The Stuffing of Life

It never ceases to amaze me, the sight of New York City from the air after dark.

Last night, as we leveled off before the final descent into LaGuardia, I pressed my face against the window and watched the light show unfold. The Statue of Liberty heralded our arrival, looking like a small jewel in the converging waters of the two rivers, dwarfed now by the new tower piercing the black sky at Ground Zero.  The lights of cars on the busy highways lining the East River on both banks gave the impression that the city itself was on the move, made it seem as if the sparkling bridges criss-crossing the water might somehow dislodge themselves and float into the harbor. I felt comforted by the twinkling multi-colored spire of the Empire State Building, still, despite all the changes to the skyline over the years, dominating the midtown skyline. Dependable, a venerable survivor.

Reluctantly, I pulled my face back from the glass; time to kick my bag under the seat in front of me, check my seat belt, ready myself for landing and avoid the sharp admonishment of a tired flight attendant. The man in the seat next to me was staring at me, a kind but puzzled stare. I felt embarrassed for having obstructed his view, but nowhere near as embarrassed as I had felt earlier in the flight when I uttered some gibberish in my half-sleep, drawing his attention away from his IPad. (He had seemed willing to chat; I pretended to not know where the noise had come from.) Certainly nowhere near as embarrassed as I would have felt had he woken from his own restless sleep to find me struggling in vain to see the print on the crossword puzzle I had retrieved from the floor, gazing up overhead to be sure my light was on. (It was; instead of grabbing my reading glasses from my purse, I had grabbed my sunglasses, and, I would imagine, was looking like a bit of a lunatic).

Yes, after so many years of approaching New York by air, though I have become a dotty middle aged woman who talks to herself, wears sunglasses in the dark, and practically licks the window to see the sights, I still feel childlike and small. Mesmerized, rude, goofy, disoriented. Playing dress-up with oversized sunglasses. And still, after so many years, looking forward – in an ambivalent sort of way – to catching a glimpse of my mom as she awaits my arrival in the terminal.

My daughter spotted her first. There she was, in the same spot she has been in for years, first with my father by her side, then alone. Despite the crowd, she always stands out, with her helmet of hair blown and sprayed completely out of proportion in preparation for the holidays, her Burberry plaid coat and Fendi pocketbook looking exceptionally large around her shrinking frame. I can tell from the smiles on the faces of the folks surrounding her that they all know everything about us – our names, where we live, how excited she is that we are coming in. I always half expect to see some of these people sitting at our Thanksgiving table later in the week.

It is hard to believe my mom is on the verge of turning eighty-two. It is just as hard to believe I am no longer carrying a baby or schlepping bags of picked through snacks or sporting some child’s puke on the front of my shirt. It’s just me and my youngest this time, and we did not even sit together. Her brother is in Japan, her sister is on a different plane, her father will just have to wait until Christmas for the big family visit on his side of things. I wonder where the years have gone, wonder how many more years there can possibly be of coming home to the inherently annoying but oddly comforting sight of mom waiting for me at the airport. I know she is thinking the same thing. Frankly, she’s been thinking it for five hours. (She’s been at the airport since before we took off from Chicago; you never know how much traffic you’ll hit).

When our plane finally bounced onto the runway, the kind man next to me asked me how I did on my crossword puzzle. Since my eyes had only been open briefly, and then only with sunglasses impeding their view, I had not done very well at all. I wondered if he had caught the whole sunglasses episode and had been too polite to say anything. He admitted he had not gotten very far with his reading either. I wondered if he, too, was feeling preoccupied and a bit childlike, coming home, maybe, to a life lived in another time.

We have been through a lot over the years – my mom, me, New York. My children too, but – happily -- they have not yet crossed the threshold into an adulthood where a shrinking future becomes dwarfed by a looming past. Hopefully, they have lots of time ahead of them to explore, to change, time before they need to seek comfort in the humdrum routine of being welcomed by an elderly mother who defies old age and a grand city that continues to beat back adversity like nobody’s business.

Birds of a feather, those two, two tough old birds. They go well together, my mom and New York, and, every once in awhile, it’s nice – amazing even -- to come home.

(And speaking of birds…Happy Thanksgiving to all!!!!!)

Heaven Can Wait (A Few Weeks)

Contrary to what I have been led to believe all these years, Jews do believe in heaven and hell. Good news in and of itself, as it is reassuring to know there are goals far more lofty (and, no doubt, far more attainable) than making Jewish mothers proud.

The news of a belief in the afterlife was alarming at first. Though my Talmudic knowledge is admittedly fuzzy, I do recall learning that we Jews justify our greedy partaking of the pleasures of life because we do not believe in heaven and hell, and, put simply, there's just no time like the present. We live without fear of Satanic punishment or the promise of heavenly reward, which pretty much gives us license to party. WWJD, meet WTF! We enjoy life with wild abandon, as long as we go to medical school or law school and try not to incur the wrath -- or, worse still, the disappointment -- of mom. Daunting, yes, but nowhere near as terrifying as the prospect of being condemned to eternal supernatural pain. Damn close, sometimes, but still, no contest.

As it turns out, there is no cause for alarm and, in fact, there is every reason to rejoice, even though there's a good chance I, for one, will be doing some time in hell. Apparently, we Jews take advantage of the pleasures of life not because there are no consequences but because God commands us to, because asceticism in any form is a sin. Woohoo! Thou shalt be hedonistic. Though we have few specific details about heaven, and I can only hope it's not the brightly lit (oy, how unflattering) community in the clouds (oy, the humidity) filled with cherubic angels buzzing overhead (oy, what do they feed those kids?) and presided over by some old and frail saint (give me a good deadbolt and a suburban police force trained to keep outsiders out any time). All I know is it is likely a wonderful place where good folks are rewarded for their good works on Earth, or at least their good intentions. I'm guessing there's a Bloomingdale's on every block (where every day is "friends and family" day), a beach where I look great in a bikini, and no matrimonial attorneys anywhere in sight.

But wait, the news gets even better. Hell, for us, is not a fire filled place with no windows. There is no Satan, and nobody -- not even the Jews -- has horns. There is no Dante-esque sign on the door saying "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." A God who commands hedonism would never be so hypocritical. Hell, for Jews, while certainly not paradise, is no worse than a no-frills spa. It's a place where our imperfect souls can go to get purified, a place where, at worst, we may have to forego fancy facials and mud wraps and settle for a bit of tasteless food and an amateur massage on a shaky table in an unairconditioned room (oy, so hot, but it's not like we'll get burned). And Jews, notoriously liberal, have a like minded God, who has handed down quite lenient sentencing guidelines. No matter how impure we have been, the maximum sentence is a year, and most of us get sprung much earlier. Some of us can even be tweaked in twenty-four hours -- kind of a no-frills day spa. There's probably an occasional Groupon deal for the borderline cases, the ones who just miss the non-stop flight to heaven.

I've always been skeptical about the non-existence of an afterlife, and I have tried to comfort myself with the notion that Hell is where all the other fun people are. True enough, but we'd probably not be allowed to play with each other, and there's nothing fun about that. I suddenly feel as if I've been given a new lease on life -- and death. A few years in my double wide will prepare me well for a year or less in a place without eucalyptus scented towels and fancy French wine with dinner.

As the Bible says, "thank God I was born a Jew." Well, it doesn't exactly say that, but I'm starting to believe it's a pretty good deal.

High School Jew-bilee

Gawking is bad form, particularly when you are the designated "gawkee."

How does one explain to a group of high school students in a Catholic school what it means to be a Jew? As the kids filed in, the boys in their button down shirts and ties, the girls in their pleated plaid skirts and knee socks, I was relieved to be sitting behind the desk, my fashionable thigh high boots discreetly hidden from view. I realized I had way more questions for this curious and somewhat alien looking band of young creatures than I had answers about myself. The caged lioness on display had become the spectator, peering wide-eyed at the strange cluster of humans gathering to question me about my mysterious tribe. 

While I gawked rather shamelessly, these teenagers behaved with a startling degree of decorum. Though some cast occasional surreptitious glances my way, for the most part they betrayed little interest in me as they went about their alien rituals.  My social graces, learned as they were in a chaotic Jewish home and reinforced in a public high school where, some days, survival trumped any objectives scribbled on the chalk board, leave little room for subtlety. There was nothing surreptitious about my open mouthed utter fascination with the uniformity of their uniforms, their sartorial anonymity, their exotic customs. In unison, they rose, staring at something I, for the life of me, could not see (for a moment I thought it was me until I realized they were praying; even my delusions of grandeur have their limits), spoke some words, and made some brisk sweeping motions with their hands. "Our father," garble garble garble, hands moving up and down, side to side in front of their hearts. Talk about tribal. I  grew up thinking the moments before class started were reserved for the throwing of spit balls.

As it turned out, the creatures spoke English, in fact seemed to be members of a highly intelligent life form. I resisted the urge to roam the hallways and peer into other classrooms, just to see the other exhibits. What I had begun to refer to as "Jew and Tell" began in earnest. As it turns out, their initial show of indifference was just politeness; they were as curious about me as I was about them. With some gentle (or should I say gentile) prodding, I encouraged them to ask questions. Even armed as I was with a lifetime's worth of meshuganah Jewish anecdotes, I felt certain nothing could be as fascinating as what they could tell me about why all those girls had chosen to wear the same plaid skirt this morning. In a rare show of good taste, I did not ask.

After a brief but uncomfortable silence, one brave soul asked me to name my favorite Jewish celebrity. "Jon Stewart," I told them. They seemed to approve. "Although Jesus was a bit of a rock star," I added, thinking we would all relax a bit if we remembered we share a favorite son. They laughed. I thought about the Catholic school around the corner from where I grew up, the girls and boys in uniforms who walked the same sidewalks as we did at the end of the school day. We never spoke, rarely even acknowledged each other's existence. I wonder now whether they viewed us with as much suspicion and curiosity as we viewed them. All I know is my mom assured me that despite the modest skirts and all the virgin Mary crap, those Catholic school girls were promiscuous little sluts. I so wanted to be Catholic.

Jew and Tell sped by, as the students and I traded ideas about religion in general, and all sorts of stories about religious and cultural customs, from food to prayers to games to mourning rituals, and to the beauty of Christmas time in New York. Toward the end, one girl asked me what I thought was most different about my childhood from theirs. That one was easy. "We Jews address our parents' friends by their first names," I told them. They all nodded in immediate agreement, some pointing to the vivacious Italian girl in the front row as a notable exception. An interesting example about how incorrect  overgeneralizations and assumptions can be; about how each of them, as individuals, and I might have lots more in common than we think we do. 

I emerged, a bit sheepishly, from behind the desk to wave goodbye to my new young friends. Come to think of it, boots and plaid go quite well together. 

52 Pick-Up

I ushered out my year of being fifty-two crumpled up on the unseasonably warm November pavement, retching like a high school kid after her first illicit drinking party. I was just coherent enough to wonder where the fun was in all of that. With some help, I picked myself up, and went home to put me, and a year filled with its share of silly games and bad jokes (and, to be fair, some good stuff), to bed.

I ushered in my fifty-third birthday with a pounding headache and a firm resolve to stay "up." And never to drink on an empty stomach. The barrage of well-wishing texts and phone calls began early, topped off by a steady stream throughout the day of "happy birthday" comments on my Facebook timeline (whatever that is), all making me feel optimistic and a tad bit more special than I actually am. I felt ready to pick up the pieces of a hectic fifty-two, and with the help of several doses of Advil, I felt more than ready to crack open a new deck and deal myself a new hand for fifty-three.

When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping, which is exactly how my daughters and I kicked off my celebratory weekend in downtown Chicago. Retail therapy is a potent narcotic, not to be overused or abused, naturally, but highly effective whether you are shopping for yourself or for others. Three hours passed in what seemed to be a minute, and as we carried our packages back to our hotel, exhausted and starving, we had a bit of an extra spring in our collective step. The only thing that could have made the afternoon nicer was having my son join us, and he may have even viewed it as an appealing alternative to what he was actually doing -- playing Santa in some shopping mall in Japan. WTF?

Dinner, at a favorite old haunt in the neighborhood where my husband and I started building our little family so many years ago, was festive and delicious, made even better as we sported some of our new purchases. We exited to a ridiculously balmy November night, and decided to walk the almost four miles back to our hotel. It was a walk through my early years in Chicago, a tour of long forgotten neighborhoods that, despite some updates and changes in dining and shopping establishments, seemed strangely familiar. The sidewalks were busy enough to feel lively but not too busy to impede our progress. The residential blended seamlessly into the commercial; even the dogs out for their evening walks appeared to relish the diverse sounds and smells of their surroundings. There were couples and individuals and groups, there were people of different ages and nationalities. People from all walks of life, Chicago natives no matter where they came from, enjoying the rare beautiful night in a city that rarely sleeps but certainly hibernates for a few challenging months of winter.

Memories of my young adulthood flooded back. Runs along the lake front. Leisurely walks home from work. Strolls to the zoo with two young children in a cumbersome double stroller. Old guys (meaning guys in their thirties, maybe forties) playing sixteen inch softball. Hot summer afternoons at crowded beaches with the city skyline as a backdrop. Funny how selective memory can be. As we walked, I recalled no frustration with work, no ennui, no tiring days taking care of kids and trying to escape for an occasional night out. Certainly no marital strife, just all the good stuff, in a place that did nothing but twinkle, as it did last night. Not even the occasional breeze whipping hardened fall leaves and errant beach sand in our faces could dampen my recollections of a place and a time I longed to recapture. If only for the chance to appreciate it more -- get a bit of a do-over.

Back at the hotel, our feet a little achy but our spirits high, we feasted on my favorite kind of birthday cake and watched a movie. Okay, well I may have missed most of the middle, but since it was still technically my birthday when it ended my daughters were kind enough to fill in some of the gaps for me. Even thirty-three floors up, we could feel the energy of Michigan Avenue, sense the life that would continue on well into the night, long after most of suburbia has fallen into a restless middle aged sleep.

My game of 52 pick up is over, and the first hand of my year of being fifty-three has been dealt. So far, so good. My house of cards has been battered but is still standing. In these days of apocalyptic storms and changing climates beyond my control, I am thankful for that.

In a State

It's Election Day, and, as I have for at least several weeks, I woke in a blue state.

Blue because I am weary, weary from the incessant barrage of political ads on television, the enormous stacks of tree killing postcards in my mailbox, the infuriating ring of the doorbell when I'm trying to hide in my house and avoid everyone I know, not to mention folks I don't know. Apparently some local campaign wonks have determined I am more likely to vote for their candidate if some "neighbor" rings my doorbell to personally hand me a flyer that I will immediately toss into the recycling bin. Let's just say pulling me away from a tense game of spider solitaire is not the way to get on my good side.

I was born and raised a New York Jew, and I am a woman living in deep dark upper middle class suburbia, which means I am likely to vote with my left leaning conscience and remain blissfully ignorant of the negative impact that could have on my already beaten up Chanel purse.   I suppose I could put a bit more thought into things, but trying to figure out from all the ads and flyers which deadbeat dad or tax evader or other criminal or miscreant or basically heinous human being should get my stamp of approval would turn my already blue state into a state of utter confusion and, really, who needs that shit? Call me simple, but all I know is I will do my part to make sure no woman will ever associate a coat hanger with anything other than, well, her coat closet.

In my defense, though I have admittedly given up trying to determine from all the negative ads which politician is most worthy of jail time, I have tried to consider other factors in making my decisions. Like name recognition. I figure lawn signs can give me a good idea of which candidates are popular, and if they are popular, they must be nice people. So I took a drive around the neighborhood the other day, taking my own little straw poll based on signage. No luck:



My mind remained open this morning as I drove up to the polling place. I ignored the clusters of signs as I walked to the entrance, hoping for some sort of epiphany before I received my ballot. I joined a small group of voters approaching the glass doors, and we were greeted by a candidate. I recognized her name from the signage, but I couldn't tell you what she's running for or against whom. She stood next to two signs; one said "Vote here;" the other "Vote aqui." She waved, identified herself, and said "Thanks for your guysizz support!" WTF? Maybe my bar is pretty low, but that didn't sound like English, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't Spanish either.

An epiphany! My blue state is starting to fade.

Slices of Life

My childhood friend, who has already had a year filled with too much tragedy and loss, is now dealing with the aftermath of "superstorm" Sandy. With her suburban home temporarily uninhabitable, she is seeking refuge in the Brooklyn apartment where she grew up. An apartment where her vibrant mom always was, and now is not, having succumbed to cancer this summer.

She is as strong willed and seemingly invincible as her mom was, yet my friend suddenly feels as powerless as the fuses in her house. She berates herself for being cranky, knowing others suffered far more damage from Sandy than she did. "What's my excuse?" I asked her as I sat sipping my coffee in a warm and cozy Starbucks eight hundred miles away from the devastation, my east coast family members safe and fully wired. I am as cranky as they come. Cranky because my chronically aching hip kept me from running a race with my daughters, and I have been relegated to the role of chauffeur and, after I finish my coffee, shivering spectator.  Honestly, though, there are lots of folks out there who have it a lot worse than I do. Ya think?

Trying to conserve the precious ounces of gas she has left in her car, my friend has taken a few strolls down our gritty Brooklyn memory lane. As if the ongoing news of Sandy's aftermath isn't shocking enough, she informed me yesterday that our old candy store, Morty & Eddie's, is now called Halal Chinese and Afghan cuisine. It makes me wonder what the kids in P.S. 217 do after lunch. Are they imaginative enough to hide aromatic Asian food in their desks? Worse still, have they never known the pleasure of sucking quietly on a jawbreaker for an hour to wash away the taste of a peanut butter sandwich? Must they suck on an eggroll instead, try to concentrate during those sleepy afternoon hours while picking stringy vegetables from their teeth?

Time passes, and things change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not, but either way we cannot help but yearn for what used to be. Yesterday, as I wandered down the northern stretch of State Street in Chicago's Loop for the first time in years, I was shocked to see how different it looked from a day, more than twenty-seven years ago, when I had found myself there for the first time. It was dirty and crowded and seedy and tacky. It is still tacky, but in a sterile sort of way. Old run down discount shops have been replaced by gargantuan bargain chain stores with polished windows and colorful signs advertising enticing sales. There are fewer panhandlers, no homeless folks huddled in doorways wearing countless layers of clothing. Like the dusty shelves and narrow passageways of Morty & Eddies, now supplanted by something called "cuisine," the grit of State Street has been overrun by the illusion of glitz.

I know it's not so much the grime that I miss; it's simply the old days. Jawbreakers were a lot of work. Morty & Eddies was claustrophobic. State Street was downright icky. But, then again, back in those days, all our parents seemed invincible, my hip didn't feel like it was about to break in two, and my friend didn't have to fret about what her house was going to look like when she finally returned  from her surreal visit to the apartment in which she grew up.

The good news, or the sad truth, I suppose, is that years from now my friend and I and lots of others like us will look back upon the fall of 2012 and think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. And we all know full well there's nothing so special about sliced bread.

Call Me Crazy

"Call me Anna."

"What???"

"Cong."

"Mom, stop voice texting!"

Nobody understands me. Not even Siri, or her cousin who's in charge of the voice activated texting end of things. I try to be a good citizen and follow the rules and I take advantage of all the high tech hands free options on my iPhone while I'm driving and I get nothing but grief. Siri's evil cousin twists everything I say, and my daughter's disdain continues to grow.

On the fourth or fifth try, the little person inside my phone finally got my message right. "I'm coming!" By that time, of course, I was already there, and my daughter was actually waiting outside the school entrance to meet me. She approached the car with some trepidation. I burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" She didn't seem amused. "I was getting a little creeped out that somebody named Anna was texting me from my mom's phone." Aw. I was touched. She cared.

"Well you can call me Anna," I told her. I figure it's a lot nicer than whatever else she calls me in her head.

"Weirdo!"

Like weirdo, for example.

Anna. I like it. It was my grandmother's name (depending on which translation of some indecipherable Russian letters you use). It's old fashioned and modern at the same time, one of those names that doesn't get stuck with just one generation. Unlike Seymour, for example (my father's name), a name that appeared like some cruel joke in about 1917 and slipped quickly out of favor, I would guess, as soon as those poor tykes reached school age and faced the mockery of their peers. Peers with names like Stanley and Irving, no less. Names that boast longevity only because somewhere along the way folks stopped naming their dogs Fido.

Frankly, I'm pretty sure Anna is out of the question, and for now, I'm stuck with an occasional exasperated "Mom!" Not soft and feminine and flowing and timeless like Anna, but at least it's an acknowledgment of my existence. It beats the crap out of the silent, stink-eye stare.

The next time I voice text her to tell her I'm coming, I'm going to just instruct Siri's cousin to transmit the "call me Anna" message. On an especially good day, it might elicit a chuckle. On an ordinary day, she'll just know what it means. That I'm on my way. Call me crazy, but I'll always be there, no matter what.