feeling on my own
in a house of empty thought
in a house of empty force
in a house we’ve been before
in a world where
madness makes you
feel like a man at war
feel like we’ve seen it before
it makes you feel like
it’s everyone’s war
and then it’s real love
that opens the door
what it is to be loved
is the real roof above
anywhere I go
that she calls home
we’ll never be strangers there
never on my own
in a house of phantom walls
in a house of open doors
in a house we call our own
in a world where
madness makes you
feel like a man at war
feel like we’ve seen it before
it makes you feel like
it’s everyone’s war
and then it’s real love
that opens the door
our house casts no shadow
this I know to be true
our house leaves an impression
in a world where
blindness makes you
feel like a man at war
feel like we’ve seen it before
it makes you feel like
it’s everyone’s war
and then it’s real love
that opens the door…
© fairalldanz music
Thursday, February 12, 2009
“Loving is not just looking at each other, it's looking in the same direction.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand, and Stars, 1939
UNCONDITIONAL
In the Hallmarkian spirit of “Greeting Card Day” I will aim to deconstruct this thing called unconditional love. What exactly is unconditional love? Does it wield the same clout as unconditional friendship or unconditional hate? Or, for that matter, is there such a thing as unconditional shopping, eating, or even unconditional politicking? Do dogs who are popularly credited with unconditional love for their owners even know what a condition is? Cats, on the other hand, invented the word, having no patience for conditionals of any kind being foisted on them. What in life is absolute or unreserved? A brand of vodka and a table in an under-populated restaurant comes to mind.
My bffwwbbus (best friend forever who was born before urban slang) was married on the same day as The Mister and me almost twenty years ago. I don’t recall why exactly except, as friends, we had a raw artistic connection to our younger darker sides and possibly saw the light at the same time. A judge at his humble home in Yonkers, New York married them before noon. The Mister and I were making jittery vows at approximately the same time before a City Hall clerk in lower Manhattan. My friend has now two brilliant and creative children who were home schooled, a house she and her Sam Shepherd look-alike husband built themselves in rural Ohio, a number of dogs I have stopped counting and an enduring partnership with her husband. She laughed when I told her I was going to write about unconditional love.
“Ha!” she retorted, “Is that what you call what we've been up to these last buncha years? Unconditional love?”
Is it? Because we both know what conditions we have put up, torn down, redrawn, and crashed through with our partners over and over again. There must have been conditions otherwise where did all the battles arise from on that minefield of conditions we’ve negotiated?
Bernie and Ruth Madoff probably had at least one condition: “If this fercockta scheme of yours goes south, Bernie, you’ll take the fall but not before I withdraw a few million for expenses and I promise I’ll be waiting for you when you get out.”
UNCONDITIONAL
In the Hallmarkian spirit of “Greeting Card Day” I will aim to deconstruct this thing called unconditional love. What exactly is unconditional love? Does it wield the same clout as unconditional friendship or unconditional hate? Or, for that matter, is there such a thing as unconditional shopping, eating, or even unconditional politicking? Do dogs who are popularly credited with unconditional love for their owners even know what a condition is? Cats, on the other hand, invented the word, having no patience for conditionals of any kind being foisted on them. What in life is absolute or unreserved? A brand of vodka and a table in an under-populated restaurant comes to mind.
My bffwwbbus (best friend forever who was born before urban slang) was married on the same day as The Mister and me almost twenty years ago. I don’t recall why exactly except, as friends, we had a raw artistic connection to our younger darker sides and possibly saw the light at the same time. A judge at his humble home in Yonkers, New York married them before noon. The Mister and I were making jittery vows at approximately the same time before a City Hall clerk in lower Manhattan. My friend has now two brilliant and creative children who were home schooled, a house she and her Sam Shepherd look-alike husband built themselves in rural Ohio, a number of dogs I have stopped counting and an enduring partnership with her husband. She laughed when I told her I was going to write about unconditional love.
“Ha!” she retorted, “Is that what you call what we've been up to these last buncha years? Unconditional love?”
Is it? Because we both know what conditions we have put up, torn down, redrawn, and crashed through with our partners over and over again. There must have been conditions otherwise where did all the battles arise from on that minefield of conditions we’ve negotiated?
Bernie and Ruth Madoff probably had at least one condition: “If this fercockta scheme of yours goes south, Bernie, you’ll take the fall but not before I withdraw a few million for expenses and I promise I’ll be waiting for you when you get out.”
And we probably shouldn’t be showering our hopeful president with unconditional love. Our president, our politicians should be conditional. "This is what you promised, now get on it already." Okay, so this president can at least pronounce nuclear weapons but I’d like there to be a condition that we don’t build new ones. Seems like the only ones not being handed any conditions are the bankers. "Oooh, Happy Valentine's Day. Is that a stimulus bill in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?"
Okay, I had to go there. Now, where was I?
Like "true love" and “man of my dreams” the notion of “unconditional love” never made a helluva lot of sense to me.
The first time I laid eyes on The Mister was in France. Circumstances brought me to his friend’s flat in Paris while I awaited the arrival of my Parisian friends from their holiday in the south. He was immediately attracted to my snarky side, and unlike his friends, laughed at my jokes. I thought his bright green eyes, skin-tight jeans and long hennaed hair adorably rock and roll. Oh, and those Brothel Creepers covered in pony fur! We laughed and drank and laughed and drank; toured the city with our friends. We confounded some, irritated others and proceeded to do what a couple does in The City of Light—we stayed up all night in my room at my Parisian friends’ luxurious hilltop duplex apartment in Belleville, drinking and spilling their irreplaceable gazillion-year-old scotch while making mad love until the sun came up dazzling all of Paris below for our bloodshot eyes. I gave him a little painting of mine, which still hangs in our apartment. The Mister—the bass player in a band called “Swimming In Sand”—returned to London, and after a few more weeks in France, I returned to New York.
Neither of us was especially good at looking before leaping and trusted the fall would never be as bruising as might be. He came to New York to visit me a few months after our meeting in Paris. We rarely got out of bed before nightfall, two romantically entwined vampires stalking the great adventure on the streets of Manhattan. I discovered his green eyes were contacts. His hair had been dyed. The pony fur was fake, and that was a relief. He discovered I had a temper. He went back to London.
This was before either of us had access to the Internet: no e-mail, no Skype, no instant messaging, no—er—blogging. I wrote letters and though he was a self-professed non-letter writer he wrote to me. We wrote often and lengthily. He sent me cassette recordings describing his native village of Huncote in the midlands of England illustrated in an accompanying album with the photos he’d taken. Long distance telephone calls were bravely (or stupidly) made on a whim at any hour and indulged at length. We were reckless with the time difference and there were late night calls from me that lasted until I could hear birdsong in the garden outside his bedroom window. Once we kept up the telephone connection while “The Wizard of Oz” played out on my television screen. Telephone bills landed on my doorstep with a resounding and threatening thud.
His convoluted proposal of marriage—on the telephone from a recording studio in London to me at my job—came out in a stuttering rationalization that, should it all go wrong, we could always divorce. What divorce? What was he talking about? Well, it turned out he was talking about fifty pints of lager so I asked him to call me again when he was sober and he did and I said, “Yes.”
We had two weeks in New York as a married couple before he flew back to London and the band for what would turn out to be a distance of three months. On the long subway journey back from JFK I breathed a freakish sigh of relief.
A few months and multitudinous long distance calls later (that undoubtedly saw profits skyrocket for the utility companies) we took up the cudgel of marriage and started beating a path. He arrived at Kennedy pushing his possessions on a cart. It was then that we discovered we were strangers. About all we really knew of each other were our bodies. Our interview with INS was successful primarily because the interviewing officer had spotted us in the waiting area, arguing she said, “…like an old married couple,” and she casually dismissed the mountain of evidence we had painstakingly accumulated from friends and family and stamped The Mister “APPROVED.” Green cards are not green, by the way; they are pink!
Like "true love" and “man of my dreams” the notion of “unconditional love” never made a helluva lot of sense to me.
The first time I laid eyes on The Mister was in France. Circumstances brought me to his friend’s flat in Paris while I awaited the arrival of my Parisian friends from their holiday in the south. He was immediately attracted to my snarky side, and unlike his friends, laughed at my jokes. I thought his bright green eyes, skin-tight jeans and long hennaed hair adorably rock and roll. Oh, and those Brothel Creepers covered in pony fur! We laughed and drank and laughed and drank; toured the city with our friends. We confounded some, irritated others and proceeded to do what a couple does in The City of Light—we stayed up all night in my room at my Parisian friends’ luxurious hilltop duplex apartment in Belleville, drinking and spilling their irreplaceable gazillion-year-old scotch while making mad love until the sun came up dazzling all of Paris below for our bloodshot eyes. I gave him a little painting of mine, which still hangs in our apartment. The Mister—the bass player in a band called “Swimming In Sand”—returned to London, and after a few more weeks in France, I returned to New York.
Neither of us was especially good at looking before leaping and trusted the fall would never be as bruising as might be. He came to New York to visit me a few months after our meeting in Paris. We rarely got out of bed before nightfall, two romantically entwined vampires stalking the great adventure on the streets of Manhattan. I discovered his green eyes were contacts. His hair had been dyed. The pony fur was fake, and that was a relief. He discovered I had a temper. He went back to London.
This was before either of us had access to the Internet: no e-mail, no Skype, no instant messaging, no—er—blogging. I wrote letters and though he was a self-professed non-letter writer he wrote to me. We wrote often and lengthily. He sent me cassette recordings describing his native village of Huncote in the midlands of England illustrated in an accompanying album with the photos he’d taken. Long distance telephone calls were bravely (or stupidly) made on a whim at any hour and indulged at length. We were reckless with the time difference and there were late night calls from me that lasted until I could hear birdsong in the garden outside his bedroom window. Once we kept up the telephone connection while “The Wizard of Oz” played out on my television screen. Telephone bills landed on my doorstep with a resounding and threatening thud.
His convoluted proposal of marriage—on the telephone from a recording studio in London to me at my job—came out in a stuttering rationalization that, should it all go wrong, we could always divorce. What divorce? What was he talking about? Well, it turned out he was talking about fifty pints of lager so I asked him to call me again when he was sober and he did and I said, “Yes.”
We had two weeks in New York as a married couple before he flew back to London and the band for what would turn out to be a distance of three months. On the long subway journey back from JFK I breathed a freakish sigh of relief.
A few months and multitudinous long distance calls later (that undoubtedly saw profits skyrocket for the utility companies) we took up the cudgel of marriage and started beating a path. He arrived at Kennedy pushing his possessions on a cart. It was then that we discovered we were strangers. About all we really knew of each other were our bodies. Our interview with INS was successful primarily because the interviewing officer had spotted us in the waiting area, arguing she said, “…like an old married couple,” and she casually dismissed the mountain of evidence we had painstakingly accumulated from friends and family and stamped The Mister “APPROVED.” Green cards are not green, by the way; they are pink!
The Battle of the Egos was fought for the next, oh, five years. But, there was also an unspoken pact between us that said, “Right. Married now—for life. Get on with it.” We fully agreed we wanted no children of our own; that I would never be on the front pages of the tabloids having given birth to nonuplets. The Mister spared no effort in helping me take care of an elderly aunt and he became very dear to her. His family came over for lively visits.
“Meant to be” is about the closest phrase that aptly describes our endurance as a married couple. We’ve weathered emotional storms and there have been many of them; big ones that crashed over us and as we picked ourselves up the aftershocks knocked what little wind was left out of us. And just when we thought it was safe, the Menopause Monster galumphed into our house, red-faced, shouty and upsetting the psychic furniture but teaching us how to build stronger furniture.
We’ve written a song called “Perfect Storm.” We’ve written many songs that reflect our love story. Because that’s what it is—a love story with all the elements of a good romance, with mystery, horror, comedy, and drama to boot. Unconditional? I don’t think so. Conditions keep you on the straight and narrow when the path gets rough and seemingly impossible to navigate.
Unconditional friendship?
There are friends who don’t think twice about lending a helping hand. We hit a rough patch after I lost my job, and generosity abounded in our friendships both here and abroad. When The Mister’s mum died unexpectedly two years ago this April we flew back to Leicester. We were broke and what got us there was the friendship that every person deserves. It was not unconditional. It was human and negotiable. “You have done things for us,” they declared and promptly paid for our flights. When his sister’s selfish act left The Mister heartbroken we found comfort in the house on Greenhill Road we’ve also ‘immortalized’ in song.
On a return trip to Leicester some months later we ended that trip at the Royal Oak where we danced to the music of The Leicester Big Band. It seemed a fitting tribute to The Mister’s mum who loved these events and it was possibly the last place I remembered seeing her; nodding her head to the music she loved, smiling and laughing at my jokes. The Mister and I let the sadder bits fall away and while the band played we danced to “The Story of Love.”
You've got to give a little, take a little
And let your poor heart break a little
That's the story of,
That's the glory of love
You've got to laugh a little, cry a little
Until the clouds roll by a little
That's the story of,
That's the glory of love
As long as there's the two of us
We've got the world and all its charms
And when the world is through with us
We've got each other's arms
You've got to win a little, lose a little
Yes, and always have the blues a little
That's the story of,
That's the glory of love
That's the story of,
That's the glory of love.
—Bette Midler
“Meant to be” is about the closest phrase that aptly describes our endurance as a married couple. We’ve weathered emotional storms and there have been many of them; big ones that crashed over us and as we picked ourselves up the aftershocks knocked what little wind was left out of us. And just when we thought it was safe, the Menopause Monster galumphed into our house, red-faced, shouty and upsetting the psychic furniture but teaching us how to build stronger furniture.
We’ve written a song called “Perfect Storm.” We’ve written many songs that reflect our love story. Because that’s what it is—a love story with all the elements of a good romance, with mystery, horror, comedy, and drama to boot. Unconditional? I don’t think so. Conditions keep you on the straight and narrow when the path gets rough and seemingly impossible to navigate.
Unconditional friendship?
There are friends who don’t think twice about lending a helping hand. We hit a rough patch after I lost my job, and generosity abounded in our friendships both here and abroad. When The Mister’s mum died unexpectedly two years ago this April we flew back to Leicester. We were broke and what got us there was the friendship that every person deserves. It was not unconditional. It was human and negotiable. “You have done things for us,” they declared and promptly paid for our flights. When his sister’s selfish act left The Mister heartbroken we found comfort in the house on Greenhill Road we’ve also ‘immortalized’ in song.
On a return trip to Leicester some months later we ended that trip at the Royal Oak where we danced to the music of The Leicester Big Band. It seemed a fitting tribute to The Mister’s mum who loved these events and it was possibly the last place I remembered seeing her; nodding her head to the music she loved, smiling and laughing at my jokes. The Mister and I let the sadder bits fall away and while the band played we danced to “The Story of Love.”
You've got to give a little, take a little
And let your poor heart break a little
That's the story of,
That's the glory of love
You've got to laugh a little, cry a little
Until the clouds roll by a little
That's the story of,
That's the glory of love
As long as there's the two of us
We've got the world and all its charms
And when the world is through with us
We've got each other's arms
You've got to win a little, lose a little
Yes, and always have the blues a little
That's the story of,
That's the glory of love
That's the story of,
That's the glory of love.
—Bette Midler
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Fixed Stars Need Not Govern a Life.
"Virginia Woolf loved to read biography, memoir and autobiography and she set a high value on all forms of life-writing, genres which in her day were considered poor relations in the literary family. Like Freud, however, who was far more hostile to both biography and autobiography, Woolf saw memory as 'selective amnesia', thinking that what we forget is probably as important as what we remember—if not more. The past was only ever sketchy, memory leapt and jolted, confused and sometimes invented; it changed its mind, depending on the 'platform of time' from which it was viewed. Approaching old age she gave a new, more ambivalent account of her parents, allowing for change in her views of them: 'As a child condemning; as a woman of 58 understanding—I shd say tolerating.' Crucially she asked herself, 'Both views true?' Her memoirs resist determinism and romance, including the romance of trauma, as if that were the only significant way in which modern individuals know themselves to be special and real. If life is shaped by the events of childhood, her memoirs imply, it is not railroaded by them. Fixed stars need not govern a life."
Friday, February 6, 2009
“A different language is a different vision of life.” Federico Fellini
LANGUAGE
A snowstorm was predicted here so I headed downtown to Trader Joe’s for an ample supply of wine. Where some might add to the rush to the market for bread and milk, I have my priorities firmly in order. Actually, being a city rat, the food larder in our apartment is well stocked as I habitually ‘shop for a storm.’
LANGUAGE
A snowstorm was predicted here so I headed downtown to Trader Joe’s for an ample supply of wine. Where some might add to the rush to the market for bread and milk, I have my priorities firmly in order. Actually, being a city rat, the food larder in our apartment is well stocked as I habitually ‘shop for a storm.’
And snow doesn’t cause a meltdown here, as it seems to have done in the U.K.. Snowplows are out clearing the roads at practically the first sign of a flake. Shovels shearing the pavement can be heard in recurrent waves across the city streets. But London came to a standstill! Busses ceased to roll and underground rail service was disrupted. Parents were up in arms at school closings. Snowmen materialized across the country like icy triffids; and what is it with Brits and igloos? The Internet was rife with photos of these snowy caves, little apple-cheeked kids peering from inside freshly built igloos. Methinks with the recession some of these might actually be homes—at least until the spring thaw when cardboard will have to do.
Being a world super power, we here in the U.S. have the snow thing better under control by relying on a chubby groundhog’s special day to predict winter’s duration for us. While the cameras rolled, an irksome peremptory mayor with little patience for Staten Island Chuck’s indolent response to the proffered carrot, reached into the apathetic rodent’s den to drag him out and was rewarded with a finger-chomping from Chuck who was promptly charged with being a terrorist agent of Al Qaeda
On the subway ride downtown to Trader Joe’s I was intrigued by a conversation between three teenage boys, hip-hop from head to toe. Intrigued because for the longest time I could not make out what they were talking about, though they were cheerily audible and unthreatening. Their vocalizing suggested a melodic rap song and their bodies kept to the beat of their conversation. The expression “sofa king” came through again and again, padded by “yo, yo’s,” “ahm a gon” and to the middle-aged white woman—me—the casually delivered and still off-putting, “ma niga.”
At the check out in Trader Joe’s, the First Mate (as the clerks are known—cue eyeball roll) was a spinning, bright-eyed hipster who trilled a chipper, caffeinated discourse that dissolved over me like spun sugar in the rain. Too early in the day for such perkiness, I smiled and nodded at the young woman but would never be able to recall a thing she said.
Before heading into the subway at Union Square I made a quick detour into Virgin for the new Springsteen CD. As I left with my prize I engaged in the first intelligible discourse of the morning, with the security guard. He had seen me go directly to the display and so knew I had bought the CD. A husky Puerto Rican thirty-something guy with a serene manner, he asked did I know his (Springsteen’s) old stuff and flashed a smile, lit by a gold front tooth.
“Of course,” I smiled in return. “I love this guy.”
“Springsteen—he’s a good guy,” he practically hummed. “He’s changed. Some people don’t like that, but it’s good he does. It was that song, 41 Shots, you know about the guy the cops killed…”
“Amadou Dialo,” I interjected.
“Yeah. Why everyone get so down on Bruce? He hadda write that, you know?”
“I know.” We wished each other a good day, parting with a smile.
Language, like song, is about the music and the lyric. Sometimes I’m attracted to the music of a person’s language and can be drawn to a playmate before I listen more closely to the lyric between us that will prove difficult for a friendship. Our language holds the notes of our histories, our families; the events in our lives that have shaped us, both good and bad. Our bodies move with the dance in our language.
Even without the visual proof of voice and body movement, there are signs in the language of the written word. I only communicate in e-mail with a friend in Spain whom I have never met face-to-face. I don’t speak, write, or read Spanish. She can sometimes slip on the wrong phrase in English, which changes considerably the meaning of her words; sometimes hilariously so but sometimes less obviously and I am left wondering what she really meant. I have learned to understand these are times when I can be unafraid to question her because the friendship is the most important thing. And the reverse is true for her. American bellicosity can be questioned.
We can take care of the ‘lamb’ inside each of us.
My sister and I do not speak the same language and I suspect apart from a few moments, sadly forgotten, we never did. She tore at me with words like weapons, her language that of an angry operatic libretto. Our tiny, shared bedroom was cut through with a wall, though invisible, far more impenetrable then the one that used to split Berlin; me on the one side with my messy life of paints and drawings and books and she on the other side stuffing psychic cement into any chinks she spotted in the divide. Custodial memory places me as the one willing to be the peacemaker. But reconnecting with her was like stepping into the ring again and again, dancing around the argument, and the only thing that happens in a ring is a fight. The furious resonance of my mother’s harsh language teetered us all on the edge of war until one of us fell to pieces, victim of her bullet-like anger. My dad had a secret language, wrapped up in his bittersweet comedy. We were a Russian novelist’s dream—or nightmare.
The Mister arrived in New York twenty years ago fulminating confidence that was quickly derailed when the shock of a language he thought he had no trouble understanding turned out to be the English we speak here and not the entirely different English tongue of his native country. I watched as he slipped further inside himself, not really sure what was happening; charmed at first by colloquialisms and then infuriated with something like the curtness he perceived in our verbal shorthand. New to each other, I picked up a completely unfounded intolerance at times when he responded to something I might offer him with, “I’m not bothered.”
Sympathies were extracted from me only when I experienced my first visit across The Pond. This self-possessed New Yorker was quickly out of her depth. The ‘wind-up’ delivered by The Mister’s—and soon to be my—friends, in fact, wound me up. Old lady drivers edged their passive aggressive way into traffic, cutting us off, leaving with a smile and me in a fury. I was all bluster in a land of disarming self-deprecation. A thickly accented bartender in a charming pub in Wales sent me back to our table of friends, having failed at delivering our drinks order, and humbled because, even though he was speaking English, I could not decipher one note of his tune.
So, what do you do in every day life to understand the strangers and friends alike who are on your path at any given time? Well, as one would do in a foreign country you read the signs with eyes wide open. You listen to the music that is new to you with ears unplugged and you appreciate everyone’s individual dance.
A good friend of ours whom we call Fairy Godfather has been helping out a disabled friend and he suggested that you had to understand the lingo, especially when communicating to the psyche of a friend whose psyche has been damaged. “It becomes a non-verbal thing,” he declared. “You don’t want to use the wrong words.”
Words like, “I’m sorry” in English can be said with so many intonations to mean very different things: delivered in anger, sadly, humbly or with sarcasm. Not everyone is a lion who can take it and dish it out. Some are lambs that crave a little more guidance and tenderness. Sometimes we are both the lion and the lamb.
The Mister and I have found our language and it binds us freely to each other. We write songs and tell stories with those songs. From the beginning we have struggled to be aware of each other’s meaning and have stumbled often enough to pick our way more considerately in our collaboration. For us, it results in more satisfying songwriting. So, we have happily been revisiting earlier songs and reworking them in our stronger common language. It results in a better, more satisfying marriage. Our road to generosity of spirit and awareness has come with lots of practice, not without hurt feeling and tears and has still to be periodically revisited as the best way to live a life.
Take care, because there are lambs on the road.
Friday, January 30, 2009
“I can’t control my destiny. I trust my soul; my only goal is just to be. There’s only now, there’s only here. Give in to love or live in fear. No other path; no other way. No day but today.” Jonathan Larson, author of the musical Rent.
THE PATH
This week I bundled into defensive outerwear and made my way downtown to the Shambhala Center on West 22nd Street in Manhattan. Normally adverse to the mind-numbing steel trap of winter, I was induced from my cozy uptown nest. The scheduled speaker, John Baker, is one of the most popular teachers at the Center. And I figured my soul needed a top up.
The Shambhala Center is in an old loft building between the neighborhoods of Chelsea—once a bawdy locale for malfeasance in the 1920s and 30s—and the Flatiron district, which coddled excess of another kind: feminine accessories for the rich woman’s lust for silks and jewelry to later display in the many theaters and concert halls once populating the area. With all that historical baggage surrounding it, the center can rightfully be called a haven.
Before the speaker got underway there would be a half hour of group meditation. The room is an inviting airy space, hung with colorful banners and punctuated by many blue pillows, which were rapidly receiving bottoms. As I waited quietly I surveyed the scene, checking out the arrivals: a punky couple—he with a full-out Mohawk furred atop his shaven skull; a young woman—her raven hair bobbed—wearing what looked like a wedding dress and huge rhinestone globes in her ears; the elderly man in Burberry clutching a vial of prescription tablets; a rangy red-head with killer biceps she didn’t mind flexing; a wheel chair-bound young man with spikey hair, and on the back of one t-shirt a jaunty rhino in a basketball outfit. There were a considerable number of gray heads among the audience and there was the blonde with the tight, beatific smile. I noticed a few Asians and very few African Americans. Why is that? In fact, I count only two Black women. My absent friend, who is African American, would have made it a trio.
The Buddha was the most ordinary of human beings.
The gong is struck, the room becomes still, and I am ready to be not thinking for the next half hour. As if summoned, the Trickster Monkeys take the form of rising heat and clatter through the pipes; it’s like a John Cage orchestration of hissing, scrambling, and what sounds like tinkling glass. Immediately I think about the play I have just seen; the New York premiere of Leaves of Glass. My friend Christopher Lione designed the costumes; he’s also read my novel twice; he thinks it should be a play. Maybe it will turn into a big hit…stop!
Okay, back to the breath. Stay in the moment.
Open awareness keeps us in the present moment so I should ignore the fire truck wailing in the streets below. The clattering Monkeys continue their orchestrated diversion. I think of Chinese New Year, the celebratory cacophony of sound one hears paraded through the narrow streets in Chinatown. What year is this? The year of the ox, that’s right. Hmmm, I read that Obama was born in the year of the ox. What will that mean for the next four years? The ox is solid, dependable, but not necessarily imaginative. Born under that sign Obama should be up to the monumental tasks ahead. Whew! Oh, but what about that stubborn streak? And he could be narrow-minded!
Holy Samsara! Get me off this wheel and back to the breath. I’m boiling, head beating like a clock that can’t tick fast enough. This is hot boredom. I need to be still like a rock in a cool mountain stream; cool boredom. I need to stop thinking. I sneak a glance at my watch and satisfied there is only moments left I finally relax into the silence of absent thought before the gong is struck again, signaling the end of the group meditation.
We stand and stretch, rustle about for a moment and then settle onto our cushions. The title of the talk is: “Discovering Boredom: taking our seat on the earth.”
The speaker is a genial man who immediately puts the audience at ease; well those who have, like me, not exactly got the sitting still thing mastered. Being human, he said, we tend to worry the same bone over and over again. We may be lost in thought and a person passes who reminds us of another who might have hurt us in the past and that hurt resurrects itself and before you know it ambling reverie becomes agitated argument. Or you may be thinking about your mother and thoughts turn to apple pie and then that fight with weight loss. Or, in my case, thinking about mother immediately conjures the graveyard scene at the end of the horror film, "Carrie."
He spoke about the six Buddhist realms of existence. Good to know he thought the highest realm—the God realm—was actually boring. The human realm was preferable because it has the best combination of suffering and intellect. The animal realm? Animals prey on each other; no one wants to be there. Not even an overindulged cat named Sidney, curled into one of his many beds back home.
Bernie Madoff, ubiquitous subject of media headlines even made it into the evening’s talk. The speaker revealed he had a close friend who lost everything—all his money invested with Bernie. Not a Buddhist, I guess, or at least not a very aware one. Surely, he said, there were those among the group who, if not personally infected with ponzitis, knew someone who was and called for a show of hands. Middle-of-the-night Googling had, in fact, revealed an uncle of the EX, now retired to Palm Beach, had indeed been scammed for some tens of millions. Snappily, I raised my hand for the count.
And then one has to think about starting over; about the new path one will find oneself on. Will we be better able to read the signs? Will we get lost again? If it’s The Mister and me, we will get lost again, although hopefully not in the spiritual sense. The Mister doesn’t go to the dharma gatherings, as he is already enlightened. But he does get lost. We are that couple of hikers who stand at the crossroads on a mountain path in the deliriously gorgeous Lake District in England and stare sagely at the directions to the marked trail, speculate aloud that we know exactly where we are going and then head off in completely the opposite direction. Or we make our arduous way up the steep slope of Mt. Helvellyn, scrambling over loose rock in our eminently unsuitable Doc Martens, only to be put off by the storm clouds gathering ominously and swiftly above us and within feet of what is purportedly a spectacular view we make a hasty retreat down the steep mountainside mostly on our asses. Later we’ll purchase a framed watercolor of the majestic mountain and crow aloud about our climb only to be told by the astonished shopkeeper that we completely missed a manageable route nearby that would have taken us to the celebrated view. “My dears, no one goes up the way you did.”
We have had to adjust along the path, though. Losing a job that earned me quite a good salary (and a hole in my spirit) has caused us to make a checklist of what’s really important. This happened long enough ago to have, by now, adjusted quite well with our less fatty finances. I am a reasonably good cook. Art and music and writing are fully back in our lives. We entertain each other.
This last tsunami of layoffs may have been bad for the bankers and those alpha male guys in finance but a blog I recently came across reveals it’s much harder on the wives and girlfriends. These women have taken the bull by the horns—so to speak—and bear their collective anguished souls on the Internet. Hyperventilating over that cancelled black American Express card, they’ve formed a support group: Dating a Banker Anonymous. How dare he tell her to grow up and stop complaining about holidays and 4-star restaurants when he’s got to fire a few hundred people at the end of the week! And she’s the mistress! Reservations at Masa are off the table now. It will be mac ‘n cheese at Ye Olde Waverly Inn—with luck—and without the truffles. Those Jimmy Choos? Get used to mucking in with sturdier stuff from Abercrombie & Bitch.
It’s the anxiety of hope and fear that drives drives capitalism and politics and…religion. There, I said it—inspired by a brilliant documentary I watched last night with The Mister. “For the Bible Tells Me So” shattered the illusion that anti-gay bias, among other heinous acts, is championed in the Bible. Like the politics of fear that have driven this country for too long, some religious leaders have thumped the holy book and driven spikes of hatred and self-loathing into hearts that should never be anything less than all inclusive muscles of love and acceptance for every human being.
Take a seat on the earth, everyone. Discover cool boredom.
“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” Buddha
THE PATH
This week I bundled into defensive outerwear and made my way downtown to the Shambhala Center on West 22nd Street in Manhattan. Normally adverse to the mind-numbing steel trap of winter, I was induced from my cozy uptown nest. The scheduled speaker, John Baker, is one of the most popular teachers at the Center. And I figured my soul needed a top up.
The Shambhala Center is in an old loft building between the neighborhoods of Chelsea—once a bawdy locale for malfeasance in the 1920s and 30s—and the Flatiron district, which coddled excess of another kind: feminine accessories for the rich woman’s lust for silks and jewelry to later display in the many theaters and concert halls once populating the area. With all that historical baggage surrounding it, the center can rightfully be called a haven.
Before the speaker got underway there would be a half hour of group meditation. The room is an inviting airy space, hung with colorful banners and punctuated by many blue pillows, which were rapidly receiving bottoms. As I waited quietly I surveyed the scene, checking out the arrivals: a punky couple—he with a full-out Mohawk furred atop his shaven skull; a young woman—her raven hair bobbed—wearing what looked like a wedding dress and huge rhinestone globes in her ears; the elderly man in Burberry clutching a vial of prescription tablets; a rangy red-head with killer biceps she didn’t mind flexing; a wheel chair-bound young man with spikey hair, and on the back of one t-shirt a jaunty rhino in a basketball outfit. There were a considerable number of gray heads among the audience and there was the blonde with the tight, beatific smile. I noticed a few Asians and very few African Americans. Why is that? In fact, I count only two Black women. My absent friend, who is African American, would have made it a trio.
The Buddha was the most ordinary of human beings.
The gong is struck, the room becomes still, and I am ready to be not thinking for the next half hour. As if summoned, the Trickster Monkeys take the form of rising heat and clatter through the pipes; it’s like a John Cage orchestration of hissing, scrambling, and what sounds like tinkling glass. Immediately I think about the play I have just seen; the New York premiere of Leaves of Glass. My friend Christopher Lione designed the costumes; he’s also read my novel twice; he thinks it should be a play. Maybe it will turn into a big hit…stop!
Okay, back to the breath. Stay in the moment.
Open awareness keeps us in the present moment so I should ignore the fire truck wailing in the streets below. The clattering Monkeys continue their orchestrated diversion. I think of Chinese New Year, the celebratory cacophony of sound one hears paraded through the narrow streets in Chinatown. What year is this? The year of the ox, that’s right. Hmmm, I read that Obama was born in the year of the ox. What will that mean for the next four years? The ox is solid, dependable, but not necessarily imaginative. Born under that sign Obama should be up to the monumental tasks ahead. Whew! Oh, but what about that stubborn streak? And he could be narrow-minded!
Holy Samsara! Get me off this wheel and back to the breath. I’m boiling, head beating like a clock that can’t tick fast enough. This is hot boredom. I need to be still like a rock in a cool mountain stream; cool boredom. I need to stop thinking. I sneak a glance at my watch and satisfied there is only moments left I finally relax into the silence of absent thought before the gong is struck again, signaling the end of the group meditation.
We stand and stretch, rustle about for a moment and then settle onto our cushions. The title of the talk is: “Discovering Boredom: taking our seat on the earth.”
The speaker is a genial man who immediately puts the audience at ease; well those who have, like me, not exactly got the sitting still thing mastered. Being human, he said, we tend to worry the same bone over and over again. We may be lost in thought and a person passes who reminds us of another who might have hurt us in the past and that hurt resurrects itself and before you know it ambling reverie becomes agitated argument. Or you may be thinking about your mother and thoughts turn to apple pie and then that fight with weight loss. Or, in my case, thinking about mother immediately conjures the graveyard scene at the end of the horror film, "Carrie."
He spoke about the six Buddhist realms of existence. Good to know he thought the highest realm—the God realm—was actually boring. The human realm was preferable because it has the best combination of suffering and intellect. The animal realm? Animals prey on each other; no one wants to be there. Not even an overindulged cat named Sidney, curled into one of his many beds back home.
Bernie Madoff, ubiquitous subject of media headlines even made it into the evening’s talk. The speaker revealed he had a close friend who lost everything—all his money invested with Bernie. Not a Buddhist, I guess, or at least not a very aware one. Surely, he said, there were those among the group who, if not personally infected with ponzitis, knew someone who was and called for a show of hands. Middle-of-the-night Googling had, in fact, revealed an uncle of the EX, now retired to Palm Beach, had indeed been scammed for some tens of millions. Snappily, I raised my hand for the count.
And then one has to think about starting over; about the new path one will find oneself on. Will we be better able to read the signs? Will we get lost again? If it’s The Mister and me, we will get lost again, although hopefully not in the spiritual sense. The Mister doesn’t go to the dharma gatherings, as he is already enlightened. But he does get lost. We are that couple of hikers who stand at the crossroads on a mountain path in the deliriously gorgeous Lake District in England and stare sagely at the directions to the marked trail, speculate aloud that we know exactly where we are going and then head off in completely the opposite direction. Or we make our arduous way up the steep slope of Mt. Helvellyn, scrambling over loose rock in our eminently unsuitable Doc Martens, only to be put off by the storm clouds gathering ominously and swiftly above us and within feet of what is purportedly a spectacular view we make a hasty retreat down the steep mountainside mostly on our asses. Later we’ll purchase a framed watercolor of the majestic mountain and crow aloud about our climb only to be told by the astonished shopkeeper that we completely missed a manageable route nearby that would have taken us to the celebrated view. “My dears, no one goes up the way you did.”
We have had to adjust along the path, though. Losing a job that earned me quite a good salary (and a hole in my spirit) has caused us to make a checklist of what’s really important. This happened long enough ago to have, by now, adjusted quite well with our less fatty finances. I am a reasonably good cook. Art and music and writing are fully back in our lives. We entertain each other.
This last tsunami of layoffs may have been bad for the bankers and those alpha male guys in finance but a blog I recently came across reveals it’s much harder on the wives and girlfriends. These women have taken the bull by the horns—so to speak—and bear their collective anguished souls on the Internet. Hyperventilating over that cancelled black American Express card, they’ve formed a support group: Dating a Banker Anonymous. How dare he tell her to grow up and stop complaining about holidays and 4-star restaurants when he’s got to fire a few hundred people at the end of the week! And she’s the mistress! Reservations at Masa are off the table now. It will be mac ‘n cheese at Ye Olde Waverly Inn—with luck—and without the truffles. Those Jimmy Choos? Get used to mucking in with sturdier stuff from Abercrombie & Bitch.
It’s the anxiety of hope and fear that drives drives capitalism and politics and…religion. There, I said it—inspired by a brilliant documentary I watched last night with The Mister. “For the Bible Tells Me So” shattered the illusion that anti-gay bias, among other heinous acts, is championed in the Bible. Like the politics of fear that have driven this country for too long, some religious leaders have thumped the holy book and driven spikes of hatred and self-loathing into hearts that should never be anything less than all inclusive muscles of love and acceptance for every human being.
Take a seat on the earth, everyone. Discover cool boredom.
“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” Buddha
Monday, January 26, 2009
Photograph: Christina Zarcadoolas
For Tilly
Pleasures don’t come often free
Hard won these restful moments
A dog like me has issues and
I’m slow to slumber easily
Rescue from a caged life
Cannot dispel the foment
A dog like me has issues and
I tend to bite the moment
I like to think I’m only safe
When one eye is still open
I’m a bulldog—Boston—see?
We thrive on more than hoping
But if I find a gentle spot
To lay my nervous head down
The other eye sees kindness when
You stoop to comfort me
I’m not afraid and still I am
I’ll sleep because you let me
I’m not afraid and still I’ll be
The dog you chose and set me free
Pleasures don’t come often free
Hard won these restful moments
A dog like me has issues and
I’m slow to slumber easily
Rescue from a caged life
Cannot dispel the foment
A dog like me has issues and
I tend to bite the moment
I like to think I’m only safe
When one eye is still open
I’m a bulldog—Boston—see?
We thrive on more than hoping
But if I find a gentle spot
To lay my nervous head down
The other eye sees kindness when
You stoop to comfort me
I’m not afraid and still I am
I’ll sleep because you let me
I’m not afraid and still I’ll be
The dog you chose and set me free
Saturday, January 24, 2009
“God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.” William Shakespeare
PROBABILITY
A few weeks ago an article on the Internet pictured an unimposing middle-aged bus driver from Southhampton in England—a self-professed Christian in a red wooly jumper —who had walked off his shift. Of the 800 busses across the country his flourished a 20-foot banner with a slogan paid for by the British Humanist Association: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
Bollocks to God? Well then, bollocks to the job! The bus driver, Ron, was finally appeased and given a new bus, free of bothersome slogans. Pressure groups like Christian Voice were furious but the advertisement was finally judged not to have broken any ‘decency rules.’ Saved by the inclusion of ‘probably.’ Last summer there was apparently a series of Christian adverts on London busses posting a website which warned that those who reject God will burn in Hell.
Fiery Hell? Everlasting suffering for earthly transgressions? It would be like vacationing in a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Who wouldn’t chuck a cranky God’s gloomy dogma for a less punishing outlook?
PROBABILITY
A few weeks ago an article on the Internet pictured an unimposing middle-aged bus driver from Southhampton in England—a self-professed Christian in a red wooly jumper —who had walked off his shift. Of the 800 busses across the country his flourished a 20-foot banner with a slogan paid for by the British Humanist Association: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
Bollocks to God? Well then, bollocks to the job! The bus driver, Ron, was finally appeased and given a new bus, free of bothersome slogans. Pressure groups like Christian Voice were furious but the advertisement was finally judged not to have broken any ‘decency rules.’ Saved by the inclusion of ‘probably.’ Last summer there was apparently a series of Christian adverts on London busses posting a website which warned that those who reject God will burn in Hell.
Fiery Hell? Everlasting suffering for earthly transgressions? It would be like vacationing in a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Who wouldn’t chuck a cranky God’s gloomy dogma for a less punishing outlook?
Thomas Jefferson’s doctrine of separation of church and state is a familiar refrain in my country and before the Dark Ages of Bush seemed to me to be—apart from testy insistence on including the deity’s name in our Pledge of Allegiance—relatively honored by our government. Or, maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. The Mister reminds me now and again that we are indeed a religious bunch. The ‘God Bless America’ slant in the last crucial presidential debates was something you just kind of ignored. We needed to get the hopey, well-spoken, cucumber-cool guy in, sure, but it was more urgent to get the other guy out. It didn’t really mean much if ‘our side’ was just employing the old ‘God bless’ chestnut to get the wider vote.
Or did it?
When, as President-elect, Barack Obama chose Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural prayer—one that begged God to listen to his prayer, and by virtue of this preacher’s position at the Inauguration, purportedly speaking for all of us as he intoned: “When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the Earth with the respect that they deserve, forgive us”—it saddened and perplexed me. A preacher who thinks homosexuals need to repent; denies Gays the right to marry—a man who fought for Proposition 8? Women, like me, who are pro-choice are labeled ‘holocaust deniers.’ Am I missing something?
Freshly sworn in, President Obama acknowledged in his inaugural address that we are "a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus—and non-believers." It was a curious gesture. What exactly is a non-believer and why did his words make it sound like non-believers were somehow outside the lofty white-gloved club of believers? I believe the earth revolves around the sun and gravity keeps us rooted to a planet that is definitely not flat. I believe in the basic goodness of humans. I believe that I should treat another person as well as I would like to be treated.
Separation of church and state, indeed. We are long past the separation and need a divorce.
God was a shifting presence growing up. Church going slackened off when I hit my teens. I went to a specialized public high school in Manhattan and art and boys superseded God. Sometimes a beloved teacher stood in; other times, as I got older, I fixated on a writer or an artist I worshipped, like Vincent Van Gogh. As a girl, I thought my dad was god for the longest time. An uneducated man, he was prone to mispronounced utterances like “Absolooply!” that cracked me up. He seemed to be suffering from something yet found the comic in life. He made a lot of people laugh, not including my mother. He didn’t take God too seriously either and when he did usher for the Christmas service at our church in Astoria he rallied the other fathers from the corner bar before the sermon wound down, in time to hand out the collection baskets. He never failed to cast a beery, conspiratorial wink in my direction as I paraded up the center aisle clutching my lighted candle, desperate not to giggle convulsively.
Separation of church and state, indeed. We are long past the separation and need a divorce.
God was a shifting presence growing up. Church going slackened off when I hit my teens. I went to a specialized public high school in Manhattan and art and boys superseded God. Sometimes a beloved teacher stood in; other times, as I got older, I fixated on a writer or an artist I worshipped, like Vincent Van Gogh. As a girl, I thought my dad was god for the longest time. An uneducated man, he was prone to mispronounced utterances like “Absolooply!” that cracked me up. He seemed to be suffering from something yet found the comic in life. He made a lot of people laugh, not including my mother. He didn’t take God too seriously either and when he did usher for the Christmas service at our church in Astoria he rallied the other fathers from the corner bar before the sermon wound down, in time to hand out the collection baskets. He never failed to cast a beery, conspiratorial wink in my direction as I paraded up the center aisle clutching my lighted candle, desperate not to giggle convulsively.
Because of his failed business in Manhattan, we had to move to Hartford Connecticut in my senior year of high school. My sister and I had, for one brief kindred moment, joined as allies in our shared pain at having to leave our old life and forged an aggrieved partnership as we passed through the gates in Grand Central Station to the platform where we boarded—grief-stricken—a train to Hartford. We swore we would never lose our 'Noo Yawk' accents. It was a short-lived contract.
In our first Christmas in an alien land, my dad and I made some small effort to fit in and leaving an embittered mother and the querulous sister behind, we attended the Christmas Eve service at a quintessentially New England church. Perched atop a flight of stairs overlooking Farmington Avenue, its clapboard walls pristine, stamped with neatly unprovocative stained-glass windows. We were hustled into the first row, the outsiders. Oiled by a few pre-service cocktails, dad sang the beloved carols in a booming voice, almost lustily—and to a one—the wrong song in every case. But they were they ones he remembered, the songs dear to his heart and “Joy To the World” piped above whatever the congregation was singing. The fundamentally conservative, tight-lipped, straight-shouldered crowd of New Englanders surrounding us mitigated what should have been abject embarrassment on my part. Their disdain was palpable and rather than hustling my father from their midst, I sat stoically alongside him—his silent cheerleader—until the bitter end. We made our way past ambient disapproval to the exit, only to be stopped by a hawk-faced woman with an imperious manner. “You have such a lovely singing voice,” she told my father, her own voice brittle with sarcasm. “Perhaps you should join our choir.”
I began to see what my cousins had whispered to me about my dad. His friends then were almost all gay men. Among them was a delightful couple that made me laugh. Ronald was a cravat-wearing dance teacher and Artie, a comically fussy Englishman with a Sahara-dry sense of humor, who cracked me up every single time he said, “Crikey.” Kip was an interior decorator with the small business that employed my father as an antiques restorer. I was just discovering Truman Capote’s writings and Kip’s softly rotund physical presence, his unabashed mince, his knowledgeable love of all things cultured, was like a breath of fresh, literary air. They flaunted their gayness—and their pain. Copious amounts of alcohol were imbibed.
Could my father have been gay, albeit deeply closeted? On sleepovers, dad would dance around in his underwear to any one of the many Broadway show tunes he had recordings of; me giggling hysterically, my cousin who I adored and who only carefully poked out of the family closet for me, red-faced and uncomfortable. My father knew the lyrics to every Broadway musical. He mimed Ethel Merman and wept every time he heard Judy Garland sing. Gay much?
Could my father have been gay, albeit deeply closeted? On sleepovers, dad would dance around in his underwear to any one of the many Broadway show tunes he had recordings of; me giggling hysterically, my cousin who I adored and who only carefully poked out of the family closet for me, red-faced and uncomfortable. My father knew the lyrics to every Broadway musical. He mimed Ethel Merman and wept every time he heard Judy Garland sing. Gay much?
So, when I see choices being made, like Obama’s for Warren and some of his cabinet picks I think of Alan Shore’s character on Boston Legal and his pithy remark: “As my great Aunt Gert said: “This smells funny and I’m not going to eat it.”
Sunday, January 18, 2009
"War does not determine who is right - only who is left." Bertrand Russell
WAR & FRIENDS
We are in an age of corporate-owned media in some countries and government-owned media in others. I go as both observer and sometimes participant to protests in the city, taking photographs to later post for friends abroad. Those friends do the same in their country and share their experience with me. The media is a constant source of surprise in their reporting; participants undercounted if there is any real coverage at all; altercations and arrests duly reported. Some governments forbid the press to cover the war in their country and interested and concerned individuals are left to get the news as best they can. So, I pack my camera and my notebook and I go—when I can—to where the protest is in the city and when I have gone to a protest in Washington DC it’s as a participant as well. I send my observations abroad and to friends across this country. Wall Street protests have of late given way to concerns in the Middle East.
Last Sunday I found myself in Times Square, talking to some of the young men and women who were protesting Israel’s blockade of Gaza. The few hundred people gathered for the demonstration quickly blossomed into many thousands; a lot of them appeared to be families. They were clearly upset about the bombings, the crippling blockade on their people. Among the throngs in the demonstration there were chants of protest, handmade placards illustrated with images of the devastation, young men throwing power fists. But there was also music and dancing. There were self-professed Jewish people in the march, and their placards read: “Jews Cherish Life & Abhor War.” One wag with a great smile displayed his homemade sign: “Another Jew Against Israeli Chutzpah.” In attendance were also Native Americans, Mexicans (“Mexico hearts Gaza”), and Asians—all contributing to the march with brightly colored instruments; beribboned drums; a conch shell blown to purify the environment from evil effects. There were members of the Hassidim at the microphone, elegantly clothed in long black overcoats and velvety black fedoras, speaking to the swelling crowd, horrified (in their own words) at Israel’s actions.
I fully wanted to converse with anyone in the small faction of dissidents gathered across the avenue from the main protest. From what I observed they were as a group not more than twenty or so individuals, children among them. Their posters were to a one bitter. A boy I guessed to be maybe ten or so replied to my question—about why he was there and how did he feel—with such hateful epithets that I could hardly believe my ears. He said—and pointed across the avenue—they should all die. An older man I guessed to be his father held a placard urging Israel not to stop the bombing until the job was done. I recollected the many peaceful demonstrations in Washington DC and in Manhattan that The Mister and I joined after 9/11 to protest our government’s direction and the sweeping loss of civil liberties. Sidelining the route were always small clusters of anti-protesters screaming hateful things. Did they represent America—an America reacting to the tragic events of 9/11? They did, but then so did those of us who were horrified at the course our government was taking.
So, while we citizens wait for the mainstream media to get its spine transplant, we take photographs of events like this and send them to friends. If an article or a book, like The Yellow Wind for instance, makes an impression we recommend it.
It’s not about provocation; it’s about information. As a friend tells me, “We have always hungered for communication other than the hard news.”
One sometimes stumbles across an indignant reaction to simply passing along information; the argument being you can’t possibly understand, you are not (choose one): a mother, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, man, Black, Muslim, Jew. If you are not a proponent of the death penalty and in fact are strongly against capital punishment then there is someone out there who tells you “You have never had a loved one murdered.” You have also never been poor (or as poor as somebody else), never suffered rape, spousal abuse. You have never been the victim of a crime; never lost your house in a fire or your pet in a flood. You have never lived in a Communist country.
There are a lot of things I have never experienced. There are a lot of things I have never done. There are a lot of things I am not. But, by virtue of my birth, I am an American. The U.S. has brought consternation and even condemnation from friends abroad, particularly during the past eight years. The information they share, though it condemns the politicians that govern my country, does not condemn me personally. Plenty of Americans have been self-critical. Not of the people, necessarily—though it has been nothing short of a challenge for some to understand how this entire nation could seemingly, overwhelmingly keep the outgoing president installed for not only one, but also two terms.
People who are not necessarily of like-minded politics or religion but are not afraid to share information and leave the recipient to make up their own minds are valuable friends indeed. And there are those whose stories, no matter the difference in language, culture, and personal politics, enrich one’s own.
One such person in my life is a woman in Barcelona: a writer, translator, and literary critic. Her name is Isabel Nuñez and it is because of her that I make any feeble attempt at writing a blog. My intention towards that blogging is to recapture parts of myself, my childhood, my family and find those stories worth repeating, and no matter how difficult the experience of the past, to allow their shapes to be softened by distance and memory. To write about my life with The Mister (which needs no softening) and to make my way through less cheerful memories of a difficult childhood, armed with some humor. Bel (as she is affectionately known) writes stories of family and childhood, marriage undone, politics and love. She has inspired me.
We met through a mutual dear friend, a writer in Paris named Rauda. Miscommunication in the beginning caused me to miss meeting Bel on her only trip to New York in December 2002. Our connection sparked after she returned to Barcelona. It was a virtual meeting and we have carried on a friendship for nearly six years in cyberspace.
Neither of us knows the sound of her voice but we venture to say we can imagine what our respective laugh is like. We send each other photographs of our feet, idiosyncratic clues to our travels. Of course, we also send portraits of ourselves—our loves, our friends, her son and our cats. We write about our concerns both personal and political, our sadnesses and the bright sparks that sometimes shed a white light we wish for each other.
Perhaps we never attempt long distance phone conversations because I speak no Spanish. When she would tell me about a short story she was writing, I bemoaned the fact that I could not read it. Until one day I discovered a software program for translating. We howled at the clumsy results. Isabel would then take the time to better translate a passage or two for me. I returned her efforts with suggestions as to what might be a more appropriate phrase in English. I became hooked on the beauty of her writing.
We began in earnest to translate an entire story. If memory serves, it was the title story to her collection of short stories called: “Crucigrama.” In English it means Crossword and referred to her father’s penchant for doing the crossword puzzles when he was dying. We worked slowly and in the time we had. Bel would send the story in a document in Spanish. I would put it through the translation software and send it back.
We finished that story and plunged into one more after another; stories of her mother in hospital; visiting a Buddhist Center; traffic jams with her ex. Poetic details, like the wild cat that beats the grasses to throw off its prey. Passages flew back and forth between us as she slowly restructured the clumsy software translation and I would help her to “finish” the story when she was stuck on a meaning in English for a particular word or phrase. We laughingly referred to me as her “Finisher” and in that manner managed to complete a half dozen or so of her spare and powerful stories into English.
She has just published a book titled: If a tree falls. Conversations about the Balkans war. What follows is a description of that book:
WAR & FRIENDS
We are in an age of corporate-owned media in some countries and government-owned media in others. I go as both observer and sometimes participant to protests in the city, taking photographs to later post for friends abroad. Those friends do the same in their country and share their experience with me. The media is a constant source of surprise in their reporting; participants undercounted if there is any real coverage at all; altercations and arrests duly reported. Some governments forbid the press to cover the war in their country and interested and concerned individuals are left to get the news as best they can. So, I pack my camera and my notebook and I go—when I can—to where the protest is in the city and when I have gone to a protest in Washington DC it’s as a participant as well. I send my observations abroad and to friends across this country. Wall Street protests have of late given way to concerns in the Middle East.
Last Sunday I found myself in Times Square, talking to some of the young men and women who were protesting Israel’s blockade of Gaza. The few hundred people gathered for the demonstration quickly blossomed into many thousands; a lot of them appeared to be families. They were clearly upset about the bombings, the crippling blockade on their people. Among the throngs in the demonstration there were chants of protest, handmade placards illustrated with images of the devastation, young men throwing power fists. But there was also music and dancing. There were self-professed Jewish people in the march, and their placards read: “Jews Cherish Life & Abhor War.” One wag with a great smile displayed his homemade sign: “Another Jew Against Israeli Chutzpah.” In attendance were also Native Americans, Mexicans (“Mexico hearts Gaza”), and Asians—all contributing to the march with brightly colored instruments; beribboned drums; a conch shell blown to purify the environment from evil effects. There were members of the Hassidim at the microphone, elegantly clothed in long black overcoats and velvety black fedoras, speaking to the swelling crowd, horrified (in their own words) at Israel’s actions.
I fully wanted to converse with anyone in the small faction of dissidents gathered across the avenue from the main protest. From what I observed they were as a group not more than twenty or so individuals, children among them. Their posters were to a one bitter. A boy I guessed to be maybe ten or so replied to my question—about why he was there and how did he feel—with such hateful epithets that I could hardly believe my ears. He said—and pointed across the avenue—they should all die. An older man I guessed to be his father held a placard urging Israel not to stop the bombing until the job was done. I recollected the many peaceful demonstrations in Washington DC and in Manhattan that The Mister and I joined after 9/11 to protest our government’s direction and the sweeping loss of civil liberties. Sidelining the route were always small clusters of anti-protesters screaming hateful things. Did they represent America—an America reacting to the tragic events of 9/11? They did, but then so did those of us who were horrified at the course our government was taking.
So, while we citizens wait for the mainstream media to get its spine transplant, we take photographs of events like this and send them to friends. If an article or a book, like The Yellow Wind for instance, makes an impression we recommend it.
It’s not about provocation; it’s about information. As a friend tells me, “We have always hungered for communication other than the hard news.”
One sometimes stumbles across an indignant reaction to simply passing along information; the argument being you can’t possibly understand, you are not (choose one): a mother, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, man, Black, Muslim, Jew. If you are not a proponent of the death penalty and in fact are strongly against capital punishment then there is someone out there who tells you “You have never had a loved one murdered.” You have also never been poor (or as poor as somebody else), never suffered rape, spousal abuse. You have never been the victim of a crime; never lost your house in a fire or your pet in a flood. You have never lived in a Communist country.
There are a lot of things I have never experienced. There are a lot of things I have never done. There are a lot of things I am not. But, by virtue of my birth, I am an American. The U.S. has brought consternation and even condemnation from friends abroad, particularly during the past eight years. The information they share, though it condemns the politicians that govern my country, does not condemn me personally. Plenty of Americans have been self-critical. Not of the people, necessarily—though it has been nothing short of a challenge for some to understand how this entire nation could seemingly, overwhelmingly keep the outgoing president installed for not only one, but also two terms.
People who are not necessarily of like-minded politics or religion but are not afraid to share information and leave the recipient to make up their own minds are valuable friends indeed. And there are those whose stories, no matter the difference in language, culture, and personal politics, enrich one’s own.
One such person in my life is a woman in Barcelona: a writer, translator, and literary critic. Her name is Isabel Nuñez and it is because of her that I make any feeble attempt at writing a blog. My intention towards that blogging is to recapture parts of myself, my childhood, my family and find those stories worth repeating, and no matter how difficult the experience of the past, to allow their shapes to be softened by distance and memory. To write about my life with The Mister (which needs no softening) and to make my way through less cheerful memories of a difficult childhood, armed with some humor. Bel (as she is affectionately known) writes stories of family and childhood, marriage undone, politics and love. She has inspired me.
We met through a mutual dear friend, a writer in Paris named Rauda. Miscommunication in the beginning caused me to miss meeting Bel on her only trip to New York in December 2002. Our connection sparked after she returned to Barcelona. It was a virtual meeting and we have carried on a friendship for nearly six years in cyberspace.
Neither of us knows the sound of her voice but we venture to say we can imagine what our respective laugh is like. We send each other photographs of our feet, idiosyncratic clues to our travels. Of course, we also send portraits of ourselves—our loves, our friends, her son and our cats. We write about our concerns both personal and political, our sadnesses and the bright sparks that sometimes shed a white light we wish for each other.
Perhaps we never attempt long distance phone conversations because I speak no Spanish. When she would tell me about a short story she was writing, I bemoaned the fact that I could not read it. Until one day I discovered a software program for translating. We howled at the clumsy results. Isabel would then take the time to better translate a passage or two for me. I returned her efforts with suggestions as to what might be a more appropriate phrase in English. I became hooked on the beauty of her writing.
We began in earnest to translate an entire story. If memory serves, it was the title story to her collection of short stories called: “Crucigrama.” In English it means Crossword and referred to her father’s penchant for doing the crossword puzzles when he was dying. We worked slowly and in the time we had. Bel would send the story in a document in Spanish. I would put it through the translation software and send it back.
We finished that story and plunged into one more after another; stories of her mother in hospital; visiting a Buddhist Center; traffic jams with her ex. Poetic details, like the wild cat that beats the grasses to throw off its prey. Passages flew back and forth between us as she slowly restructured the clumsy software translation and I would help her to “finish” the story when she was stuck on a meaning in English for a particular word or phrase. We laughingly referred to me as her “Finisher” and in that manner managed to complete a half dozen or so of her spare and powerful stories into English.
She has just published a book titled: If a tree falls. Conversations about the Balkans war. What follows is a description of that book:
Isabel Núñez travelled to Sarajevo, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade and Pristina, the main cities of the former Yugoslavia to talk with Balkan authors who had written fiction, poetry or literary essays on war, trying to understand what happened there and which were the reasons of the only military conflict in Europe in the second half of 20th century. She was convinced that media wasn’t giving us the clues of what happened.
For the first time, a book listens as writers explain a war where they were protagonists (many of the main actors of the war defined themselves as writers, poets, historians or intellectuals: Slobodan Milo_evi_, Mira Markovi_, Radovan Karad_i_, Franjo Tudjman, Miroslav Toholj, Ivan Aralica and many others). The book is a travelogue, but there is a literary critic’s approach in it, and the conversations: these different writers seem to talk to each other in these pages and in their lively discussion we begin to understand how it is possible to organise a war in our world. Writers of three different generations compose the landscape of the end of Tito’s era, the particular kind of soft communism and multicultural fraternity that was destroyed with a fiery nationalism.
We see how, to remain in power after the fall of the Wall, some intellectuals and politicians became extreme nationalists and manipulated the difficult legacy of World War II in Yugoslavia, with its tough family stories and the wounds of each ethnic group (“my grandfather was killed by the Chetniks,” “my mother was killed by the Ustashas”…). We can imagine how this war was prepared and how there is a collective complicity for every war, how many people collaborated in a war sometimes only to steal a neighbour’s tv set. We wonder with them about the slow reaction of our Western world and its responsibility in this conflict: the genocide, the siege of Sarajevo, the Srebrenica massacre, the ethnic cleansing, the killings and rapings. And we see some of the facts that contradict the official media vision of Balkan wars and the stereotypes. We almost can walk through these unknown cities, with its combination of Turkish mosques, Orthodox and Catholic cathedrals, Austro-Hungarian buildings and Soviet-style developments, with luxurious woods, Vienna-like pastries and historical pain still flaming in destroyed places. And in the meantime we catch some of the best perfumes of the contemporary Slavic literature, with its dark humour and witty irony, the cultural mixture, the Östeuropean vision of our 20th century. Because fiction and poetry can be a good source of knowledge to understand things that you cannot find in history books or in the media.
Isabel Núñez (Figueres, Spain, 1957) is a writer, translator and literary critic. A regular contributor to La Vanguardia literary supplement (Culturas), she is the author of Crucigrama (H2o, Barcelona, 2006), La plaza del azufaifo (Melusina, Barcelona, 2008) and, with Rauda Jamis, Du fond des mères(DDB, Paris, 1998), Maternidad: Cartas entre dos mujeres (Urano, Barcelona, 1999). She has translated into Spanish authors such as T.C. Boyle, Richard Ford, Patricia Hisghsmith, Rick Moody, Jeff Noon, Cynthya Ozick, Dorothy Parker, Jacob Riis, Colin Thubron and others. She has a literary blog http://isabelnunez-zbelnu.blogspot.com
For the first time, a book listens as writers explain a war where they were protagonists (many of the main actors of the war defined themselves as writers, poets, historians or intellectuals: Slobodan Milo_evi_, Mira Markovi_, Radovan Karad_i_, Franjo Tudjman, Miroslav Toholj, Ivan Aralica and many others). The book is a travelogue, but there is a literary critic’s approach in it, and the conversations: these different writers seem to talk to each other in these pages and in their lively discussion we begin to understand how it is possible to organise a war in our world. Writers of three different generations compose the landscape of the end of Tito’s era, the particular kind of soft communism and multicultural fraternity that was destroyed with a fiery nationalism.
We see how, to remain in power after the fall of the Wall, some intellectuals and politicians became extreme nationalists and manipulated the difficult legacy of World War II in Yugoslavia, with its tough family stories and the wounds of each ethnic group (“my grandfather was killed by the Chetniks,” “my mother was killed by the Ustashas”…). We can imagine how this war was prepared and how there is a collective complicity for every war, how many people collaborated in a war sometimes only to steal a neighbour’s tv set. We wonder with them about the slow reaction of our Western world and its responsibility in this conflict: the genocide, the siege of Sarajevo, the Srebrenica massacre, the ethnic cleansing, the killings and rapings. And we see some of the facts that contradict the official media vision of Balkan wars and the stereotypes. We almost can walk through these unknown cities, with its combination of Turkish mosques, Orthodox and Catholic cathedrals, Austro-Hungarian buildings and Soviet-style developments, with luxurious woods, Vienna-like pastries and historical pain still flaming in destroyed places. And in the meantime we catch some of the best perfumes of the contemporary Slavic literature, with its dark humour and witty irony, the cultural mixture, the Östeuropean vision of our 20th century. Because fiction and poetry can be a good source of knowledge to understand things that you cannot find in history books or in the media.
Isabel Núñez (Figueres, Spain, 1957) is a writer, translator and literary critic. A regular contributor to La Vanguardia literary supplement (Culturas), she is the author of Crucigrama (H2o, Barcelona, 2006), La plaza del azufaifo (Melusina, Barcelona, 2008) and, with Rauda Jamis, Du fond des mères(DDB, Paris, 1998), Maternidad: Cartas entre dos mujeres (Urano, Barcelona, 1999). She has translated into Spanish authors such as T.C. Boyle, Richard Ford, Patricia Hisghsmith, Rick Moody, Jeff Noon, Cynthya Ozick, Dorothy Parker, Jacob Riis, Colin Thubron and others. She has a literary blog http://isabelnunez-zbelnu.blogspot.com
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