Snow

The hill in Central Park

Put on a Hefty trash bag, run with all of your might, scream at the top of your lungs and dive off the top of a snow packed hill.  Once you reach bottom, laugh so hard that you can hardly stand.  Repeat.

That’s what I did one afternoon in Central Park.  If you asked me now to sum up the happiest moments of my life, that day might possibly be at the very top.  It was the winter of 1983 and it hadn’t snowed significantly in years, maybe even a decade.  Of course, back then a year felt like a decade and sufficient snow amounts get harder and harder to achieve as you grow.  I was 22 and hadn’t seen snow up to my hips in years.  This snowfall was the stuff that legends are made of – it packed perfectly, the grand overnight total was 17″  and it fell on a Friday night into Saturday.

I had just graduated from The Fashion Institute of Technology or as any its graduates will call it – FIT.  I remember how excitement and wonder just flowed through my veins.  Armed with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and a limitless supply of enthusiasm, I was determined to make my way in a struggling economy and more importantly – New York City.  I was living in an illegal sublet on West 79th Street between Columbus Avenue and Amsterdam Avenue with a number of part-time jobs that barely kept me financially afloat.  The apartment though was fully furnished with every modern gadget of the day.  An answering machine and the coveted VHS machine-made my situation enviable in my circle.  Larry, the owner of the apartment, liked things new and of the moment.  He also liked to travel and had a cat.  That’s how I came to be living in Larry’s apartment.

It was my friend Rick who suggested a party and in a matter of phone calls one came together about as magically as the storm outside.  Bagels from H&H and someone else brought a video which was a completely new concept for me.  Within an hour there must have been 10 people in Larry’s bedroom on that snowy day.  We had just wrapped up the video when Rick came up with the idea we go sledding in Central Park.  We may have been classified as adults but the child in each of us hadn’t been fully notified.  “That’s a great idea,” we screamed and headed out with the intention of buying sleds at a nearby hardware store.  The Upper West side hadn’t been invaded by strollers yet.  It was still licking its wounds from the drug wars of the 1970′s.  Amsterdam Avenue was “iffy” and anything above 79th Street questionable after dark.  Whores worked the bus stops on Broadway above 90th Street.  We didn’t find any sleds and it was Rick again who came up with the idea of wearing the trash bags.  Because we were desperate to sled, young and the snow perfect it all fell into place once the idea was born.  That’s how I came to have one of the best afternoons of my life.

Put on a black Hefty trash bag, run with all of your might, scream at the top of your lungs and dive off the top of a snow packed hill.  Once you reach bottom, laugh so hard that you can hardly stand.  Repeat

Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day

It’s Mother’s Day.  Someone said to me last year that I now belonged to a club that no one wants to belong to – those whose Mother’s have passed.  They were right.  I get a hollow feeling from the first sight of the cards appearing in stores to the buckets of flowers outside the market just waiting to become last-minute gifts.  I miss her and yet she even would agree that she was not a soft soul.  I had always dreamed that there would come a moment when we would both let our guards down and we’d have that “Terms of Endearment” talk.  It never came as I dreamed and in hindsight, I wouldn’t want it any other way.  My mother treated me, really all her daughters, like an art project that desperately needed tweaking.  “Do you really like your hair THAT way?”  Lisa often tells of the story of getting off the train in the dead of winter and dashing to my mother’s waiting car.  She just about settles in when my mother says, “I don’t like your haircut.  Do you really like those shoes?  That lipstick really doesn’t go with your skin color.”  Lisa looked over and said, “Anything else?”  My mother replied, “I don’t know, you haven’t taken your coat off yet.”

During one of my last visits with my mother I was giving her a sponge bath.  It was hot and she could barely breathe let alone speak.    I was doing my best to clean her up and yet appeal to her modesty.  Suddenly she starts to clear her throat and speaks.  I couldn’t hear her correctly and so I bend down and ask her to repeat what she said.  In a soft whisper she says, “You know your top really doesn’t go with that skirt.”

That’s when I knew I wasn’t getting a movie ending with my mother.  That’s when I realized even now she was trying to perfect me.  Colleen and I started calling these statements her last 100 zingers.  She was dying and she felt there was still a chance for perfection.  She continued to tell all of us what to do, how to be, what was working and what wasn’t with our hair, clothing and lipstick.  In hindsight, she was mothering us until her last breath.  It was a role she felt most comfortable in and I confess, I liked her in it.

Since her passing, I’ve worn some pretty wonderful and then some horrible outfits.  I know this by the photographs that immortalize these choices.  What would she have said?  As this Mother’s Day comes to a close I will freely admit, I miss her and most of all I miss her mothering.  No one cares as much as she did how I present myself to the world.  Two weeks after she died I told my plastic surgeon that there was nothing now stopping me from becoming a topless dancer.  My surgeon had enough sense not to point out I didn’t have breasts anymore to do the job.  Instead, she sweetly laughed and said she was sure my mother’s influence was still with me.  It is.

Courage

14th and Sixth Avenue

Way back in the year 2000, I had a boyfriend who talked often of the magic of Morocco.  Long after his kisses faded from my lips and he was no longer a part of my life, his stories of that far off land remained in my head.  I often fantasized about the place and as luck would have it, the following year I found a photographer’s trip that was going there for two weeks.  I quickly signed up, sent my check in and then became preoccupied with something else until a few days before I was to leave.  I remember going over to the Barnes & Noble on 19^th Street and Sixth Avenue.  The travel section was near the front of the store and I curled up on the floor and began to read and plan my trip.  That’s when I became aware of warnings that single, white, western women weren’t really safe in Morocco.  They are considered low society and it’s not uncommon to be harassed.  I read this in more than one book and as I jumped from one page to the next I started to panic.  I kept muttering, “What have I gotten myself into?”  I cursed the memory of that ex-boyfriend, “It’s his fault.”  By the time I had gotten home with an armload of travel books, I was in full frantic mode and called my Dad.

“I don’t know if I should be going to Morocco.  They don’t like women there!”

“Mae, what are you talking about?”

My parents have traveled the world and it is my father who is the driving force for these adventures.  He could tell by my voice I was emotionally out on a limb and ever so calmly talked me down.  “Mae, I have always wanted to go to Morocco and wish I were you right now.  I’m sure your guides know where to take you.  Just find the courage and you will have an incredible time.”  By the time I hung up, I was emotionally on stronger footing and it was then that I came up with the most brilliant solution.  I went to the corner of 16^th and 6^th Avenue.  There was a corner jewelry store that had a huge red sign in the window that said WE BUY AND SELL GOLD JEWLERY.  This was not a place with a genteel air to buy future heirlooms.  It was a place to strike a deal and I knew they had what I needed.

“I need one gold wedding band,” I told the clerk behind the counter.  He looked at me quizzically and then handed me a tray.  I couldn’t change being white, single or western but I could at least look like I was married.  Once I left with my new ring, I stood on the corner of 6^th  Avenue and 14^th Street and said out loud as I put it on, “With this ring I thee wed Courage.”  Would you believe I actually felt it?  People passed by rushing to someplace else and like the Cowardly Lion I suddenly felt a determination I hadn’t had before.  I was ready for my trip.

I left for Morocco two days later and the society was different.  There was a hint of danger in the air and I took care to respect the culture that is there.  I hiked in the Atlas Mountains and camped in the Sahara desert.  It was an adventure of a lifetime and I would do it all over again.

It wasn’t long after that trip that I sat with Vita at lunch and told her the story.  There was a long pause once I finished and she crinkled her nose, “That was the dumbest story I have ever heard.  Please do me a favor and don’t tell anyone about the ring ever again.”  I rolled my eyes, laughed and said,  “OK.”   I don’t always have my feet planted firmly in reality and maybe this was just silliness on my part.  Vita is my bellwether for sanity.  Yet, I haven’t kept my word on that one – after all, I’ve just told you

Bob Unedited

Julia and Madeleine came to the city a few weekends ago. It was a class trip and they toured all of the attractions I now avoid.  Colleen wasn’t home the other night when I called so Julia and I settled in for a fun chat.

“I just loved the Wax Museum.”

“Really Julia.  Do you think I would like it too?”

“You haven’t been?  Oh definitely you’d like it.  They have statues for young people but there are some for old people too – like the Beatles.”

“Julia, are you telling me I’m old?”

Pause

“Well yeah, you are.”

She said it so matter of fact.  Reality sharpened to a fine point and twisted firmly and precisely into my ego.  I flinched from the pain but knew she wasn’t being malicious.  I let out a laugh instead of a howl.  When I told Lisa about the conversation she said, “She sounds like she has a bit of Bob Unedited.”

Bob Unedited is what we call my father.  Growing up we hadn’t realized that my mother was editing him all of our lives.  They had a 1950’s kind of marriage where he came home at 4:00 in the afternoon, took a nap on the couch, we all sat down for dinner at 5:00 and then he read the paper while we went off to do our homework.  We never actually interacted with my Dad.  Sure, he drove us here there and everywhere but he was always the Dad and at arm’s length.  He didn’t like emotions and we were brimming with them.  Arms length was a comfortable distance for all of us.  The only thing that was driven home to us was that our mother was our responsibility.  She was 11 years younger than him and never paid a bill.  The plan was he would die at a decent age and then we would take care of her.  In December of 2001 the unimaginable happened, my mother was diagnosed with Leiomyosarcoma, cancer of the soft tissue.  She lived another nine years leaving us in September 2010.  My father was in shock.  He still hoped right up until the very end that she would pull through and outlive him.

My mother edited all of us and in a way controlled the family dynamic.  Without her, we were like boats unmoored in a storm.  We unwittingly crashed into each other with words and actions.  My father did most of the crashing as he finally spoke up and his opinions were not laced with praise.  At first, we were shocked by what he would say.  My sister’s and I would confer over the phone and that’s when we started calling him Bob Unedited.

The first Christmas without my mother he raised a glass to give a toast.  He began, “You know I didn’t think much of you people.”  We reached for our glasses as Colleen muttered under her breath, “Oh this should be good.”  The thing about my father is he, like Julia, is not malicious.  He just says the brutal truth without thinking to soften the edges.  He’s also started making cards and is quick to tell you he loves you in poetry.  It’s as though we had never met before and even though life didn’t go according to plan, I’m not sorry it didn’t.  My mother is sorely missed and not a day goes by that I don’t want to call her.  Yet, I am so happy to have gotten to know the unedited version of my Dad.  He has a salty and sweet quality that has added richness to all of our lives.  His toast ended with, “I’m so proud of all of you.  How you pitched in to help with your mother.  How we were able to pull together as a family.”  We drank to that and to all of the unedited days ahead.

My Inheritance

The new ones after surgery

Once upon a time, I had large breasts.  That wasn’t really all that long ago but in a way it also seems a lifetime.  This is their history as I know it.

The big boobs came from my maternal grandmothers side.  As lore would have it, my grandmother lived high up in the Swiss Alps in a remote village.  The Mussa family had nine daughters and each one had an amazing shapely set of breasts more ravishing than the next.  It was the early 1900’s and the corsetiere had to ride horseback through cow pastures and some rough terrain to reach their home.  Twice a year he made this trek to measure and make garments to help those gems defy gravity.  Sixty years later, my Uncle Paul would refer to my great-aunt as “Annie with the high beams.”  Her gravity defying boobs would enter the room a good two minutes before the rest of her.  I digress though.

My grandmother came to the United States in her 20’s and in her 30’s gave birth to her own brood.  It was my mother, her youngest, who inherited the “family treasures.”  I in turn was the only one of 10 granddaughters to inherit the glorious globes.  I was flat chested until the age of 16 but when they appeared it was with painful speed.  I went from nothing to an F with what seemed like a blink of the eye.  In retrospect, it was six torturous months.  My mother and grandmother conspired with glee and whisked me off to Dora’s – the corsetiere shop a few towns away.  They were thrilled and proud to pass on the tradition and in Dora’s was where my initiation began.

This all happened before the days when plastic surgery was the normal way to enhance the everyday girl and Victoria’s Secret was still nothing more than a twinkle in some fellow’s eye.   It was the late 1970’s and Dora’s was the land of grandmothers and gals with big problems.  It was a dark dank store with whispers, heavy curtains and racks upon racks of “unmentionables.”  I was mortified as an old woman sized me.  This was also where I got my first lecture on the care of my inheritance.  “You should never run again.”  My mother told me this while searching through a row of bras.  The sharp scrape of the hanger punctuated the statement.  My grandmother continued with her thick Swiss accent, “Vonce you break za muscles, za breast vill sag forever.”  She shook her little cotton top head in a tsk, tsk fashion.  At the time, women were burning their bras and even though the Mussa women before me were all for women’s rights… beautiful breasts should not be sacrificed for the cause.  They continued warning me that I should stand up straight, as my new breasts would cause a “bookle” by pulling my shoulders forward.  “If you don’t you vil end up like me.”  My grandmother had a little hump on her back, which was the bookle she kept referring to.  Finally they hinted that my breasts should be used for good and not to take advantage of others.  I think the last part was said more out of fear and the great hope that I would keep my reputation in tact.  Large breasts on a young girl can be a magnet for trouble.

On the way home from Dora’s, I sat huddled in the back seat of our four door sedan.  My mother and grandmother had what seemed like a chipper dialog in the front seat.  I had more of a sinking feeling, a bit like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings when he realized the magnitude of the ring.  The gift was too big for me to manage and I really didn’t want it.. or I guess I should say them.  Strapped up in my new bra with a million hooks I was overwhelmed.

It took me years to finally own my breasts and to celebrate their power.  I will gladly admit I enjoyed them for the time I had them.  Now that I’m older, I don’t mind having smaller ones.  As Vita says, “Small breasts make an older woman look younger.”  Let’s face it though, I’m just happy to be here.

The Hot Seat

I always get jittery in May.  It’s the month that reminds me my stay here on earth is temporary.  The first time I got the message I could say, “It hit me like a truck.”  Only, it was a car speeding down 5th Avenue; a double lined road in the small town of East Northport where I grew up.  I was 13 and crossing the street after a friend had given me a ride half-way home.  I remember I was thinking, I really must practice the piano today.  That was all that was in my head at the moment of impact.  My right hip met the right fender of the car and I flew through the air.  I don’t remember the flying part.  I woke up on the road with a crowd gathered around me.  My shoes had been blown off by the impact.  Someone in the distance was screaming,  “She’s dead, she’s dead.”  I could barely comprehend and just lay there.  I wished, actually prayed, this was all a bad dream.  I hated being the center of attention.  My eyes slowly focused on a pair of beige paten-leather boots that stood by my head in line with my eyes.  They were well-worn with nicks at the tips and scuff marks.  I knew them immediately and instead of comfort, I felt dread when I saw them.  I knew then this wasn’t a dream.

I was lying in the middle of the road and there was a man by my left shoulder.  He told me not to move.  I couldn’t have even if I had wanted to.  “Mam is this your daughter?”  The beige boots answered, “Yes, that’s Mae.”  I must have been unconscious for a while as it is a good 5 minute drive from my parents home to the spot I now occupied.  My dad was there too only I didn’t know it then.  He was under the car that hit me fetching my shoes.  My father is very practical and wouldn’t let a perfectly good pair of shoes go to waste.

I was scooped up by a shovel, put on a stretcher into an ambulance and then taken to the hospital.  During the ride, I was asked inane questions.  “What day is this?  What’s your name?  How old are you?”  I know now they were testing me for brain damage.  Back then, they were annoying me as I wanted only to disappear into the stretcher…

No bones broken, just severe bruising and cuts.  I couldn’t walk right and was sent home that night to recover.  My brother’s room was on the first floor of our house and I was put in his bed to convalesce with a cow bell from Switzerland by my side.  My mother thought it would be a good idea for me to ring it when I needed help.  That lasted all of a day as the ring rattled all of our nerves.

The night I came home from the hospital, I had my first realization I would die.  It hadn’t occurred to me until then and I shivered in fear at the thought.  Everyone in the house was asleep.  In the darkness, the fear closed my throat and I nearly drowned in the sadness that enveloped me.  I made it through that night and wouldn’t have that feeling again for another 35 years.  It would be May again and this time the blow would come over the phone.  “I’m so sorry but the core biopsy came back that you have cancer.”  The doctor was so matter of fact.  We talked for a bit as I drifted into shock.  I already had a lumpectomy scheduled for mid month.  Little did I know then that by the end of the month, we would be scheduling my mastectomy.

A year later at the end of May, I went to the gynecologist for a check-up.  Bleeding between periods had me on edge.  The doctor took a biopsy of my uterine wall.  I would learn in June that the cells looked suspicious.  By the end of that month, I had my hysterectomy.  This time they didn’t find cancer, only cells behaving badly.  “Good news,” my surgeon said with a smile,  “We caught it just in time.”  My throat still closes in the night as fear wraps coldly around me.  I hate the idea of my life ending.

May begins in a few days.  If I could skip the month, I would.  Fingers and toes crossed I will avoid the hot seat.  Fingers and toes crossed that maybe, just maybe this will be a dull year.  With any luck, I’ll have another 35 years of dull days.  Fingers and toes crossed, I’ll even take just 20.

It always starts with a tiny square

It's that time again...

“Mae, I ate 3 rolls with butter at lunch.  I was good, I didn’t eat any sugar.”

“Vita, you were supposed to give up sugar and not add anything else!”

I was in Pilates yesterday when my work-out partner Susanna and I decided to give up sugar.  Cortnie, my Pilates trainer, loved the idea.  We agreed not to eat anything with sugar cane or any artificial sweetener for one week.  It’s an unofficial diet of sorts and I invited Vita to be in on it via the phone.  She was all excited but as it turns out the tiny bit of sugar she eats if absent does all sorts of damage.  After the conversation above, I told her it would be OK if she didn’t join me on this challenge.

Every winter I always go off the diet bandwagon.  It begins in February and by April I’m consuming healthy portions of forbidden treats.  It always starts with dark chocolate squares – the lure of healthy anti oxidants and then my consumption blossoms into an uncontrollable desire for a lot of chocolate.   I’m the one buying those big Lindt bars you see in the grocery store.  By the time that moment arrives, my jeans are telling me it’s time to give it all up.

Years ago I used to visit my grandmother at lunch.  It was a long time ago, ahem, it’s been about 20 years.  My sales territory included her neighborhood and I would call her up from a pay phone – cell phones weren’t a part of my life yet – “Grandma, would you like to have lunch?”  I screamed these words into the phone partly because of the traffic on the road and mostly because she was nearly deaf.  Once the message got through she’d say, “Ja, Ja. Ve can have pizza!”  My grandmother was a tiny woman who emigrated from Switzerland in the 1920′s.  She never mastered the English language and had a very thick German accent.  She is the first person I knew who always had a healthy diet with special teas flown in from the Swiss Alps.  Pizza was her idea of a treat.  I’d always buy 3 slices and we’d share the third between us.

Somewhere around that third slice we’d run out of conversation.  That’s when she’d say,”Vat do you do fur a living?”  I’d try to explain but her face would go blank as the words and my explanation were too complicated.  She’d end the description by saying, “You have a good yob!”  Then she’d get up and walk to her bedroom.  I’d start to salivate.  Besides tea, my grandmother had chocolate shipped in from Switzerland.  She kept it hidden in a tin under her bed.  My Aunt Lucy lived with my grandmother and had the most insatiable sweet tooth.  “Lucy vould eat all of my chocolate.  I have to hide it.”  She’d proudly come back to the table holding a tin filled with the finest chocolate.  I didn’t tell her I too wouldn’t mind eating all of it.  My manners kept me from doing so.  She’d cut me two tiny squares which we would eat with tea.

It was lovely.  Two tiny squares of dark chocolate.  It’s such a shame I just can’t stick to that amount!