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Thinking Aloud

December 8, 2015 by mountainmornings

Good Morning Yiddish fans! And Happy second day of Hannukah. As a lapsed Catholic, I tried to compete with Christmas for my kids. I’d have Santa leave a present, I’d wrap up something big for the first and last night, and continue to wrap smaller presents for all the nights inbetween. We played the dreidel game with M&Ms. I fried latkes, potato pancakes, because there is always a special food item associated with each Jewish holiday. I really really tried…

Needless to say it was a mistake. There is no competing with Christmas as I learned after attending Rockefeller Center’s Holiday Extravaganza with the Bride when she was about 7 years old. Walking up Madison Avenue, tears streaming down her face, because Hannukah wasn’t even mentioned. They had a camel on stage, but no menorah. “It was ALL about Christmas!” she wailed. And I was stumped since I love the Rockettes and expected her to love it too. Which leads me to today’s expression:

Vos ahfen lung iz ahfen tsung

Which means, “What’s on his mind is on his tongue.” We all know someone like this. They are childlike in that every thought gains expression; on the Monopoly board of their mind, words tumble out, they do not pass Go at all, and sometimes this lands them in Jail.

As we age, this kind of short circuitry may happen more often. We forget social cues, our super ego steps aside and we say whatever pops into our head. Doctors call this a disinhibition, as if the filter in our brain is too full, so all our thoughts tumble out without mercy. Ada’s husband Great Grandpa Hudson is notorious for this. At 90 years of age, of course it’s allowed and amusing at times.

Like that Jim Carrey movie “Liar Liar” about a lawyer who can’t stop telling the truth, thinking aloud can be an affliction. Maybe this is part of Trump’s appeal. He is saying what his followers would like to say, only they know it would sound horribly fascist, except wait, Trump is saying stupid things so maybe their bigoted belief system has merit? This morning even Dick Cheney denounced Trump’s rhetoric. Will wonders ever cease?

I no longer try to compete or fight with Christmas. Here we are at the hospital “Holiday Party.” Note the beautiful red and green holiday wreath behind us!

IMG_3577

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The Times They Are Pressing

December 7, 2015 by mountainmornings

Es Vetzach Oispressen

Every morning for the next eight days of Hannukah I’m going to bring you one of the many instructive, sometimes funny and always calming Yiddish sayings my MIL Ada has peppered her language with over the years. A short vignette each day to share with your morning coffee. Enjoy!

Es Vetzach Oispressen Is one I’ve been hearing alot lately. It means “It will all iron out.” ie I tell her my worries, she does her best to listen and give me some advice, and then she’ll tell me it will all be ironed out like I used to iron my brother’s shirts. A little steam and voila!

Today I have an appointment with a retina specialist. It seems one retina is “wrinkled,” which explains the loss of vision in that eye. My “epi retinal membrane” may need surgery. But I’d prefer to think it will iron itself out without the help of a scalpel, or a laser, if you know what I mean.

The good news – no cataracts – for “someone my age” the first eye doctor told me. Yippee! This was me, wearing pink, going to a Planned Parenthood rally this past weekend. Wondering why I still have to march on the street across from people carrying lurid baby killer signs for my fundamental human rights. Will this press out too?   IMG_3586

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A Moot Point

December 4, 2015 by mountainmornings

The news coverage jumps around every few days, every year, for mass shootings from Connecticut to Colorado to California; the BBC covers our big events as if it’s just another routine day in the life of our nation. And inbetween, every day 90 people are shot on the streets of small towns and big cities all over our country. Mostly suicides, some crimes of passion, gang violence, and always the occasional “accidental shooting.” A toddler shoots his baby brother. A child shoots his friend.

And for some reason I can’t forget that baby who found a handgun in his mother’s bag while sitting in a shopping cart, and shot her dead. “There’s a man with a gun over there, telling me I’ve got to beware…”

And now the debate is whether the latest shooting is “workplace violence” or “terrorism?”

This is a moot point! Meaning “…of little or no practical value or meaning; purely academic. Chiefly Law. not actual; theoretical; hypothetical.”

Since I love all things onomatopoeic, the word “moot” has stayed with me; since I first heard it from a Harvard law student. Terror is when our children are forced into lockdown drills in school. Terror is when we fear checking our phones in a movie theatre. Terror is walking through metal detectors on our way to work, avoiding malls or large congregations of people. Muslim, American, Christian, mental patient, domestic abuser, anybody and everybody can get a gun in our country, legally or illegally, through a loophole or in a parking lot – IT’S JUST TOO EASY.

Does it matter if somebody walks into an office Christmas party with an assault rifle and a few bombs, or if that same deranged person strolls into a Planned Parenthood Clinic, or a movie theatre, or an elementary school, or a government building? The “Common Thread” in the carnage is GUNS. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-common-thread-in-americas-unacceptable-carnage-access-to-guns/2015/11/30/3b94cf96-97a5-11e5-b499-76cbec161973_story.html

So far this year, according to news reports collected by a Reddit community, there have been at least 351 mass shootings, or more than one a day. Those account for just a small part of the lives lost or damaged by gun violence. They don’t include, for example, in recent weeks the 6-year-old Georgia girl who apparently shot herself in the head after finding a loaded gun tucked in a couch, or the Ohio State University employee who shot himself in a campus art gallery, or the Tennessee woman murdered by her husband, who then killed himself.

Which type or way to categorize the carnage is irrelevant. We are terrorizing ourselves! Our senators voted down (or against) two proposals to limit gun violence yesterday. One was to expand background checks, the other was to prevent anyone on a terrorist watch list from purchasing guns…and if you’re not mad as hell about this then you are not paying attention. You can see how your senator voted on these bills and call them up if you’d like – http://everytown.org/senate-votes/

What will it take for our country to change course? Even our President seems locked in frustration and futility. We may have to march on Washington once again, sit down on the steps of the Capital and demand leadership. There are days when I feel like I’m getting too old to take action, like hope is a thing of the past. And then there are sunny days, when redemption seems possible.    IMG_3307

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Saving Face

December 1, 2015 by mountainmornings

The house is empty today. No Legos on the floor, Puffins on the table, or Love Bug saying “Nana!” The kitchen is clean, towels are washed and the bed sheets have all been changed; Bob went into the hospital for a full day of meetings. Great Grandma Ada called to ask me how I feel, and I said, “Strange.” I was just getting used to children’s laughter and smiles. To cuddles for no particular reason. My back however, after picking up a red headed 25 lb Buddha Baby monkey time and again, was telling me another story. Yesterday was spent on a heating pad.

Today it’s not entirely quiet, the drumming rain on the roof is soothing. It’s a good day to write while the mountains are shrouded in fog.

Giving Tuesday is really a day of reflection. Before the holidays move into high gear, and just in time for year-end tax deductions, many of us tithe to the charity of our choice. You may remember that I have a special place in my heart for the Salvation Army. And no, it’s not because of Guys and Dolls, or their irresistible red buckets. The Salvation Army showed up in the Flapper’s life when she needed help and was too proud to ask for it. They knocked on her door in our Year of Living Dangerously, when the Catholic Church turned its back.

But this week is also highlighting Climate Change in Paris. World leaders have gathered to pledge an end to carbon emissions, to try and stem the tide of extreme weather and drought. And just like Bernie Sanders has pointed out, climate is interrelated to conflict, and is directly responsible for  hunger and forced migrations of people due to environmental degradation and natural disasters.

If temperatures rise by only 2C, then millions more people would be affected across Central America, Africa and Asia. If temperatures were to rise between 4C and 5C, the map becomes covered in hotspots – suggesting a semi-pemanent food disaster in many parts of the world. WFP executive director, Ertharin Cousin, will not predict the cost of providing humanitarian food aid on a much larger scale, but accepts it is likely to be many tens of billions of dollars a year. “Climate change has the potential to reverse the whole development path,” she says.              http://www.theguardian.com/environment/cop-21-un-climate-change-conference-paris

When Bob returns home, we’ll talk about giving to some different non-profits today. Like:

The City of Light has stood up to terrorism by hosting the COP21: UN Climate Change Conference following November 13. But the news I found most hopeful was the back-door dealings of President Obama and Putin. I don’t need to know what was said, if any agreement was reached. Both men could save face by staying behind a beautiful French silk curtain. Iron curtains are so last century. Because we need both of our countries to lead in this global struggle for Mother Earth.   IMG_3508

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Unbearable

November 28, 2015 by mountainmornings

It’s been a whirlwind week. On Thursday, we cooked up a storm of scrumptious sides for Thanksgiving in Richmond. On Friday, the Great Grandparents boarded their Amtrak chariot and arrived home safely; for the first time ever, because of a Bar Mitzvah, Ada stayed with us more than three days! This had always been the rule when visiting us in MA, she would stay no more than three days, and I’m happy she broke it.

Later we managed to stop at friend’s farm so the Grandbabies could see her miniature horses. Then off we drove to Culpeper for a double duty day of two sets of Grandparents. The Groom’s parents and his brother and sister live in Northern VA, so a meeting for brunch midway between Cville and our nation’s Capital was on the docket. It was wonderful to spend time with Grandma Shavaun and Grandpa Mike, and fantastic to see the love for these miniature miracles spread around town.

Against my better judgement, I even slipped into a small toy store while walking around town. Christmas spirit was evident in Master Card swipes and helpful elves.

But when we got home, ahead of the Bride’s family, I heard the news about another shooting in Colorado. About Planned Parenthood. It was the same newscasters, the same nouns, the same verbs, the same phrases were used to describe an unbearable and all too common event in our culture.

“A LIVE SHOOTING!”

Come one, come all and gather round your TV to watch the event unfold – like a modern day scene from a Civil War battle with people picnicking on a hillside overlooking the battle. And I just couldn’t. I can no longer listen to the slaughter or onslaught of talking heads trying to find rhyme and reason. I’ve said it before, it’s the guns. Period. And I fear our homegrown/nutjob/terrorists much more than a refugee with a different religion.

Today is a free day. There will be no more news on any device. We will visit with old friends and play with Grandbabies. No more cooking. We will dine at a kid-friendly place tonight. And later, when it’s time for bed, I will try and explain to my Love Bug that monsters are just pretend. That the noises she hears are just our house creaking and pipes carrying water. Or maybe there’s a fox in the woods? I will fib when I tell her that the gunshots we hear from hunters in the valley are just cars backfiring.

I could not bear to tell her the truth. We have accepted active shooter drills in our schools, what is next?    IMG_3548.jpg

 

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A Primer for Gratitude

November 24, 2015 by mountainmornings

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake Bob and we list the things we are grateful for – sometimes, the list is short. But in the full light of day, before we gather at a friend’s table for Thanksgiving with Ada, Hudson and the Bride’s family, I thought I’d do my Norman Rockwellian best to write a current gratitude primer.

I am grateful for the sun bathing the mountains this morning.

I am grateful for the deer stomping his greeting to me.

I am grateful for Ms Bean and her willingness to cuddle.

I am grateful for a fireplace that lights up at the push of a button.

I am grateful for my sanctuary, the aviary.

I am grateful for my First World problems in our free country.

I am grateful for my family, all over the world, and all our quirks.

We were all once strangers in a strange land. And I am grateful to you my readers, who sometimes comment, email, text or tell me that what I write resonates.  Thank You!

 

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In Transit

November 21, 2015 by mountainmornings

“He was destined for greatness.” A long lost cousin of Bob’s caught me after breakfast. It’s been fifty years since they’d seen each other. I beamed back at him, coffee in hand and said, “Sometimes you just know.” 

We’re catching up with relatives in the Confederate Capital for Zachary’s Bar Mitzvah. His blonde curls are gone and he’s standing on the precipice of adulthood. An only child, he seems older than his years, but he still hugs me and that makes me happy. Like the Rocker, he’s not afraid of a little PDA. 

I think back to when I first met Bob. We were only one year older than Zach, we met on the sidewalk outside my house on Orchard Street. Marjorie Minor introduced us, and I recall she thought he was pretty special too.  I wonder where she is now. 

The Rabbi spoke last night about our perilous times. He reminded us that we, the Jewish people, had been forced to flee our homes throughout history. And then, maybe because this is the part of the Torah to read this week, he talked about Jacob’s dream. 

Jacob made a pillow out of stones and fell asleep on the road between Beersheba and Haran while he was searching for a wife. Here he dreamed of angels ascending and descending a ladder into heaven. At the top of the ladder stood God. 

And Jacob was told that this was a holy place. But not just this spot, which he named BethEl, but everywhere he and his children traveled- “Thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth,” spreading north, south, east and west. 

The Rabbi told us not to fear refugees seeking safety among us. We are all walking amidst angels on this earth. A stairway to heaven is right around the next corner, if only we could see it.  

I recently hung a series of woodcut Angels the Bride’s art teacher gave me over many years as Christmas presents. The Angels are always surrounded by swans. Subconsciously thinking of Jacob, they now hang on my stairway.    

 

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In Grief

November 17, 2015 by mountainmornings

What do you do to mourn? In the past, I’ve been known to bake a cake, a carrot cake. I also bake this cake to celebrate, so it’s an equal opportunity toasted coconut frosted masterpiece, if i do say so myself. I was taught early on by Ada, never send flowers, always bring food to the bereaved. I remember when Bob’s brother Dickie died, we called it the “never-ending fruit salad” since we received so many fruit baskets.

But after suffering through three miscarriages in one year, I felt compelled to de-clutter my life. If my own body wouldn’t cooperate, well then at least I could control something. I’m sure this has a psychological term, but I didn’t ask Dr Jim. I stripped away dead leaves on indoor plants, I scoured kitchen drawers for duplicate utensils. Normally housework wouldn’t interest me, but I became a regular housfrau.

Lately, I’ve been prone to prune more than plants. After downsizing to our Blue Ridge home, we had left some things undone. Beginning with Bob’s surgery I felt the need to pair down our possessions. To actually open those boxes in the basement that made it through two moves without being opened. Before the Paris massacre, we began to tackle our cluttered “unfinished” basement; this weekend we finished it.

We found some amazing things. Academic awards from the Rocker’s school days. The fairy tale I wrote for the Bride’s sorority.

Once upon a time, an ex-hippie ER doc married a feminist writer, a New Englander at heart, and a princess was born on Windsor Mountain. The baby had eyes as black as coal and skin as white as alabaster. A spring fed pond was the setting for her first foray into the wild…

I found the portfolios of both my adult children. The ancient ice-packing-sling-thing  Bob used after his shoulder surgery years ago showed up amid gear Bob used to keep in his plane’s hanger. The Piper Arrow that is missing his touch. The basement was functioning as a garage/archive of our life, but it was drowning in stuff!

Now we can breathe a little easier. This weekend our cousin in Richmond will be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah. I will remember to be thankful we live in a country where police do not guard the doors of every synagogue. I remember when the Bride tried to enter a Temple in Paris for the High Holidays 15 years ago, and she was surrounded by police, they questioned her to see if she was really Jewish. She was tall and blonde, ‘she didn’t “look” Jewish.

They made her recite a prayer in Hebrew.

Is this what we must do with every Syrian refugee, interrogate every single one? Shall we make them wear a sign pinned to their sleeve that tells us who they are?

Jess Bob Tour Eiffel 20151117

 

 

 

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The City of Light

November 14, 2015 by mountainmornings

I have been to Paris three times in my life. On one trip, we rented a car and drove out into the countryside. It was like the movie, Two for the Road, we were free and open to adventure. No plans, no tourists, just Bob driving and me, trying to read an actual French map. We stayed at a small farm in Normandy. We tried talking with our hosts in their language, since they didn’t speak English, and with a little sign language we did just fine. In the City of Light, if we tried to speak French, Parisians were happy with our effort we could tell, but they would kindly switch to English.

On our last trip to Paris, we were visiting the Bride who was studying there for her Junior year of college. She and her BFF were staying in the atelier of a family’s home in the 16th Arrondisement. We could see the beautiful rooflines through her window under the eaves. We accompanied her to the studio where she was studying art. She took us to her favorite restaurants. Her host family welcomed us with champagne in their beautiful front parlor; a room with long windows filled with the kind of light Monet wanted to capture.

Today the civilized world is in mourning after last night’s horrific attacks in Paris. Young people going out to a rock concert, cheering on their soccer team in a stadium. I wondered if the Rocker had played at that venue, I worried for all the parents of students studying abroad. I thought of our exchange student, Stephanie, now a lawyer with three children. I sent a message to the friend of my niece, who opened her Paris home for shelter.

But most of all, I cried for the people of France, because these radical Muslim extremists have brought their insanity to the most beautiful city in the world for the second time this year.

I am sick and tired of talk. And I know we should not blame a whole religion, yet there is a sect, a radical piece of Islam that is using social media to recruit disaffected young men to their jihadist cause. It is a pernicious web, an internet spider capable of creating suicide bombers on every continent. We need to do something more to stop this, and more importantly, peaceful, moderate Muslims need to come together with the West and end their murderous crusade.

Last night I relived the time I waited to hear from the Bride on 9/11. The day she walked back to her apartment in Adams Morgan from her first job in a government building in Washington, DC. The day we Americans awoke to a new kind of warfare.

And here we are in the year 2000, before this nightmare began, on a Bateaux Mouche cruising down the Seine. I have no use for prayers. Paris, I am sending you my love. We Americans stand with France.   IMG_3490

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A Life Story

November 12, 2015 by mountainmornings

Hold the applause and pass the champagne for our little coterie of writers in Cville. This past weekend I attended another writing workshop on Memoir at The Writer House. Our fearless leader, Sharon Harrigan, helped us dig into our past, crystalize our vision and discover a theme that might shape the story of a life. This town is a veritable estuary of literary types, it seems I have found my people!

Although I’m not crazy enough to think my life story gives me the right to run for President, for instance, I wondered if it’s worthy of a book, I thought that delving into my past could help me structure the fictional story I’ve been working on for years based on the life of my Flapper. You see, I didn’t really get to know my biological Mother until I moved in with her at the age of 12, and I never knew my birth Father. He died of a brain tumor when I was seven months old.

I could write a scene about the automobile accident three months later, on July Fourth weekend in 1949, our family’s Year of Living Dangerously, only through the eyes of my sister Kay. It might start like this scene in a drugstore in Scranton, PA:

Robert P. Norman’s name was emblazoned on the door and he was always happy to see us. I’m the oldest, and only girl at home, so I’m the sugar in his coffee. Only lately, Daddy was having trouble moving his left arm, and sometimes he had headaches, headaches that sent him stumbling towards his office in the back. I was heading there to see if he needed me when I heard my name.

She was fourteen at the time and is currently my living archive. She helped our Father pound chemicals into pills in the back of his pharmacy. After the accident, she was in a coma for a month. She had to care for me that summer and her brothers, and eventually the Flapper when she was discharged from the hospital, her dancer’s legs broken in so many places she would never walk normally again.

But first I had to get to know myself better. Sharon had us make a list of our quirks, which was a fun exercise and kept me busy jotting down things like:

  • “I need to keep my hair short, or I’ll twirl it all the time;”
  • “Small talk is painful, but I’m told I’m good at it;”
  • “Sleep will sometimes elude me for no particular reason;”
  • “I stop for stray dogs.”

I was getting discouraged, my quirks didn’t seem quirky enough. Then someone said we should ask a friend or family member to list our quirks. Genius!

“You have to load the dishwasher a certain way,” Bob said. Now that is true, and it did show up at the end of my list. I’ve even been known to return to a dishwasher only to reload it, if someone else was kind enough to “help” with the dishes.

I’m also pretty particular about hanging clothes out on a line. One of my very first memories is of getting stung by a bee under clouds of crisp white sheets floating above me on a clothesline.

And I love to dance. The Flapper signed me up for ballet at Phil Grassia’s studio in NJ. I chased a dream in high school and commuted to Martha Graham School in NYC to study modern dance. I continued to study all types of dance under Bill Bales at SUNY College at Purchase.

And when Bob, who never liked to dance, wouldn’t take me to our Junior Prom at sixteen, I asked our good friend Bernie. Because I was that girl who had two Mothers and was never afraid to ask for what I wanted. I guess that was pretty quirky in 1965.   Junior Prom 20151111

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