Memorial Day

Five years ago, I accompanied my friend Lisa Ramaci to Greenwood Cemetary. We were there for three reasons, two small and one unimaginably large:
!)We both wanted to see the Civil War re-enactors in a ceremony honoring the Union Soldiers laid to rest in Brooklyn's most history-laden graveyard;
2) I wanted to find the grave of my great-(times ten!-)-grandfather, who had fought in the Fighting 19th Irish Brigade out of NYC, and who won the Congressional Medal of Honor at Gettysburg [and whom I like to think about when my own store of bravery runs low...]; and, finally and most most importantly,
3) to go spend time with her husband. her husband was a brilliant Journalist named Steven Vincent, who went to Iraq at the very beginning, to make sure he knew what he was writing about. His grave now sits on a sunny hillside, lit by birdsong and tended by breezes. There is a bravery in needing to tell the truth, that doesn't let consequences stop it. Steven had that bravery.



I have been insanely lucky in my life to know almost nothing of war, except from the witness of others. I wouldn't, and won't, get into any discussions about war. All I can do, is respect, honor, be grateful for, and remember the voices, stories, and sacrifices, of those who know, too well, what I don't know at all.


Flashback:

When I was barely sentient--that is to say, about 17- I fell in love with a much older musician, in chicago. i was attracted equally by his brilliant songwriting, and a gravitas and wisdom that I didn't understand, but enjoyed, Someone told me he had fought in the Vietnam war, been decorated, but to me that was such a far-off time, that the information sort of bounced off me...and He certainly never mentioned it. But sometimes? While sleeping? he would yell something; not very often-but often enough to the "eedjit" I was- he would yell and jump to a standing poisition,full defensive readiness, all while sleeping.

When we visited his mother for the first time,she took me aside one day when he was out, and told me, quietly, about his Vietnam service. I couldn't understand much, being a 17 year old from a sheltered background. I didn't know what a "tunnel rat" was. I didn't know any of the terms he said in his sleep. I did find out,  from very straightforward empirical evidence, that everything she had told me was true.
I also knew that our fights were much more loaded- carried much more baggage, somehow--than other couples' usual tiffs about "who didn't do the dishes." Sometimes, I would not be able to take the intensity, and would go sit in a greek diner on North Clark Street (this was in Chicago) and order food I couldn't touch,and for that matter, could barely pay for. I was in over my head. I was a model who sang and did Improv. I didn't have a receptor for this kind of unintentional darkness. I wanted to understand. But didn't know how...and with the self-absorption of pretty youth, secretly felt I shouldn't have to. Poor me, I thought. And occasionally, "Poor him". Hey- I was 16.

One night, I had retreated at the diner, in a huge booth that dwarfed my huddled, too-slender self. I'd turned my head away to look out the window, because I didn't want the tears that were falling onto my cooling cheeseburger, to attract attention from the couples munching contentedly around me. But I didn't know what to do. Love is a start, but as Auden once said "love gave the power but took the will" to understand.

There was an attractive woman, at a nearby table. She and her companion, a dignified and mustachio'd man in a wheelchair, were talking intently, and laughing, but also obviously having a serious discussion, the kind where everyone gets animated and starts interrupting each other enthusiastically. I didn't understand why they kept glancing over, although now I know it was because truly kind people have a high sensitivity to-and empathy for-other people's distress.

I looked out the dark window and watched the cars go by and sniffled, surreptiously. My reverie was interrupted by the sound of a very kind voice saying "Hi. Are you okay?"

I smiled brightly and lied "I'm fine."  she burst out laughing and wordlessly handed me her compact. In the mirror, I saw that my mascara had run down my entire face. Every tear had its own traceable dark faultline. -I grinned and handed the mirror back.

"Well, maybe not TOTALLY fine," I admitted ruefully.

She said, "sit with us. We'd like your company. Maybe it'll cheer you up. We're safe." Her face was remarkable for a kind of serenity that seemed hard earned...the kind of peace you have to work at for years to achieve, although she wasn't in the least old or toughlooking.

"well...Okay. Thank you. Um... promise you won't drug me and put me onto a boat to Buenos Aires, bound for a strange new life in anonymous houses of joy? I just have to check," I asked.

She blinked. Not sure she was expecting that from a weepy 17 year old model. But she was great. She said, "Not until you finish your cheeseburger, anyway," and we grinned at each other and i got up and joined them.

I think her name was Joy. I might be wrong. His name was Ron. I didn't get his last name, so he spelled it for me, on request. "K-o-v-i-c". (I guessed it was.. Czech?) He had a quality I haven't encountered much, and don't know how to describe ...that's not a writerly cop-out [well, okay-yes it is!]  I just remember a tired, funny, bone deep gentleness, and a patience that I wouldn't have guessed at from his big guy appearance.  Whatever it was? We just really hit it off.

I couldn't have known this, but the "Universe/God/The Big Love" or whatever you call the force that knows us better than we know ourselves, was very specific in its blessings that evening, in a Chicago diner. Ron was a Vietnam vet. His life was the basis for a great, very powerful film, called "Born on the Fourth Of July." He had a story behind him that contained pain, and courage, and a way of being ethical , that I still can barely understand, but admire beyond telling.
Somehow, even though at the time I was NOT a very confessional chick, Ron and Joy asked the right questions, without being too personal. In fact, they were so tactful that talking about what was going on, seemed like MY idea, to me.

And boy did they help. Maybe the hardest thing to do in conversation with someone so mucH younger, so much emotionally less experienced, is to meet that person at her level of understanding. No preaching, no scolding, no lofty judgmental pronouncements that would have bounced off my ears anyway. What they both did, was talk to me at my own level: a loving, too-young-for-this-but-well-intentioned young woman who had a brain that had lots of sparkle and buzz but not a lot of focus. We stayed there for three hours, telling jokes and talking about Chicago and food and laughing our asses off. And somehow, when I left, I had numbers to call that would help me. And help my friend get help. I never even noticed when that happened...who remembers having someone write down helpful numbers on a piece of paper and hand them to you, when you're all laughing about the fact that the Lemon Meringue Pie slice the waiter has just put down, is bigger than the table it sits on?

We talked on the phone a few times. I don't think he'd remember me. But he helped so very much.

Flash Forward: Today, I'm friends again with my then-boyfriend, who got back on his feet so successfully that he has to move to Switzerland so his taxes aren't so high, and who spends his summers at his palace in Italy. He reclaimed his best self in more important ways, as well, by being a great father and the most trustworthy friend imaginable. In fact, he and his family very kindly invited me on a fishing trip next week, and  am really looking forward to a week of Scrabble, terrible puns, unlimited swimming and having his kids kick my ass at Badminton and croquet.

When I'm in Brooklyn, I sometimes go and visit Steve. I tell him how much I enjoyed his company, his writing, his swashbuckling sartorial flourishes, and his kindness. I thank him for bearing witness, knowing, as he did, what might happen.

I don't ask him about war. I don't feel i have that right.

Then? I sit quietly and breathe in the birdsong. The silence. The miracle- of being able to live in safety. I so try not to take it for granted...peace.

A Cautionary Note

In this blog, not everything is as exactly confessional as it may seem.
I'm not deceptive...but am a writer. Which is to say, someone who rummages around in the sock drawer of other people's unconscious looking for hidden and helpful inspiration.

As Evelyn Waugh said in his preface to "Brideshead revisited":


    "I am not I; thou art not he or she; they are not they."

love
peri
who likes a good mystery as much as the next goddess.

name. date. occupation. a sudden poem

 name. date. occupation.   a sudden poem


 Today I clean the kitchen.
Walk the dog.
Check on my sleeping mom, to see
If she's still breathing.
My Dad kicked that habit two months ago, though he breathes
through his children
as we sleep. We dream and cry. We wake and shower:
I make breakfast. Wash the dishes. My Mom dries.


Today I change the catbox.
Make my bed.
Ignore the broken boxspring.
One year ago today, I walked the red carpet at Cannes.
I was wearing borrowed glory and thirteen dollar shoes.
I still have the shoes. At least that. But: why?
Hard to be famous when you don't know your own name.

Now I know my name. It is not my father's, although
he is still my father, as I am still his life.
It is not my mother's, although I watch her breathing.

My name is nothing: it is a bird who can fly
without singing
My name is something: it is who you see me as,
with judgement or with longing. i cant try.
My name is everything so it can stay my secret.

A year ago, i posed for pictures with a man who did not love me.
Tonight I love us freely though both of us have gone.

Today i walked the dog.
Cooked the dinner.
tried to hug my hurting mother free of pain.
today a friend told me the man who did not love me, loves again.

Tonight i can't remember that man's name.

Tomorrow i will clean. And do the laundry. Singing softly.
Tomorrow i will call and try to be here through your pain
.
Tomorrow i will cook the oysters. While they're still good.

Tomorrow will be pretty much the same.
tomorrow i won't tell you my real name.

Tomorrow I might tell you my real name.



peri lyons annapolis may 19 2011  copyright, dude. word.

A Simple Life Philosophy. In Song.

I Can’t Be Arsed                                                          peri lyons c 2011

there's laundry in my living room

it's certainly not clean

it's starting to evolve into a life form never seen

There's dishes in my kitchen

The color of old litchen

Is this what they mean by going green?

But I am calm and half amused

Im almost never stressed

If I don't have clean clothes to wear, why bother getting dressed?

Tranquillity is mine at last

Those days of worrying are past

here's the philosophy I fin'ly feel is best

I can't be arsed

I can't be arsed

I can't be bothered shamed cajoled or even forced

I can't be arsed

I can't be bothered

In fact, I can't even be arsed enough to find a rhyme for bothered

When you give up

Then life is sweet

the world falls at your slightly stinky feet

I don't return men's calls

It drives them crazy

They think I'm hard to get but really Im just lazy

I just don't care about

The daily grind

It was either lose my standards or slowly lose my mind

I did try yoga

And chanting too

But here's what worked for me and it'll work for you

Just don't be arsed

I cant be arsed

I cant be shamed cajoled or ever ever forced

I can't be arsed!

What's worth the bother?

If you do one dish, there'll always be another

So don't clean your house or do the laundry, be an utter roundheel

The first five years are tough but after that it's simply downhill

And when your friends stop coming by or visiting or calling

Because they love you but let's face it, the smell is just appalling

They will all keel over young of heartattacks and ulcers

But I'll live to one hundred two, because I just say "NO SIR--

I CAN'T BE ARSED!!!

new song/lyrics "HERE."

here.
(the song of the happier woman )  (love, gratitude and Goodbye)
       c Peri Lyons/Valley Cottage Music 2011



You asked me to write you a happy love song
I said, I didn't know how
You laughed and told me that I was just wrong
  Because YOU were loving me now

this is the song, the one that you asked for then
I'm sorry that it took a year
this is the song about leaving the past back then
For what is already here
You taught me love can be stronger than fear:
You showed me love that was simple and clear
Too bad you're no longer here

It doesn't matter the way that things ended:
Protecting each other with lies.
Love doesn't die- but it can be suspended,
To make human room for the role of surprise.

I can't say I loved you much after you vanished.
I can't say forgiveness was part of my plan;
God I felt angry, abandoned and banished-
An angel who'd fallen with no place to land

But somehow, in all this,I knew you were wise
And that didn't change with the seasons.
love gave me the power to see through your eyes:
Love doesn't have to explain all its reasons

this is the song, the one that you asked for then-
Sorry that it took a year,
this is the song about leaving the past back then
For what is already here.
You taught me love can be stronger than fear
You showed me truth can be simple and clear
Too bad you're no longer here

But you will always be here laughing;
The way that we laughed when we got that kitten-
The way that I cried as when you gave me that ring.
And this is the happiest song that I've written:
This is the happiest I've been for years
Though it might be hard to tell through these tears

this is the song, the one you that asked for then
Sorry that it took a year
I've finally learned about leaving the past back then
Trusting what's lovely and here.
You taught me love can be stronger than fear;
You showed me truth can be simple and clear-
And so you will always be here.

If I never see you
You'll always be here.


peri lyons 5/15/11

Lotus Blossoms and an Almost Gibbous Moon

There is a recalcitrant moon tonight; shining and not shining. The moon seems to have snagged on the branches of the blooming locust tree, as though reluctant to leave such a fragrant mosaic of fragile blossom. The little frogs sing with delirious joy about their possible love lives, from the creek bank below. All is perfect, peaceful, and luminously Southern.


But I still gotta walk the dog.



Samy, our Bichon Stupide, has just gotten a haircut that makes him look so cute that he should be painted on velvet. He waits patiently as I light an American Spirit. The smoke wafts up towards the moon, like a sacred offering, although a sacred offering that might also give one cancer. Sammy sneezes. We walk off through the mysterious forest, where the cries and whispers of hunter and prey fill the evening... and I trip over a log and yelp loudly. Oops . Never was very good at maintaining atmosphere. -Several small creatures who were about to be "prey", take the moment to escape from their hunters, stopping briefly to mutter "hey.dude.thanks." to me. I am One With Nature. -Wait. I have the dog. -I am Two With Nature.--Okay, he's a small dog, so maybe I'm more sort of One And Three Quarters With Nature. -Perhaps we should move on. I'm a little over the mystery of the forest, and besides, the mysterious small forest "hunters" are starting to complain. "Look, lady, some of us have moles to kill here. Is this a problem for you?", says an owl in the tree above me. I realize that my 11th grade driving instructor may possibly have been RIGHT about how you can have acid flashbacks 2o years after the fact, and decide to go back inside.


But it IS a beautiful evening.

************************************************



As I gird my loins (um, only figuratively. Doing it literally can lead to chafing.) to go back To The City in June, I stop and reflect on how completely and amazingly great my life has been so far. Even-and almost especially--the parts that have completely and totally sucked at the time. And I don't mean just "sucked"...I mean "completely sucked utterly beyond telling, complete with screamingly awful seemingly unbearable ouchness" at the time. Looking back, it is clear every single goddmaned thing was specifically designed for very specific and necessary growth.-Of course, that's easy to say now...but it's true. It was a little like going through necessary and extremely healing surgery. But without anaesthesia. (Unless one counts the 340,000 glasses of Saint Emilion I consumed in six months or so. More or less. Probably more.) However, because I had huge blind faith, some part of me DID know that all that "ow!ow! OW!!"-nes WAS leading to a breakthrough. Of course, if you'd told me that at the time, i would have decked you with a fairly effective right hook to the jaw, but NOW it seems clear.


If you want to finish evolving into a Phoenix--if you want to get THROUGH the cycle where  your nest bursts into flames, your life and identity are reduced to ash, and you have the opportunity to transform into a glorious mythogical creature with strong and gleaming wings--you have to grit your teeth--um, beak?-- and know that you won't be consumed in the fire. Also, you have to be braver than you know how to be. There were several moments when I thought "Screw this, I'm outta here", but then I thought, "hey, what if there's a happy ending and I miss it? " Besides, you can't get to be a Phoenix if you decide halfway through to be a chicken.


Now I know as I never have, what happiness is. And do not get me wrong...I have been one ecstatically happy and lucky person, over and over again, and I never ever forget that or cease to be grateful. But now I know that one can be one's happy, sacred self no matter what...in Payless shoes or Louboutins...on a red carpet or in an unheated sublet in Bushwick...and that once you realize that, the chances of winding up where you WANT to be, are much much greater. Ironically, it seems that not letting what your circumstances are, define you at all, means that you then get to make your circumstances what you truly desire them to be. -If THAT makes sense.


And here endeth the sermon.


I guess what I'm saying is, in short: if it SUCKS right now? It. Will. Get. Better.
It may very well get better than you ever imagined possible.
Life is bigger and more magical than we can see from our human selves, our human eyes.
But our spirits know, and want to be part of, that Unimaginable Good.


So cheer up. The Cavalry is coming to the rescue.


Love, actually
Pe

Mother's Day: A Poem and Appreciation

Mother's Day

(For my Mom, Toni. Now and always.)

**********

Remember, on a Sunday, other Sundays.

mother, daughter, light and dark,

hand in hand, on the steps to their seats for "Coppelia".

"He's a toymaker, she's a doll, but she's really

a woman who has practiced all day every day

even Sundays

to be this graceful and delightful"

says the mother, fair, carnation scented, handing her daughter

the ballet program.

mother, daughter, fair and shaded,

wandering the Garden of Earthly Delights -in the Bronx.

"this vine has been trained, every day, to grow

into this arabesque of scented beauty", fair tells shaded, as hand in

hand

they ascend the greenhouse steps.

mother, daughter, calm and angry,

balance as tightrope walkers this telephone wire.

"this love has been here, calm and angry, light and dark, fair and

shaded,

every day, to let you have this difficult freedom"

she says

as hand in hand

they walk the wellworn steps, back up to love.

***************************

by Peri Lyons copyright 2011

Anniversary Poem for a Much Loved Best Friend /Former Husband

Anniversary Poem: rough draft

anniversary poem:thinking about an apartment you painted a fresco of us, as "Orpheus and Eurydice" on the wall of , in Greenwich Village

The problem was, we got our myths mixed, you and I.

You Orpheus, looked back , while I was  (wrongly?) singing;

And then that time you showered me with gold-  Danae!-

i loved that they were chocolate coins...the taste without the ringing.

And when we fought, we'd turn each other into trees:

Zap! Myrtle!  Daphne! Zap! The oak of Nimue! -There!

And we'd remain as trees and shake our leaves in angry glare

-But hey, at least we had SOME sort of belief.

Our lares and penates, homemade as they were, 

Were some relief.

part 2 (prediction: change)

The oldest myth of all is from gorillas: not exactly "told"

By them; (though silverbacks all are  raconteurs when old)

I read it at a zoo, a sign nailed to a "tree":

Where my friend (who is a goddess for a living)

took me as comfort for my poverty

The sign said: "Gorillas live in tribes; their tribal boundaries 

Are rigidly maintained; the only ones who travel troupe to troupe

with no trouble, fights or visas, and are the least forgiving
 of all the  social groups,

 "Females from 13-23, in human age." I read this carefully 

as though looking at a diamond, through a loupe.

Doing lines in bathrooms, behind red velvet creeper vines,
I dreamt gorilla "it girls", 13 to  23,

the wombs of whom: provoking, Che incendiaries

are criminals, all innocents. We"ll lay the blame on Time.

I was one of those "It Guerillas" once:

"We're REAL evolutionaries", we would sniff

our bright red bottoms and  Guevara tees distracting good gorilla family men. 

We'd shriek "As if!" and run away, displaying:

pretend to play "dismayed"- without being TOO dismaying. 

-And always, then...

Then

Part 3 1/2 (the missing link)

Myths to me

be half apology 

half warning

half shaman

half danger:

all love.

The warning that no love at all, is itself, a gift;

as much as the presence of love, that gift, is taken, 

Or not taken,

at command or whim.

The words of "yes" and "no" are, finally, Man's. 

Yes, you know. Him.

So when I skipped the flowery Greek translations

And bluntly was a stupid vain gorilla in a tutu, young enough and cruel

Preverbal, premyth but, uh-oh , somehow, knowing mythic endings:

I knew, someday, I'd be replaced in school

by the New Gorilla Goddess on the block, whose fecund abacus

Had fewer beads than mine now. -But? Now I  had learned to talk.

You showed me that nurture may be red in claw and tooth;

She showed you that an It Girl's always climbing

But then you found palette'd colors where'd you'd hidden truth :

And, Love, I found my real job, while resigning.

We were a self; we are a history.

We helped each other translate, draw, identity

Each

Goddamn

Not entirely gorilla free

Tree.

Happy Baby:

Anniversary.

peri lyons
from:

"Dawdle: Some Poems"  2010 copyright 

************************************

For Adam Cvijanovic, friend, artist, former husband with love Dec 29 2010

Wonderful World.-No, Really.

As usual, my day began with surrealism.

Am staying on my friend Erik's couch in the Village, a charming little mansion he's had since 1967. Erik Frandsen is the straight Cole Porter, a songwriter of bittersweet wit. And Erik has a New York Mouse, which is to say, a Mouse With Attitude. This is not Mickey. This is a mouse with a tiny leather jacket and a scale model switchblade. This mouse likes to stroll sneeringly across the floor in front of us and whistle "Lush Life". He's jaaaaded.

And this morning I stepped in the mouse trap.

"AAAAGH!!" I said calmly, while hopping across the floor on one foot. The other foot was being waved in the air with a glue covered mousetrap on it. 

"ERIK!" I shouted. "Why is thing on the FLOOR!"

"Well, that's where the mice are," he pointed out reasonably. 

I was grumpily scrubbing my toes in the sink. "Well, you should get taller mice," I grumbled.

From an undisclosed location in the closet, a tiny voice derisively fluted "Lush Life". And giggled.

**********************************************************

Have decided that a good thing to call your informal boy/girlfriend is your "bounce".

"Meet the bounce."  -Right? Yes.

Pithy. Yet slightly raffinee. 

**********************************************************************

"Life has a holy contour."

                             -Jack Keruoac

     Keruoac has been appearing in today's particular series of serendipities. My great friend P. took me for a top-down ride in his gorgeous 1993 BMW convertible. We went on a frolic-and-detour ride through Gotham, and he pointed out the bar that Jack and Neal Cassady used to hang out at, at 47 and 8th. [Would like to take this moment that it wa the CAR that had it's tp down and not your humble correspondent.)

   Then I literally stumbled over a book on the floor in a bookstore (AFTER the car ride, that is. It wasn't a drivethru bookstore.) and picked it (and me) up, to find it was "Quotes from Jack". Well, okay then. Opened it to see what serendipity had to teach me today.

           He talks about "moviebooks" as the most American form of communication. It's funny to look at an iPad after reading that...what is it but a moviebook?  But "Life has a holy contour" is my new favorite quote.

*************************************************************

My new book is writing me. It's exhilerating and a little unnerving. But mostly just sheerly exhilerating.

When I made a choice recently to transform my existence in a nothing-but-positive-energy-here-folks-please way, the Universe stepped right up to take my order. Making a complete commitment to something, is like placing a heavy object in the middle of a suspended rubber sheet....it bends reality towards you in a good way. The "heavy object" is one's declared commitment; the "rubber sheet" is reality. (Though it does sound a little kinkier, on reflection.) When one declares an intention with no loopholes or excuses, it has the effect of "rolling" coincidences down the "rubber sheet of reality" towards the "heavy object" of your you and intention. In other words, Good Stuff starts happening, if you're ready to be open to it in all forms. -And sometimes, even if you aren't. Just keep saying "yes".
        So: Suddenly, my work ethic and confidence, which had been off napping for a bit, came back.
They didn't just come back--they kicked the door down and ducttaped me to a chair, while they rearranged the furniture. Suddenly I was working 16-18 hour days, with huge enthusiasm. 20 pounds dropped off. The book seems to have it's own agenda, and is both dictating itself and giving the energy, clarity and focus i need to take dictation. It's very very cool.

       wishing you love.
xxxoo
 

     

*****************************************************************

**********************************************************

    

             

Tales of a Phoenix: The Annapolis Days

The day began, as many of my days do with someone being baffled.

I was walking the dog- a Bichon Stupide-and ran into a neighbor on the court. Like most avid birdwatchers, Lee looks like either a heron or James Thrurber, depending on your frame of reference.

(I have noticed that many lady birdwatchers resemble deepchested pouter pigeeons, or contented starlings, but that's another blog.) 

Lee stopped me. "I'm so sorry to hear about your Dad", he said, kindly and thinly. 

"Thanks so much", I said sincerely.

"I only know your Mom," he said. "We meet in the woods every evening."

He seemed unaware of the implications.

"Sirrah!" I said. "I would have you know that it is my mater of whom you refer to! I demand satisfaction!"

"Huh?" he asked, not unreasnably.

"I and my seconds will meet you at dawn in Clearwater Park, where this matter may be resolved to our satisfaction."

"Seconds?" said Lee. I noticed his glasses were fogging with bewilderment.

"Alright, thirds, then. I can't afford seconds. But until then- huzzah!"

"Huzzah?" He was wellmeaningly at sea.

"I'm jes' joshin', Lee." I said.

"Oh. Okay. You have a real nice day now, you hear?" he said, and pulled away his black cockapoo much to the relief of both of them.

I'm not sure i fit in in the suburbs.

Later that day, I changed into my Shopping Outfit. Mom needs to be tenderly fed three times a day, as she recovers from viral pneumonia and Loss;  and my foray into a Safeway the size of a citystate needed to be dressed for. In order to buy the ingredients necessary for  a light, refreshing dinner, I changed into a secondhand Chanel denim  supermini; leggings; combat boots; and a 1940's Lanz handknit sweater with little Austrian people on it, bowing to each other in what i choose to assume was an apology fo what they'd done to the Jews. Perfect for shopping for spinach! Hooray.

On my way out the door,ran into a hitherto unmet neighbor, a Simon Pegg Briish lookalike (for Simon, that is) and flirted with him shamelessly. We compared the relatve merits of European Soccer teams, tho he looked a little gobsmacked when I went into my rant about Barcelona choosing "tall" over ""can actually play". But he was cute, and flirting alays gives a spring to one's step.

The day proggressed quietly, as days caring for an invalid tend to: doctors frown on the introduction of unnecessary excitement, so I had to cancel the male strippers and the bocci Ball tournament. I did get many smiled for my outfit, and some out and out laughter, but genius will always have to withstand the scoffing of those who wear sweatsuits voluntarily in public.

After a lovely dinner, Mom and I retired to the back garden, her with her Pinot Noir, me with myt Gauloises, and watched the dusk colored cat hunt insincerely amongst daffodils. Mom and I recited sonnets, and told stories about Dad, and wept happily. I opened my laptop and concluded the evening by reading aloud Mary Oliver's beautiful poem "John Chapman."

Mom has gone to bed. I will stay awake, watchful,checking in several times a night to make sure she's breathing. She was bossy today: a Taurus, that's a sure sign of recovery. But one can never be too careful of the wellbeing of those we love. 

Tomorrow: another outfit, another set of meals, more poetry and I go to the local gym to see if they ned a yoga teacher. Onward: upward;sideways and through.

I miss my friends in the city. I hope they don't forget me. But a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, for heaven and the future's sakes, as Robert Frost once put it.

Love the ones you love, and above all? be kind.

xxxoo

p

Tale of a Phoenix: Getting Off My Ash

Annapolis Days.


I am very appreciative of this suspended moment in time, where I get to live in the country and take care of my beautiful Mom 24/7, until she feels better. Life doesn't often afford one the time to breathe, to think, and to love. I have been amazed to the point of delight, to discover that what I thought were a series of "Does-the-Universe-dislike-me-or what?" hardships in the last six months, was actually the Universe preparing me in the most sensitive and loving way possible, to be exactly where I needed to be, at exactly the right time. Which is: Here. Now. I went from being the Gold Medalist In Competetive Misery, to being someone who is actively happy and grateful, every damn moment. -And yes, if I was you, I'd be raising a skeptical eyebrow right about now. But...

Today, 3 weeks after the death of my justifiably-worshipped Dad, I went with my  Mom for a walk in the frail, hyacinthine twilight. She's getting over double pneumonia, and, I suspect, making up her mind whether to live or die. Dad waited till two days after their 60th anniversary, to make a graceful departure...he was her life, and she was his heart, and how does one renegotiate so delicate a deal as that?

But we walked, and talked, and all of the mother/daughter/family bullshit and neuroses fell away, and we discovered something as amazing as the sighting of a hitherto unknown star: we discovered a friendship worth exploring and savoring. Sure, she's my Mom, and I have to love her, but we found out we LIKE each other tremendously. I was always Dad's girl: same gray eyes, eccentricity, and messiness...but when one "chooses" a favorite parent, one unconsciously does the other parent- and one self- a grave injustice: one unconsciously rejects the aspects of that parent that could really add immeasurably to both of your lives.

Mom knows about nature. I, um, don't. She can look at a plant and say confidently "that's a daylily", and I will say, "Dude? You're on crack. That's an unidentifiable green thing. " Then she'll show me how she knows that that anonymous green shoot has a history and identity of its own. It's moving, (and would be even more moving if I didn't have a mild version of traumatic brain injury that both makes me a world class psychic and gives me the shortterm memory of a concussed duckling, so tomorrow I'll ask the same question about the same damn plant.)

Mom was a history professor at a variety of Ivy League schools, and has, it seems, pretty much all of human historical doings at her fingertips. I was discussing Ghenghis Khan (and his lovely wife Sylvia), and she brought up the Assyrians, who had previously set the GK record for Most People Slaughtered Pointlessly For Reasons That Aren't Immediately Clear.

"They killed at least 3 million people," my ethereally beautiful blonde Mom said, dreamily.

"3 MILLION?" I gasped. "But there weren't actually three million people ALIVE at that ppoint, were there?"

"Not for long," she agreed, and said that there were enough folks left over to repopulate, although for a couple of hundred years or so, it WAS noticeably more difficult to find an extra man for dinner parties.
"Bob?" -"Nope, we slaughtered him."  Silence.
"Claude?"
"Decimated."
I forget how we got onto the subject of patholgical mass slaughter, but it was a beautiful April evening and the daffodils were nodding pleasantly at us, and the pansies, velvet purple and yellow, were singing show tunes as we passed....anyway. The fact is, we got along. Very nicely.

I will return to my life in NYC, and be Fabulous (or possibly not-who cares?) again. But for now I'm cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner for Mom. I take her to doctor's appts. I'm getting a driver's license. I've learned to pump gas. I know how to work a blood pressure gauge. I found her a grief counselor. I've lived through the chaos that follows the death of a magisterial patriarch, and learned to have love and compassion when I really didn't f#*king want to, thank you very much.

And I'm a size four! Woo hoo!

I don't know what the point of this piece is, except that the last six months--which at the time, seemed like the worst possible ever, on steroids--suddenly make a very beautiful sense. I'm learning what a benificent and not very patient Universe wanted me to learn. I've learned to turn poison into medicne. I've learned to love and forgive when it makes no sense to do so, because that's what I'll want someday. And I've learned that my Mom kicks ass and takes names when it comes to knowing about genocide, botany, and flirting.

There are worse legacies.

I love you. Good night.
xxx

the best part

The best part of having the best Dad is the world is, of course, having the best Dad in the world.

The worst part is losing him.

Dr. Marvin Thalenberg, MD, beloved husband and father, died peacefully aged 84 on March 7th, 2011. 

Born in 1926 to David and Pauline Thalenberg, he had one younger sister, Miriam, a lawyer and judge until her early passing at age 44.

Raised in New York City, Dr. Thalenberg attended Hunter Model School and Townsend Harris, graduating at age 14. A prodigy, he appeared on the popular radio show “Quiz Kids”. He entered City College of New York while working as a printer's devil (copyboy) at The New York Sun, then finished his B.A. degree at the University of Virginia at age 17, and completed his Medical degree there in 1949 at the age of 21. While a senior at UVa, Dr. Thalenberg met Toni Robinson, who was then attending the Professional Children's School in New York City. They were married soon after during his residency at Montefiore Hospital, and recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.

Serving as a lieutenant in postwar Germany, he returned to practice privately in New City, New York from 1955 until 1989, also serving as Chief of Medicine at both Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern and at Nyack Hospital. 

Appointed to the post of Commissioner of Health for Rockland County, NY, he served until his retirement in 1998. Dr. Thalenberg taught at Columbia for 24 years as Adjunct Professor, as well as teaching at Harvard, Yeshiva, Pace University, and as a Master Tutor at NYU. Dr. Thalenberg and his wife retired to Annapolis in 2000, where they pursued social activism and philanthropy.

Dr. Thalenberg is survived by his wife Toni Robinson Thalenberg, a former actress and Professor at Wellesley, Manhattanville, NYU and Teachers College, Columbia, and his children Toni, David, Mark, Evan and Peri; his grandchildren Noah Hammarlund, Ariana Kaci, Kirby Thalenberg and Morgan Gill, and great-grandchild Charlotte Gill. Daughters-in-law, Margaret Thalenberg, Amanda Thalenberg, and Yvonne Possman. He called himself “the most fortunate of men.”

Dad? A joke's a joke....come back now, okay?
All my love
Your daughter 

Heart Shaped Nuttiness Inc. -Yikes.

I don't want to sound bitter here or anything, but if I see anything heartshaped again in the next week, I'm going to rip somebody's head off. (-But in a delicate, lady like way. )

It's not me...I'm fine with Valentine's Day. -Well, okay. Maybe not totally. But not for the reasons you might think. 

No. Why? Because a representative percentage of my friends are of the male persuasion. 50-ish percent. I like guys: grew up with them, married some (okay, one, but he's Serbian, so that counts at least double); been in otherwise all-guy bands; have many awesome actual brothers; etc. I like 'em! I like that guys are all hairy and weird and they'll laugh at almost anything. Men is great!!! But Valentine's Day is rough on 'em. The dears.

Why, I hear you ask. Well...Because, at this point, chicks have some Serious Valentine Expectations. SERIOUS. I mean, a guy could rappel down the side of the Sears tower, sweep a chick over his shoulder, carry her off to a Wolfgang-Puck-catered-dinner in a personalized monogrammed hot air ballon, AND give her the Hope Diamond, and-after all the buildup that had started on February First--she'll just gnaw distractedly on a fingernail (hopefully, her own fingernail, and not yours), stare into the middle distance, bite her lip, and look...well, disappointed.

"Honey, what's wrong? Is the diamond not shiny enough? Is the hot air too cool? Is Wolfgang too German? What? What is it, babe?" the guy will say.

"umm.." she'll murmur demurely. "It's just that I really wanted... chocolate."

Hmm. Try to remember your own personal favorite Valentine's day. I've been insanely lucky with the people I've been privileged to spend it with, over time. I've been wined, dined and diamond mined.-Okay, not sure what that last phrase meant, but it rhymes, so let's just go with it.- But the nicest times were not commensurate with the amount of dosh spent. So don't go crazy, fellas.(-Unless you're someone I might be currently dating, in which case, pretend you never saw that last sentence. Thanks!)

The stuff I remember with the most emotion is, surprisingly, the stuff I could-and have- kept in a shoebox. (Note to anyone I'm dating: emeralds fit nicely into a shoebox! A Louboutin shoebox. Um? Right next to the shoes. Thanks!) - Handdrawn cartoon Valentines; handwritten poems; there's even a couple of small hand cut out red construction paper hearts and someday I'll remember who they're from; there's even, endearingly, a piece of paper on which an anonymous thirteen year old boy painstakingly typed* the word "rose" 140 times, with the scrawled words "bet no one ever sent you twelve dozen roses before" beneath it. One's heart sings. -Oh, and there are playlists, on cassettes and cds. One of the sweetest mistakes I've ever found, was a cassette someone I cared for, whom I didn't know cared for me back, sent me, after I'd moved away: 10 years later, i found it was cued up to the last (30 second) song, which ran "and so my love and you are leaving; i don't know how to ask you to stay", which would have been even lovelier if I'd found it ten years earlier, BEFORE he got married and had four kids. -Ooopsie.

Oddly, i remember the Valentine's day on which my then-beloved presented me with an antique trunk of mine he'd secretly fixed up- almost better than the Valentine's Day the year before on which he asked me to marry him. It was such a sweet,  unexpected and odd thing for him to have noticed: that I loved that weird piece of furniture. (Actually, it was a chest, but there was no way i was going to write the words "I remember the Valentine's day my exfiance worked on my chest", EVER, so the word "trunk" had to fill in, unexpectedly. ) I remember one valentine's day my date  and I spent hunting around Chinatown for the biggest live lobsters we could find: by the time our obsessive search was over, I had realized that lobsters look like giant prehistoric bugs and I couldn't eat one or even look at one for the next two years, but ...wait, never mind, that one wasn't so hot. Moving right along. So: "Trunk" good: "lobsters" bad.- Yup. Now we know.

So. ...It's always a little surprising when a cliche turns out to have a core of realtime truth to it. The cliche being, Damn! It really IS the thought that counts. (Except if you're someone I'm dating, in which case it's the thought, the emeralds, and the dinner that counts.-Just kidding.-No. I'm not. Nope. Not even a little. Hand over the emeralds or the lobster gets it, buddy.)

And ladies? Badass Glamourpusses everywhere? Let's turn the tables this year, shall we?

 Let US be the ones to rappel down the side of a building clucthing flowers (us that is. Not the building.)..to  whisk our beloved away in a rather nice car; then sling him bodily into a hotair balloon, treat him to an Alice Waters-catered-dinner [it turns out Wolfgang WAS too German, actually];

present him with a diamond as big as the Ritz, and then...and then..and then......

And then WE can be the ones who watch, dismayed, as he summons a halfhearted moue of disappointment. And says:

 "I really kind of wanted?... a beer."

Actually, am truly wishing you, me, them, us...exes and present and future loves everywhere...and man and womankind in general, which could use a little extra love wherever we can find it: a genuinely Happy Valentine's Day. No sarcasm involved. Just chocolate. And beer. And, well..um...

Love.

(And? Happy Birthday Charlotte the Magnificent, on the 12th!!!)

xxxx smooches

pl

*yes. typed. On an Olympia portable typewriter. What we had before macs. The dinosaurs used them to write their goodbye notes right before the meteors hit. Typewriter rule.-In an archaic, impossible to find replacement cartridges for, kinda way! 

"Saved" A very short story.

He is 17: Dominican, earnest; his caffe au lait skin has a slight greenish tinge. He is sitting on a wooden subway bench and is hanging on to the string of a laundry bag. He is watching the trains.

He is sitting next to a tall blonde in a faux leopard coat and a coffee colored beret; she is resolutely reading her book.

He cranes his neck slightly to look at the book's title: it's called "Radical Forgiveness." The cover is orange with a garish green title. She seems utterly absorbed: theatrically so. He looks at her anyway, not looking away.

"I like your book", he offers.

She looks up, momentarily irritated by the expected distraction. But something in his face catches her- a quality of pleading, maybe a need to be seen--and she lowers the book a bit. In front of them both, an Orthodox woman with  gleaming dark fake hair leans over her carriage'd baby and croons in Yiddish. 

"Miss? Miss? Are you Saved?" The boy's face is suddenly terribly concerned. He thrusts a pamphlet at her.

"Am I ...oh. Hmm." She peruses the pamphlet with interested attention for a moment. She looks up. "Are you? It seems important to you."

"Though a man may be born, he is not born until he accepts Jesus and thus is born again" he quotes importantly. Or maybe it isn't a quote. She doesn't know.

"I'm glad you've found a path that makes you happy." She smiles gently and raises her book again. He grimaces with imptience. 

"It is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven". He seems to her reproachful. Or just hurt.

Sighing, she lowers her book again, but this time turns towards him slightly. She looks rich to him, she just realized. The coat was 50 dollars, her cowboy boots are from a thrift store in Bellingham, WA, but her hair is expensive and her accent is clipped, and her purse is obviously good, though slightly battered.

"You are born again, right? How did this happen." She settles back slightly on the hard wooden bench, her youngish face turned towrds the young man's now gleaming enthusiasm. 

"Well, Miss..oh, what's your name? I'm Alberto." He offers a hand with grave sweetness. She shakes it. 

"Peri. Tell me what happened, Alberto. It seems to have changed your life."

Alberto stares off to the right for a moment, remembering. The flat bluish light of the Underground gives his face shadows it might not have. For a moment he looks old as he looks at his past.

"I met, I met these Christians. I'm from Staten Island. and I....where are you from?" he asks, as though suddenly remembering a duty. 

"I'm from here." The woman smiles slightly, her smile looping up to the right in suppressed amusement.

"You don't SOUND it", said a now child again Alberto, politely challenging, his street kid self always checking for a scam.

"I know, but go on. Really. I'm from here. Go on."

He preenes himself unconscioulys, hands rising to smooth his crew cut curls, then returning to lay face down on top of his upper thighs, like a good boy getting ready to recite a lesson.

"There was this cop, I mean there was a police who seed me all the time on account of I was sleeping at the Ferry terminal. He assed me if I wanna go to church."

"So you were homeless? That's an awful feeling." Her face was impassive.

"Yeah, right? I wan'ed to be a medical assistant, but it was hard cuz I didn't got the clothes. You know for the school." Looking away again, towards the shadows to their right. 

"And...?"

He comes back from the reverie. His face gets young again. 

"And I went to church wit them and I got saved. Jesus changed my heart." His face glows with pride. 

The greenish tinge gets slightly more apparent. He says abruptly: "Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid...for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."

He turns his face, now shining with schoolboy pride, towards her. "That's from Psalms."

"Wow, that was a nice quote. You must love words."

He's nodding hard. "I love Jesus. You should too, he loves you so much. Just confess your sins and ask his forgiveness. We are all sinners." His young/old face looks scared.

The leopard clad woman starts gathering her packages. Her face is careful with thought. She straightens up.

"Hmm. I don't know. I don't think He gets angry with us if we're trying to be good. I think--maybe?--a sin is just something you do, when you don't really know what you're doing. Maybe He only seems mad. I think He  probably just gets frustrated with us. Maybe a sin is just something that blocks us from our best selves. Maybe he wants us not to, you know, block His light. But here's the Q train."

Alberto says stubbornly, "Ask, and you will receive. Knock and the door shall be opened to you."

The woman puts on gold glasses. She leans over and picks up her bags. "I will. Did you get a place to live? Are you okay?" She loops the purse strap around her shoulder. Now she is standing.

He is suddenly standing. "Yes! It is a blessing of the Lord! I live across from Port Authority! For free!"

A passing train played light and dark across his eyes. 

"That's great. I'm really glad. I have to..." 

"Yes. The policeman pays my rent. So it's free." He frowns slightly at the tracks in front of the now oncoming train. The leopard lady looks up from her bag arrangement suddenly. Looks at him. His eyes are suddenly an opaque brown, the color of a wet dark stone.

She put a hand on his upper arm, a gesture of comfort. A moment and shadows pass.

"Alberto, my train's coming." she said gently. He looks up again, and she is smiling, this without the upward hitch of bemusement. 

She says: "hey, give me one of those." She gestures towards the pamphlet with her chin, her hands now filled with bags. 

"Oh, yeah! You can read it. If you have any questions-"-here importance swells his chest and makes his voice go baritone--"you just call me. See? Here's where my number is. Alberto. That's me. I can.."

She has wiggled a hand free to grab the garish paper. "Gotta go. Good luck. Really." she looks at him steadily for  moment. She looks away, stepping onto the train.

"Miss, you gotta be saved!" He is now concernedly waving a pamphlet at her, his arm reaching up to be seen above the heads of the passengers pushing into the train. "Miss!"

The doors closes. Shehas  reflexively looked down to check that her purse was safe. When she looks up, again, he is a small figure on the a platform that is vanishing into the past.

She looks down at the seated middle aged German tourist seated before her. He is lean, and fit looking, with that resolute "I'm not lost!" expression people get in unfamiliar subways. He sees her and gets up to give her his seat. She smiles. Tries not to drop her possessions as she's sitting, arranging the bags so they didn't look too out of control to strangers.

The subway goes into a tunnel. She looks at her reflection the darkened window across from her. It smoothes out the lines from her youngish face, and she smiles.

pl  1/16/11 nyc