Category: navel gazing

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For Pops.

Because today would have been my father’s 84th birthday, some Louis, who he loved.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

It is sometimes reassuring to think of all the people who knew him – and he knew a lot of people, some for a second, some for decades – and to know he probably got to tell them a dumb joke, or complimented them in some old-fashioned way, or even just smiled at them as they went by. It’s the jauntiness, the joy of him, that I miss the most now; there are very, very few men who can tell me a dumb joke that will actually make me laugh, & who think it is important enough to try, & he was the first and the last. You getta you papers.

Pops, I miss you. I wish I could pick up the phone so you could tell me every last detail of your most recent conversation with the guy about the extra charge on the cable bill right now.

He found joy in almost everything: in the photos taken around the same time as this one, there’s one of my mother worried about her electric scooter; my nieces are splitting a cotton candy; my sister was probably counting tickets or finding  a map or some something for my mother, and my nephew was waiting to see what ride next. Rachel volunteered to go on any ride the kids would go on, even the ones that made everyone else sick and dizzy, and I took pictures. But my dad just watched and smiled: at a toddler taking a step, at his beautiful wife, at the ice cream stand, at this small part of his assembled family. He’d tell a story about a guy he knew growing up in Brooklyn, or about the guy he knew in the service, and the funny thing is, not all of his stories ended happily. A lot of them didn’t. But he just told them, because they were relevant or because something had reminded him of the person or that particular story. They rarely had  an ending, or a moral; he wasn’t that kind of guy who is always trying to impart wisdom or experience. In almost the same breath, he could finish a story about not having his number called during the Korean War, and then wonder out loud where to get ice cream.

Stories and ice cream. I thought I’d get to share a lot more of both with him, but I’m glad, at least I managed to snap this photo: you may not be able to see his eyes, but you can’t not see the twinkle in them, too.

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May 3rd, 1952

Today would have been my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary.

My sister flew down to make sure my mom is with someone, & she’s telling stories. My mom was never really the talker of the two; it was my dad who was the social one, who could talk to anyone, anywhere, about anything.

My mom said to me recently “I know I should be getting over it by now because it’s nearly a year” but I didn’t let her finish. I actually laughed out loud, laughed at her, lovingly, because it was exactly predictable of her to think she, of all people, should be able to get on top of mourning, do it efficiently, magically. The funnier part of course is that it hasn’t even been a year; it’s barely been 9 months. (But I didn’t learn how to be hardest on myself from nowhere. )

It was a good reminder for me too: that mourning, of all things, of all change, takes a while, but the loss of a great love probably takes longer than anything.

< This is them on their 35th wedding anniversary, 25 years ago. I was 18. My mom was 57, my dad 59. The dogwood is in full bloom, the way it would be every May.

It will be a rough month of dates: Mother’s Day falls on my birthday this year, and my dad’s 84th birthday would have been on the 19th.

What doesn’t kill you, as they say, just leaves you bereft, broken-hearted, exhausted, and a little bit quieter than you used to be.

So I’m glad mom is talking.

I hope she talks about how much his eyes lit up every time he saw her, no matter how old they got, no matter how angry she was, no matter what she looked like. It’s an amazing thing to be around two people who light each other up like that – effortlessly and wondrously, as if their posture gets straighter, their eyes get clearer, and they seem to have a song on their lips. I feel very thankful to have grown up in the midst of a love like that.

 

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This is Your Brain on Love.

Is it possible for one person to love more than another? In an attempt to find out, filmmaker Brent Hoff teamed with Stanford University neuroscientists to test lovers’ abilities, using an fMRI to monitor brain activity and measure whose adoration was the strongest.

It might be a funny way to try to find out, but still, it’s pretty damned cool.

The Love Competition from Brent Hoff on Vimeo.

But the couple married 50 years – wow. If they could sell what their secret was, we’d all be buying. My parents were like that, and I’m sadly witness to the only downside of a love like that in seeing my mother’s grief. Still, I’m sure she would say it was worth every second.

For me, at least, there’s this accompanying feeling that my eyes can see more, my senses are more alive, and I feel content in a way I don’t most of the time. It is amazing how the right arm around you, on the right day, at the right moment, can set the bar for what love feels like. It’s like that first flush, all over again, except it sustains itself in such a different way over time.

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Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mom’s 82nd birthday.

This is her when she was 19. She’s in Prospect Park, in Brooklyn, on a date with my dad, wearing trousers because Katharine Hepburn did.

This is the first birthday in 60 years she’ll spend without my dad. I can’t even begin to imagine how that could be, but I love her, and I love that she is getting stronger and living (mostly) on her own. She told me recently that she’s met with some of the other widows in her little community, and that she thinks she can do it.

Which goes to show, for the billionth time, that people will, and do, surprise you in ways you never expected.

This one is me and her when we visited her in Florida in December last year.

 

Happy Birthday, Mom!

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Cho Fierce

Wow. Margaret Cho rightfully lost her shit & in so doing wrote us all a manifesta:

I grew up hard and am still hard and I don’t care. I did not choose this face or this body and I have learned to live with it and love it and celebrate it and adorn it with tremendous drawings from the greatest artists in the world and I feel good and powerful like a nation that has never been free and now after many hard won victories is finally fucking free. I am beautiful and I am finally fucking free.

I fly my flag of self-esteem for all those who have been told they were ugly and fat and hurt and shamed and violated and abused for the way they look and told time and time again that they were “different” and therefore unlovable. Come to me and I will tell you and show you how beautiful and loved you are and you will see it and feel it and know it and then look in the mirror and truly believe it. If you are offended by my anger and my might at defending my borders and my people you do not deserve entry into my beloved and magnificent country.

Read the whole thing at Jezebel or on Cho’s blog.

I am beautiful and I am finally fucking free.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re not pretty enough, that you curse too much, that you don’t like the right things, that you are “‘different’ and therefore unlovable”. They are only keeping you from your freedom.

It’s profoundly moving to see that someone like Margaret Cho – famous, funny, rude Margaret Cho – still needs to punch back so hard against someone who is telling her to be something other than what she is. Makes me feel an ounce better about having felt the need to do the same thing when I was told what I needed to do to fit in here. Sometimes I wonder if those of us who “grew up hard and am still hard” get read as a lot tougher than we are, & so people feel free to critique when they might not if a person were obviously vulnerable. Hrm.

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Standing on the Shoulders Of

It’s been five months since my dad’s death and I can’t think of a better way to honor his memory today than to say: Go Giants!

(& He would have known full well what it cost me to say that, too.)

I miss him in ways those of you who haven’t lost parents couldn’t begin to understand – although some people, even without knowing, have been amazing and kind and present in ways that have blown my mind. Thank you, with as much graciousness as I can manage, to those of you who do understand, who have experienced this kind of loss before me, and who have had such helpful words.

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Both Sides: Missing Appleton Too

And yes, for your snarky types who think there is no life outside of the coasts, I do miss Appleton: I love the Lawrence campus, because it’s beautiful and peaceful; I miss the big skies and stars and the clear, clear air on cold winter nights; I miss the bunnies and raccoons and geese and cormorants and songbirds that are a daily sight. I miss teaching, and I miss the students when I’m not teaching too, and I miss living in a community of intellectual community engagement.

I am also in awe of anyone who grew up outside of a city like New York and who has found a way NOT to conform in a small city like Appleton; I find maintaining my independence and artsiness really, really challenging there. I have had to change so much, and only now, back in New York, am I aware of the daily small compromises: no good bagels, no gas stoves, no good cheap Italian food or inexpensive salons for manicures, pedicures, or waxing; no radiator heat. It is often a struggle to explain that “tea” does not mean chamomile to a coffee culture. Add to that not liking beer, being professionally queer and a vegetarian, and having a conscientious objector relationship with football — let’s just say it hasn’t been a tidy landing for me, and I’m sure I’ve complained plenty. This trip home has given me at least some perspective on what kinds of ways I might try to adjust going forward, and in the meanwhile, I am more thankful for the progressive politicians, artistic friends and other displaced coasties than anyone might imagine, but especially to those who have expressed empathy while they watched me try to fit this square peg into the round hole that is Appleton.

So as much as it’s been one  of the most difficult experiences of my life, I still find life in Appleton lovely in ways I could have never imagined as a lifelong New Yorker and alt urbanite.

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Introverts, Redux

Another interesting piece about introverts: this one the “10 myths about” model. Here are my favorites, or the ones that are the best expression of my version of introvert:

Myth #1 – Introverts don’t like to talk.
This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. They hate small talk. Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won’t shut up for days.

Myth #3 – Introverts are rude.
Introverts often don’t see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries. They want everyone to just be real and honest. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable in most settings, so Introverts can feel a lot of pressure to fit in, which they find exhausting.

Myth #4 – Introverts don’t like people.
On the contrary, Introverts intensely value the few friends they have. They can count their close friends on one hand. If you are lucky enough for an introvert to consider you a friend, you probably have a loyal ally for life. Once you have earned their respect as being a person of substance, you’re in.

Myth #6 – Introverts always want to be alone.
Introverts are perfectly comfortable with their own thoughts. They think a lot. They daydream. They like to have problems to work on, puzzles to solve. But they can also get incredibly lonely if they don’t have anyone to share their discoveries with. They crave an authentic and sincere connection with ONE PERSON at a time.

Myth #7 – Introverts are weird.
Introverts are often individualists. They don’t follow the crowd. They’d prefer to be valued for their novel ways of living. They think for themselves and because of that, they often challenge the norm. They don’t make most decisions based on what is popular or trendy.

I’d add that even though he points out that introverts aren’t shy, they aren’t shy because they’re introverts, but sometimes we are independent of the introvert thing.

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Easy.

I am thankful for happiness, whenever and wherever I find it. Today I woke up in a good mood and suspect I had good dreams I can’t remember. I am thankful to sleep with someone who loves me, to have a view of the river, a short walk to work, and that I have found both meaning and purpose working with a community I love.

I am thankful to have known my father for 42 years, and Aeneas for 11. I am thankful, even, for the loss of them both because they’ve reminded me that time speeds by too quickly, and that the small joys of taking care of and being taken care of are what it’s all about.

I am thankful for #OWS and the Occupy movements around the world, and for the people standing in the cold collecting signatures on petitions to recall WI Governor Scott Walker. I’m thankful to live in an ailing but still viable democracy.

I am thankful that my only food concern is making sure I don’t eat too much of the stuff.

I am thankful for daily opportunities to read, listen to music, and learn new things.

I am thankful that – despite distance of various kinds – I have found both solace and joy in conversation and companionship with friends new & old.

I am thankful that someone invented Zyrtec, which in turn makes it possible for me to go out on my bike and enjoy the big skies and quiet roads of Wisconsin.

I am thankful for a body that works well most of the time, the skin I live in, and a sexuality that unites my mind and body. I am thankful to live in a time and place where my body and my sexuality are mine to self-determine. I am thankful to all of those who work to free all of us from shame, trauma, and violence.

Mostly I am thankful for the kind of life that gives me time to look around and think, to write and ponder and feel. I am thankful that my complaints are mostly bourgeois, that my love and friendship is usually returned by those I love and befriend, and that I can still feel a sense of wonder, beauty and joy despite my natural Taoist tilt.

Happy Thanksgiving: give thanks, give love, and do your art.