Thursday, June 23, 2016
You Seem to be You
you seem to be you and I seem to be me —
but who knows?
is it possible we are apple seeds in the same sweet apple?
or hats perched atop mannequins in a shop window
in oooh-lala-Paris?
and if we are hats
then I want to have a wide brim with a floppy purple flower
(a peony?) hanging down the right side
and you can be whatever kind of hat you want to be
I am not feeling especially bossy today
but I will say this
if it turns out you are not you
and I am not me
and we are neither apple seeds
nor bird feathers
nor woven rugs
nor roller skates
nor pine trees . . .
if you are not you and I am not me
and we are two different people
who don't yet know each other
then my biggest wish
is for us to meet one day
and recognize some unmistakable spark
to be drawn together by a bright light
or a pleasant smell
or a strong vibration
or a single musical note
it could be anything
as long as we connect again
(or would it be considered the first time?)
because
what other reason would there be
to get up in the morning
====
With thanks to Terrence Keenan for his poem "A Sweetness Appears and Prevails." His opening lines ("The reason we bother/ to get up in the morning") and the phrase toward the end ("You seem to be you/ and I seem to be me") led me into my poem
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Father Stories (revisited)
(I shared these pieces long ago but I thought I'd post them again, since Father's Day is coming up on June 19.)
Ketchup is Not a Red Food
Every life has its tragedies. Choices are made and fates are sealed.
My father would have been a lot happier if he’d married into a Sicilian family, not a Russian Jewish one. That was his tragedy. He’s much more of a marinara sauce kind of a guy than a blintzes and sour cream kind of a guy. He likes his food red, not white.
For too many Friday nights in his life he ate dinner with his in-laws: boiled chicken, room-temperature peas, two slices of toasted white bread with a schmear of margarine, all washed down with a glass of hot water and lemon. Sometimes, for variety, there were lamb chops, broiled to the brink of incineration. And every now and then, spaghetti. Cooked for half an hour until it was whiter than white. It doesn't get any paler than that. If Dad wanted his spaghetti red, he would have had to put ketchup on it. He would rather have given up cigars for a month than eat spaghetti with ketchup. Somehow, in his mind, ketchup is not a red food. Ketchup is Evil incarnate.
It’s probably not a good idea, in terms of mental health, to pick one food — not even a food, just a condiment — and demonize it in this way.
When the first MacDonald’s opened in our neighborhood, my father demanded to see the manager, a skinny man with bad hair whose plastic badge identified him as Sylvester O’Malley. My father yelled at Mr. O’Malley. He said ketchup had no business on a quarter-pounder. Mr. O’Malley threatened to call the police if my father didn’t leave.
My father walks out of diners all across the country because a ketchup bottle accompanies a plateful of french fries. And I don’t mean just walks out, as in pays the bill and leaves quietly. I mean makes a fuss, complete with accusations of imbecility, threats to contact the better business bureau, and near-fatal encounters with irate waitresses who are perfectly capable of hitting obnoxious customers over the head with a hot coffee pot.
You could say my father’s taken a stand and he’s not letting go. Sure, you could say that, as if it were something of value, something even remotely significant. But come on, the man has taken a stand against ketchup.
When Ronald Reagan said “let them eat ketchup,” or words to that effect, when asked why the nation’s children were not getting any vegetables with their school lunches, my father was ready to take the next plane to Washington. He was prepared to stand in front of the White House with a sign proclaiming “Ketchup is Un-American.”
My mother had to remind him that he’d voted for Reagan. My mother, who has had to endure a lifetime of being married to a card-carrying Republican, is the one who had to hold him back. Poor woman.
And poor man, too. Really. I mean it. Maybe he was born with faulty DNA in the ketchup spiral. What do I know? I’m not a doctor. All I can tell you is, when my parents go out to eat my mother calls ahead and warns the restaurant owner that they’re coming. She says her husband is likely to order every red item on the menu but if there’s a ketchup bottle in sight he’ll bring the house down.
She tells me she’s given up trying to cure him of his demons. Now all she’s interested in is damage control.
Restaurant Dream
In the dream my father and I are in a restaurant, just the two of us. This is something we have never done in real life, we have never gone out to eat together.
But in the dream, we’re in a nice restaurant and he isn’t yelling at the waiter because his fork is dirty, or because he did not ask for ice in his water, or because he was seated too close to the bathrooms.
My father is calm, amiable, natural. And so am I.
The two of us are eating salad. How healthy! I think this, even in the dream. We each have a plate of greens before us and we eat slowly as we talk.
I don’t know what we’re talking about but we’re not arguing, just talking, the way some people do with each other, the way some fathers and daughters do, friendly, just shooting the breeze.
There’s not a ketchup bottle in sight. A ketchup bottle could set him off, but there isn’t one — my dream is cooperating.
We’re just sitting and talking and eating and it’s very nice, maybe a little bit like heaven, if you imagine heaven as a nice restaurant where the silverware is always clean.
Which I don’t, and this is my dream, so I’d say: not heaven. Just a bit of a reprieve in the middle of this all-too-real world.
Some sweet time in a restaurant. Salad, low talking, a father and daughter.
My father and me. Together, in a dream.
In another life.
Ketchup is Not a Red Food
Every life has its tragedies. Choices are made and fates are sealed.
My father would have been a lot happier if he’d married into a Sicilian family, not a Russian Jewish one. That was his tragedy. He’s much more of a marinara sauce kind of a guy than a blintzes and sour cream kind of a guy. He likes his food red, not white.
For too many Friday nights in his life he ate dinner with his in-laws: boiled chicken, room-temperature peas, two slices of toasted white bread with a schmear of margarine, all washed down with a glass of hot water and lemon. Sometimes, for variety, there were lamb chops, broiled to the brink of incineration. And every now and then, spaghetti. Cooked for half an hour until it was whiter than white. It doesn't get any paler than that. If Dad wanted his spaghetti red, he would have had to put ketchup on it. He would rather have given up cigars for a month than eat spaghetti with ketchup. Somehow, in his mind, ketchup is not a red food. Ketchup is Evil incarnate.
It’s probably not a good idea, in terms of mental health, to pick one food — not even a food, just a condiment — and demonize it in this way.
When the first MacDonald’s opened in our neighborhood, my father demanded to see the manager, a skinny man with bad hair whose plastic badge identified him as Sylvester O’Malley. My father yelled at Mr. O’Malley. He said ketchup had no business on a quarter-pounder. Mr. O’Malley threatened to call the police if my father didn’t leave.
My father walks out of diners all across the country because a ketchup bottle accompanies a plateful of french fries. And I don’t mean just walks out, as in pays the bill and leaves quietly. I mean makes a fuss, complete with accusations of imbecility, threats to contact the better business bureau, and near-fatal encounters with irate waitresses who are perfectly capable of hitting obnoxious customers over the head with a hot coffee pot.
You could say my father’s taken a stand and he’s not letting go. Sure, you could say that, as if it were something of value, something even remotely significant. But come on, the man has taken a stand against ketchup.
When Ronald Reagan said “let them eat ketchup,” or words to that effect, when asked why the nation’s children were not getting any vegetables with their school lunches, my father was ready to take the next plane to Washington. He was prepared to stand in front of the White House with a sign proclaiming “Ketchup is Un-American.”
My mother had to remind him that he’d voted for Reagan. My mother, who has had to endure a lifetime of being married to a card-carrying Republican, is the one who had to hold him back. Poor woman.
And poor man, too. Really. I mean it. Maybe he was born with faulty DNA in the ketchup spiral. What do I know? I’m not a doctor. All I can tell you is, when my parents go out to eat my mother calls ahead and warns the restaurant owner that they’re coming. She says her husband is likely to order every red item on the menu but if there’s a ketchup bottle in sight he’ll bring the house down.
She tells me she’s given up trying to cure him of his demons. Now all she’s interested in is damage control.
Restaurant Dream
In the dream my father and I are in a restaurant, just the two of us. This is something we have never done in real life, we have never gone out to eat together.
But in the dream, we’re in a nice restaurant and he isn’t yelling at the waiter because his fork is dirty, or because he did not ask for ice in his water, or because he was seated too close to the bathrooms.
My father is calm, amiable, natural. And so am I.
The two of us are eating salad. How healthy! I think this, even in the dream. We each have a plate of greens before us and we eat slowly as we talk.
I don’t know what we’re talking about but we’re not arguing, just talking, the way some people do with each other, the way some fathers and daughters do, friendly, just shooting the breeze.
There’s not a ketchup bottle in sight. A ketchup bottle could set him off, but there isn’t one — my dream is cooperating.
We’re just sitting and talking and eating and it’s very nice, maybe a little bit like heaven, if you imagine heaven as a nice restaurant where the silverware is always clean.
Which I don’t, and this is my dream, so I’d say: not heaven. Just a bit of a reprieve in the middle of this all-too-real world.
Some sweet time in a restaurant. Salad, low talking, a father and daughter.
My father and me. Together, in a dream.
In another life.
Monday, May 2, 2016
Coming to Ithaca
Note: On Saturday, April 30, I wrote with a group of people in the gallery space at the Community School of Music and Art, in a workshop sponsored by the Community Arts Partnership for the Spring Writes Literary Festival. We were inspired by paintings, photographs, and sculptures on the theme "A Sense of Place." The art show focused on places in Ithaca. Which led to this piece of "Family Fiction" (only semi-autobiographical).
It is September, 1968. I am leaving for college.
My bags are all packed. They've been packed for days. And now the green Dodge Dart is stuffed to the gills. We leave the Bronx early in the morning, heading north, expecting to arrive in Ithaca in time for a late lunch.
The trip ends up taking more than nine hours. My father is a nervous driver under the best of circumstances, which these are not. He still doesn't understand why I'm going so far from home. There are plenty of colleges in NYC, he says — "the best ones" — there is even a college across the reservoir from our apartment building, we can see it when we look out the living room windows. "You could walk there," my father says, as if that is a good thing.
The night before we leave For The North I hear him and my mother talking in the kitchen. "Eve," he says, "are you sure they'll have drug stores in that fakakta town? She'll need to buy, you know, her womanly stuff."
My mother is getting fed up with him. "Don't be ridiculous, Morty, they'll have drug stores there, it's still America, she can buy all the tampons she needs."
My father is still not convinced. "Maybe you should tell her to pack extra, just to be safe." "Give me a break, Morty."
In the morning they squeeze me into the back seat, surrounded by a duffle bag and three suitcases, my new electric typewriter, the stereo I bought with the money I earned that summer as a temp typist, and my guitar. I can't move.
Mom has already told dad he is forbidden to smoke in the car. That's why it takes us so long to get to Ithaca. He stops every half hour to pee and to smoke his cigar. At every gas station, rest stop, pull-over, scenic lookout, he gets out of the car and takes care of business.
My mother and I stay inside. I couldn't move even if I wanted to. Mom hasn't given me advice in years. Now she starts. "I want you to promise me something, honey. I want you to promise that you won't stifle your cough."
I have a cough, the remains of a late summer cold. My mother knows me too well. She knows I am planning to cough into my pillow at night so I won't disturb my roommate. "Okay Mom," I say, though I am lying.
"And something else," she says, trying to cram as much in as she can while my father is out of the car, "I want you to wear your clothes, don't save them, you have nice things, let people see that." "Okay Mom," I say. I am lying again.
My mother packed dresses for me, and blouses with rounded collars, and pants, which she calls "slacks." But I already know I will wear my jeans, the peasant blouses I bought in Greenwich Village, my Danskin tops, backwards, so the zipper is in the front and it looks like I am wearing a V-neck shirt. And my green suede Olaf Daughters clogs, even though they give me blisters on my toes. I have it all planned out.
"And honey," she's on a roll, "if anything happens that upsets you, anything you want to talk about, call me. Not just if you're upset, even if you're happy. Of course, if you're happy, call me. Call me collect. Call me every day."
My mother is babbling. My beautiful strong wise practical no-nonsense mother. She resisted Dad's insane worrying for months but now, in the last hours, as Ithaca looms, she is falling to pieces in the car.
I lean over and pat her on the shoulder. "Mom," I say, "Mommy," (more reassuringly) "I will be fine." "I know you will, honey, I'm just saying . . ."
But then my father gets back into the car, stinking from his cigar, and it's obvious he's been thinking while he smoked. He starts right up. "That roommate they gave you, that girl from Winniekaka?" "Yes Dad, my roommate from Winnetka. That's in Illinois." "So?" he says, "Illinois is not New York, is it? The chances are she's never met anyone Jewish before."
"Shut up, Morty," my mother says. "Daddy," I say, "I bet she'll be really nice. We'll be friends. It will all be good."
And it was. It was very good. My roommate, the dorm, my classes, the drug stores, the whole town. It was all good.
Forty-eight years later — I am still here.
It is September, 1968. I am leaving for college.
My bags are all packed. They've been packed for days. And now the green Dodge Dart is stuffed to the gills. We leave the Bronx early in the morning, heading north, expecting to arrive in Ithaca in time for a late lunch.
The trip ends up taking more than nine hours. My father is a nervous driver under the best of circumstances, which these are not. He still doesn't understand why I'm going so far from home. There are plenty of colleges in NYC, he says — "the best ones" — there is even a college across the reservoir from our apartment building, we can see it when we look out the living room windows. "You could walk there," my father says, as if that is a good thing.
The night before we leave For The North I hear him and my mother talking in the kitchen. "Eve," he says, "are you sure they'll have drug stores in that fakakta town? She'll need to buy, you know, her womanly stuff."
My mother is getting fed up with him. "Don't be ridiculous, Morty, they'll have drug stores there, it's still America, she can buy all the tampons she needs."
My father is still not convinced. "Maybe you should tell her to pack extra, just to be safe." "Give me a break, Morty."
In the morning they squeeze me into the back seat, surrounded by a duffle bag and three suitcases, my new electric typewriter, the stereo I bought with the money I earned that summer as a temp typist, and my guitar. I can't move.
Mom has already told dad he is forbidden to smoke in the car. That's why it takes us so long to get to Ithaca. He stops every half hour to pee and to smoke his cigar. At every gas station, rest stop, pull-over, scenic lookout, he gets out of the car and takes care of business.
My mother and I stay inside. I couldn't move even if I wanted to. Mom hasn't given me advice in years. Now she starts. "I want you to promise me something, honey. I want you to promise that you won't stifle your cough."
I have a cough, the remains of a late summer cold. My mother knows me too well. She knows I am planning to cough into my pillow at night so I won't disturb my roommate. "Okay Mom," I say, though I am lying.
"And something else," she says, trying to cram as much in as she can while my father is out of the car, "I want you to wear your clothes, don't save them, you have nice things, let people see that." "Okay Mom," I say. I am lying again.
My mother packed dresses for me, and blouses with rounded collars, and pants, which she calls "slacks." But I already know I will wear my jeans, the peasant blouses I bought in Greenwich Village, my Danskin tops, backwards, so the zipper is in the front and it looks like I am wearing a V-neck shirt. And my green suede Olaf Daughters clogs, even though they give me blisters on my toes. I have it all planned out.
"And honey," she's on a roll, "if anything happens that upsets you, anything you want to talk about, call me. Not just if you're upset, even if you're happy. Of course, if you're happy, call me. Call me collect. Call me every day."
My mother is babbling. My beautiful strong wise practical no-nonsense mother. She resisted Dad's insane worrying for months but now, in the last hours, as Ithaca looms, she is falling to pieces in the car.
I lean over and pat her on the shoulder. "Mom," I say, "Mommy," (more reassuringly) "I will be fine." "I know you will, honey, I'm just saying . . ."
But then my father gets back into the car, stinking from his cigar, and it's obvious he's been thinking while he smoked. He starts right up. "That roommate they gave you, that girl from Winniekaka?" "Yes Dad, my roommate from Winnetka. That's in Illinois." "So?" he says, "Illinois is not New York, is it? The chances are she's never met anyone Jewish before."
"Shut up, Morty," my mother says. "Daddy," I say, "I bet she'll be really nice. We'll be friends. It will all be good."
And it was. It was very good. My roommate, the dorm, my classes, the drug stores, the whole town. It was all good.
Forty-eight years later — I am still here.
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Morning Poem for Blue
you are in newark now
awaiting the next flight
that will take you
west
my sneakers are laced —
i found the good umbrella —
time to walk north
then east
to the nearest waterfall
it's raining hard
water on water
this is what i do to feel close to you
(tuesday, april 26, 7:40 a.m.)
Thursday, February 4, 2016
My Yetta (re-posting from an earlier time)
I
wrote this a while ago but today I wanted to share it again because my
Grandma Yetta was in my thoughts. (She always is. But most especially
today.)
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, Chekhov, 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.
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, Chekhov, 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.
Friday, January 29, 2016
If You Can't Change a Light Bulb
I wrote this story years ago, and even posted it on my blog before, but I wanted to share it again today. Because a light bulb blew and I changed it all by myself! (You'll see why this is something to celebrate if you keep on reading.)
We always lived in apartments when I was growing up, but my father had big dreams.
“One day, kids, we’ll move to the suburbs. We’ll have a little garden. Maybe even some chickens.”
When my mother heard this she made that sound of hers. I can’t spell it. There aren’t the right letters in our alphabet to spell it. If I had to try, it would start with a ha sound. But it wasn’t ha. It was more disappointed than ha. It was ha with a sigh thrown in. And some exasperation, too.
My father didn’t like that sound.
“What?” he asked, ”what makes you say it won’t happen?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said plenty.”
Dad was right, that ha of hers did say plenty. It said we were never going to live in the suburbs. We’d never put our hands in the dirt of a garden. There would be no tomatoes or peas or lettuce to pick for dinner. There would definitely not be chickens to do whatever a person did with chickens.
And here’s why:
My father couldn’t change a light bulb.
If you can’t change a light bulb, you can’t live in a house in the suburbs with a garden and chickens.
If you can’t change a light bulb it means you have to live your whole life in an apartment building where there is a super and a super’s assistant — men you call up when the light bulb blows and they arrive within the hour, with a ladder and a flashlight and a new bulb. They carry toolboxes and they not only know the name of each tool but they know how to use them. They have wrenches and screwdrivers and they carry nails in their pockets and hammers hang from special loops on their belts.
My father didn’t know from hammers. He was entirely dependent on the super and his assistant. And not only for the light bulb situation but also for leaky faucets and running toilets and — God forbid — what if water comes in through the window when it rains? What if the thermostat breaks? What if a ceiling tile falls down? What if the refrigerator gets too cold, or too hot, or stops working completely?
Unexpected disasters lurk around every corner. Not everyone can handle them on their own. That is why my family was doomed to a life of apartment dwelling.
That’s what my mother meant by that ha of hers, that was so much more than a ha. Dad couldn’t change a light bulb. There would be no fresh-from-the-earth food for us; no eggs from a chicken; no milk from a cow.
Wait a minute, wait minute, who said anything about a cow?
Well, a girl can have dreams too, can’t she?
I learned that from my father.
We always lived in apartments when I was growing up, but my father had big dreams.
“One day, kids, we’ll move to the suburbs. We’ll have a little garden. Maybe even some chickens.”
When my mother heard this she made that sound of hers. I can’t spell it. There aren’t the right letters in our alphabet to spell it. If I had to try, it would start with a ha sound. But it wasn’t ha. It was more disappointed than ha. It was ha with a sigh thrown in. And some exasperation, too.
My father didn’t like that sound.
“What?” he asked, ”what makes you say it won’t happen?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said plenty.”
Dad was right, that ha of hers did say plenty. It said we were never going to live in the suburbs. We’d never put our hands in the dirt of a garden. There would be no tomatoes or peas or lettuce to pick for dinner. There would definitely not be chickens to do whatever a person did with chickens.
And here’s why:
My father couldn’t change a light bulb.
If you can’t change a light bulb, you can’t live in a house in the suburbs with a garden and chickens.
If you can’t change a light bulb it means you have to live your whole life in an apartment building where there is a super and a super’s assistant — men you call up when the light bulb blows and they arrive within the hour, with a ladder and a flashlight and a new bulb. They carry toolboxes and they not only know the name of each tool but they know how to use them. They have wrenches and screwdrivers and they carry nails in their pockets and hammers hang from special loops on their belts.
My father didn’t know from hammers. He was entirely dependent on the super and his assistant. And not only for the light bulb situation but also for leaky faucets and running toilets and — God forbid — what if water comes in through the window when it rains? What if the thermostat breaks? What if a ceiling tile falls down? What if the refrigerator gets too cold, or too hot, or stops working completely?
Unexpected disasters lurk around every corner. Not everyone can handle them on their own. That is why my family was doomed to a life of apartment dwelling.
That’s what my mother meant by that ha of hers, that was so much more than a ha. Dad couldn’t change a light bulb. There would be no fresh-from-the-earth food for us; no eggs from a chicken; no milk from a cow.
Wait a minute, wait minute, who said anything about a cow?
Well, a girl can have dreams too, can’t she?
I learned that from my father.
Friday, January 22, 2016
Remembering Patty Play Pal
I am re-posting a story from a long time ago, a bit of Family Fiction, because I was remembering the dolls yesterday.
The first rival for my parents’ affection was not my younger sister, Laura. It was Patty Play Pal, who arrived in our lives when I was eight and Laura nearly six.
At first we thought of Patty as our new sister. She stood halfway between us in height and we’d take turns combing and brushing and braiding her long, straight black hair. Both of us had short hair — Mom said it was easier to manage that way — but I still had a treasured stash of ribbons and bows, headbands and barrettes, from the days before the “practical haircut,” and took great pleasure in adorning Patty with every imaginable accessory.
We quickly re-named her Patty Rachel Shoshanna Play Pal, after our just-born baby cousin, and assigned her the role of teacher’s pet in the classroom we ruled over on Saturday mornings. Before my parents were even awake, Laura and I would convert our shared bedroom into a one-room schoolhouse, propping all our dolls up on our beds, stiff-backed against the wall. Posture was an important aspect of the curriculum.
There was Gladys and Mimi and Peggy One and Peggy Two and Squinty and Babette and Susie-Susie and Heidi. These were just your garden variety dolls. They weren’t especially pretty or bright. Sometimes, even, they were very, very bad and had to go sit in the corner as punishment. But Patty Rachel Shoshanna — at last, a pupil worthy of us.
Patty Rachel Shoshanna could spell, she could add and subtract, she had beautiful penmanship, a good memory for historic dates, and truly exceptional posture. She was without a doubt our star pupil, and if Mimi or Heidi hated her guts, well, they never said anything to us about it. If they had, they would have been punished. Envy was not a characteristic we encouraged in our school.
All went well for a number of weeks. Patty Rachel Shoshanna continued to get gold stars every Saturday morning; her hair was always neat and shiny; she looked adorable in her pleated plaid skirt and clean white blouse, and she never spoke without first raising her hand. Laura and I were in love with her.
Until we realized that our parents loved her as well. Maybe a little too much. Dad, a guy with a strong predisposition toward the literal, was impressed by how real she seemed. “Would you look at those eyelashes, how’d they manage to do that? And her fingernails! Kids, I’m telling you, it’s amazing what science can accomplish these days.” (You’d think NASA was about to send her to the moon.)
Mom, with her flair for all things fashion-related, was spending hours dressing Patty in clothes Laura and I refused to wear ourselves. We didn’t go in for the crinolines and stiff, lacy dresses Mom was always bringing home, and if we got within three feet of a woolen sweater we broke out in hives. But Patty didn’t mind any of this. She’d stand perfectly still while Mom pulled first one sweater and then another over her head. Sometimes we would just sit there on the floor, bug-eyed, at the appalling sight of our mother trying to decide which particular shade of green went best with Patty’s coloring.
At dinner, Dad would ask how Patty’s day had gone, and Mom wondered, more and more often, why we couldn’t give her some peace and quiet, like Patty did. Clearly, Patty was the good child; we were the little beasts.
We didn’t like it. Not at all. We no longer viewed Patty as a beloved sister. We saw her for what she really was: the devil’s child. We’d pass our Brussels sprouts to her and when she wouldn’t eat them we’d pinch her, hard, on her leg. We came up with really tricky math problems for her to solve, like: “What is 9 million, 2 thousand, 6 hundred and fifty-four times 15 billion, 4 quadrillions, a zilliontrillion and a half?” And when she sat there looking at us blankly, with her great big oh-so-realistically-constructed brown eyes, we’d yell at her, “Stupid, stupid girl,” and make her go sit in the corner. Mimi was delighted. So were Gladys and Susie-Susie.
All this time my father was working two jobs. During the day he cooked at a neighborhood luncheonette, and at night he batched up bundles of the New York Times, preparing them for early morning delivery. He’d come home at dawn, bleary-eyed and exhausted.
One morning when he walked through the front door, there was Patty Rachel Shoshanna Play Pal, carelessly left in the hallway. Trust me, there was nothing premeditated about this. We were just kids, we left a doll standing in the hall, it was all a big mistake. Really.
Anyway, Dad bumped into her, knocked her over in fact, fell on her. And in his over-worked, over-tired state of mind, he assumed it was one of his daughters. “Oh my God,” he yelled, imagining the very worst: a broken arm, fractured skull, etc. He scrambled to his feet, felt around in the dark — “I’m so sorry honey. What are you doing up this early?” — floundering, sputtering — until he touched the long straight hair, the cold plastic hands.
“Shit!” he screamed. By this time we were all up and crowding into the hallway, Mom turning on the light, asking “Morty, are you alright?” and Dad saying “What the hell is the God-damned doll doing here?” Laura and I were completely silent for once. And if we were relieved, maybe even secretly ecstatic, who could blame us?
The next day Patty Rachel Shoshanna Play Pal was given away to Dorie Kaminsky who lived in the apartment next door. Mom told Mrs. Kaminsky that we’d outgrown her. Patty went to her new home with only one outfit, and it was not her most flattering one. By this time Mom didn’t care if the green sweater matched her eyes or not, she just wanted this doll, who had almost killed her husband, out of our lives forever.
By the weekend, Laura and I had our first Barbie doll. She never became one of our students in the Saturday morning class. Oh no. She was our teacher. Miss Barbie, we called her. She was strict, but fair. We did not chew gum in her class, we did not pass notes, and we certainly did not cheat when she gave us a math quiz. Miss Barbie helped Squinty and Babette improve their spelling and she uncovered Heidi’s hidden musical talents. Dad never asked about Miss Barbie’s day and Mom took no interest in her wardrobe whatsoever, adamantly refusing to sew any clothes for her.
We all liked it better this way.
The first rival for my parents’ affection was not my younger sister, Laura. It was Patty Play Pal, who arrived in our lives when I was eight and Laura nearly six.
At first we thought of Patty as our new sister. She stood halfway between us in height and we’d take turns combing and brushing and braiding her long, straight black hair. Both of us had short hair — Mom said it was easier to manage that way — but I still had a treasured stash of ribbons and bows, headbands and barrettes, from the days before the “practical haircut,” and took great pleasure in adorning Patty with every imaginable accessory.
We quickly re-named her Patty Rachel Shoshanna Play Pal, after our just-born baby cousin, and assigned her the role of teacher’s pet in the classroom we ruled over on Saturday mornings. Before my parents were even awake, Laura and I would convert our shared bedroom into a one-room schoolhouse, propping all our dolls up on our beds, stiff-backed against the wall. Posture was an important aspect of the curriculum.
There was Gladys and Mimi and Peggy One and Peggy Two and Squinty and Babette and Susie-Susie and Heidi. These were just your garden variety dolls. They weren’t especially pretty or bright. Sometimes, even, they were very, very bad and had to go sit in the corner as punishment. But Patty Rachel Shoshanna — at last, a pupil worthy of us.
Patty Rachel Shoshanna could spell, she could add and subtract, she had beautiful penmanship, a good memory for historic dates, and truly exceptional posture. She was without a doubt our star pupil, and if Mimi or Heidi hated her guts, well, they never said anything to us about it. If they had, they would have been punished. Envy was not a characteristic we encouraged in our school.
All went well for a number of weeks. Patty Rachel Shoshanna continued to get gold stars every Saturday morning; her hair was always neat and shiny; she looked adorable in her pleated plaid skirt and clean white blouse, and she never spoke without first raising her hand. Laura and I were in love with her.
Until we realized that our parents loved her as well. Maybe a little too much. Dad, a guy with a strong predisposition toward the literal, was impressed by how real she seemed. “Would you look at those eyelashes, how’d they manage to do that? And her fingernails! Kids, I’m telling you, it’s amazing what science can accomplish these days.” (You’d think NASA was about to send her to the moon.)
Mom, with her flair for all things fashion-related, was spending hours dressing Patty in clothes Laura and I refused to wear ourselves. We didn’t go in for the crinolines and stiff, lacy dresses Mom was always bringing home, and if we got within three feet of a woolen sweater we broke out in hives. But Patty didn’t mind any of this. She’d stand perfectly still while Mom pulled first one sweater and then another over her head. Sometimes we would just sit there on the floor, bug-eyed, at the appalling sight of our mother trying to decide which particular shade of green went best with Patty’s coloring.
At dinner, Dad would ask how Patty’s day had gone, and Mom wondered, more and more often, why we couldn’t give her some peace and quiet, like Patty did. Clearly, Patty was the good child; we were the little beasts.
We didn’t like it. Not at all. We no longer viewed Patty as a beloved sister. We saw her for what she really was: the devil’s child. We’d pass our Brussels sprouts to her and when she wouldn’t eat them we’d pinch her, hard, on her leg. We came up with really tricky math problems for her to solve, like: “What is 9 million, 2 thousand, 6 hundred and fifty-four times 15 billion, 4 quadrillions, a zilliontrillion and a half?” And when she sat there looking at us blankly, with her great big oh-so-realistically-constructed brown eyes, we’d yell at her, “Stupid, stupid girl,” and make her go sit in the corner. Mimi was delighted. So were Gladys and Susie-Susie.
All this time my father was working two jobs. During the day he cooked at a neighborhood luncheonette, and at night he batched up bundles of the New York Times, preparing them for early morning delivery. He’d come home at dawn, bleary-eyed and exhausted.
One morning when he walked through the front door, there was Patty Rachel Shoshanna Play Pal, carelessly left in the hallway. Trust me, there was nothing premeditated about this. We were just kids, we left a doll standing in the hall, it was all a big mistake. Really.
Anyway, Dad bumped into her, knocked her over in fact, fell on her. And in his over-worked, over-tired state of mind, he assumed it was one of his daughters. “Oh my God,” he yelled, imagining the very worst: a broken arm, fractured skull, etc. He scrambled to his feet, felt around in the dark — “I’m so sorry honey. What are you doing up this early?” — floundering, sputtering — until he touched the long straight hair, the cold plastic hands.
“Shit!” he screamed. By this time we were all up and crowding into the hallway, Mom turning on the light, asking “Morty, are you alright?” and Dad saying “What the hell is the God-damned doll doing here?” Laura and I were completely silent for once. And if we were relieved, maybe even secretly ecstatic, who could blame us?
The next day Patty Rachel Shoshanna Play Pal was given away to Dorie Kaminsky who lived in the apartment next door. Mom told Mrs. Kaminsky that we’d outgrown her. Patty went to her new home with only one outfit, and it was not her most flattering one. By this time Mom didn’t care if the green sweater matched her eyes or not, she just wanted this doll, who had almost killed her husband, out of our lives forever.
By the weekend, Laura and I had our first Barbie doll. She never became one of our students in the Saturday morning class. Oh no. She was our teacher. Miss Barbie, we called her. She was strict, but fair. We did not chew gum in her class, we did not pass notes, and we certainly did not cheat when she gave us a math quiz. Miss Barbie helped Squinty and Babette improve their spelling and she uncovered Heidi’s hidden musical talents. Dad never asked about Miss Barbie’s day and Mom took no interest in her wardrobe whatsoever, adamantly refusing to sew any clothes for her.
We all liked it better this way.
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