Solomon's Choice

Solomon's Choice
Diana Breen 1995

Removed, it delivers me to mending baths
where once, hanging heavy and reticent,
displaced the salty water with its weight,
a knobby manatee, floating in blue suds.
Now, flickering candles scatter shards
of mirror scars on plaster walls as I
ease what's left of me down and under.

Ego I am I named it merely one of many
of me, an arm a leg an eye; my breast
sheltered my heart, beat with a sigh.
With arms crossed X over my chest I press
both hands where babies nursed; blunt
imbalance tilts me over like a seesaw,
one shoulder sinks while the hollow rises.

In white bright rooms they cut and sew
paper people dolls, sever the offender
Scrub away the venom;  gash and slice.
If we were trees, pruned trees grow back
and don't some animals sprout another foot?
I stuff my shirt with water balloon
Rhapsodizing Spring.

I Fall Down

I fall down. It's what I do. I've fallen maybe five or so times in the past five or so years. Sometimes I fall walking and once I fell standing completely still on the side of a ski slope. Well that was twenty five years ago, and that's another story. But recently my seven year old granddaughter expressed concern about going bowling with me, cause, as she said, “you fall down sometimes, gramma”.

I laughed out loud, thinking “where in the world would she get that idea?”, when slowly the memory of falling seeped in... falling at the bowling alley last time we were there. We, (Gramps, my granddaughter and her brother), had spent a rainy afternoon at the bowling alley a few months before, cheering each other, booing each other, and me, of course, trying to show off (big mistake). I took one step too many and crossed the line onto the oiled lane. My feet flew up higher than my head and I landed flat on my back, sliding down the lane behind the bowling ball.

The aftermath was probably more shocking to the kids than my actually falling. People were running at me from all directions to help me up, shouting Ma'am! Are you alright ma'am? (love that handle). I was not able to stand up on the slippery surface, so all I could do was slide backwards with my hands, till I reached the dreaded spot of the accident, and with assistance, get back on my feet, totally humiliated, mumbling thank you's to the concerned crowd that had formed. The voices around me grew muffled as I experienced one of those powerless out-of-control-of-my-body feelings. My sweet granddaughter took my hand, walked me back to the benches, and said, “I'll take your place for the rest of the game gramma, you just sit here and rest.”

The bowling alley fall was probably my most recent with my granddaughter watching, although she also remembers another fall I took on our way to a ferry ride around the Statue of Liberty last spring. Cold spring day, some ice left on the wide streets surrounding Battery Park by the ferries, all of us walking quickly, shivering, wanting to warm up... when boom, just like that I was on the ground. Tripped? Slipped? Off balance? Who knows? I was down down down. And once again the Gen Xs and Ys nearby swiftly came to my rescue, and again the shouts of Ma'am! Are you OK? Once again the many arms reaching for me, helping me to my feet. I must say the rousing rescues from the younger generation reinforced my faith in human kindness.

I was not hurt in either of these falls, and the incidents only lasted minutes, maybe seconds. But I'm sure they were frightening to my young grandkids, and left them scarred with the “gramma might fall down” worry every time we undertake anything physical, including walking. They got me thinking... There was the time I fell over a fire hydrant on North Avenue. I was walking while talking, and the street was crowded with people out for lunch, and the town had relocated the fire hydrant to the middle of the sidewalk while doing street widening, but still.....

And there was the time I tripped on the curb going from my car to the bank and watched my body spin up, then crash down in slow motion, landing on my forearms, and chipping a bone in my elbow. I really could not move or help myself up since my arm was hurting so much. Oh yes, my knees also hurt, which further complicated a quick recovery, so when onlookers once again came to my rescue, and I said between sobs and tears, “just give me a few minutes to sit here and I'll be OK,” someone said “sure”, then called an ambulance. Yes, the EMTs came to my rescue, lifted me onto a stretcher and drove me, sirens blaring, to the hospital. A few months of discomfort and physical therapy, and I was as good as new.

I certainly don't want to traumatize my grandchildren further but I also want them to see that for a grandmother I'm still young-ish and healthy and strong enough for normal everyday life. I want my grandkids to lose the “Gramma's falling down” fear. But the reality is, I will fall again. So there it is!

I have read there are ways to fall, like don't let your head hit the ground, and try to land with your hands flat and practice falling on a padded mat at home. (I don't really practice). I work on improving my balance and strength, and I wear flat shoes. I also practice laughing out loud, so I'm ready next time I go down!

I do not want to miss jumping into the pool with them rather than slowly walking in, and riding crazy amusement park rides with them, and zooming down water slides on the boardwalk with them. And next time I fall, I will remember to laugh out loud and let them help me up. After all, it is better to fall and get up, even if you need help, than never to have fallen at all!  

I have this fear of falling in front of large groups of people. That's why I tend not to wear heels.

--Taylor Swift

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I wrote this in July 2012, but thought now would be a good time to re-post.  

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For my Friend, Kathleen

Nothing wraps me more tightly in its comforting arms than the sight of the Big Dipper in a clear night sky.  Tonight is one of those nights.  Although clouds or rain can hide it from view, I know the Big Dipper lives unquestionably nearby, and remains reliably beautiful.  I breathe out a long, slow breath reassured by my luminous friend, as she reminds me that although Earth is spinning out of control, it returns to the same spot in the universe night after night after night.  A universe of order formed from chaos.  

But chaos does exist in our everyday lives.  I can admit in my deepest heart of hearts that I can’t escape the turmoil, but surprisingly I live my life believing the opposite is true.  I pretend to have control over the chaos by setting the alarm, writing my daily lists, knitting a sweater my grandson will grow into; or in orchestrating the bigger plans, selling the house, planning retirement in terms of decades, instead of years.   It is all a ploy so I can live according to the belief that I will never be sick, I’ll live forever, be protected from loss or tragedy, grow up with my grandchildren.  I won’t let myself consider the possibility, or probability, that a sister, a mother, or a friend will ever disappear from my orbit, or that I would not be allowed to trade places with a child or a spouse who is suffering.  Living inside of me is the adolescent who trusts in the fantasy that I am indestructible, as are all whom I cherish.  

So when disorder strikes, when the most unimaginable loss happens, what do we do?  What can we do?  We make lists, make the arrangements; we walk through the moments, then the hours, then the days till completion.  The shock stays with us, the pain stays with us, the devastation stays with us; but wait, wait, there is so much more.  Their experiences stay with us, their memories stay with us, every single moment from their lifetime stays with us, the feeling of their arms around us stays with us, and yes, their love stays with us.  Astonishing, stunning, undeniable, unrelenting, their love surely stays with us.  

My dog Toby and I go out for a walk between nine and ten o’clock each night.  Our usual route is out the back door and up to Broadway, then back down the drive towards the river, before heading into my front door.  As we approach it, the Hudson reflects the Palisades and the vast night sky, sprawled out ahead of us.  We slow down, then stop in our tracks, to take it all in.  And as the ageless Big Dipper dips her spoon into the Twenty-thousand-year-old Hudson River, she pulls me close and reassures me that love really does last forever.  Strong, endless and dazzling, love really does last forever. 

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"I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. .... Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now."   Sophia Loren

Frozen Lady

I took a walk out on the Hudson River today to see Lady Liberty close up. Use to be I'd see her with Jack, walking in the summer sunshine along Battery Park Greenway, stopping by the railing, counting the helicopters, deafening as they pass over our craned heads. There's a red one! No no orange, gramma!

Today though, the Hudson is frozen and ice from the glaciers up north have almost completely covered her up to her head. It is interesting to be standing in the middle of the river, a view I had only seen at times sailing, or from a ferry, or wait, once from a cruise ship to Bermuda. That was so long ago. The ice has risen to cover her mouth and part of her nose..... Only her eyes and pointy crown peek out. Her right hand and torch are fully visible, always lighting the way to freedom, even though there are no longer any ships coming through the harbor.

Some are showshoeing across to New Jersey, some are pulling children on sleds, some like me are just walking out to get a close look, then look back to Manhattan, also frozen and forbidding. The ice has risen to cover at least a dozen stories of the tallest buildings, long abandoned as water rose over the island and ice formed. Though my children and grandchildren have moved to higher country, I spend lots of day hiking the ice floes as though an explorer on the great glaciers of North America. Living in the hills of Riverdale, some of us have thus far escaped the rising water and ice. Soon though, I'll be heading to the mountains as well as most from our fair city. But not before spring and summer arrive. I still have hope the great melting will begin.

Toby Girl

She came to me in a rush

Of circumstance

“Thanks Aunt Dee” my nephew said..

“It will just be for a little while.”

I knew she was special.

She licked my nose with long slurps

She pranced like a doe and ran like the wind.

Chasing a ball, her feet only skimmed the earth.

Her eyes would see right through me

And tell me stories we both knew

funny, and sad.

Together we laughed at the scardy-kat squirrels

that ran up the tree trunks when we walked by.

At night she'd curl up in my lap

All 55 pounds of her.

A dangling leg would always escape

hanging to the floor – a kite tail.

She would stare at me for long long minutes –

and I would scratch her bony head.

And that tail that tail

whap whap whap

happy whaps that knocked over everything on the table

and left red marks on my leg, that tail.

We sailed on the Sound, chased branches in the Hudson.

We had the time of our lives, my beautiful, forever friend.

Run like the wind in doggie heaven

I'll watch you and we'll smile together.

Memories of a Math Student - 1980

This week, the Fields Medal for Mathematics was awarded to the first woman ever. This medal is commonly called the Math Nobel Prize, and is the most prestigious global award in Mathematics. Maryam Mirzakhani, a Harvard educated mathematician and professor at Stanford University in California, was one of four mathematicians awarded the medal this year. Should we be surprised that it has taken until 2014 for a woman to be acknowledged with math's highest honor?

Flash back to 1980. I am one of two women enrolled in the mathematics major in a department of about 100 men at Ramapo State College, Mahwah, New Jersey. I'm 31 years old, mother of an 9 year old daughter and an 6 year old son. Ramapo cataloged me as “Returning Adult” because I was returning to college after marriage and motherhood, to learn to do something other than secretarial work, the only job I'd trained for since high school. Curious about computer programming I took an Introduction to Computer Technology course and I was hooked. With an eye on a good employment outlook, I quickly enrolled in more computer courses, but I still needed some advanced math courses for the Math/Computer Science BS. So there I was, in my final semester, sitting in a required Abstract Algebra course, trying desperately to comprenend the incomprehensible, knowing I absolutely had to pass this math course to graduate.

Defeated, I was about to throw in the towel and switch my major again when my math professor gave me the best gift he could ever give me. I asked for clarification of a concept in class. He turned to me, red in the face, boiling over. He yelled, no screamed, “Get out of my class! This class is for men, not for you, and I will not be interrupted by a “girl” again!” I was horrified, but sat down, literally cemented to my chair. He stared a minute, shook his head and went back to his oblivious chalk and talk. But I didn't hear another syllable of his talk because suddenly the “Rocky” theme song was playing in my head and kept getting louder and louder!! da da daaaaaaa...!! da da daaaaaa......!! da da daaaaaaa...!! da da daaaaaa......!! I would not give him the satisfaction; I decided at that moment I would not fail.

Through sheer grit and many all-night test practice sessions, I passed the course, I graduated, and I got the IBM computer programming job I wanted. Of course naively I thought I had left behind the 'all male, only girl' computer science imbalance. I was wrong. When I walked into work on that first Monday morning, I was one of two women in a department of 100 men – hmmm.

A recent New York Times Editorial states that there is “a striking absence of women” in the board rooms of technology companies and the numbers of women employed in software programming and computer engineering jobs has actually dropped since the 1990's high of 34% to 27%. With only a few exceptions, life at the top of technology companies is strictly a boy's club and probably will remain that way for a long time. I've been witness to the imbalance throughout my career in business and in higher education. Truth be told, way back in 1980, it was another math professor, also a man, who got me interested in computers. He noticed I liked algebra and suggested that I take a class called “Fortran IV”.  I signed up, and discovered that computer programming was like building puzzles in new languages, and provided me with a challenge I had never experienced before.  That professor continued to encourage me through every course where I was most often the only woman sitting in a classroom full of young men.

So if I was successful in my career choice, I thank the math teacher who encouraged me, but I also thank the math teacher who was a bigoted jerk. I succeeded because of one, and in spite of another. Bravo to all the teachers out there who mentor, teach and model, and boo hiss razz to those who don't.

Congratulations to Maryam Mirzakhani, for her super achievement, and congratulations to all the rest of us – the women and girls who continue, even in 2014, to swim against the tide of outdated opinions about what we should or should not be.  

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" I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.! "

-- Maya Angelou --

First Day of Summer

Inwood, Manhattan, 1959, the first Saturday of summer. School is out! I wake up around 7:00 am, fill a bowl with cheerios and a stir up a glass of milk and chocolate Quick. I gulp it all down in front of the TV watching Officer Joe Bolton, volume off. I find my brand new white keds, my new pair of shorts and white eyelet blouse, and silently get dressed in the kitchen listening to the quiet. No one else is stirring, so I carefully unlock and open the apartment door, slip out into the hallway and with a finger on the latch, quietly close the door. My feet barely touch the steps as I fly down four flights to the street.

There is still a chill in the June morning air, sun barely peeking between the buildings on Post Avenue. Though I'm shivering, I know I can't go back upstairs to get a sweatshirt. I'd risk waking somebody up and having to answer all those questions. So without a moment's pause, I sprint up five long blocks from Dyckman Street to Broadway, and then another four to Payson Park, close to the River Fields on the Hudson. Payson has a playground, with a stone house with bathrooms, and a “Parkie” as we called him. The stone house also contains several knock-hockey tables, and an assortment of balls, ping pong table, checkers games and minimal first aid supplies.

Payson is also the scene of weekly knock-hockey competitions, and this summer of my tenth year, I am unstoppable. My balance is shaky, I can't hit a softball, or hit the ball in a handball court, but boy-oh-boy can I play knock-hockey, and boy-oh-boy do I win! For those of you who are unfamiliar with this New York City staple, Knock hockey is a board game with two players, two mini hockey sticks, and a puck. The object is to slice, or slam the puck into the hole behind a block of wood at an opponents' goal.

I knock on the Parkie's door and ask for a knock hockey set up. He looks at me with a suspicious sideways stare, and says carefully, “sure thing”. The day has barely begun, and the park is empty except for the little brown eyed girl in shiny new sneakers. He actually scratches his head as he considers the request for one brief moment, then disappears into his house to gather the requested sports equipment. I wait for him to set up the game and intently begin my practice. Suddenly a boy about 11 or 12 comes skating into the park and screeches to a stop in front of me. I look up into his face, red and sweaty. “Wanna play?” I ask. “With you?” he says. I give him an exasperated look, hands on hips, as he proceeds to pull the leather cord around his neck holding his skate key over his head. He plugs the key into his roller skates and kicks them off. He doesn't know what he is in for.

Summer has officially landed!

Will Catholic Children Ever Be Safe?

Here is a chilling documentary of the state of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church.  Priests have been punished, but what about the Cardinals and Bishops who kept silent and protected them.  What has been done to protect our children in the future.  

Read the whole story:

The Shame of the Catholic Church

Barbie Dolls

Has anyone else noticed that women news anchors and meteorologists on the network news programs are looking more and more like Barbie Dolls? It is an interesting phenomenon I've been unscientifically cataloging for a while now. Tight, short, sleeveless dinner dresses that are stretched to fit over Spanx-molded figures; sky-high crippling heels, Farrah Fawcett hair (that style is back again?), blackened, sparkled eyes and fat, juicy, nude-today, red-tomorrow lips. They hobble to their seats and tug at their skirts when they sit down and cross their legs. (Yes, without question they cross their legs). Most are very young, very beautiful, flawlessly polished for TV, and all look amazingly identical! One morning recently, a financial analyst reporting from the floor of the stock market distracted me from her story by repeatedly blinking her two inch long false eyelashes and whipping her hair away from her eyes, as she reported on DOW futures. Yes, Barbies are everywhere.

I am not the fashion police, I am not opposed to makeup and dressing up to go out partying. I am only a TV viewer who notices that lately glamour trumps serious news reporting. Well, actually, a lot of things trump serious news reporting these days, but the Barbie phenomenon has caught my eye. I wonder if the women choose their dresses, and hairstyles, and makeup, or if they are told to look this way by their program producers. More to the point, must they have the "Barbie Look" to get the job, to keep the job? It is an observation that sparks my memory – Working Girl, 1968.

Back in the late 60's and early 70's my typical work dress was a short skirt and high heels – it was required and expected. Well, at first the length of my skirt was more about being a just-out-of-high school girl. But I also quickly picked up on the deliberate head to toe gaze I was subject to at every job interview, the check off or note written down on my resume after the creepy appraisal.  I knew the short skirt helped, and I needed the job. So I wore flats on the subway and walking the city streets to work, carrying my high-heels in my tote bag, changing into them in the bathroom in the lobby. I would not even ride up on the elevator at 30 Rock in flats as it was frowned upon by... well, by everyone. I remember doing the same with boots and slacks in winter and during snow storms... but still changing in the bathroom because we were not allowed to wear slacks in the office. Did you hear that? “not allowed” Our dress code was a condition of our employment – dress as you were told, or be fired. I needed the job and the paycheck, so I dealt with it.  

What I'm saying is, back in the day, women were told what to wear, and how to look and we obliged, much the same as men were expected to have a certain look based on their position and career.  Men, however, were expected to look professional, successful, and well-groomed. In 1968, women like myself were expected to look feminine and alluring, and to dress to appeal physically to the men in the office. Today, in 2014, are the women of the prime-time news shows expected, or required to look sexy and alluring to get ratings; to keep their jobs?  

This week one of my personal idols and feminist mentor, Gloria Steinem, turned 80 years old. The founder of MS Magazine, feminist, journalist and social and political activist, Steinem demanded, in a calm and thoughtful way, that we take a look at the way women were treated and discriminated against in the workplace. In the 60s and 70s she was instrumental in getting sex-discrimination and sexual harassment legislation passed so women could begin to be viewed as equals. Hard to believe, but that was half century ago!

OK, I admit I have always been your basic feminist nightmare – the family member starting inappropriate arguments at the Thanksgiving table, the employee challenging new hire protocols, the NOW Officer starting trouble in the conservative suburban town where I raised my kids. Though I never had Steinem's finesse or calmly convincing manner, I sure have always shared her passion fighting for women's rights. We fought hard and long so women could compete equally in the workplace, in our role in the family, and yes, in the way we dress.  I do not want to challenge a woman's right to self-expression in any way.  But in my world, my real world, I find it improbable that the brilliant, capable, creative and outspoken women and girls I know, young and old, would ever want to look like Barbie.  In my world, they are authentic.  They take their work, their families, their relationships, and their friends seriously. They work hard, they play hard and they like fashion and looking good. They make decisions and they embrace their choices; they exude a confidence and happiness which is beautiful to be around -- they are beautiful. 

So, still a hopeful feminist in her third third of life, I hope we (Gloria and I) have in some way made 2014 a better year to be a woman. I hope my granddaughter will be hired for her talents and her integrity, and I hope one of these days I will tune into the nightly news to discover that our news anchors have decided to ditch Barbie. It's just not the 1960s any more.

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If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

Virginia Woolf

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/v/virginia_woolf.html#sllW3mrqQK3c1Reo.99

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

Virginia Woolf

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/v/virginia_woolf.html#sllW3mrqQK3c1Reo.99

If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people. --  

Viginia Woolf

Dreaming of the Polar Bears

I have an adventure fantasy to travel to the Svalbard Islands in the Arctic Ocean, midway between Norway and the North Pole. I want to see the polar bears in their natural habitat before they become extinct. I worry about the animals in the arctic, as climate change slowly steals their frozen habitat. I've been fascinated with the polar bear since first seeing one in the Bronx Zoo as a child. Her huge white furry body, her 12 inch wide paws with killer claws, yet that quizzical look in her coal black eyes and shiny nose made her seem approachable, and even huggable. I've walked with the brown bears in Katmai, Alaska, but I've never come face to face with the big white polars.

The only settlement you can travel to in the Svalbard Islands is the tiny town of Longyearbyen, on Spitsbergen island. You fly in from Oslo or Iceland, and as you can imagine, summer is the smart time to go. It's a difficult trip, challenging physical strength and testing endurance, exposing trepidation yet validating courage. The temperatures range from -40 degrees in winter to the mid 40's in summer. You can travel by small cruise ship, or arctic icebreaker, and get close to the animals using zodiacs and snowmobiles. I read, I research, I plan, I budget, I dream.

So we've become used to hearing about a person's bucket list... or wanting to do something before time runs out. I generally don't think this way or feel like I have to do something to satisfy my great quest for life before I die. I don't even think about the end of my life very much. I'm a pragmatist, believing we are born with an expiration date and time stamp and there is not much we can do to change it. I know I will not live forever, but there is no reason to worry about how and when the end will come. Yet I do want to see the polar bears, and the urgency I feel has more to do with their uncertain future than mine.

Though I may seem to procrastinate in getting to Svalbard, my excuse is an ever-present need to prioritize. There are things I want to do, things I need to do, and even the things I have got to do, on the same list as my trip up north. These days most of the items edging out the polar bears involve my children, my grandchildren, my family and my friends. And then there is the cold.... Older I get, less I like to be cold, and it is very cold in the Arctic.

I remember being cold as a child, but it didn't really stop me from getting on with day to day life; it was just part of life. Being without heat at home wasn't such a big deal, as we were without heat lots of the time in our upper Manhattan walk up. The super would turn off the furnace at night to save fuel – coal in those days - but we had wool blankets and coats layered on our beds and they kept us toasty till morning.

Mom would be up first to light the stove, then when the kitchen had lost its frosty chill, she would call my sisters and I to get up for school. We ran barefoot across the cold linoleum floor to the kitchen where we huddled around the oven's open-door like campers around a campfire on a cold night. There would be big pots of water boiling on the stove, and taking turns, we would each carry one back to the bathroom for washing up.

A great deal of time was spent bundling up and trying to keep warm. Snowstorm or not, there were socks and shoes that slipped into rubber boots. There were snow pants which I was required to wear under my school uniform jumper. There were sweaters, wool coats and of course gloves, hats and scarves. And when it snowed, it snowed big. We stayed outside rolling in the snow, fighting snowball fights, making igloos on the sidewalk until our clothes were soaked to the skin, and only went in to get warm when the sun went down and mom called from the window.

After high school there were the great blizzards in New York that stopped cars, busses and trains. I lumbered over snow piles and drifts to walk most of the way to my office in midtown only to find that the building was closed and have to turn back. It was an adventure, it was fun, and although I was chilled to the bone, that would never stop me.

Later on, in my 30s and 40s, my childhood bundling activity resumed when skiing with my kids. Uncomfortable, clumsy, overdressed indoors, underdressed on the lift, painfully frozen toes and fingertips, we trudged on for the thrill of zooming down the mountainside over and over – again till the sun went down. It could be bitter cold, my lips and cheeks were chapped, but I just slathered on the old chap-stick and went out again the next morning. These were some of the most exciting days of my life and these beautiful memories with my children remain.

Seriously... I have been cold, I have overcome cold. Is it really the cold that stops me from my Svalbard fantasy? Is it the difficulty of getting there, traveling around on snowmobiles with old bones? Is it really priorities at home, is it laziness? Is it fear of those giant beasts? They attack you know, they even kill, as they search for unavailable food as the ice floes melt. Is it the probability of losing my imaginary, cuddly, huggable big teddy bear to the reality of a huge, dangerous carnivore?  

We all have dreams and fantasies. Some can be achieved, and maybe, just maybe, it is fine for others to remain in our minds and hearts – for a little while, or even forever. Yet, at this moment, I think if I don't re-prioritize today's hopeful goals, I might never achieve tomorrow's astonishing memories.

The temperature has dropped into the low 40's today which is the average temperature in Svalbard in summer. I will find my warm boots, hat and gloves, and when I get home later I will pour myself a cup of hot tea, I will get out my list and I will rethink my priorities.  

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"Action expresses priorities"
--  Mahatma Gandhi

Be thou at Peace Ma'am

Her mom died when she was just a little girl, just six or seven years old. She wanted to go to West Point and made it happen. She served in Iraq and then served in Afghanistan twice, where she was killed by enemy fire Saturday, June 8, 2013. Maj. Jaimie Oberst Leonard was 39. Those who knew her say she was loyal, dedicated, and a “shining example” to those served with her.

The news came to me from her uncle, my first cousin, Tommy Oberst. My dad and Jaimie's grandmother were sister and brother. So I'm linked to Jaimie by childhood memories of hanging out with her mom and our generation of cousins in the Bronx at my Grandmother's house, and our weekends in the country at the Oberst house in Scarsdale, New York. The Breen sisters, Patsy, (Jaimie's mom) Muffet (Alice), Bobby, Tommy and Laurie.  

My heart breaks for her siblings, her aunts and uncles, her cousins and her incredible life-long West Point family of soldiers and officers. We will all honor her at West Point next week where she will be buried.

I've been watching the news, and from what I've seen, only News 12 Westchester has covered Jaimie's story the attack in treacherous Paktika. There have been short print articles in The Times, The News and a few local newspapers, but our network news shows seem to shy away from the disturbing reality of our country's war in Afghanistan. Interestingly, I've talked with family and friends in the past about the fact that the only TV news show announcing the names of soldiers killed each week is Sunday Morning's “This Week” with George Stephanopoulis.

Yes, every week soldiers are killed in this war. As a society, we continue to be shielded from the news of our best and brightest falling in a war we've been talking about ending for a long time. We only become acutely aware of what's going on when it touches us personally, and then we experience the blow, the terrible shock, the monumental grief and the rage.

Over the last Memorial Day, a debate erupted about the meaning of the holiday. It seems to have morphed and blended a little with Veteran's Day since it has become politically correct to thank our soldiers for their service when we meet them here in the US. I used to think this was a good thing, that every time we can honor a soldier we should. But.... I've changed my mind--I agree that Veteran's Day and Memorial Day are two very different holidays. I will make sure next Memorial Day I honor Maj. Jaimie Leonard and all the officers and soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice, and keep the meaning of the day close to my heart.

I'll repeat what a friend posted for Jaimie on the FaceBook page West Point Women, “Be thou at Peace Ma'am”.

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"I'm going to go in and do my best." I believe when you do that, people recognize your talent.

– General Ann E. Dunwoody

Four-star general, U.S. Army
(First Woman Four-Star General)

Why I have excommunicated myself from the Catholic Church

“The problem is not with God, but with an all-male clerical culture that views women as lesser than men.”

I've always felt like I lived on the fringes of the Catholic Church. After all, even as a very young girl growing up Catholic in a parish in upper Manhattan, I had a very hard time accepting all I was taught. I was troubled by the discrepancy in the way the priests and nuns lived up to the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The priests had cars, ate out in restaurants, dressed in street clothes to go to the beach, or hang out at the park, and had money in their pockets for entertainment. The nuns, except for mass and teaching, rarely left the convent or the square block of the school and chapel. Some of my friends and I volunteered to grocery shop for the nuns because they were not allowed to venture out three or four blocks to the A & P. The unfairness of it all disturbed me, and as a result, I never really respected the priests in the way that we Catholics are supposed to. On the other hand, I admired the nuns' spirituality and the simple and devout way they quietly lived their vocation.

As an adolescent, I became aware of the rage that some nuns and priests would direct at their students in the classroom. By seventh grade, a few of the nuns were physically beating up on the boys and shrilly threatening the girls with fear tactics. This was both surprising and frightening, as I viewed the Sisters as my teachers and confidants.   As we have subsequently learned, some of the priests were sexually abusing boys in the back of the chapel and in the locker room. In the classroom we were being taught about martyrs who gave their lives defending the teaching of Jesus Christ. We were taught the new testament stories of miracles while being physically, mentally and sexually threatened and assaulted. Silently I questioned everything I was taught. I didn't know who to trust any longer.  Most of all, I questioned an authority that would tolerate, even encourage, their intolerably bad behavior. I began to believe in nothing.

Through my adult years I still considered myself Catholic, saying when asked, “Yes, I'm baptized Catholic, but I don't practice anymore”. I would say this because I was embarrassed by my Church. Embarrassed by the church that would continue to protect child abuse felons without accountability; the church that was so out of step with women's issues and insuring woman's health; and the church that has shut its doors to divorced catholics, gay catholics and to anyone who would defend them. 

Case in point: Father Roy Bourgeois, who was recently expelled from the Maryknoll Priests because of his public support for the ordination of women. He had been excommunicated four years earlier, but finally expelled in November 2012. Yes, he was excommunicated because he publicly supported the idea of women ordained as priests.

And how about Sister Simone Campbell and the 'Nuns on the Bus' who went on a nine state tour protesting federal cuts in programs for the poor. The Vatican tried to silence them and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, for speaking out without permission of Rome. These women are just too uppity (and even called 'radical feminists'!) and were assigned a bishop to oversee all their future activities.

Now in the many years since I was a child the Catholic church has struggled with declining numbers of priests and nuns; Catholic churches are without pastors and Catholic schools have been closing due to declining enrollment and fewer clergy to run them. We might also note that most Catholics would be happy to see the inclusion of married priests, women priests, and a church which would welcome homosexual and divorced people. Most Catholics want to see offending priests held accountable for the abuse of children.  Ignoring these realities, the Cardinals in Rome, with pride and disregard for the faithful, announced recently that their laws and methods have not changed in over 600 years and will not change.

So today, I stand beside Father Roy Bourgeois, and Sister Simone Campbell, who live by their conscience, in spite of the non-inclusive, noncompassionate, and rigid church leaders, and I excommunicate myself.  Fearlessly, I say I am not a Catholic.

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Read Father Roy Bourgeois' story: My Prayer: Let Women Be Priests

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/opinion/my-prayer-let-women-be-priests.html?smid=pl-share

One Wednesday's Commute

So I step down to the Metro North platform as the 7:23 AM express to Grand Central pulls in, and I decide to get into the last car instead of running for the cars in the front of the train. I'm thinking this is a smart thing to do to get a seat, maybe it will not be so crowded... you know. Well the last car is packed tight with seats few and far between, but I do find one by the window and ask a commuter if he would be so kind as to move his briefcase from the seat next to him so that I could sit down. He seems perturbed, looks around first, and then grudgingly surrenders the seat. It crosses my mind to ask him if maybe he had purchased a ticket for his briefcase, but... I am practicing being less confrontational with strangers, so instead I smile a closed-lip smile and sit down.

Train pulls into GC, and every single person in the last car starts walking in the opposite direction from the terminal. Good follower that I am, I try to blend in so I do exactly the same. I see a tunnel up ahead and stairs going down (which seems wrong somehow ) but I continue, knowing that these daily commuters know more than me, a casual traveler.

We emerge in an office building on Madison and 48^th Street! Moving along like sheep on a giant conveyor belt, I follow along and grab the door someone is holding open for me, then do the same for the person behind me. It is sleeting outside but I must keep walking or be trampled. Of course I need to head downtown, not up, and west, not east, but I have just managed to empty out into the farthest northeast exit of Grand Central. I am truly truly an amateur, and a poser.

Rather than admit defeat, I walk to the corner and stop into a deli to a) get out of the sleet and b) buy a bottle of water. The guy at the counter says “$1.24”, so I give him a five and a quarter and say, “you can keep the penny”. He hands me back four dollars and says with a smirk, “thank you, I'll make sure I give the penny to my boss.” Once again, I practice my square breathing and do not respond because I am trying really really hard to be less confrontational with strangers.

Outside of the deli LO and BEHOLD, someone is getting out of a cab. I grab the door and jump in and tell the driver my destination, feeling so relieved that I am out of the cold rain. As I settle back into the seat and search for the seat belt, he opens the sliding window between the front and back seats of the cab, and starts a long, rambling monologue. I won't say it is a conversation, because he really does not want me to talk, just listen. OMG here we go. For the endless stop-and-go drive downtown he tells me his life's story. Didn't stop for a breath, I swear.... But when he said he hated Mayor Bloomberg, I tried hard to just tune him out. All I can remember is him telling me the stunning fact that he spends six to eight weeks each summer in Dubai, because driving a cab in New York is so stressful, and that I should definitely go to Dubai for my next vacation. I ask him what he does in Dubai, and he says “Oh, EVERYTHING!” and gives me a knowing smile in the rear view mirror, which totally creeps me out. I smile and nod, thinking this guy must be loaded to spend eight weeks in Dubai every summer, but I do not speak because… well, you know.

Thankfully, just as I start to break out in an anxious sweat, we pull up to my destination. I hand him a $20 for the $17.50 trip and say “keep the change” – and hey, I get a smile instead of a scowl.  In the elevator up to my grandson's apartment, I think, hmmm, maybe I should look for an apartment in Manhattan... I could just walk everywhere! HA!

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"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
-- Abraham Lincoln

Four Generations on the Hudson

“We're three generations living on the Hudson River, mom” my son, Peter said to me not too long ago. “Well, four...” I corrected him, reminding him that my grandson is the fourth. I had never thought of it that way, but yes, there we all were on any given day, dotting the river's shoreline, watching the same brackish water lapping and waving, feeling the tidal pulse rushing from New York Harbor to Albany and beyond. If I were a Hudson Valley eagle coasting overhead, I would have seen my mom sitting on her deck overlooking the tennis courts and marina in Hastings; me, walking Toby in the shadow of the Palisades Cliffs; and Pete, Lori, and Jack, grabbing a burger or lobster roll on the North Cove of Battery Park.

I am obsessed by this river. I admit it. First thing in the morning, before I listen to the news and the weather, I'm at the window checking out the condition of the river. White caps and racing – it is the Hudson Ocean. Still and silky – it is the Hudson Lake. Ice chunks and barely moving – the Hudson Skating Rink. Grey and speckled – Hudson Rain Forest. And the sunsets! Of course the russet, fuchsia and gold colors of the sunsets. Yes I am obsessed.

I learned to love the Hudson growing up a few blocks from its shoreline in Inwood, Manhattan. Inwood is the neighborhood at the pointy narrow northern tip of Manhattan, bordered on three sides by water: the Hudson River to the West, the Harlem River to the East, and Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the north, which connects the rivers. As a kid in the 50's I spent a lot of time on “The Speedway” and at the “River Fields” as we referred to the east and west river parks. Activities included playing softball with my crowd (now you'd say friends), climbing around on the huge boulders scattered on the riverbank, walking down the Speedway paths, and occasionally, a picnic with family. Mom told stories of watching the George Washington Bridge construction as a young girl, dad told stories of swimming across the river (debatable) and sometimes we fished for eels. More likely we spied rats running around the broken-down docks at the end of Dyckman Street.

But my favorite time was finding a big flat rock on the Hudson River's edge and stretching out in the sun. Most times I had a book that I picked up at the library on Broadway, and a sweatshirt rolled up under my head. I could stay there for hours even with the threat of seeing a rat run by. I craved the peace and quiet away from the monsters in my imagination and the struggles of my reality. I'd actually be distracted from reading by the soft lapping of the water against the rocks. The sound was – still is – the most peaceful, calming, and alluring sound my heart has ever thumped to.

My love affair with the Hudson continued throughout my teenage years and adulthood, to this day as I have found a place to live where I can watch and listen to the river every day. Some of the best times I can remember in recent years have been sitting on the deck with mom, her binoculars in hand, watching the bright white sailboats and the colorful tugboats go by. One day we followed the Hudson River Clearwater sailing north with wonder; one day we watched the Tall Towers blazing to the south in horror.

I guess my son has caught the obsession, drawn to live near the river, loving time spent at the river parks with his family. Today, I add to my list of bests and favorites the time I spend with my grandson at Battery Park every week. We stroll or jaunt up and down the river walk, stopping at North Cove to gaze at the sailboats and watching the ferries come in and out. We wave and say hi to Lady Liberty in the distance, and we listen to the water lapping against the rocks. I tell him, here is your beautiful Hudson River. The Hudson is your family, the Hudson is your people. With that, he wriggles his hand out of mine and chases after the New York City pigeons.

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Dancing is my obsession. My life.  -- Mikhail Baryshnikov

For my Friend, Kathleen

Nothing wraps me more tightly in its comforting arms than the sight of the Big Dipper in a clear night sky.  Tonight is one of those nights.  Although clouds or rain can hide it from view, I know the Big Dipper lives unquestionably nearby, and remains reliably beautiful.  I breathe out a long, slow breath reassured by my luminous friend, as she reminds me that although Earth is spinning out of control, it returns to the same spot in the universe night after night after night.  A universe of order formed from chaos. 

But chaos does exist in our everyday lives.  I can admit in my deepest heart of hearts that I can’t escape the turmoil, but surprisingly I live my life believing the opposite is true.  I pretend to have control over the chaos by setting the alarm, writing my daily lists, knitting a sweater my grandson will grow into; or in orchestrating the bigger plans, selling the house, planning retirement in terms of decades, instead of years.   It is all a ploy so I can live according to the belief that I will never be sick, I’ll live forever, be protected from loss or tragedy, grow up with my grandchildren.  I won’t let myself consider the possibility, or probability, that a sister, a mother, or a friend will ever disappear from my orbit, or that I would not be allowed to trade places with a child or a spouse who is suffering.  Living inside of me is the adolescent who trusts in the fantasy that I am indestructible, as are all whom I cherish. 

So when disorder strikes, when the most unimaginable loss happens, what do we do?  What can we do?  We make lists, make the arrangements; we walk through the moments, then the hours, then the days till completion.  The shock stays with us, the pain stays with us, the devastation stays with us; but wait, wait, there is so much more.  Their experiences stay with us, their memories stay with us, every single moment from their lifetime stays with us, the feeling of their arms around us stays with us, and yes, their love stays with us.  Astonishing, stunning, undeniable, unrelenting, their love surely stays with us. 

My dog Toby and I go out for a walk between nine and ten o’clock each night.  Our usual route is out the back door and up to Broadway, then back down the drive towards the river, before heading into my front door.  As we approach it, the Hudson reflects the Palisades and the vast night sky, sprawled out ahead of us.  We slow down, then stop in our tracks, to take it all in.  And as the ageless Big Dipper dips her spoon into the Twenty-thousand-year-old Hudson River, she pulls me close and reassures me that love really does last forever.  Strong, endless and dazzling, love really does last forever.

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"I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. .... Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now."   Sophia Loren

Happy Birthing Day, Mom

On my kids’ birthdays, the family joke is that I threaten to tell them the story of their births, labor pains and all.  The joke is it wasn’t something I dreamed up.  On my birthday, my mom and I would always go to the stories of what having a baby was like in her day.  

 Sixty three years ago, if you were lucky enough to have a hospital birth (as my mother was), women were given a general anesthesia, put to sleep, and woke up the next day with a new baby in their arms.  Everyone else knew if it was a boy or girl long before the mother.  New moms stayed in the hospital up to 10 days, “dangling” their legs over the side of the bed on day three or four, finally to walk almost a week after the birth.

How things have changed!! I thank the angels every day for the daily help and counsel my mother gave me after my first child was born.  Even though she was working full time, my mother came over every single evening to help with Neen’s bath and answer questions I wrote down during the day.  A new mother at only 21, I was totally green, and having her near was a necessity, not a luxury for me.  

So today, my birthday, I remember you and miss you, mom, and as my friend Gab would say, “Happy Birthing Day, mom” because my birthday celebration begins with you.  xoxo
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"Motherhood has a very humanizing effect.  Everything gets reduced to essentials." 
~Meryl Streep

Goodnight Mom

After the rain, after the florist, after the priest’s comforting words about someone he didn't really know…..  after the hugs and the tears, after the generations of photos posted on a white board, after the grandsons’ escort….  after the mud and the single roses laid on the coffin and car doors shutting with loud thumps….  after the three course luncheon at a familiar restaurant….  after all this, I find myself alone and stunned.  Numb, maybe.  Yes, numb.

The last 48 hours raced by like the 5:19 Metro North express to Tarrytown.  We got the news, convened, planned, selected, decided, procured, and finalized.  We gathered our children, watched them cry their eyes raw and knew there was nothing we could do to soothe them.  We called, emailed, cried, hugged, greeted, thanked, laughed and cried again.   Then it was over.  

I feel an inconsolable sadness missing my beautiful 93-year old mother already –  this feeling is unmistakable but unexpectedly powerful.  Sadness comes in many colors, and this one, though somewhat familiar, like the shades of grey in the black and white photos of mom as a young woman, triggers a hazy yellow brightness that makes me want to first squint, then shut my eyes against it.  I keep thinking  “what would I have done without mom when….” (fill in the blanks), and “what will I do without mom when…..” I’ve never had to do without her so I don’t have an answer.  Instead, I shut my eyes against the haze and try to sleep my mind quiet.

But tonight my mind won’t be quiet, and I can’t sleep.  I don’t know what comes next. I have become in one instant, the oldest generation of three.  I am mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, friend.  With mom gone, how do I call myself daughter?  When our mothers die, are we no longer someone’s daughter?

Of course, I know I am daughter to Laura Sinisi Breen, fun spirited woman, undaunted young widow, hard working mother, adoring grandmother and adored great-grandmother. Mom was cast-iron strong inside and out, and marshmallow soft-hearted through and through.  She is in my bones and in my blood.  But right now there is a space above me, and a silence hovering nearby.  The feeling of emptiness often can be intangible, but at this moment, I can see it and hear it with amazing clarity. 

I miss my mom more than I could ever know. My mother Laura Sinisi Breen was an extraordinary woman.  Right and wrong were black and white to her, she loved us passionately and parented us as her mother had taught her -- with all the rules and limits people only talk about and write about today.  She is the model of unconditional mother's love.  She was also generous beyond explanation, since she lived a very modest life.  They tell us to take what we remember about a loved one who has died and make it real in our lives today.  Keep her present in thoughts and words and her strength and love will go on through all of us.

Good thoughts for tomorrow, but not for tonight.  For tonight I will take Mom’s long standing advice when I was dealing with difficult days in my life—I’d ask her what should I do and she would say, “have a glass of milk and get some sleep.”   Goodnight Mamma.

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When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts.  A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.  ~Sophia Loren

The Skier

The brass chandelier in the dining room downstairs sways and its six blown glass globes clatter as they rock in their bases.  Plaster dust falls onto the dark wood table with each pounding thud on the bedroom floor above.  

Upstairs, the carpet in his bedroom is strewn with damp towels, worn tee shirts, muddy sneakers and smelly socks, inside-out sweaters and a well-worn baseball cap.  Three of the four corners of his room are staged with sports equipment.  In one, a set of golf clubs, in another, a lacrosse stick topped with a helmet, shoulder pads and gloves, in the third, a baseball bat and two fishing rods.  His platform bed is pushed up into the fourth corner to support its wobbly frame, and make some room for play.  The bed, of course unmade, is littered with books and wrinkled homework papers.  

The top of his dresser holds a left-handed golf glove, a ripped nerf football, three drinking glasses caked with dried soda and juice, and an autographed photo of twin brother athletes from Syracuse University’s varsity lacrosse team.  And old shoe box on the dresser is filled with assorted coins, movie ticket stubs, chewed up pencils, and the sticks from eaten tootsie roll lollypops.

The walls are scattered with academic awards, his team portraits and framed photos of him holding up large fish and smiling proudly into the camera.  One wall sports black half-moon scuff marks, the scars of repeated battering with a basketball.

He stands in the center of his room, in a clearing just wide enough for his skis to lay parallel.  He is anchored to his skis by black molded boots which force his shins forward at an angle and cause his knees to bend.  He is crouched like a racer at the starting gate, bent over at the waist till his chest almost meets his knees, poles held horizontally under his armpits and eyes fixed on a snowy place in his memory, far beyond his bedroom walls.  He is wearing mirrored sun glasses.

He raises his arms, plants his poles upright in the carpet and moving only the lower half of his body, jumps into a parallel turn to the left.  His skis land in a dull crash on the carpet.  He repeats the turn to the right and then to the left again and again.  Plant, jump, turn, land.  Plant, jump, turn, land. The floor shakes, the walls rattle, the chandelier clatters, the dog barks.  His rhythm is unbroken.

My car pulls into the driveway and I step out.  He looks quickly toward the window.  Before I reach the front door of the house, he speedily and quietly unlatches his boots, jumps out of them, and stands the skies with boots still locked in the bindings up against a corner of his room.  He leaps onto his bed and opens a book.  As I climb the stairs, I notice the swinging chandelier, the dust on the table – again – and wonder.  “What are you reading?” I say as I greet my smiling son at the bedroom door. 

Photo Book

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Jack

Magical, mystical and miraculous was the birth this week of Jack, my third grandchild.  Mom and Dad are more than miraculous in what they achieved, conceiving, nurturing and birthing this perfect new human being.  They are brave and loving, adventurous and more noble than they have ever been, and these qualities will only strengthen in their life together as a family.

Jack has bright curious eyes, searching, straining to connect with voices of family and friends around him; hair dark and thick, with a little wave that can be fashioned into a Mohawk; long fingers and toes on large strong hands and feet; and skin soft as velvet, with a rosy, olive complexion reminding us that his origin is the legendary blend of Italian and Irish.

As I look down at my grandson in my arms pushing his fingers and toes out of his swaddled blanket, I experience an extraordinary moment.  I know there will be thousands more extraordinary moments with him, having had the last seven years to experience moments like these with my other grandchildren.  I know we (my family) are enormously fortunate.  I cherish our Baby Jack beyond description.

We cannot forget, as well, how fortunate we have been to live in New York City with the best access to excellent health care for our mothers and our babies.  We can’t forget how lucky we are to have good jobs and good health insurance to pay for these things.  We can’t forget the good fortune in all that.

My political, feminist, humanist self reminds me that with fifty million uninsured Americans, some mothers and babies never get the prenatal care they need.  We can’t forget that many hard working Americans are in the group of fifty million.  Other families are just not as fortunate as my family has been. For those who may believe childbirth is easy, simple, ordinary and routine, I have news for you and it isn’t good.  When we hear politicians yelling about decent, affordable, universal healthcare in this country we really should listen and effect change for the better because this will improve the health and lives of new parents and the newest generation of children.

I am remembering an editorial I read recently about the state of maternal care and childbirth here in the United States.  The U.S. ranks only 39^th in the care and safety of moms during pregnancy and birth.  That means 38 other countries have a better track record of keeping our new mothers safe, alive and well  -- countries like South Korea, Bosnia, Poland, and Albania.  Spain, the UK and Italy.  This trend is getting worse for us, not better, and hasn’t gotten better in the last generation.

Today I go back to New York City to visit with my one week old grandson Jack.  I can’t wait to hold his perfect shiny miraculous self in my arms.  Once again I’ll be stunned and grateful for this amazing gift of life.  His parents share him with his grandparents, aunts and uncles, their sisters and friends, knowing he can only enhance all our lives from this day forward.  Hopefully we can have a positive, loving influence on him as he grows.  And hopefully the future will only get better for all new parents and babies.

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Overheard in a maternity ward this week: 

 “Why do they call them ‘contractions’ instead of ‘searing pain that feels like you are being split in half?’”

“It’s a natural thing.  In some countries, women give birth working in the fields, and just go back to working.”

“If men gave birth, every child born would be an only child.” (meaning, of course, they’d never do THAT again!)

A Day at the Beach

Ocean City NJ, August 2011

We parked and loaded up our Tommy Bahama back-pack chairs with towels and water and ipad and kindle and newspaper and knitting and an umbrella, then trekked down several streets to the beach. I stopped before we started across the sand and down to the water struck by the panorama.

There is nothing like being greeted by that salty wind and bright sun, and in the blue sky, a double-winged plane pulling a banner that said “Happy Bi thday Alison” with the ‘r’ missing. The beach was unusually wide with fine chalky sand, the waves were high and rumbled with a roar you only feel and hear when sitting near the water. We set up camp as close as we could to the ebb tide.

I am a sucker for all of it, but then again, I was taught to love the beach early in my life.  I remember treks to Jones Beach with my family when I was very young, then Rockaway Beach with my friends as a teenager.  The best days were when my Uncle Dominick wasn’t working, when we piled into his gigantic old Buick (I always sat on the floor in the back seat) with pans of macaroni, franks and peppers heroes and lots of fruit, and drove across the Bronx to the Throgs Neck Bridge and Jones Beach beyond.  There were always at least eight or ten of us (my parents, sisters, my aunt and uncle and cousins) in his car-- no seat belts in those days, no child restraint laws, but luckily we survived.

The funniest sight had to be two of us, usually the kids, carrying an old milk can filled to the brim with lemonade and ice by its double handles. If you know Jones Beach, you know the walks from the parking lots to the beach can be very, very long….  The can was heavy and hit my ankle bone with every other step, but that lemonade was oh so refreshing on a hot day at the beach.  My uncle or dad or one of the mothers (mine or Aunt Jeanne) would dig a deep hole for the can to be buried in, so that only the lid and a couple of inches of can were above the sand.  They had devised a simple yet innovative way to keep the lemonade cold all day long.  We ladled the lemonade into plastic glasses all day long.

I remember my cousin and me burying each other in the sand, only our heads sticking out.  I remember digging for tiny crabs near the water.  I remember pulling mussels off the jetty to cook later at home, and I remember holding on to the long ropes and floats that the lifeguards put out in the water to provide some feeling of security for those who were afraid of the waves.  I remember my mom standing by the edge of the water waving her arms and calling to us “Come back, you are out too far!”

We always arrived early and stayed till the sun was very low on the horizon, the lifeguard chairs had been abandoned and most beach-goers had left.  It was quiet at the end of the day, the sky was huge, and it became mesmerizing to just listen to and watch the waves.   Today I think The Captain and I will do the same.

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“My life is like a stroll on the beach...as near to the edge as I can go.”

--Thoreau

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art

I woke up this morning and knew I had to go to the Met to see’ Savage Beauty’, the Alexander McQueen exhibit before it ended on Sunday.  I’ve been avoiding the trek to Grand Central on metro north and then the number 6 train up to 86^th and Lex. only because of the heat of the last few weeks.  But faced with missing the exhibit, one of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s most visited shows in history, made the suffocating heat a minor inconvenience—I caught the 9:37 to the city, then the number 6 up to 86^th street.  When I made a left onto Fifth Avenue, I could see the steps of the Met already packed with people sitting, standing and lining up to get in.  I made a mental note to myself not to arrive so late ever again.  It was about 10:45. 

After the security check, I went straight to the information desk in the center of the lobby to get directions.  The sign on the desk said “McQueen exhibit line closed” so I said, “excuse me, what does that mean?”  “It means”, the woman behind the desk replied, “you can’t get on the line to view the exhibit until it opens again, and that probably will not be for several hours.”  OMG I thought and said, “what about members?”.  I knew from all the membership marketing signs hanging in every corner and on every wall in the gigantic lobby that ‘MEMBERS SKIP THE LINES’, but I needed it confirmed.  Miss blond, 55-ish facelift leaned closer to me and said, “no one gets in while the line is closed”.  I smiled and thanked her, moved around to the other side of the huge circular desk and asked someone else the same question.  Same answer.  I didn’t believe them for a minute.  

So I figured I’d join the museum anyway, since I plan to go a lot this fall and winter, now that I’m retired, and made my way to the far right to the Membership desk.  There was a line, as I guessed others had the same idea as me, join and “skip the line”.  I joined and got my temporary membership card. I asked the friendlier-looking worker if I could now, indeed, “skip the line” and she repeated: no one, even members, cannot get into the exhibit if the line is closed.  She also suggested that I return on Saturday or Sunday morning at 8:30 am, when only members are allowed in for an hour.  “Your chances are better then.”  I said “good idea”.

I made my way up the wide, sprawling, center staircase to the second floor and was immediately confronted with people on line, a line I knew I could identify as the line I wanted to skip.  I followed it winding through what seemed like every gallery on the second floor, crossing halls and roped off on one side, so other museum goers like me could walk freely.  I reached a point where I couldn’t walk alongside the line any longer, and asked the guard keeping me from going any further if members could continue on and get in.  She said, no, no one was entering the exhibit now, but why don’t I just go up to the front of the line to see where the exhibit is, so that later I can “skip the line” when it opened up again.  So I did.

After many more halls and galleries, THERE IT WAS!!  SAVAGE BEAUTY – I heard music, I saw flashing and swirling lights and people standing, sitting on the floor and generally looking tired and impatient waiting behind the rope in the hall.  I had been walking through the museum for at least 20 minutes, passing signs reading “2 hour wait from this point” and “1 hour wait from this point” and “line closed indefinitely”.  I walked up to the guard at the entrance, smiled, held up my membership card, and asked again, “Can members enter”?  He looked at me, unhooked the rope and said, “go right in”.  Best $70 I ever spent!

Savage Beauty was stunning, magical, disturbing, enchanting, electrifying, it was everything I never imagined and more.  I didn’t know much about the designer Lee Alexander McQueen before this exhibit but now I feel I have a tiny inkling into his psyche, or maybe none at all.  It is hard to tell.  He said himself, “There is no way back for me now.  I am going to take you on journeys you’ve never dreamed were possible.” The exhibit is multi-media including holograms, videos, and tricks to startle the gapers. His designs were romantic, regal, futuristic yet historically influenced, sometimes conjuring madness, at others, softness and beauty. Oh, yes, and then there was the sort of erotic and S&M leather, thorns and chains.  But always, always original stretching the imagination to places I can’t say I’ve ever been.  Primitive yet enlightened, romantic/gothic (his words) yet avant-garde.  Dresses, gowns were made of lace, silk chiffon and tapestry, then birds’ feathers, clam and mussel shells, and flowers.  And then there are the shoes…… the accessories….. 

The limitations of my ability to adequately describe this exhibit are so much greater than my infinite desire to share it with readers of this blog.  I can point you to the Met web site where you can view videos of the exhibit, but more intriguing, his runway shows – elaborate presentations of his original concept for every collection.  Take a look if I have spiked your interest, and go to the Met if you can before Sunday, August 7 – but go as a member so you can skip the line!

http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/video/

 

If you don’t already know, sadly, Lee McQueen died by suicide in February of 2010.  His mother had also died by suicide a week before.  He admitted to be distraught and unable to handle her death.

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Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.

-- Jules de Gaultier