Manifest Destinations. Not.

Your destination is on your left. She never loses her self-assured monotone. Even when she is wrong. I ignore her and keep driving.

Your destination is on your left. She is insistent. It is pointless to argue with her, counterproductive to smash her into the dashboard. She persists. Make a u-turn, she says, still in that annoying self-righteous monotone. Ha! Obviously she missed the "no u-turn" sign on the side of the road. She somehow knows there's a Mobil station on the corner, but she's clueless when it comes to the rules of the road.

I turn around -- legally -- and head back in the other direction. I expect her to call me a wimp for not making a u-turn, but she's too busy feeling smug. Your destination is on your right, she says, not betraying one bit of the I told you so running through her circuits. I shout obscenities at her and keep driving, but she is unfazed. Your destination is on your right. 

Eventually, I turn around again and park across the street from my destination, which is now, as she cannot resist pointing out, on my left again. It is a house, definitely not the sprawling high school I was looking for. The street name is the same, as is the address, but it is not what I am looking for.

Frankly, the house looks as confused as I feel. Its dingy white facade and unkempt front lawn are at odds with the brightly painted white picket fence that encircles it. The fence tells one story, the house another. This is only temporary, the house tells me; this is only a pit stop, not a final destination. We have not even bothered to unpack. The fresh paint on the fence, though, that tells me the folks inside intend to stay awhile. Our destination is right here, it tells me. We care; we are digging in. I consider the possibility that both narratives can be true.

It occurred to me the other day that, come September, all three of my children will be living somewhere else. Somewhere away from Chicago, the city they have always known as home. The city where I have lived for more than half my life but where I still consider myself to be a visitor. My address has changed several times here; I've packed and unpacked many boxes, but I have never fully unpacked my soul.
It's not that I have ever felt unwelcome here, certainly not that I don't have cherished friends. I have amassed more than half a lifetime's worth of memories, some good, some not. Come to think of it, I don't even dislike it here. Far from it. Still, when people I meet ask me where I'm from, my first instinct is always to say Brooklyn. I am from Brooklyn, but I live in Chicago now, I tell them. As if it were nothing more than a stopover.

I wonder if my children feel as I do, no matter where they are, that a piece of their soul resides in the place where they began their journey. That if a destination appears to be on the right, all you need to do is wait and it's somewhere else. Ironically, my oldest will be living in New York soon, a stone's throw from where I grew up, but I know she will not -- now or ever --  consider herself a New Yorker. No matter how adept she has or will become at navigating the subway system or weaving through crowded sidewalks or spending lots of money to live in cramped spaces, she will always be a Chicagoan. An avid Cubs fan, accustomed to running along the shore of a crystal blue lake as opposed to the gritty banks of a murky river, expecting prime time television to begin at seven, not eight. The same, I think, is true of my other two children. As comfortable and settled as they might feel wherever they are at the moment, like it or not Chicago is in their blood.

And one day, if I somehow end up back where I started, in Brooklyn (as many have predicted), I will never be able to fully unpack the piece of my soul that is now occupied by Chicago. Brooklyn will be a far different place. Not geographically, of course, but because I will be a far different person, much farther along in my journey. We are all, I think, a bit like that dingy house encircled by the freshly painted white picket fence. We pretend to have arrived, and we settle in, at least for the moment. We build our fences and feel secure, relieved to not be on the move. We never unpack everything though, knowing, deep down, that destinations may come and go -- or even remain the same -- but there isn't a GPS in the world that can tell us, with any degree of certainty, when and where our destiny is.

Your destination is on the right. Your destination is on the left. I consider doing a few 360's just to piss her off; maybe, eventually, she will realize she just doesn't know where I am headed. How could she, when I don't even have a clue.

Singing Off Key

In the months before I left home for college, my mother and I did a lot of shopping. We loaded up on loose fitting but neat crew neck Shetland sweaters, baggy Levi's jeans from the boys' department, and khaki pants that accentuated, um, nothing. It was bad enough that I was only sixteen; worse, still, that I looked as if I were twelve.

My choice of school was in no small measure influenced by my mother's opinions, which were, in no small measure, based upon, well, I'm not exactly sure. I was taught early on that mother knows best -- with father coming in at a close second, if only because he usually backed mother up. I assumed, as I always had, that I was woefully unqualified to make major life decisions about my own life, an assumption that carries with it the perk of never making your own mistakes.

By virtue of either benign neglect or a lingering skepticism about my own judgment, I have allowed my  children to make their own major life choices and to risk making their own mistakes. In a few months, my youngest daughter and most of her friends will be off to the colleges they want to attend. Their suitcases  will be devoid of Shetland sweaters and boys' Levis and androgynous khakis, and filled with clothing that accentuates, um, pretty much everything. They are eighteen (or close to it) and look every bit their age, and then some. If they choose to get married one day, they would never be caught dead in one of the puffy sleeved wedding dresses their moms wore. As unprepared as we are for their departure, they are more ready than we could ever have been.

We celebrated Spring Break in the Bahamas together, five moms, six girls. At dinner one evening, we watched the girls pile onto the karaoke stage and deliver a vampy and painfully dissonant rendition of a Beyonce hit. The one or two who can actually carry a tune were drowned out by the others, trumped by the exuberance of singing off key. At once startled and impressed by their confidence, we moms watched, speechless, as we held up our iphones to videotape the spectacle. Our babies, all grown up, strutting around in outfits our own mothers would have burned. The shutters had been thrown wide open, at least for a moment, giving us a glimpse of the world inhabited by our little girls, the innocent and bleary eyed teens we think we know, the ones who shuffle around the house in old sweats, hair piled haphazardly on top of their heads. Talk about dissonant.

I had anticipated spring break with my daughter's friends and their moms, women whom I have only known in passing for years (except for the one I never knew at all) with a mix of dread and excitement. Okay, not so much excitement as cautious optimism, and that only because the winter had been so horrendous. Back in the planning stages, I had toyed with the idea of not going. My daughter would ignore me anyway, and I was terrified the moms would too. Schoolyard fears, at fifty-four. Shame on me. Ultimately, I decided to venture outside my bubble and at least try to enjoy some climate change -- the good kind -- and maybe even some quality sleep.

As it turns out, expectations were fairly low all around. Middle aged women, all as nervous about fitting in for five days as our daughters are about beginning a life outside the nest. Even the girls admitted to having low expectations for the trip. As confident as they all seemed masquerading as mysterious womanly creatures who can sway provocatively and belt out songs off key, they are still little girls, just like their moms. The truth is -- though some might not admit it -- we all had the most fun when we were doing little girl things: jumping through waves, marveling at the sight of tropical fish, screeching down water slides, eating ice cream cones. Our daughters came home with the security of old friendships still very much intact, and we moms came home with the promise of new friendships that might even help us through the emptying of our nests.

Five Bahama mamas, six girls on the threshold of life, all bound together by a brief adventure that helped us learn a lot about each other and ourselves. Nothing lost, and a paradise gained, all of us singing off key, together.

Waiting for the Easter Bunny

I went to Starbucks armed only with my laptop this morning. No legal pad. No stacks of cases or hearing transcripts. No New York Times crossword puzzle. It's been almost a month since I last visited my blog site, and I feel a bit disconnected. A ridiculously arduous winter seems to have rendered me speechless.

My fingers rested on the keyboard for quite some time, the cushiony tips melting into the recesses of the little squares. I am not just blocked; I am frozen. My body aches, my mind wanders, my hopes are dashed each morning the moment I check the local news to find the weather has still not improved. After twenty-nine years of Chicago winters, years during which I was often baffled by the folks who seemed surprised by the weather, I am, every day, surprised by the weather.

And still, come to think of it, surprised by what passes for serious news on morning television. I know most people watching the weather girl are focusing on her cleavage and don't really hear what she's saying, but I am a great multi-tasker. While my eyes go wide with awe at the unnaturally low cut of her pre-dawn dress -- maybe she came straight to work from, um, a party? -- my ears burn with puzzlement. "It will be a cool day," she says. Since when does eighteen degrees -- Fahrenheit, that is -- qualify as cool? "Cool," in my inexpert opinion, is the slight dip in temperature on a summer evening that reminds us to grab a light sweater. Maybe we're all just so sick of the cold we can't even say the word out loud. Maybe she was just overheated from her evening activities. 

To those of us who greet the new day with the afterglow of a hot flash (as opposed to the afterglow --and cleavage -- of a weekday morning walk of shame), it is not cool outside. It is not even just cold. It is Cold with a capital C, generally preceded by some profane adjective. Harbingers of spring, nevertheless, have teased me into a false sense of optimism. March came in like a lamb, relatively speaking anyway, if only because the sun was shining. Birds chirp their impatience outside my window, wishing, no doubt, they had not flown in early just to beat the springtime rush. The sun sets later, and looks to be higher in the sky. Awards season in Hollywood has come and gone, and there hasn't been a snow day in weeks. The rosy Olympic glow that had been cast over Russia has been replaced by the pall of brutality in the Ukraine. Fat Tuesday yesterday, Ash Wednesday today, Lent is upon us. I'm converting to Catholicism. I'm giving up shoveling. I hope the Easter bunny has a good pair of boots. 

My optimism knows no bounds. When I heard plows rumbling by in the middle of the night I chose to believe they were just low flying planes. When I woke and assessed the latest layer of snow blanketing my driveway I deemed it a mere dusting and convinced myself that giving up shoveling for Lent was a fabulous idea. The snow will melt, eventually. And if I toss any more snow on the thick piles closing in on my narrow drive my car will be stuck in the garage until May.

Let it snow. 

Life Outside the Bubble

A week ago, I missed a good friend's birthday. Not just a good friend. The kind of friend who gets excited about your birthday weeks before it arrives, the friend who takes charge of your celebration, the friend who sends cards at least a week early and would never find a stamped, un-mailed card buried beneath piles of crap on her desk. 

To make matters worse, it was a significant birthday. Not that every birthday isn't significant, particularly as we move through the AARP years, but let's face it, fifty-five, "double nickels," is a big deal. And, if my math is correct, I actually spoke to her that day. About me, about something going on in my life. Sigh. If I had only looked at a calendar, noticed that a new month had arrived. Actually, it's my daughter's fault. When I told her of my screw-up, she said she had considered reminding me, but she thought that would be unnecessary. It was uncharacteristic of her to overestimate me, she who worries constantly that she will be called upon sooner than most to care for her addle brained mother. She will, no doubt, never make such a mistake again. Yes, it's my daughter's fault. 

But she shares the blame. I think at least some of the fault lies with Facebook and that arrogant snot-nosed kid Mark Zuckerberg. I have, over the past year, wished countless happy birthdays to people I never see, folks whose lives are accessible to me only to the extent they post pictures on line. It's not that I regret having extended good wishes to them, and I certainly appreciated all the good wishes I received from them on my own big day. But I have come to rely upon Facebook to notify me when somebody is celebrating a special day, damn it; I have abdicated all personal responsibility for these matters. Yes, it's Zuckerberg's fault. If he accepts my friend request, I'm going to blast him.

And, while I'm pointing fingers, I think it's my friend's fault as well. Why the heck is she not on Facebook. Doesn't she know it's so much easier to keep in touch with thousands at once than maintain intimate relationships with the folks who make up your small inner circle? Why cultivate deep, meaningful friendships when, with a mere click of a mouse, you can stay in glorious superficial touch with every Tom, Dick, or Judy you have ever so much as rubbed up against in the past thirty years? How can anyone be expected to remember birthdays the old fashioned way. Like phone numbers; most of us would have no idea how to reach our own mother if our phone disappeared, contact list and all. Unless, of course, mom is hip and on Facebook.  Yes, it's my friend's fault. She is so early nineties.

I glide through my days in my new neighborhood in blissful obscurity. At best I have shared my first name with a few people. They know nothing else about me, have no basis upon which to form any opinions, good or bad, which works for me. When I am the first one out in the snow, I shovel the steps I share with a neighbor, and am extra meticulous with her half. I don't know if she notices, or cares. The other day, the guy two doors down came over to help me finish shoveling. He said it was too painful to watch me; as far as he knows (or cares), my inept shoveling technique is my worst flaw. I will never forget his birthday because I will never know it. Come to think of it, maybe it's his fault I was so negligent about my friend's birthday. Surely they bear some of the blame, he and all the other folks around here who are content to let me remain relatively anonymous, who unknowingly enable me to barricade myself inside a bubble.

Or maybe it's the endless days of bitter cold and snow; or the new job (which has yet to start) or the new house (which is not so new anymore); or my blind dog who likes to eat breakfast at three o'clock in the morning. Or, maybe, just maybe, it's me being an idiot. A completely self involved idiot, no less. Yes, the more I think about it, the more I realize that is the only logical explanation. 

It doesn't really matter whether the neighbors know it, because I do, and so does my friend. And she is far more generous -- and forgiving -- than I am. I have no doubt my Valentine's Day card is already in the mail. 

Super Bowls and Magical Flutes

I am slowly letting go of everything I don't need.

This year, I made an executive decision to decline any invitations to Super Bowl parties. Why go somewhere and sit, bored and alone, while everyone watches football. Why do that when I can sit, bored and alone in my girl-cave, while everyone watches football somewhere else.

It's un-American though, and kind of pathetic -- almost as bad as sitting alone on New Year's Eve with a noisemaker in one hand and a single serving bottle of champagne in the other. As luck would have it, I discovered there are plenty of people out there just as pathetic as I, even more so. Take, for example, my good friend who just had surgery on both feet to get rid of some very pesky bunions. She is housebound for several weeks, and under strict orders not to put any weight on her feet. What some folks will do to fit into a pair of Manolo's! Let's just say I started to feel better about my own life when she sent me a surprisingly tasteful picture of herself sitting on "the commode" while her dinner sat on a tray only inches away.

Feeling charitable (and, I admit, a little bit superior for still being able to, well, not shit where I eat), I offered to bring dinner over for her and her mom, who has been in town as a devoted caretaker for over a week and, I am sure, praying that her flight out in a few days does not get cancelled. My friend sounded downright giddy. "Yay! A Super Bowl party!" Yes, we would definitely have to remember to turn on the television, just to make it all seem authentic.

It's been a long time since anyone has seemed all that excited about a visit from me, so, armed with two giant cookies I had swiped from a "shiva house" (which I believe is totally against the rules) and everybody's favorite chopped salad, I was off to a Super Bowl party after all. When I arrived, having eaten much of the bread that came with the salad and with only a half of a large cookie remaining (it was a long drive), I kind of felt like a Navy Seal on a daring rescue mission. I apologized for demolishing the dessert; they assured me my visit would be the high point of their week. I suppose when the boundaries between eating and excreting become that blurred, the bar is about as low as it can go.

This was no ordinary Super Bowl party, and not just for the obvious reasons. We ate off of eclectic ceramic bowls that looked like museum pieces, and we drank champagne (yes, champagne, not beer) out of glass flutes resting inside beautiful and ornate stems, each one a unique design. Though there were only three of us, there were at least eight of these champagne glasses in view; a couple held flowers, a few simply sparkled on the counter top. I asked whether we were expecting other guests. My friend's mom explained the array of flutes: "At my age, I use everything that is beautiful. I don't save it."

Wise words. I thought about my new little townhouse, the relatively small space into which I managed to fit everything I wanted to keep from the previous chapter of my life. There is very little storage space, so there is very little hidden away. Like pieces of a giant puzzle, the beautiful and beloved relics of my history, some of which I had forgotten existed, fell into place in the space that has become my new normal. I had to let go of a lot of things, and keep only what I need -- or really really want. To be sure, I have not entirely let go of the "old normal;" I may be shoveling my own driveway these days, but I'm doing it in diamond earrings and a Burberry scarf.

I helped my friend's mom wash the beautiful ceramic bowls and, together, we admired the array of glistening champagne flutes. And we polished off all the food, including the last half of the large cookie. After all, why save it?

Paying it Forward

Recently, a young stranger stopped when he saw my daughter trying to un-wedge her car from a rock solid bank of ice and snow along the side of a road. She had landed there after hitting a patch of black ice and watching her life pass before her eyes as her car took her on a brief but terrifying wild teacup spin. (As I did more than thirty years ago, she learned about black ice by doing; as long as you live to tell the tale, it is those lessons that stay with you the longest.)

Naturally, when my phone rang at 9:30 at night and I knew she should be on her way home, I was overcome with a strange mix of relief and fear at the sound of her shaky voice. Something bad had happened, but she was alive. Three-sixties on a highway, no matter how sparse the traffic, are terrifying, and we would both have plenty of time later to get lost in our thoughts about what could have been but what, thankfully, was not. We focused our attention on how to get her and her car back home and make sure she did not get frostbite in the sub-zero temperatures. I threw pants on over my pajamas and rushed off to rescue her over ten miles away. I scanned my mind's Rolodex and called Walter, my car guy. He has always said we could call if we need anything, and this seemed to be as good a time as any to take him up on that offer. 

As I raced (to the extent the elements would permit) to get there from the East, and Walter revved up his big truck and tossed in some heavy chains, the young stranger happened upon the scene, and stopped to help. My daughter was on the phone with me, convincing me he was just that -- a kind stranger; not a rapist or a serial killer. He had insisted she sit in the driver's seat of his car (making it difficult for him to hop in and steal her away) to stay warm while he waited outside for me to show up. I took it on faith that her instincts were correct, and I resisted the temptation to speed up on the icy roads. When I finally arrived, the young man was indeed standing outside as my daughter enjoyed the warmth of his car. On first glance, he looked a bit like Grizzly Adams, but I immediately saw what she had perceived to be a kind and generous face beneath  the thick beard. 

He agreed to take off once I assured him help was on the way. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure out that this crazy middle aged woman with pajamas stuffed into her pants would be unable to get the car out of its icy nest; no matter how much furniture I had been able to move on my own, I was woefully unprepared for this one. I asked him if I could send him something, do something for him to thank him.  "Just pay it forward one day," he said. He even mentioned the possibility that someone might, one day, do the same for him. Walter showed up with his truck and his heavy chains. After a few tries he extracted the car from the ice, and stayed with us until he felt confident we could get the car home safely. Given half a chance, I would (I hope) go out of my way to help Walter and his family, pay forward the countless times he has been there for us. 

I met someone recently who is heading to Europe soon to see the Italian man who had, as a young farm boy during World War II, rescued this person's father and his copilot and brought them to his home after their plane had been shot down. He has always kept up communication with this heroic and kind hearted stranger, the boy who had risked everything to allow an enemy soldier to go back to his home and live a life. The young farm boy is elderly now, in failing health. Like many of that generation, he will not be around for long. But because of what he did more than seventy years ago, this person was given the opportunity to be born and live life. He wonders whether he could -- or would -- ever perform an act of heroism even close in magnitude to the deed of the young farm boy.  A deed of basic humanity that was punishable by death to the entire family. 

Most of us do not have enemy air men land in our backyard; nor do we find ourselves riding along a quiet road on an icy winter night only to find a stranded and terrified teenage girl. We like to hope that we will be that kid or that guy, the one who stops and risks anything -- be it frost bite or death -- to help somebody who is, to say the least, in a pickle. I have seen my daughter be that kid from time to time, going out of her way to get someone who needs a ride, helping someone who is struggling with writing, putting everything aside to listen to a friend who is having a bad day. I like to think that she will continue to do such things, and that if she is ever again in a jam a like minded person will happen by and help her out. 

We may never get the chance to pay it forward by saving a life, but we all have opportunities every day to help in some small way. It adds up. 

Sticky Mat Situations

As I busied myself unfurling yoga mats stiff from underuse, I stole glances at the teenagers scattered across the threadbare, mismatched couches. "Emotionally challenged" teenagers, to be precise, although to me the term seems redundant. Frankly, "emotionally challenged" anyone seems redundant.

The woman who hired me to teach after-school yoga to these kids had been careful to prepare me for the worst. They will resist you. They won't listen. Cherie (not her real name), the big African American girl, will find a thousand reasons not to participate. Even though they had invited me to take on this class, I had to fill out an employment application, promise to get fingerprinted for a background check, and somehow locate decades-old transcripts to prove that I had indeed attended college. I imagined stacks of dusty old boxes warehoused in a rat infested basement beneath some ivy-covered building. I asked if I could just take a picture of my diploma," although the odds of finding the dusty old box housing that are pretty slim as well. I was thinking Cherie and her fellow yoginis could not possibly be as challenging as the bureaucracy that is the State Board of Education. 

Cherie was easy to spot. She was not all that big, but she was the only African American girl in the room. While she chatted with her friends, she kept her gaze on me. Sizing me up, perhaps, figuring out how hard she'd have to push before I give up on her. Teaching a willing student is easy; teaching someone who would rather be at the dentist than in my class is a challenge. I love a challenge. I started to feel feisty.

"I like your shoes," she said as the group began to settle in. I was tempted to make excuses for my very un-yoga-like shoes -- I was going directly to dinner and a show, and I would have no time for a complete wardrobe change if I wanted to catch the train downtown -- but I decided to keep all that to myself. I thanked her, still feeling a bit self-conscious. "Yeah, I really like them." Hmm. Maybe she wasn't judging me; maybe she really just liked my shoes.

The excuses began in earnest the moment we started to stretch. One girl claimed to have her period. She suggested we just spend an hour and a half lying down in relaxation. Another was wearing jeans that would make yoga nearly impossible. Cherie simply announced she was really bad at yoga. The group was small, so I chatted them up. Some of the negativity began to evaporate; emotionally challenged or not, teen or adult, most folks appreciate it when somebody appears interested. I learned a little bit more about each of them, more than first impressions could have revealed. I shared some innocuous stories about myself. Some of them smiled. Cherie could not stop giggling.

Everybody made at least one trip to the bathroom during our session. Everybody, that is, except Cherie. Cherie, the one who would give me a run for my money, refuse to participate. Cherie, the one who announced how bad she was at yoga, was as graceful as a swan. She was surprisingly flexible and strong, and she had great balance. But what impressed me most about her was her effort. She kept trying, no matter how frustrating it was. If she couldn't quite get her body into the pose I was suggesting, she worked on another one. Occasionally, she (and several of the others) would share a story. I caught Cherie glaring at the girl next to her when she rolled her eyes.

When I told the girls to lie on their backs, the eye roller asked if she could lie on her stomach instead. I asked her if there was some medical or physiological reason she could not lie on her back. She seemed surprised that I had asked, and admitted there was no such reason. "Well, then, no," I responded. She looked annoyed, but she flipped over. Cherie laughed.

The State's mandatory employment application had inquired about my experience with "special needs" children. It wanted to know why I was qualified to work with them. I wasn't, at least not officially. This was all completely new. I thought saying I had taught first year law students for years might sound too glib. My own children have never been labeled as "special needs," have never had an IEP (Individualized Education Program). But I never thought for a moment that each one did not have his or her own special needs, could not benefit from some individualized parenting, or education for that matter. I left that answer blank, but, unqualified as I am, I felt confident I could at least figure out how to connect with them, maybe even make some sort of difference in their day.

The class went way more smoothly than I could have hoped. "I have issues," said Cherie at one point.

Don't we all, I thought. Don't we all.