mortality

My father said that when his father died, my dad suddenly had a new and immediate relationship with his own mortality.

It was as though all my dad's life, his father had stood between my dad and the Grim Reaper.

Somehow, even well into adulthood, our parents remain the Giants that we feared and revered all those years ago when we were small. Somehow, we still are small in their presence.

Somehow, embarrassingly, almost shamefully, there is comfort in that.

Like the smug sense of false security when speeding just behind a motorist who is speeding faster than you: surely he will be caught and I will escape because... he is ahead of me.

But this is not so.

Every once in a while, the siren wails for the car behind. And whether there be Giants ahead or between, be we ever so small, we are always seen.

Live with joy. Know that this moment is all that is certain; fill it.

baby showers

So I went to a baby shower yesterday.

This is a ritual in our culture. Generally, these affairs are all-female events. The women, the carriers of the mitochondrial DNA, the daughters of Eve, gather to shower one of their number with abundance for the new life to come.

It is a useful ritual. I had a couple myself.



Like all rituals, these have an expected format. First, the in-gathering: women from different areas of the chosen one's life gather, meet and mingle. Each brings a gift deposited on a table or in a corner designated to receive the offerings.

Games are announced: for each package of diapers, a woman receives a ticket for a drawing. A giant baby bottle is passed around filled with jelly beans; we are each to guess how many.

Finally, a diaper pin rests on each placemat. Each woman is to put on her diaper pin. Each is to listen to hear when any one says the four letter word: BABY. If you hear this word, you win the speaker's pin, and any other pins she has collected.

She who wears the most pins at the end wins.



Then there is food: line up for cut up veggies, chicken, macaroni and cheese, Swedish meatballs. Later, there is a cake in impossible pastel shades.

Winners are drawn for the diaper lottery. The winner is announced in the bean-counting. The diaper-pin wearing, non-BABY-saying winner is not announced yet: save this for the end, when all have had plenty of chances to say the WORD.

The pinnacle... or at least, the POINT of the ritual takes the longest. This is the unwrapping of, displaying of, and cooing over of each and every gift.

How many ways can you say cute or soft?

I understand the utility of the ritual. Still, I was struck by the materialism, the consumerism.

The lost opportunities. Here is a gathering of women, at a moment of power. Rather than recognizing and celebrating the awesome creative power that moves through us, we squeal and giggle and nibble and niggle.

The baby this shower welcomed is known to be a girl. Pink and lavender colors washed over and through the gifts.

There was no strength here -- and there should be.

overextended

I really don't know how people do it.

I know that I am not the only one.

So many, many people are over-extended.

Working full time at a job. Working full time at a relationship. Working full time at a family. Continuing life long learning.

Working hard at playing! Working hard at relaxing!

As if!

Currently, I am teaching Sundays (2nd grade Hebrew and Jewish Theater), Mondays (undergraduate class in Intro to Theater), Tuesdays and Thursdays (3rd grade Hebrew). I am teaching/directing Mon-Fri for an hour a day (a Shakespearean production with 7th and 8th graders) and directing my youth theater troupe on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

Saturdays are usually taken up with social obligations. See, it says "obligation" and it does feel more like an obligation than a day off.

So, how do people manage? I am eagerly awaiting the opening of the show in a few weeks, to relieve my Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday evenings.

Looking forward still more to January and the end of the Monday through Friday commitment.

How do people manage?

On top of this I am working on a relationship, a family, serving on a board, trying to participate in a religious community.

I feel stressed, struggling and sometimes desperate.

And guilty.

Because I'm not even "full-time" at anything.

And because my house is a mess.

How do other people manage? Full time jobs, families AND a clean and orderly house?

Red, White and Blue

September 11, 2007

At the school where I am conducting my dissertation project, today is "Red, White and Blue" Day. While I feel certain that the 7th and 8th graders that I am working with know why today is R, W & B day, I wonder what the kindergartners and first graders know, or think.



There is a movement afoot to make today a day of good deeds. That seems to me a good, a positive, a hopeful response to hatred.



Today I will be especially kind. I will mail off some donations. I will look people in the eyes and smile with love.

Remember there is not enough darkness in the world to put out the light of even one candle.

Travel

I am wondering if, perhaps, I am supposed to stay home for awhile.

It started when I traveled to visit my daughter in the Deep South. For the return flight, I arrived at the airport at approximately 4:00 pm to see that the plane was listed as "on time" for a 5:00 pm departure.

The flight was listed as "on time" half and hour later at 4:30.

The flight was listed as "on time" at 4:45.

Somehow, at 5:00 pm it was DELAYED. Delayed, in fact by an hour and a half. I got into a LONG line to talk to the airline employee at the gate, because I had a connecting flight. When I got to speak to the employee, she congratulated me on having planned a LONG layover, so I didn't need to switch my flight. I would arrive in time to make the connecting flight.

So I wait.

And wait.

And, when the appointed hour arrives, the flight is delayed... again...

So, I get in another long line. Finally speak to the airline rep, who says that yes, now I will miss my connecting flight so she rebooks me for THE NEXT MORNING at 6:30 a.m.

Yikes!

My dear daughter picks me up from the airport to spend the night with her once again, while our friend H, who also is to fly out the next morning, tries to get my flight switched to HER flight, which is leaving at a humanly-possible hour, such as 10:30 a.m.

To accomplish this switch, H goes on line, only to discover that I have been REBOOKED, again, as the 6:30 a.m. flight is canceled and I am now on an 11:00 a.m. flight.

Good thing we checked. Otherwise, I would have been SERIOUSLY ticked to arrive at 5:30 a.m. to find that my flight was canceled and I was rebooked and could have SLEPT.

That flight does leave, eventually, and in time to make my connecting flight in Atlanta.

Which is canceled.

There is a HUGE line waiting to speak to the airline reps. I get in line. I am in line for about 1/2 an hour when I get to a scanner that allows you to scan your boarding pass and find out if you are rebooked.

I am.

For 9:30 a.m. the NEXT MORNING.

I have already missed one rehearsal and had to send in a substitute director. THIS is NOT ACCEPTABLE! I won't accept 2 rehearsals missed and a 3 day flight home!

I call my husband and get him on the issue on line, and I get back IN line. Wait about another 40 minutes to speak to a human being, who first of all says that if it's weather related and not equipment related, they won't DO ANYTHING, but if it's equipment related...and waves me toward a bank of phones. I wait another 15 minutes for a phone to become available. I have to try three phones before one works; and am promptly put on hold for another half hour.

When I finally speak to a PERSON, the person is all sympathetic, books me on an evening flight and puts me on standby for the next available. She is not hopeful for the standby (remember all those lines? Clearly I am not the only one stranded.), but the standby will roll over to the next available.

So, I drag my luggage to yet another gate... to find that the standby flight has been moved to a different gate... trudge over there, not especially hopeful, explain all to my husband who has an hour drive to pick me up on the other end.

Then low and behold I am called at the last minute to board the standby flight, without even time to call my husband and alert him.

I arrive, safely, only about 24 hours later than planned.

So that was the air travel adventure.

My next adventure, Dear Reader, is a road trip to deliver my youngest child to NYC for her year of service to City Year.

We begin on Thursday of what shall forever be known as the Extended Weekend of HELL.

Thursday: Husband K and I (and daughter C) met with son J & daughter-in-law J in
Brighton (half-way point
between our home and theirs) at Best Buy for son J’s advice to daughter C on a laptop
purchase.

About Thursday: More than a week ago, C had told both my husband/her dad K and my son/her brother J that she
was keeping
Thursday night open for family, but apparently she forgot that because she made
plans with her boyfriend and his family and / or friends. So we had to squeeze
laptop purchase into the pre-dinner hours, and I loaned her OUR CAR so that she
had a safe drive and SHE didn’t pay for gas to get to her dinner
appointment 45 minutes away.

She left the laptop with us and J was going to clean up the trial ware
and ads that came with it… and discovered that the H key, the backspace key, and
the windows key did not work. We didn’t discover this until after taking J & J out to dinner so by now Best Buy was closed and I had to make time
somehow on Friday morning to drive to Best Buy to exchange laptops.


Friday, August 24: I wanted to leave before noon, and make it to my friend
W's home (in Reading, PA) by midnight. No such luck. K and I had packed our
1998 Ford Explorer… which we were planning on selling, since its manual
transmission was starting to act up… anyway, we had packed the Explorer with the
dresser that C wanted and the Ikea couch/futon that I had bought for Cl
that was carefully still in the box.


Since on Thursday I had fetched the Explorer home for C to pack; I
thought,she had mostly completed her packing. After all, she had asked me to
switch cars with K so she could pack.

But no, she still had PLENTY to pack... I left her to it while I drove back to
Brighton to exchange her laptop. When I returned home, C said we must change plans to meet her friend R, therefore take I-75 rather than I-23, the preferred route.

Oh well, it is only about 20 minutes or half an hour longer.

Plus the hour we spend with R at the Coney Island.

Later and later... and then there was construction so when W called, I said wouldn’t meet on
Friday, instead I would meet W Monday morning on my return trip.

So, we spent the night at motel for $86 and I took Cl to dinner late in the motel. I read for
awhile in bed while she checked e-mail. I barely was able to check email… the
wi-fi was slow, the room was hot until the air conditioning that we turned on kicked in, no
continental breakfast.

Saturday: C slept in, slow to get up, slow getting ready, barely checked out by 11:00
so another late start.

About this time, I am reminded of the problems with transmission, by the Explorer kicking from time to time as we drive through the mountains. Not pleasant.

We are trying and trying to get to NYC, and everything is taking longer than planned. FINALLY
get within about an hour or so of our destination-- and get a flat tire. On the busy interstate highway. On Saturday night. As the sun is beginning to set.

C says, we can change it.

I say, Noooo, that is why we have AAA

Call AAA, start unloading vehicle to get the spare tire (turns out spare is UNDER car,
but tools WERE under the packed items, so it wasn’t worthless… except…). It’s
hot, we are on the side of the busy interstate in NJ.

AAA arrives. Takes a while to figure out where is tool. Finally find tool. He
starts working on tire. After ½ hour, he concedes he will not be able to get
tire off, will tow car and drive us to NJ auto shop where car will be repaired
on MONDAY… it is SATURDAY. C has to be in Manhattan on Monday a.m. at 8:30
and all of her stuff is in the car.

I call dear husband K… GET US OUT OF HERE! Find a rental, SOMETHING… all rentals are closed on this lovely Saturday evening.

To make everything more interesting, at our home K is without power, as a tornado has struck a couple of blocks away.

As we are traveling in the tow truck (after having RELOADED the Explorer) I overhear our driver's walkie-talkie that a mechanic may come in on Sunday if necessary and they may find us accommodations overnight.

About this time I get a call from son J.

He says, I hear you are having some problems.

I say, Yes, indeed-- oh, wait I have a call coming in from New Jersey--

He says, that's why I called-- take that call!

So I take the call, which is from a cousin, of J's wife, who lives in New Jersey (where we are stranded).

She says, I have an idea.

I say, Wonderful! (with visions of rescue dancing in my brain)

She says, why don't you call Newark airport, take a cab to the airport, and then you can rent a car from the airport.

Well, I say, that is an idea I hadn't thought of. I will think about that.

I hang up. I call K.

I say, who is this crazy woman calling with a suggestion that will cost us at least $200???

He says, I don't know. I will keep working on it.

More time passes.

(By the way, I should mention that about an hour before we got the flat, I had a large iced tea. So it's been 3 or 4 hours, and I have to PEE. NOT helpful to my already sour attitude. You might say I was pissy.)

Now the cousin from New Jersey calls back.

She says, I had another idea.

I say, What?

She says, How about if we come and get you and you spend the night here, and I can loan you our car tomorrow.

I say, That would be lovely! Thank you so much.

I let C know this. We have now arrived at the automotive repair shop... which, thankfully, has a bathroom.

What a relief.

When I get back, C, who has been thinking about this, says, Do you think the cousin will drive me to Brooklyn tonight?

I say, I doubt it.

She says, Will you ask her?

I say, No, I won't.

C is beyond irritated with me, why can't I do this for her, it is SOOO important that she get to Brooklyn tonight, yada yada yada.

Fine, I say, if it is so important YOU ask her.

C says, I don't know her.

I say, NEITHER DO I!!!

At this point, when the great debate is whether matricide or infanticide is about to be committed, our AAA tow truck driving man walks in and says that: You're all set.

I say, What?

He says, One of our mechanics was hanging out here and he fixed your flat. You are good to go.

Hallelujah!

So I call the cousin, and have her call off her husband. We get back on the road.

Off we head for New York CIty and then Brooklyn.

Adventures here, too: For instance, I had no idea that the Holland tunnel takes EIGHT lanes of traffic down to TWO.

We somehow get through the tunnel.

Drivers that are passing us are signaling us. Finally one manages to let us know that sparks are flying from behind our car.

We pull over and check. Apparently, a long wire with a nut attached (part of what keeps the spare tire attached, if you have one), is dragging and sparking. Reassured that the car will not blow up, we continue driving. (Note: for the rest of the time that I drive this vehicle, helpful passers-by wave frantically and seek to alert me that my car is going to blow up. I smile and nod thanks.)

We are devotedly following the directions that my son A's friend N has phoned in to us because we had changed plans, and we needed revised directions, and A was on his way to work...

ANYWAY...

We are supposed to turn left on Myrtle, and we do.

Right on Washington, and we do.

Right on St. Marks.

There is no St. Marks. We go up and down the street several times in both directions and there is NO St. Marks. We are about to despair.

About this time, son A calls.

A says, Just checking to see how the drive is going with N's directions.

Are you near a computer!! We ask. There is no St. Marks, and we are SO close to our destination but there is no St. Marks! We need help!!

A asks, Where are you?

So I announce our cross streets.

A says, so you turn left on St. Marks...

We shout in unison, THERE IS NOT ST MARKS!!! Choose something ELSE!!

After A recovers his hearing, he finds an alternative and guides us, back on track, right to our destination.

Whew!

So, I'll breeze over late night Sunday the wonderful helpful apartment mate who helped us unload, the shopping on Sunday, and hassles and heartaches and hugs.

Skip all that.

On to:

Sunday night:
I want to start out while it is still light, but no. My plan is to drive about 3 hours, close to my friend W's but spend the night at a hotel. I have a lot of work on my dissertation that I am burning to do. My plan is to brunch with my friends on Monday morning, and drive on home, arriving in Michigan sometime around 10 pm or so.

One would think that finding a motel along the interstate highway would not be a difficult task; however, apparently it is, at least on the East Coast. I drive until I am out of the mega-la-polis, and start looking for lodging. I plan to get a room and be checked in by 10:00 pm.

Nothing.

It's 11, still nothing.

Meanwhile, the Explorer is having serious issues with the transmission. It's a manual transmission. It's flashing lights at me. Every time I sweep off the high way to get gas or look for a motel, I have more and more trouble getting the car in gear.

You NEED gears when you are traveling through the Poconos.

Finally, it's after midnight, I find a sign for a motel in Allentown, PA, I get off the highway, I follow the signs, I arrive to see:

NO VACANCIES

And now I'm navigationally challenged and having trouble finding the highway again. I'm tired. I decide: Screw it! I'm sleeping in a parking lot.

I find a strip mall that is well lit and has a Panera Bread restaurant. I figure I'll get up at the crack of dawn, take my laptop into Panera Bread, find out where I am and how to get to where I'm going.

Only, the parking lot is SO brightly lit, and I am too long and too wide for the seats in the Explorer. I can't sleep. I CAN'T.

*sigh*

So, I figure, what the heck, I'll drive over by Panera and see if I can get a signal. I probably can't but I'll try.

And would you believe it, I get a signal!

Hallelujah!

I google "Panera Bread, Allentown PA"

I know where I am!

I google "Days Inn, Allentown PA"

Up comes a number!

I call. They have vacancies!

I mapquest, and before 2:00 a.m. I am at last checked in, with a bed, and all.

I must tell you, though, that the transmission is getting more and more frightening.

And I must face the mountains in my driving.

So, next morning when I call husband K with my progress, I tell him about the car and the dangers thereof.

I start driving to the W's.

K calls back.

He says, There's a flight out of Harrisburg tonight. I'll book you. We'll sell the car in PA. It's not worth it.

And, with some scrambling, that is what we did. We found an automotive shop that was willing to take the car to auction, my friend W drove me to the airport, and I arrived, at long last, home sweet home.

back again

back at last.

Too much to do.

Somehow, will do it.

Working on dissertation project.

need to create 4, count 'em, 4 syllabi:
3rd grade Hebrew
Jewish Theater
Intro to Theater
-- dissertation project--

write a script

cast a play

and more

whew1

marriage

Those who know me know that I feel quite conflicted about marriage. I am a participant. I have been married now for over a quarter of a century. Faithful that entire time. Raised four children.

All carry my husband's name.

This marriage has been a source of stability for my husband and for all four of my children. And, let's face it, for me.

And yet...

I don't fit well in institutions. Marriage is an institution. Like organized religion. Like school systems.

Like prison.

Definition: from About.com
in·sti·tu·tion (ĭn'stĭ-tū'shən, -tyū'-)
n.

1. The act of instituting.
2. 1. A custom, practice, relationship, or behavioral pattern of importance in the life of a community or society: the institutions of marriage and the family.
   2. Informal. One long associated with a specified place, position, or function.
3. 1. An established organization or foundation, especially one dedicated to education, public service, or culture.
   2. The building or buildings housing such an organization.
   3. A place for the care of persons who are destitute, disabled, or mentally ill.

--- Look at definition 3.c.

Gives one pause.

This discomfort I have with the institution of marriage surfaces from time to time. Sometimes for no apparent reason. Sometimes, I can determine the trigger.

I've had several recently.

The play my daughter is performing in is "Dinner with Friends" and marriage, the good and the bad and the simply mundane is the play's subject. In this play, the break up of one marriage has a major impact on the marriage of their close friends.

Recently, I was visiting with my own recently divorced friend.

Other triggers for me have been my birthday-- time passing; and struggles with my youngest child-- obligation and ties, without gratitude or reward.

My friend, in her first year post-divorce, was wild and free. Now, as she has settled somewhat into her new single status, she is somewhat more contemplative. She reckons some of the costs. She has had to deal with some of the fallout.

Still, she pushes and praises and proselytizes her freedom. For her, I think, much of it is true. Her marriage was a bad one. For a variety of reasons, divorce was probably best for her. However, I think the costs are higher than she is willing to admit. I think the positives are somewhat overstated.

Maybe it's just sour grapes on my part. I have to admit that part of me envies her kicking off the traces, her freedom, her opportunities to be wild.

In my heart of hearts, I still believe myself to be the wild, free and passionate young woman I once was. But I am threatened in my belief about who I am, in part by my friend. Am I truly still the wild one when I live in this cage of middle-class marriage and abide by its rules?

Part of what bothers me about marriage is its very origin: it is the sale of the woman by her father to her husband.

My age bothers me. In the culture in which I live, there is no real status or benefit for growing older, especially if you are a woman. From here, at 51, to at least 80, there is no reward at all for aging. No additional respect. No great opportunities (unless one considers AARP membership an opportunity). At 80, or older, one begins to get some notice for mere survival. Make it to 90 with faculties intact and you get more notice. If you make it to 100, with faculties intact, you get some real notice and attention.

Although, I don't know that one really gains respect. Rather, one is a novelty, almost a freak. Age, in today's culture, gets one condescension, sometimes care, but really no respect or appreciation for a life lived, for wisdom gained.

The struggles with my youngest underscore this lack of respect or appreciation. I realize that this child-- now 18-- is in fact egocentric in the extreme. It's not about me, it's about this child-- at least in the teen's perspective. Still, I suffer a fair amount of abuse from this child. It has lessened somewhat in the past couple of months. A few months ago, when the situation was really difficult, my oldest child told me: "Mom, if this were your spouse treating you this way, you would have divorced two years ago."

And this is true. But children, born into a marriage, cannot be divorced. I am stuck: I will never NOT be this child's mother. Some obligations that come with this relationship, especially legal ones, are now ending, as the child has reached 18. Some obligations are cultural, emotional and virtually inescapable.

This is part of what I dislike about marriage: that one takes on obligations that are virtually inescapable. Divorce is a possibility; but even here, as my friend is learning, one is still bound up with the other, through children, mutual friends, mutual history.

Can one ever truly escape the past?

Which brings me back to "Dinner with Friends." In the production I saw last night, the director seemed to lean towards the couple that has divorced, Tom and Beth: underscoring sympathetically the happiness each claims to have found in freedom from the other. The playwright is more open-ended, I think. The play, to me, is Gabe and Karen's play, most of all Gabe's play. This couple has chosen to stay married.

There are differences between the couples. Tom and Beth have little in common. Gabe and Karen, on the other hand, work together, share a love for food and for travel. Tom and Beth grate upon one another. Gabe and Karen complement one another, which at one point Gabe acknowledges.

Had I directed, I would have underscored not the "happiness" of those who have divorced, but the contradictions and edge of desperation in Tom's new relationship with a much younger woman, in his need to boast of his sexual exploits and new positions; in Beth's plans to marry again, a lawyer like Tom, who worked with Tom, who cheated like Tom-- with her, ten years before Tom and Beth divorced.

Beth says: "He's not Tom."

Yeah, right.

It is a deep emotional truth that the divorce of close friends wounds and terrifies their married friends.

I would have highlighted the relationship of Gabe and Karen: in their terror, they turn to each other.

I doubt I will ever resolve my conflicting feelings about marriage. I'm still a participant. It is partly due to my husband's wisdom in giving me his trust and much freedom, without complaint. It is also partly due to my husband's stubbornness.

And maybe, somehow, I am choosing this myself. Still.