She's Not Looking for Happily-Ever-After

I imagine it is August and the open window provides a gust of stinky stale air.

Whatever is happening on the street below is nothing to her — my grandmother, framed in the second story window of a New York City tenement.

She is reading a book, a story she already knows in three languages, but there is always the possibility of something unexpected happening. Perhaps this time the heroine will not fall beneath the train.

Not that she minds a little drama. She's not looking for happily-ever-after, like her younger sister, the one everybody is so worried about, the one who is too friendly with strangers and stays out late at night.

My grandmother doesn’t want to fill her head with the troubles of real people. Isn't it enough she has Anna Karenina to worry about?

She licks her right pointer finger and turns a page.

At that exact moment someone in the street below calls her name —Yettela.

At first she can’t see who it is, the sun is in her eyes, and anyway her eyesight is not so good. They say it’s from reading so much but she knows men who wear spectacles and they never read anything, not even the newspapers.

She squints through the open window and recognizes a tall young man standing on the sidewalk beneath her window.

Joseph, what are you doing here?

I came to America, he calls up. Let me in.

And that is how my grandmother and my grandfather found each other again — though neither of them had been looking.

They were not sweethearts before, only neighbors from the same village in the old country. Yetta's father had been Joseph's Hebrew teacher, nothing more than that.

But on that day, in that place, in that light, something caught Joseph’s eye in an upstairs window and he looked up. And that was that.

He always said he liked a woman with a good mind. 

Which Yetta had.

He said he liked a woman who was content with simple things.

Which Yetta was.

Her favorite simple things: a good book and good light. 

Such blessings.

(And maybe a small dish of vanilla ice cream, for no special occasion, just because it's late in the afternoon and the story is coming to an end.)

My Yetta

There is always a wooden bowl on the kitchen table, filled with bananas, apples, oranges, walnuts. There is a nut cracker in the bowl as well. I never see anyone use the nut cracker or eat a nut, we are not that kind of family. Grandma must have read somewhere that nuts and fruits go well together. Sometimes the bananas remain in the bowl too long and they get soft and stinky.

She smells like books borrowed from the small public library down the block, and inexpensive tablets of writing paper for making lists and writing letters to her sisters. The sisters live nearby in the Bronx, except Anna-from-Elizabeth who lives in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Helen is a five minute walk away and Pauline can be reached with a short bus ride. And also, there is the telephone. But the sisters enjoy writing letters and they all have the same handwriting. Yes, she smells faintly of ink. If I lick her, her skin  will release a sweet glueyness left over from envelope flaps and postage stamps.

She has the softest skin. I can sit beside her and rub that tender flap between her thumb and pointer finger and never get tired of it, and she goes into a little trance herself and doesn't shoo me away. One time she catches me staring at the folds of skin hanging loosely from her upper arms and she gets shy and says "don't look" but then she says okay, I can touch, and it feels like warm buttery velvet.

If I am ever sitting on a chair with my legs spread far apart she will catch my eye and then I remember to put my knees together and cross my legs at the ankles and she doesn't have to say a word, I just know.

This is a story she likes to tell: Long ago there was a famous Russian stage actress who was being interviewed for a newspaper and the rude reporter said "Excuse me —— " (insert name of famous Russian actress here) "but do you know your mouth is open?" And the famous Russian actress said "Of course I do, I opened it." I don't understand why this is such a good story but every time she tells it she laughs long and hard.

She has a wonderful laugh.

Our favorite famous American actress is Loretta Young.

When I am reading My Antonia for tenth grade English class she goes to the library and checks out a copy for herself and we read it out loud to each other. She likes Willa Cather but mostly she prefers the writers from her early years: Dostoevsky, Gogol, Chekov, Tolstoy. She recites long passages of Tolstoy in Russian, from memory, and it sounds like she is singing.  

We go together to hear Odetta perform in a high school auditorium in another neighborhood where we don't know anybody. She loves the name Odetta, maybe it reminds her of Odessa, a word/place/memory from her past. At the end of every song she claps, and on the bus ride home she says she especially liked how Odetta's voice is low and deep, like a man's voice.

She has a deep voice and strangers on the telephone often call her Sir.

We go to see The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and another time we see The Pawnbroker. We cry at the end of both movies. We always have at least one handkerchief within easy reach. We are always prepared. 

She keeps two large boxes of tissues on the dressing table: a full, new one on top of an empty old one. After she uses a tissue she puts it into the bottom box, to keep everything sanitary, and I think this is a very smart thing to do.

She has a haphazard collection of silver hair clips but she does not call it a collection. Some are ordinary bobby pins and some are more complicated than that. She wants her hair to be "neat and manageable" which is something she heard on a television commercial. There is always a tube of Alberto VO5 on her dressing table. In her later years she gets her hair cut by a barber because it's more convenient than going to a women's beauty parlor, but she doesn't like the style, it's too short, too blunt. "I don't want to fuss," she says, "a woman my age has no business being vain." (I know it bothers her a lot to get such bad haircuts.)

There is a sound, one sound, an important sound: it is the sound of Grandma in the kitchen, chopping. There is a wooden bowl, much like the fruit and nut bowl, but larger and heavier. She uses a sharp blade with a red handle to make gefilte fish, which doesn't taste very good and requires a lot of hard, noisy work with little reward. She is busy chopping, every Friday afternoon, because what is Friday night dinner without homemade gefilte fish on the table?

There is another sound, a softer sound, a more beautiful sound. It's  the sound of Grandma humming, always humming, every minute humming. Her wordless songs, her never-ending prayer to God, though she never says the word God, not even God bless you if I sneeze. Gesundheit, she says, interrupting her humming and then, in the next breath, returning to it again.

small poems from early winter 2013

before my eyes

amaryllis plant blooms 

first dream in the new year

my neighbor's wind chimes

welcome in the new year — 

on another street

someone plays their saxophone

Georgia On My Mind

so low

the yew tree

after the snow

thoughts of an asymmetrical haircut 

tipping my head

to the left

swerving into the 

Kosher Foods aisle 

Grandma, I am thinking of you

my neighbor's sheets 

huge prayer flags in their side yard 

crows hover

we pass on the street 

her aging face 

I remember when she was born

she reminds me 

of someone I once knew —

I must remember that she is new

morning walk:

decomposing snowman —

barefoot girl in a summer frock

the crows — her departure

the crows — her return

clothesline 

a plain white sheet —

my neighbor is lonely

January morning

waiting for you —

peonies

midnight loneliness

drip drip drip drip drip

icicles

strawberries

always remind me of you —

the way you offered them

in that blue bowl

the first time we met

spider

I'm happy to share the bathroom with you

this cold night

alone

in the snow —

morning crow

dear moon

I think I saw you 

shivering tonight

shoveling snow

under the full moon —

my neighbors seem friendlier

going through our changes

you and I

and the moon, too

heron

fishing for the moon

one long cold evening

sweeping snow —

the broom loses strands of straw —

what do I lose?

for 22 years

I never looked up —

when I did

I found you,

dear moon

plastic plant 

on the side of the road

yes, it feels the cold 

snow —

just snow —

now here comes a crow

first its shadow

then the crow

swooping low

lazy day

watching icicles melt

nothing more

curious crow

eyeing my grocery bag

I watch you watching me

the way a mountain moves —

that's what I mean by

"slow kissing"

Flirtatious Moon

there you are

playing footsie with the stars

Rejuvenating Moon

when I feel old and tired

I look for you

Veiled Moon

alas — I don't yet understand

the language of eyes

Sneezy Moon

for you, an origami rose

made from a tissue —

Gesundheit!

Bewitching Moon

the window shades refused 

to shut you out last night

Snowy Day Moon

so lucky —

nobody expects you to shovel

Whispering Moon

come a little closer

I don't want to miss a word

Valentine Moon

a warm red glow

your way of sending roses —

merci

Carnival Moon

I tried to warn you

about the roller coaster

3 a.m. Moon

you and I 

awake, together —

come down and snuggle

March Moon

as your heart opens

the birds return

===

A friend from the old neighborhood —

I call it "the old country" —

reminds me of what it was like, our childhoods

living under the same roof with dozens of other families

each behind its own apartment door

the connecting walls so thin

you'd hear a stranger sneeze

how safe it felt

how dangerous

anonymous togetherness

the collective inhale/exhale

the way we avoided eye contact in the elevator

How Would You Draw the Way Memory Slips Out and In

after she washed out the teapot

she couldn't remember what it was for 

standing in the cold pink light of early morning

her robe hanging open

her bare feet numb on the linoleum

cradling the clean teapot in her chapped hands

patient

while her brain shifts slightly

left, then right

oh yes

she proceeds to make herself

a pot of tea

The Good Old Days

Today isn’t a good day for Petunia Goldberg-Greene. It isn’t a good day for the frog, either, although if Petunia had her way the frog would have been a lot happier. If Petunia had her way, the frog would have been alive. But Mr. McBee had his way and, alas, the frog is dead. 

And Petunia is in deep trouble. Although she doesn’t understand why.  She only threatened to do to Mr. McBee what he ordered her to do to the frog. She only threatened to do to him what he in fact got Rodney Potemkin to actually do to the frog. 

It must be said that through all of this, Petunia never blamed Rodney, “a dupe of the bosses,” as she called him, for which she was nearly pummeled, since Rodney mistakenly thought he’d been called a dope. But she was spared by the timely crash of a test tube, flung from across the room by Shalimar Schwartz, who has harbored a deep and abiding love for Petunia since the third grade, his hatred for Rodney going back at least that far. 

The flying test tube missed Rodney by a mile — Shalimar has a heart as big as the Atlantic Ocean but his aim is as crooked as his twice-broken nose — and landed smack in the middle of Mr. McBee’s forehead, resulting in much broken glass and a lot of screaming. 

In the ensuing pandemonium the frog could have been set free, if only it hadn’t already been so thoroughly massacred by Rodney’s swiftly-wielded blade. 

Before the end-of-class bell had even rung, Petunia and Rodney and Shalimar and Mr. McBee and a few other concerned citizens were marching into Principal Millback’s office, everyone talking at once, which didn’t trouble Ms. Millback, she being a wee bit deaf, but feeling she should retain an iota of dignity, she blew her police whistle with such gusto that Mr. McBee, who was standing closest to her at the time, actually began to cry. Surprisingly fulsome tears for a man with such a thick neck and broad shoulders. The sight of such misery nearly melted Petunia’ angry little heart, at least enough to make her reach out a hand toward the man, for comfort, which he unfortunately mistook for an attack, and various unpleasant words escaped from his blubbering lips. 

The upshot of the whole affair is this: Mr. McBee resigned on the spot; Rodney Potemkin was expelled for carrying a concealed switchblade in the waistband of his boxer shorts (how Principal Millback had the presence of mind to frisk the young hoodlum has still  not been satisfactorily explained); Petunia was sent home early so she could “contemplate the effects of her excesses,” as it was phrased in the letter Ms. Millback wrote to her parents but which, of course, never made it past the first public trash bin; and Shalimar Schwartz met with an unfortunate mishap at precisely 2:54 p.m. when he was jumped from behind by Jeremy Potemkin, Rodney’s younger brother, and in the resulting skirmish Shalimar’s nose was broken for the third time in his young life, a fact that his mother is still at a loss to explain. 

“Things like this never happened to me when I was their age,” complained Tippy Schwartz over the phone to Miranda Goldberg-Greene, who tut-tutted sympathetically but was prevented from saying more by the unexpected arrival of her husband, Theodore “Toots” Goldberg-Greene, the Traveling Troubadour of Trenton, who showed up at that exact moment after an absence of seven weeks, three days, and 6.5 hours, causing Miranda Goldberg-Greene to drop the telephone as she rushed to embrace the travel-weary, but still devilishly handsome, Toots, and neither of them paid the slightest attention to, nor were they even aware of, the ceaseless whine of Tippy Schwartz as she bemoaned the passing of The Good Old Days.  

The Mousekins

Emily and Charlotte Mousekin are twins. They live in a hole with their mother and father, 2 sets of grandparents, 29 aunts and uncles and 183 cousins. 

Emily and Charlotte don’t like a big crowd. They’re happiest when it’s just the two of them, but with a family like theirs it’s hard to find any privacy. Someone is always coming around to remind them of Poor Little Louisa, their fourth cousin twice removed, who went exploring one day and was picked off by the Barbarians Upstairs. 

Emily and Charlotte are determined this will never happen to them. Which is why they stay close to one another at all times, very close, whiskers-to-whiskers or tail to tail. And they are always whispering and giggling, because they are silly mice, and even though they are the heroines of this story there is something you should know about them right now: not everyone considers them adorable.

Their own mother, Mrs. Evangeline Lucretia Davenport Mousekin, thinks they are terribly annoying. And who can blame her? To have twin girls who are always whispering and giggling together is most vexing. And there’s something else Emily and Charlotte do. They speak backwards. You can imagine how that would get on your nerves after a while.

One day — it was a rainy Thursday morning in fact — the two little mice were playing with their cousins, Reginald Murgatroyd and Dandelion Mousekin-Pouncekin, in the playroom in the hole behind the staircase in the house that the Barbarians Upstairs thought was their own. 

Emily and Charlotte would have preferred to do anything else, but they were given no choice. “Play nicely,” instructed Aunt Murgatroyd. “Don’t get up to any funny business,” warned Aunt Mousekin-Pouncekin. 

The four cousins were playing with a marble. Or it might have been a pea. Or perhaps it was a glass eye from some long-forgotten doll. In any case, it was round. You might not know this but mice, especially young mice, love round things. The little round object, be it marble, pea, or glass eye, was being rolled from Charlotte to Reginald to Dandy to Emily, over and over and over and over and over. 

You or I would have gotten bored by now but that’s something else you should know about young mice: they never get bored.

All of a sudden, just as Reginald was rolling the round thing to Dandy it . . . . vanished. This is how it happened: first it was there, and then it wasn’t there. When things like that occur it is quite disturbing. Reginald and Dandy, being slightly sluggish, were only mildly disturbed. But Emily and Charlotte, who are two little smarties, were horrified. Things are not just supposed to disappear before your very eyes. 

"Tahw dennepah ?” asked Charlotte.

“I evah on aedi,"replied Emily.

“Siht si dab,” cried Charlotte.

"Yrrrev yrrrev yrrrev dab,” agreed Emily.

Allow me to translate for you:

“What happened?”

“I have no idea.”

“This is bad.”

“Verrry verrry verrry bad.”

And it was. Because even below stairs, in the smallest corner of the darkest hole, there must be some sense of order. And a round thing, be it marble, pea or a doll’s glass eye, should just not, all of a sudden, for no good reason at all, disappear.

In her confusion and distress, Emily bit Cousin Reginald Murgatroyd on his right shoulder. Then Charlotte kicked Cousin Dandelion Mousekin-Pouncekin on the ankle. 

Reginald and Dandy scampered off to find their mothers, howling all the way, and by the time Emily and Charlotte returned to the family room there was a general uproar.

Eighteen out of their 29 aunts and uncles were demanding an explanation. All 183 of their cousins, including Reginald and Dandy of course, were shouting “Rotters.”

Luckily their father, Mr. Harold P. Mousekin, was off on a field trip that day and their grandparents, always so kind, only went “tut tut tut,” which in mouse language is pronounced “tsk tsk tsk.”

But their mother, Mrs. Evangeline Lucretia Davenport Mousekin, was most perturbed.

“Why were you girls so mean to your cousins?” she demanded.

“Ew era tneconni,” exclaimed Emily and Charlotte.

“Nonsense,” replied their mother, stamping her delicate right front paw. “You are never innocent.”

Emily and Charlotte knew they were in the soup. No amount of denial could get them out of this one, and they couldn’t say a word about the disappearing round thing because — well, to be honest, they did not want to cause pandemonium among the relatives. You know how an Unexplainable Occurrence is likely to do just that. 

“Yrros,” said Emily. “Yrros, yrros,” added Charlotte.

“Sorry is just not good enough,” said their mother. And she banished her daughters to their room. 

A short while later, Mrs. Evangeline Lucretia Davenport Mousekin softened, just a teeny tiny bit, and came to the girls in their dark little corner. 

“Well, here you are then,” she said, and put a plate of cheese down in front of them. Emily and Charlotte were ecstatic. Naturally.

“Muy, muy, muy,” they mumbled, while chewing.

So Emily and Charlotte spent the rest of the day doing exactly what they most liked to do: whispering and giggling, talking backwards, eating cheese, and being alone . . . together.

As for the Disappearing Round Thing, it was never mentioned again, neither frontwards nor backwards, because Emily and Charlotte don't like talking about things they can't explain.

inspired by "An Exaltation of Larks"

A number of years ago I came upon James Lipton's book, An Exaltation of Larks — a compilation of “nouns of assemblage” like a murder of crows, an ostentation of peacocks, an unkindness of ravens — and it inspired me to come up with my own list. I recently uncovered it in my files and decided to share it here. 

a scribble of writers

a storm of sneezes

a ladder of braids

a smudge of bifocals

an unraveling of sweaters

a squiggle of infants

a mischief of monkeys

a stat of numbers

a loosening of buttons

a snaggle of zippers

a dizziness of quilts

a frustration of dictionaries

a tease of masks

an insult of cell phones

a confusion of schedules

a tardiness of clocks

a mirage of dollars

a chaos of bills

a meanness of gossips

a dryness of crackers

a sturdiness of shoes

a flicker of shadows

a drift of dreams

a stutter of doubts

a flowering of bonnets

an order of plaids

a breathing of African violets

an inhalation of spices

a comfort of teas

a grit of sands

a tickle of feathers

a knot of noodles

a sliver of splinters

a comfort of snores

a collapse of bridges

a disappointment of locked doors

an embarking of train stations

a lightness of wallets

a deficit of compliments

a twitch of whiskers

a robbery of taxes

a bouquet of kisses

an avalanche of e-mails

a scrabble of vowels

a temptation of transgressions

a snivel of pities

a drizzle of sadness

a dismay of dentists

an indignity of betrayals

a brevity of snapshots

a breath of haiku

an indulgence of complaints

a satisfaction of soups

a taunt of Aprils

an embarrassment of typos

a blizzard of second thoughts

an illusion of failures

a promise of vitamins

a persistence of memories

a tearing of onions

a snuggle of kittens

a surprise of mornings

an appearance of mirrors

an awakening of bells

a relief of naps

a potential of buds

a burden of laundry

a gauze of clouds

a shame of dust balls

a luck of bamboo

a vagary of forgetfulness

a dylan of harmonicas

a pillow of laps

a justification of excuses

a clutch of pocketbooks

a skip of crocuses

a squirm of itches

an erasure of unworthiness

a blunting of pencils

a dreariness of regrets

an invitation of tambourines 

a pucker of crab apples

a plodding of footsteps

an approximation of absolutes

a refreshment of mints

a humbling of apologies

an attentiveness of ears

a euphoria of euphoniums

an opportunity of Saturdays

a contradiction of proofs