Category Archives: Pause Points

Ordinary legacy moments in time.

Say Something

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#AltonSterling

I have spent the better part of this late afternoon listening to mothers go live with their raw emotion and fear imploring us to say something. Brandi Riley, Amber Dorsey, and A’ Driane Nieves; by mothers I mean black mothers, by us I mean white people. By say something I mean, they mean, what has been true for decades of change must be true now. Only when the people opposite of the oppressed speak up will anything change. It was true when men spoke out for women, it was true when straight people spoke out for gays it will be true when whites speak out on behalf of blacks.

Had you thought the civil rights movement alleviated these issues you would be wrong. I learned much listening to these women bear their frustration and fear and anger and desperation and pain. Not so much for themselves but for their children.

I’m not a mother but I can recognize heartbreak when I see it. To applaud these women for breaking from the sending of prayers and cliché comments and emoji and moving to the “proverbial” cyber streets is to applaud acts of desperation. There is something inherently wrong with them needing to do that. Why? Why? This is the question they ask over and over. Why is it necessary to take to the live tearing of one’s clothes in agony? I don’t know. I don’t know what I don’t know, I admit. I can only feel their pain by watching and bearing witness. By bearing witness I must say something.

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They speak of white privilege, rightfully so. When my niece and nephew are with me I don’t think about it. When they are with me, they are with me. I’m not naïve I know what that means, I know that guarantees a certain amount of security. When they are not with me and the news is teeming with one after another after another lost the fear rises in my throat.

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When my sister’s God son is bullied and pushed around and harassed the fear rises in my throat. What do I do? I stay close, I listen, I do what I’m asked; please share, take to the internet. When it’s resolved what do I do? I remain mindful. I represent what I want all my people to be, kind, inclusive, loving.

There is little bigotry spoken around me as I’ve long ago made it clear that I can’t listen to it. When it starts I remind people “I’m in the room…” and it stops…in front of me…but does it stop? Likely no. It’s only a small thing I can do.

This past Independence Day I reread Night in honor of Elie Wiesel. The New York Times said it was a slim volume of terrifying power, they were right. It was filled with grief and the reality of not intervening, bearing witness and the lament of so much still to be done. Listening to my heart break at the sound of these women I must do more. I don’t know what I don’t know. I can’t do anything for Alton Sterling but I hope someone will trust that I will learn more and do more. Will you?

 

 

Back Where I Belong

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“Don’t wish me happiness I don’t expect to be happy all the time… It’s gotten beyond that somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor. I will need them all.” ― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

Each year I spend my vacation by the sea.  On the Cape.  Usually by myself.  And a dog or two but only Toti Nonna now.  She isn’t really considered another person, she’s a phenomenal creature all to herself.  And each year I feel as Pablo Neruda does… “It’s well known that he who returns never left”.

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I don’t sight see, I eat out less and less, I’ve stopped bringing back souvenirs for everyone, I simply go and exhale. I have rituals and traditions.  I drink my coffee on the beach each morning because there is nowhere else it tastes better or cools off to just the right temperature.

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We have a routine, our morning walk on the beach, journal writing, photo walks, the farmers market and spending time with friends.

It seems I come by this honestly.  My grandmother, my father’s mother insisted that she be taken to the sea at least once a year.  She needed the sea air, needed it. I never understood it until it crept into my own life.  I must always get back to it.  The smell of salt air and cedar are life sustaining to me.

It’s my hope to get back and never leave at some point, I feel that coming closer and closer each time I find it harder and harder to return, even to my beloved Stowe Lane.

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For those of you that believe I’m idealizing the Cape, the sea, the way my hair feels and the way my skin turns bronze and the way all my aches and pains disappear even though I’m sleeping in a completely different bed you’re wrong.  Your opinions are appreciated but I get it that life goes on wherever one ends up evidenced in the fact that I’ve ended up on Stowe Lane.  I get that you arrive with all of your stuff and your work and your imaginings, I’m under no delusions that a place changes things.

My work is becoming more and more solitary, the changes in the industry are taking care of themselves we are no longer that upstart company with an entrepreneurial spirit. I’m no longer interested in being the inherent dowager queen or a formidable force.  When I think of the word retirement I know I won’t stop working but I’ll be doing joyous work, teaching, writing, gathering and preserving stories.

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The people who so desperately needed me are standing so beautifully on their own, my obligations to others are becoming fewer and fewer and my responsibility to myself is gaining momentum. I am looking ever forward to getting back to the sea for good where I can be that woman in the neighborhood, the gardener, the writer, the teacher, the woman whose home is always wafting the neighborhood with delicious aromas and who can always be counted on for a laugh or a listen.  I am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in the prayer from the Phaedrus when he said, “May the outward and inward man be one.”

I am looking forward…

Everybody’s Got a Story

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My intent today was to speak fondly of four men who each have a story. I don’t know their story but it is evident in the lines on their faces, the words from their lips, the music they listen to, and the job they are doing.

I adopted these painters as my four Eldons. You remember from the series Murphy Brown. He was her painter, he was quirky, he was a perfectionist, clearly bi-polar one day up the next he could have been seen as lazy. He came to do the job but never left until he ended the series by saying, I’m finished. Meaning his work was completed. It’s not lost on anyone that at some later date he indeed was “finished” long before his time. That became his story.

The Eldons came nearly a month ago, following closely after the very pretty construction crew boys that were removing and replacing boards, hammering away and, well, bringing some much needed “improvement” to the look of the neighborhood. These boys, however, did not yet have a story. By contrast the Eldons weren’t pretty.

I got to know the four Eldons over fresh baked banana muffin tops (because the 11th commandment is thou shalt not throw away bananas) eaten on my deck in the pouring rain. They were power washing, they were surprised at the kindness and grateful for the hot coffee and the small break. It went on from there, they showed me kindness, called me by name (as I did them) and did the best they could to get me back on my deck quickly. It’s true what they say about not knowing what you’ve got til it’s gone, my deck is integral to my mental health.

And then they were finished. My guess is I’ll never see them again but I’m grateful for the work they did and the kindness they showed me. I hope the story they tell themselves includes the good work they do and the fact that they have overcome “something” in their lives.

Earlier today there was a mass shooting in Orlando that took the lives of 50 people and wounded 53 more. I don’t know their stories either but I know that all they were doing was dancing. I am loath to say that these were members of the gay community as I want them to be seen as members of our community, my community. I want so badly for people to stop being labeled and exterminated because of that label in the name of yet another label.

I have no words for why. I have no words for the fear or extremism that makes one human think they are superior to another. I have no words for the heartbreak I feel for that loss, for those families and for my ever changing country.

The only thing I have words for is the power of kindness, the art of good work no matter where on the hierarchy it falls and the hope that everyone’s story overcomes their labels.

 

 

A Callahan’s Mom

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Today it was all about the hot dog. And beer…birch beer. And a piece of the past that we shared so many years ago as a young family growing up in Bergen County. For Mother’s Day we dined at Callahan’s Hot Dogs. Not brunch, no cooking, no fuss just a hot dog, well not JUST a hot dog it was Callahan’s after all. The snap, the flavor, the birch beer, the music it just all came together like a time capsule broken wide open. It was simple, it was heartwarming, it didn’t include my father but enough trains passed by that we were pretty sure he was on one of them. It’s what she wanted to do for her day.

Sometimes you get there. Sometimes a father’s daughter can learn to appreciate her mother because a little dog comes along and makes her into a Gramma. The mistakes aren’t forgotten but they are relabeled into something more palatable, something more relatable.

The reliance has become endearing especially when you find yourself saying you did the right thing, out loud. Me: no it wasn’t the IRS calling. Me: yes do call the police to report it. Me: see even they said you did the right thing. Now it counts…

Most of all you admit you don’t know what you’ll be like when you’re approaching 86 years old. You admit you’re glad that you own the dog she loves as if it were a grandchild. You admit there may be more similarities than differences, our feet don’t touch the ground. It’s a start albeit a small one, no pun intended.

There is gratitude in the passing of time that allowed all things to come to the point where regrets are over taken by small moments. Like receiving the proud sticker that said Callahan’s Mom from the original owner’s grandson who called her Gramma, day complete.

Happy Mother’s Day from a father’s daughter…

Sitting on a Park Bench

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There is something about a park bench, not the eying little girls with bad intent kind of something, but something wistful.  Seems no matter where I am if my camera is with me there inevitably will be a picture of a park bench among the images. Because, yes, I am that crazy “chair loving” woman and a bench is simply a larger version of a chair. But that aside it’s the more public experience that draws me closer, I can better explain that attraction.

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I had the pleasure of enjoying a lovely lunch with friends on a park bench yesterday at the NY Botanical Gardens. Lunches brought from home that become warmed by their confinement in a day pack just taste better. The sun was shining yet it was still nice and cool, the people watching wasn’t too distracting and all the better because the view was breathtaking. As Lincoln once said, every blade of grass is a study.

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I was reminded of the custom of carving one’s initials in a park bench to cement the moment in time. This image from a bench tucked away along the side of a lake.

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I was further reminded of a place I once ran to for some much needed solace that was neither too far nor too close to my home. It was a tiny sanctuary in the middle of my town, around a bend. But even in its smallness the pond and the wildlife it attracted calmed my otherwise chaotic life for a few hours.

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Sharing a bench with someone has led to many a discussion of things both worldly and mundane, of good books and the beauty that often surrounds a well-placed park bench.

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Several years ago it became a custom to dedicate park benches to local parks in someone’s honor. In their name many wonderful and heartfelt inscriptions have been etched on benches. And while those are wonderful I tend to look for the more…truthful…humorous…stop you in your tracks dedications that make you laugh out loud and entice you to sit where this person sat.

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If you need a break in your fast paced, stressful, hair pulling day, find a park bench, grab a hot dog and start the day again. It’s worked for me.