Today's blog is dedicated to my friend Joan, with a huge thank you for giving me great, great insight.
Over lite frappucinos at Starbucks in Peabody, MA, we caught up with each others' lives and shared confidences.
"Sometimes," I said, "I look at peoples' Facebook pages and think, Jesus, I am a big failure. Because I read the postings and all their information about their jobs and what they've accomplished, and I just can't believe how little I'm accomplishing."
And Joan said something very, very smart. She said:
"Amy, EVERYONE feels like a failure. That's how it works."
She went on to explain that the I'm-A-Facebook-Failure Syndrome is a close relation to the How-Come-I-Don't-Have-A-Perfect-Life-Like-Hers and the I-Wish-I-Were-Part-Of-That-Perfect-Family mythology. No one's life is perfect. Scratch the buffed veneer and lots of tough stuff lurks: troubled children, drug addictions, eating disorders, shitty marriages, financial woes. Perfect families? No such thing. Turns out Mom's an alcoholic, Dad's having an affair and Grandpa is in a Federal witness protection program.
I know this stuff. Intellectually, that is. But knowing something intellectually and believing it emotionally are two different things.
At the emotional level -- the one that kicks into high gear 'round about midnight or later -- I've been wondering how I missed the turn. You know the one. The turn that leads to Fulfillment Land. The turn that would have directed me to that satisfying and challenging career. The turn that would have put me directly in the path of that endlessly fascinating partner. The turn that would have led to children and the summer house on the Vineyard and legs the length of Carly Simon's. Yes, THAT turn.
The comparison between that fantasy life -- the one I would have if I'd only seen the sign practically screaming TURN HERE -- and my current situation makes me feel like a failure. And I get on Facebook and think sometimes, Wow, all of these people managed to make that turn. I am a turn-missing fuck up.
But Joan, a definite smart cookie if ever there were one, tells me that everyone feels like this. And suddenly it's like having a headache lift -- there's that magical moment when the pain behind the eyes disappears and you're finally free.
"And you have so many friends," Joan adds. She says she has been really struck by how many people I interact with regularly on Facebook. "People from all over the world!"
A second gift from my generous friend. A moment of recognition (which, when you stop and think about it, is re-cognition -- re-realization) when I think, Hey, that feels good: I connect.
I'm adrift at the moment. I've lost my mother, I'm living in New Hampshire, I work for myself and by myself and there's risk and loneliness (and reward, too, of course) in that choice. I'm searching for some sort of place to start. Like when I was designing my kitchen and I knew from the minute I saw it that I would create the whole thing around that stove, that beautiful, beautiful stove (GE Cafe Series in stainless).
In this new life that I am molding, my starting point can be my ability and my willingness to connect. That's a real realization. Thank you, Joan.
21 June, 2010
20 June, 2010
Sepharad
Last January, I started studying Spanish. I took two 7-day, total immersion classes at the University of Miami, and made great strides. Then I stopped the week my mother's health took a turn for the worse. Tonight, for the first time in six weeks, I mustered the energy and the focus to return to Spanish. I had a one hour lesson this evening.
Learning a new language is like being issued a passport to a new identity. When I learned to speak Italian, I became Amy Selvino. I rolled my rrrrrrr's and I gesticulated wildly, and I channeled the inner Monica Bellucci.
When I learned to speak French, I felt like Deneuve and I started wearing my hair in a chignon. I listened to Edith Piaf. I cried when France won the World Cup and the band struck up the Marseillaise.
And now it's Spanish.
There's a family link here that I should explain. My father's parents fled Russia in the early days of the century, approximately 1911. They were Ashkenazi Jews -- typical Eastern Europeans arriving by the boatloads at Ellis Island and probably smelling of pot roast. Or worse.
My mother's family, on the other hand, hailed from Spain -- part of the Jewish community ushered out of the Sepharad in 1492. A big year for Columbus; a bad year for Spain's Jews. My mother's aunt was a world-famous flamenco dancer by the name of Estrellita (real name Stella Paul), whose photo hangs in an arts museum in San Francisco and who had a very public affair with the writer Jack London.
(Incidentally, this is small potatoes compared to my mother's grandfather, blackface comedian and Ziegfeld Follie Frank Tinney, who pulled down $1,500 per week back in 1912 and was kicked out of the Follies when he bit the nipple off of some chorus girl he was shtupping.)
So, back to Spanish. As I explained to my very patient and kind teacher, the lovely Julio from Argentina, I have managed to forget nearly all of the verb conjugations. Except, interestingly enough, the present tense. Talk about a sure-fire way to remain in the moment. If the only tense you know is the present, then the only thing you can talk about is what is happening right now.
At the end of our hour, I was remembering more and the words were coming more fluidly. It will happen. I will speak Spanish. I long for the day when I can sing along with a Marc Anthony CD and converse -- at least in my fantasies -- with Javier Bardem in his mother tongue.
But there's a serious point to all of this. Not just that I managed to stay in the moment for an entire hour, bound by my limited grammar and vocabulary. No, beyond all that, there was a tremendous feeling of connection. Finding those dots that connect and form a line -- literally, a life line. From a people, from a country and a culture, to my mother, to me and to our story.
There's something incredibly magical -- and comforting and reassuring and wondrous -- in knowing that I am part of a story. A dot on a line, yes, but a dot on a line that is continuous. Like there is a plan and I'm part of it. I'm meant to be here.
The story continues. And note that it is in the present tense.
Learning a new language is like being issued a passport to a new identity. When I learned to speak Italian, I became Amy Selvino. I rolled my rrrrrrr's and I gesticulated wildly, and I channeled the inner Monica Bellucci.
When I learned to speak French, I felt like Deneuve and I started wearing my hair in a chignon. I listened to Edith Piaf. I cried when France won the World Cup and the band struck up the Marseillaise.
And now it's Spanish.
There's a family link here that I should explain. My father's parents fled Russia in the early days of the century, approximately 1911. They were Ashkenazi Jews -- typical Eastern Europeans arriving by the boatloads at Ellis Island and probably smelling of pot roast. Or worse.
My mother's family, on the other hand, hailed from Spain -- part of the Jewish community ushered out of the Sepharad in 1492. A big year for Columbus; a bad year for Spain's Jews. My mother's aunt was a world-famous flamenco dancer by the name of Estrellita (real name Stella Paul), whose photo hangs in an arts museum in San Francisco and who had a very public affair with the writer Jack London.
(Incidentally, this is small potatoes compared to my mother's grandfather, blackface comedian and Ziegfeld Follie Frank Tinney, who pulled down $1,500 per week back in 1912 and was kicked out of the Follies when he bit the nipple off of some chorus girl he was shtupping.)
So, back to Spanish. As I explained to my very patient and kind teacher, the lovely Julio from Argentina, I have managed to forget nearly all of the verb conjugations. Except, interestingly enough, the present tense. Talk about a sure-fire way to remain in the moment. If the only tense you know is the present, then the only thing you can talk about is what is happening right now.
At the end of our hour, I was remembering more and the words were coming more fluidly. It will happen. I will speak Spanish. I long for the day when I can sing along with a Marc Anthony CD and converse -- at least in my fantasies -- with Javier Bardem in his mother tongue.
But there's a serious point to all of this. Not just that I managed to stay in the moment for an entire hour, bound by my limited grammar and vocabulary. No, beyond all that, there was a tremendous feeling of connection. Finding those dots that connect and form a line -- literally, a life line. From a people, from a country and a culture, to my mother, to me and to our story.
There's something incredibly magical -- and comforting and reassuring and wondrous -- in knowing that I am part of a story. A dot on a line, yes, but a dot on a line that is continuous. Like there is a plan and I'm part of it. I'm meant to be here.
The story continues. And note that it is in the present tense.
19 June, 2010
Why "Say Yes To The Dress" Makes Me Cry
I love the TV program "Say Yes To The Dress". It's my guilty pleasure. Watching women of all ages choose their weddings gown is more than just fun. It's heartwarming and a bit embarrassing. It's sometimes downright maddening. And it's always touching.
There's a bride whose groom is deployed in Iraq. There's a bride with Stage IV breast cancer. There's a bride who's marrying a woman. There's a bride who's marrying for the first time at age fifty-three. There's a bride who's a total bitch and a control freak (and her fiance ends up dumping her before the wedding).
Lately, these stories make me cry.
Because nearly all of the brides shop for their dresses with their mothers. And in almost every case it's a time for some major bonding. The mother sees the daughter in the dress and that's it -- the two of them are sobbing and hugging and it's everything you ever dreamed it would be. A passing of the torch.
When I was thirty, I got engaged. (I later called it off.) My mother and I went shopping for a dress. She tried to steer me toward something simple. "An A-line will suit your figure," my mother said. What she meant was, "An A-line will fit you." She always thought I was fat.
I don't remember any of the dresses I tried on. I don't remember what I chose. I ordered something, I know that. It's amazing to realize this -- and even more amazing to write it where others might see it -- but I don't remember one thing about the experience at all. But I do remember what did NOT happen: my mother did NOT cry, my mother did NOT hug me, my mother did NOT tell me I'd make a beautiful bride.
It wasn't that kind of an experience for us. For me.
I've been thinking about this now that my mother is gone. I've concluded that the grieving process is as much about yearning as it is about missing.
While she was alive, I yearned to know that my mother thought I was beautiful and a wonderful daughter and everything she'd ever wanted and more. I yearned for her to throw her arms around me and hug me, telling me she loved me this much (arms open wide) today and that much (arms open wider) tomorrow. That was never going to happen. But for as long as my mother was alive, that possibility existed.
And so when I sit in my living room and cry through episodes of "Say Yes", I know what those tears are about. They're about those moments my mother and I never had and were never going to have. For the boundaries that framed our relationship. For the yearning that remains even when the missing begins. For the love I feel despite the disappointments.
Accepting that and still loving...that is something remarkable.
There's a bride whose groom is deployed in Iraq. There's a bride with Stage IV breast cancer. There's a bride who's marrying a woman. There's a bride who's marrying for the first time at age fifty-three. There's a bride who's a total bitch and a control freak (and her fiance ends up dumping her before the wedding).
Lately, these stories make me cry.
Because nearly all of the brides shop for their dresses with their mothers. And in almost every case it's a time for some major bonding. The mother sees the daughter in the dress and that's it -- the two of them are sobbing and hugging and it's everything you ever dreamed it would be. A passing of the torch.
When I was thirty, I got engaged. (I later called it off.) My mother and I went shopping for a dress. She tried to steer me toward something simple. "An A-line will suit your figure," my mother said. What she meant was, "An A-line will fit you." She always thought I was fat.
I don't remember any of the dresses I tried on. I don't remember what I chose. I ordered something, I know that. It's amazing to realize this -- and even more amazing to write it where others might see it -- but I don't remember one thing about the experience at all. But I do remember what did NOT happen: my mother did NOT cry, my mother did NOT hug me, my mother did NOT tell me I'd make a beautiful bride.
It wasn't that kind of an experience for us. For me.
I've been thinking about this now that my mother is gone. I've concluded that the grieving process is as much about yearning as it is about missing.
While she was alive, I yearned to know that my mother thought I was beautiful and a wonderful daughter and everything she'd ever wanted and more. I yearned for her to throw her arms around me and hug me, telling me she loved me this much (arms open wide) today and that much (arms open wider) tomorrow. That was never going to happen. But for as long as my mother was alive, that possibility existed.
And so when I sit in my living room and cry through episodes of "Say Yes", I know what those tears are about. They're about those moments my mother and I never had and were never going to have. For the boundaries that framed our relationship. For the yearning that remains even when the missing begins. For the love I feel despite the disappointments.
Accepting that and still loving...that is something remarkable.
18 June, 2010
Defending my life
My friend Susan is a psychic and an intuitive counselor. So when she recommended that I watch that old Albert Brooks/Meryl Streep film, Defending Your Life, I figured that she knew I'd like it...
I may even have seen the film 20 years ago or so when it first came out. I can't remember. Albert Brooks plays Daniel Miller, an ad exec living in L.A., who crashes his brand new BMW convertible into an oncoming bus and dies. He is sent to Judgment City -- the comfort stop between heaven and a one-way ticket back to earth to try and get it right another time around. There, in Judgment City, the newly dead are asked to defend their lives during the day and are free to socialize and dine in the evenings. In Judgment City, Daniel meets Julia, played to perfection, of course, by the luminous Meryl Streep.
Daniel, as it turns out, is not as evolved as Julia, and the judges decide to send him back for another shot at life on earth. Daniel isn't sent back because he's a bad person or a failure. No, he gives to charities and he earns a good living and he does lots of things right. Daniel is sent back because he lives in fear. The motivating force in his life is Fear. Fear of what people will think, fear of what people will say, fear of making a fool of himself, fear of being laughed at.
(This being Hollywood, Daniel overcomes his fear in the final three minutes and is happily reunited with the heaven-bound Meryl Streep. Roll credits.)
Lately, I've grown afraid of dying. I think that given the circumstances that's probably pretty understandable. And it's a fear I'll work on in time. But here's another fear: an old fear and a fear that is limiting and will stop me in my tracks if I try to live in this moment. Fear of going broke. Fear of not being able to afford. Fear of being a spendthrift. Frivolous. Out of control. I grew up with my father's fear of poverty. I internalized that fear and made it my own.
I don't want to get to Judgment City and discover that because I was always so concerned about financial security I missed the point. So I've decided to commit to something as a first step of pushing past this unfounded but disproportionately sabotaging fear: I am going to stop talking about money. Period. Punto y aparte. I am setting a goal of making myself go one entire month without so much as a peep about how much something costs. That goes for the internal dialogue, as well.
This ought to clear out a lot of fear and also a lot of fear-based thinking. Lots more room, lots more energy for something else. We fill the spaces we're not using. I'll pay attention to what I make room for. Maybe it will be some grief and some sadness; maybe some memories that hurt a little bit but feel good, too. Maybe some fun. Maybe a new hobby. Maybe time for blogging. Maybe a friendship. Maybe a connection.
Maybe seems so much more promising to me than fear. There is possibility in Maybe. That feels right. Should make it so much easier to defend my life and defend my choices when the time comes...
I may even have seen the film 20 years ago or so when it first came out. I can't remember. Albert Brooks plays Daniel Miller, an ad exec living in L.A., who crashes his brand new BMW convertible into an oncoming bus and dies. He is sent to Judgment City -- the comfort stop between heaven and a one-way ticket back to earth to try and get it right another time around. There, in Judgment City, the newly dead are asked to defend their lives during the day and are free to socialize and dine in the evenings. In Judgment City, Daniel meets Julia, played to perfection, of course, by the luminous Meryl Streep.
Daniel, as it turns out, is not as evolved as Julia, and the judges decide to send him back for another shot at life on earth. Daniel isn't sent back because he's a bad person or a failure. No, he gives to charities and he earns a good living and he does lots of things right. Daniel is sent back because he lives in fear. The motivating force in his life is Fear. Fear of what people will think, fear of what people will say, fear of making a fool of himself, fear of being laughed at.
(This being Hollywood, Daniel overcomes his fear in the final three minutes and is happily reunited with the heaven-bound Meryl Streep. Roll credits.)
Lately, I've grown afraid of dying. I think that given the circumstances that's probably pretty understandable. And it's a fear I'll work on in time. But here's another fear: an old fear and a fear that is limiting and will stop me in my tracks if I try to live in this moment. Fear of going broke. Fear of not being able to afford. Fear of being a spendthrift. Frivolous. Out of control. I grew up with my father's fear of poverty. I internalized that fear and made it my own.
I don't want to get to Judgment City and discover that because I was always so concerned about financial security I missed the point. So I've decided to commit to something as a first step of pushing past this unfounded but disproportionately sabotaging fear: I am going to stop talking about money. Period. Punto y aparte. I am setting a goal of making myself go one entire month without so much as a peep about how much something costs. That goes for the internal dialogue, as well.
This ought to clear out a lot of fear and also a lot of fear-based thinking. Lots more room, lots more energy for something else. We fill the spaces we're not using. I'll pay attention to what I make room for. Maybe it will be some grief and some sadness; maybe some memories that hurt a little bit but feel good, too. Maybe some fun. Maybe a new hobby. Maybe time for blogging. Maybe a friendship. Maybe a connection.
Maybe seems so much more promising to me than fear. There is possibility in Maybe. That feels right. Should make it so much easier to defend my life and defend my choices when the time comes...
17 June, 2010
Breath(e)
This is the first day of my blog.
I'm calling it The Older Orphan because that's who I am. My mother died on 3 May, 2010, just five weeks ago, and my father died in December 1998. I'm 51 years old. And now I'm an orphan.
Orphan. That word always felt so Dickensian: a small, grimy-nosed boy in a torn and tattered waistcoat pleading for another ladle of watery gruel. But now it describes me and hundreds of thousands -- millions? -- of people just like me. We're losing our parents and we're standing alone, no one watching our every move, no one cheering or criticizing or laughing or wincing at our foibles and our achievements.
My mother had Alzheimer's. So it's probably accurate to say that I actually lost her a number of years ago. I thought I'd feel a huge surge of relief as soon as she died. And I did. Of course. Who would want anyone to suffer those indignities, year after year? So, yes, I am relieved. And I am also incredibly sad. I thought the relief would outweigh the grief. Not the case. The grief is the more powerful of the two emotions.
What I grieve is my loss. What I grieve is the passing of time. It -- life -- is whizzing by, sometimes unnoticed and rarely feeling like it's being squeezed for every drop it's worth. I spend a lot of time thinking about the past. I spend too much time fantasizing about the future: the relationship I'll finally have, the retirement I'll be able to afford, the jeans I'll finally squeeze back into. The present is sacrificed to rewriting history or scripting what's next.
I am determined to change.
The weekend before my mother died, I watched her as she breathed. She was being administered morphine and Atavan; she was alive but no longer reachable. I imagined my mother hovering somewhere between this world and the next. I watched that breath. It was shallow. Just one breath, then another. Then a pause. And then another breath. And as long as that breath came, my mother was alive. Life is in that single breath. We don't know if another is coming. But in that moment, there is breath and so there is life.
It was such a humbling realization because I'd never before allowed myself to distill it -- life -- down to such small proportions. Before that weekend of my mother's death, life was big and complicated, with plans and chaos and concessions and priorities. And then suddenly it became clear. That the only thing we can really experience is the single moment of time in which we are living. Right now. Breathe.
Making my life smaller but more intense. That's what I'm thinking about.
I have no idea what I'm going to write about. But I've told myself that I am going to write every day and I'm going to tell the truth, no matter how trivial or mundane or embarrassing.
My goal is to make this blog an authentic ride through my life. Maybe, if my fantasies come true, fellow orphans will speak out and share their stories and talk about how hard it is to finally stand on your own two feet and do the hard work of being in your life. Maybe other people from our generation will join the conversation and say, Shit, I'm really scared that my mother or my father is going to die. Or, Shit, I'm really scared that I'M going to die.
And then we come together and remind ourselves to live it in this one moment. And breathe.
I'm calling it The Older Orphan because that's who I am. My mother died on 3 May, 2010, just five weeks ago, and my father died in December 1998. I'm 51 years old. And now I'm an orphan.
Orphan. That word always felt so Dickensian: a small, grimy-nosed boy in a torn and tattered waistcoat pleading for another ladle of watery gruel. But now it describes me and hundreds of thousands -- millions? -- of people just like me. We're losing our parents and we're standing alone, no one watching our every move, no one cheering or criticizing or laughing or wincing at our foibles and our achievements.
My mother had Alzheimer's. So it's probably accurate to say that I actually lost her a number of years ago. I thought I'd feel a huge surge of relief as soon as she died. And I did. Of course. Who would want anyone to suffer those indignities, year after year? So, yes, I am relieved. And I am also incredibly sad. I thought the relief would outweigh the grief. Not the case. The grief is the more powerful of the two emotions.
What I grieve is my loss. What I grieve is the passing of time. It -- life -- is whizzing by, sometimes unnoticed and rarely feeling like it's being squeezed for every drop it's worth. I spend a lot of time thinking about the past. I spend too much time fantasizing about the future: the relationship I'll finally have, the retirement I'll be able to afford, the jeans I'll finally squeeze back into. The present is sacrificed to rewriting history or scripting what's next.
I am determined to change.
The weekend before my mother died, I watched her as she breathed. She was being administered morphine and Atavan; she was alive but no longer reachable. I imagined my mother hovering somewhere between this world and the next. I watched that breath. It was shallow. Just one breath, then another. Then a pause. And then another breath. And as long as that breath came, my mother was alive. Life is in that single breath. We don't know if another is coming. But in that moment, there is breath and so there is life.
It was such a humbling realization because I'd never before allowed myself to distill it -- life -- down to such small proportions. Before that weekend of my mother's death, life was big and complicated, with plans and chaos and concessions and priorities. And then suddenly it became clear. That the only thing we can really experience is the single moment of time in which we are living. Right now. Breathe.
Making my life smaller but more intense. That's what I'm thinking about.
I have no idea what I'm going to write about. But I've told myself that I am going to write every day and I'm going to tell the truth, no matter how trivial or mundane or embarrassing.
My goal is to make this blog an authentic ride through my life. Maybe, if my fantasies come true, fellow orphans will speak out and share their stories and talk about how hard it is to finally stand on your own two feet and do the hard work of being in your life. Maybe other people from our generation will join the conversation and say, Shit, I'm really scared that my mother or my father is going to die. Or, Shit, I'm really scared that I'M going to die.
And then we come together and remind ourselves to live it in this one moment. And breathe.
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