In Honor of My Dad

When I was small, I adored my father. He was the handsomest man in the world and no doubt, the smartest. He had an infectious laugh that would make you double over and clutch your aching stomach and cry real tears because you couldn’t stop laughing at his mirth. He absolutely cracked up while reading Horton Hatches the Egg. Every time.

He’d play my sister’s and my favorite songs on the record player so we could hear them after we went to bed, often speeding up the 45s, making everybody sound like chipmunks. If you’ve never experienced Witch Doctor played at 78 rpm, well.... your loss. He lobbied our mother to let us stay up until 9 p.m. on Wednesdays so we could watch Top Cat at 8:30, which came on after The Alvin Show. He didn’t always win but we knew he was on our side in the matter.  

My father hardly ever said, “No.” Not to go-cart rides or midnight swims, with campfire and marshmallows, down in our pond with our friends, or sleeping out in our tree-house under the stars. Not to cotton candy and popcorn at the circus or carnival, one more ride on the Ferris wheel, one more game of Skee-ball, or one more trip to Lane Drugs for a few more plastic rat finks. More summer nights than not, he’d pack us all in the car, along with a couple of friends, and head off to Flavorite Farms for a “cms” (parent-code before we got wise for ‘chocolate milk shake’) or a hot fudge sundae. 

My father loved to roam and our vacations usually involved a road trip. My family would pile in our 1956 blue Buick sedan and later our 1962 maroon Oldsmobile in the wee hours of the morning and head out. Settled in the back seat with my sister with our pillows, our activity books and crayons, and our first day’s lunch in the picnic basket by my mother’s feet, we always knew we were off on a grand adventure.  One time on a Sunday afternoon drive, he and my mother reminisced about an old amusement park in Cleveland, Ohio they visited as young adults. They remembered the name of it, Euclid Beach Amusement Park, and told us about all the neat rides it had. By the end of the afternoon, my little brother had been safely deposited with my grandmother, and my parents, my sister, and I were en route to Cleveland, Ohio, in search of Euclid Beach. Magically, it was still in business and my sister and I were introduced to the same three very cool wooden roller coasters our parents had loved. 

My father loved music. Our home vibrated with his piano playing. He especially loved ragtime and the lively sound of the Maple Leaf Rag dancing under his fingers is written in my DNA. Sometimes when I was small and he was in a patient mood, I would sit on the piano bench next to him and sing while he played. I knew all the lyrics to There is a Tavern in the Town, Boo Hoo and By the Sea by the time I was eight and had a grand time belting them out with him, not always in tune – but no matter, the piano was loud enough to drown us both out. If he wasn’t making music himself, he was playing it on our record player…. Guy Lombardo, Teresa Brewer, Mitch Miller, Jo Ann Castle. My father was often obsessive about songs he especially loved. He’d set the record player arm strategically so once the record finished, it would recycle by itself. Although my friends might not “get” why Winchester Cathedral was playing for the 15^th time in a row, it seemed perfectly normal to me.   

My father used to dance with me to music on the big old-fashioned radio in our living room when I was a very little girl and small enough to be held in his arms. I watch old regular “8” movie films of me in my father’s arms, bouncing gently to the rhythm of the music, the sound of which I can only imagine, and experience a sense memory that moves me to tears.

If I were to write a want-ad today seeking a man in my life, it would read something like this: "Wanted -- Smart and handsome man who can make me laugh – often. Must be willing to learn to dance – not partner-not-needed kind of dancing – but REAL dancing. Must love music with every cell in his body. Ability to make music is a plus.  Must embrace road trips and concomitant adventures with fervor." 

There would be more, but those are the important parts. My father would have been 87 years old on October 20. This post is in honor of his memory.

Ghosts Lived in My House

Home for me as a child was a big old two-story farm house built in the mid-1800s. That house, which was surrounded by several majestic old trees on three sides, was “home” on some levels from the day my parents took me there from the hospital after my birth until my beloved mom passed away inside almost 53 years later. Although I “moved out” officially at 19, it was the place to which I always returned – sometimes for temporary lodging, always for holidays, and in the end, to care for my mom.

I had mixed feelings about that home as a child because deep down inside, I was very much afraid of it – especially the “upstairs”. When I was very little the second floor was not used. I slept downstairs with my parents in a room that would later be our living room. Just outside that room was the open staircase leading to the second floor. I was forbidden to test my climbing abilities on those stairs, and at night, it was dark and scary up there.  

Some time after my sister was born, we moved up those stairs. My crib was relocated in an open hallway on the left at the top of the stairs, and my parents occupied a large bedroom on the right at the top of the stairs. I was now afraid to go in their room because there was a round hole in the floor. I knew there was a hole because the few times I’d been taken up there when it was uninhabited, I had been expressly told not to go near it because I might fall in.  It didn’t matter now that their bed was safely situated over that hole (and it might even have been fixed). I feared that somehow, some way I would be sucked alive through that hole with unspeakable consequences.

Eventually, a second bedroom was readied for me and my sister and we moved out of the hallway into our own room in the front of the house. The new danger was the large room straight ahead at the top of the stairs known as “the attic”.  My father’s ham radio equipment was situated in a corner of that dimly lit room, with the rest of it used as catch-all storage. To get to my father’s buried corner, one had to wend one’s way past old furniture, trunks, boxes, my mother’s papier-mâché torso (for dress-making) and assorted other stuff.  A door that was kept closed separated “the attic” from the rest of the 2^nd floor living space. 

Both my sister and I were afraid of the attic, sure that there were ghosts or bogeymen lurking inside. “Go upstairs with me?” we’d plead to the other. When we’d reach the top of the stairs, we’d run like crazy past the attic door to the relative safety of our room. “Go downstairs with me?” we’d wheedle for the return trip. When we left our room, we’d run like crazy past the attic door and leap down the stairs as fast as we could. One day when the attic door creaked slowly open on its own, caught alone in the hallway, my sister learned to fly.  

Besides the ghosts that lived there, the attic held a special terror for me. For in that room, near my father’s radio equipment, there was an old-fashioned red glass ball fire extinguisher mounted on the wall in case of fire. Fire was my first and worst phobia. My heart knew that the mere presence of that extinguisher forecast a fire for sure. The mere thought of it almost stopped my heart from beating.

If fire was my first phobia, lightning was my second. My kindergarten teacher taught us that lightning was electricity and electricity could cause fires. So from age 5, I was sure that our front corner bedroom, situated underneath those majestic trees was going to sustain a direct hit by a lightning bolt with my name on it. It was simply a matter of time.  

Sadly, I spent an inordinate amount of time as a child worrying about my home going up in flames. The live Christmas trees my parents bought and draped with old-fashioned hot lights were a source of incredible anxiety. So was the fireplace that my father had built in our living room when I was nine. I was plagued during the day by “real” worries about fire and at night by nightmares about fires in my home. My prayers before bed well into my adolescence included a line begging God to please-please-please not let my house catch on fire and to please-please-please not let me dream about fire. 

The year my parents brought home a beautifully modern aluminum Christmas tree, which eliminated the need for hot lights draped over live evergreen changed my life for the better. So did the eventual abolition of the “attic” in favor of a second bathroom and a new room for my sister in my early teens. The scary red ball fire extinguisher was packed away, no longer foreshadowing disaster.

Although these two events made me slightly less afraid of my home, we still had an uneasy co-existence. I was not to really feel physically safe in a home until I moved out of that one. 

The Safety of Home

“Log cabin, anyone?” I text my daughter enroute to the subway.

She answers me back, “Sounds good to me. Been thinking about it lately, actually.”

“We’ll have to compare floor plans,” I counter.  

I have just left work after a 13-hour day, the 3^rd that week (it’s Wednesday), and she is still at work with no end in sight. We are both working way too many hours of late. And we are both wondering whether it’s worth it. 

I think often of someone I know who left her life (or moved into it, depending on your outlook) to write. She moved 3000 miles to live in a little cabin that featured no indoor plumbing and had a wood stove for heat. She stayed there over twenty years, living a very basic life, mostly content.  Could I do that? In all honesty – and that’s what this is about – probably not. I was never a fan of camping for many reasons, even though I have done plenty of it. I do not want to go outside to access the bathroom, and I want a thermostat to regulate the heat. But what if I decided to give up this life and do something different? Where would I go? Is there another place I could call home? 

I spend plenty of time lately thinking about just this. I count the years until I will turn 66 – the magic age for my baby-boomer cohort to retire with maximum Social Security benefits. Gosh…. That’s nine years away. I do not want to wish my life away, but I am not convinced I want the status quo for the next nine years. Could I do with less and live the life I want to live? And where?   

New York City is my home. I’ve lived here for 26 years, and I still feel thrilled when I approach my city and its skyline. I consider it irrelevant that now I actually live slightly north of the city in a suburb. I am, as the t-shirt I once bought my (then) 4-year-old daughter proclaimed, a “New York City Girl.” 

I always felt destined to be here. Growing up in a small town in western New York, I felt chronically dissatisfied with my surroundings. I wanted bigger. I wanted exciting. I wanted possibilities.  I fled that small town and moved to New York City in the early 80s, knowing only one single person who lived here. I don’t think anyone in my life said, “You go, girl.” Mostly they tried to get me to reconsider –  thinking, hoping it was just a phase. They did not know that New York had been calling me for years.

And New York has lived up to my expectations. I love the glorious opportunities of this city….always knowing that if I want to, I can go to a play, the ballet, the opera, a concert, and all kinds of museums and galleries. I can eat any kind of food I want, almost any time of the day or night. I can take a class in anything that strikes my fancy, in my choice of locations, and nobody will look at me funny. And I love the anonymity of this city. As a child, I always felt “watched” and it made me extremely self-conscious. I was never sure what I was supposed to do or how I was supposed to be. Here, I can just be on the street, unknown, unwatched, simply me. I have found freedom in that. 

        

Could I, would I still feel whole and safe if I gave up my home?  Would you?

Are We Now Who We Were at Three?

I am almost four and I am in a strange bed in a very large room. Actually it is a crib and I feel embarrassed and mad because I am too old for a crib. There are seven other cribs in the room. Some of them have other children in them but I am not interested in them or why they are here. I want to go home. 

My crib is by a window that looks into a hallway. I can see out the window because it is big and not too much above my head when I sit up.  I spend my time waiting for my mother and father to come. I hope they do. I feel afraid that I have been forgotten and will never be fetched from here.

This morning I have made a nurse very mad at me because I won’t eat the blobby bowl of oatmeal she has thrust into my crib. She does not know that something very awful will happen if I have to swallow it.  I watch her walk across the floor straight toward me looking like she’s going to make me do something I do not want to do. But my mind is made up. I will not eat the oatmeal. As she stands over me looking very mad and talking to me mad-like, I think I might start to cry. But then the nice nurse comes to my rescue. “Why,” she says, very kindly “Would you like some frosted flakes? I think we have some frosted flakes in the kitchen.” “Yes, please,” I manage to squeak out. “But I don’t want any milk on them.”  Something awful will happen if I have to swallow mushy cereal too.  She looks at me like she’s puzzled but she brings me some frosted flakes in a bowl. No milk. The mean nurse shakes her head, still looking mad-like but goes away and leaves me alone and in peace to eat my dry cereal… just the way I like it.

I am in this place with all the cribs because I have a kidney infection. I don't know what that is. But I know I have it because my family – my mother, my father, and my little sister who is two – has just driven home from Florida after visiting my grandma and grandpa. My father gets mad when I say I have to go to the bathroom too much, and so I don’t tell him. I hold it. But I’m not supposed to do that any more. 

Later, a lot of men in white coats come in to the big room and hover over me in my bed. They lift my right arm high above my head and look at it closely under a big light above my bed. I feel a lot of little pin pricks on my arm. I don’t know what they are doing and they don’t talk to me about it at all. I only know I want them to finish soon because they are hurting me. I want them to go away and when they finally do, I spend my time worrying that they will come back.

When it is finally time to go home, after five long days and nights, lots of people are standing around in that room looking at me as I am dressed in my real clothes. Someone asks me which nurse is my favorite. I hesitate a minute and point right to the nice one who’d rescued me. I know immediately it wasn’t nice to have done that, because, after all, the mean nurse is standing there too. Later in the car, I will be told that, in fact, it had not been very nice of me to express my preference. I was not sure what I should have done.  

This story springs forth from a seminar on gerontology that I am taking this semester. During a lively discussion this week about the process of aging, my professor quotes a writer who states that beyond age 30, our characters are firmly set. One of my classmates laughs and counters that by three our characters are set. “What do you think,” Dr. C asks. “Does anyone remember being 3? Are you who you were at 3... or 4?”  We sit in silence for a few minutes, each of us drawing on our own first memories. And then some of us begin to nod our heads.

So – what about you…. Are you now who you were at age 3?

Good Enoughness

A reader comments on my post, If I Just Worked Harder (9/6/10) saying that she’s trying to get away from the belief that she has to ‘work hard in order to prosper.’ She points out that a generous employer for whom I once worked would have just reinforced that connection for her. She struggles with knowing she and her work are good enough and wonders if I have any beliefs about this.

I’ve been thinking about this since she asked.  A couple of things are at issue here. One is the connection between working hard and getting paid (enough). I should clarify that my definition of working ‘hard’ is about pouring my heart and soul into my work, whatever it is, from a restaurant kitchen to newspaper design to managing a department. It doesn’t mean sweating up a storm or being a slave to one’s job (although some would argue that I surely seem like a slave to my job). It does mean that it’s not part of my DNA to do a half-a** job. And in that regard, I am my own toughest critic. Working ‘hard’ (for me) really means working ‘well,’ a.k.a. being competent.  And I do believe that there should be a connection between competence and salary.

When my generous employer announced a bonus for me in connection with the new (and lucrative) contract that I’d helped win, after the shock wore off, I thought FINALLY. This is how it should work. Share the wealth when there’s wealth to be had. That’s also a deep belief of mine, the end result of which is I will probably never be wealthy. 

Good enough-ness is another issue, a sore one. In my work, I know I’m good enough. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say I’m better than good enough. My work is the only area of my life where I have ever been certain I have value. Someone who’s known me most of my adult life has said that any one who gets me (in the workplace) is getting a treasure, a prize. That’s part of the trouble – I don’t want to be ‘won’ or ‘found’ serendipitously (and cheaply) – I want to be paid for the value I bring to the table. I earned it.   

Lest you think I’ve sprouted a gigantic ego, in the spirit of authenticity, not good-enough-ness is also part of my soul. I’ve struggled mightily with that my entire life. Among other life circumstances, I had a very narcissistic father whose attention I could not get and keep. I tried everything I could think of to interest him – from embracing his interests to trying to be best at mine. His attention was fleeting and superficial and eventually I slunk off, defeated.  I’ve learned to believe that I’m not pretty enough…. not whimsical enough…. not socially ept…. not funny enough but never that my work isn’t good enough. For many years, knowing my work was good enough was all I had.

On Loyalty to Objects and Jobs

A reader asks me to explain what I mean when I say I’m “loyal” to something. She points out I have used the term in reference to purses [The Commitment, 8/17/10] and jobs [If I Just Worked Harder, 9/6/10]. I think about this. It’s true that I usually connect loyalty to humans somehow. Have I endowed objects with personhood status? The stuffed animals that hang out in my bedroom because I don’t want to hurt their feelings by packing them away would answer unequivocally “yes.” You’re invited to laugh aloud at that revelation. But the animals and what they represent are perhaps a different issue to be addressed in another post.

Maybe being loyal to something like a purse is more about not getting sick of things easily. “Fickle” would never be an adjective applied to me. I find a purse I like and I still like it even when it’s falling apart and I’m forced by pride or my daughter to replace it. My daughter and probably many people would argue that wanting more than one of some items doesn’t mean they stopped liking others in their collection. They just want more than one for variety. For me, a variety of purses represents pressure to change them to match whatever I’m wearing. I never save time enough to think about things like that nor is it something that’s important to me so a last minute change inevitably means I don’t have something I need because it’s in the “other” purse.

There are other items that (for me) fall in the “don’t need more than one or two” or “don’t need new until the old falls apart” categories. Things like shoes.... coats…. linens….nightgowns….. I don’t replace electronics until the old stops working and the parts are no longer made (well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration but not much). I’m the first to admit these distinctions do not necessarily make logical sense. You perhaps have your own list.

With respect to loyalty and jobs, I’ve never started a job thinking of it as a stepping stone to somewhere else. I settle in, want to learn the ropes, and want to contribute to and be part of the team. Then I get attached to the people and in most instances, to the work itself. I don’t start out loyal, but I become loyal. In at least a few instances, I’ve stayed past the start of boredom – afraid of change, feeling stuck, not wanting to let my colleagues down by interrupting the status quo. Perhaps in some cases, I have deluded myself into believing that my presence is required. That’s yet another issue. Nonetheless, in two seven-year stints, I stayed at jobs until, due to mergers, I had to leave. And at that point, I found myself in positions of desperate fear that I wouldn’t find another job, and when I did, I acquiesced without question to the less than desirable terms that someone else had determined. The ‘one step forward, two backwards’ phenomenon that kept me struggling financially for so many years contributed to my need to acquire once I was able to do so. I was going to acquire under my terms and nobody (least of all me) was going to say “no.”

Next up… more about working hard and self-worth.

If I Just Worked Harder.......

The commentary behind the scenes of this blog is fascinating. Everyone has their own theory on motivation to have (or not). I sit with my feelings and memories. I go back again and again to my first job, remembering how hard I worked, how little I made, and that I despaired of ever doing any better in life.

 I remember sitting at my kitchen table, which my mom bought me, in my first apartment figuring out how much more I would have to earn in order to be able to start a ‘vacation fund’, a ‘clothing fund’, and a ‘Christmas fund’. Those were the wants that seemed most important to me at the time. As I did the math, I clearly recall the sinking and hopeless feeling in my stomach. With yearly raises of 25 cents an hour (which was what the policy seemed to be), it would take forever. I don’t know if my employers were wealthy – I thought they were. I worked very hard to be indispensable – but my efforts did not translate into dollars. My solution was always to work harder. I’d been raised with a serious work ethic but I felt like I was spinning my wheels. Someone else held the keys to my prosperity. I was not in control.

 My first years in NYC were very tough. I often didn’t have enough money for the bills, for food, and I certainly didn’t have anything left over for fun. Most of the time, I walked around without any money at all, a condition that drove my mother nuts. Either loyal or scared of change (jury still out), I stayed in jobs until a merger or a buy-out ended them, and in subsequent positions, I always started out earning less than I’d been making. So I was always struggling to regain lost ground.

Inside I was angry. I couldn’t work harder – or more. There weren’t enough hours in the day or enough days in the week. It didn’t seem fair to me. Why did I not deserve to have a good life?

Then I went to work for a generous man whose work ethic rivaled my own. I remember sitting with him in the car on the way to a ‘seal-the-deal’ presentation we were to make to a behemoth health insurance company. He cleared his throat and told me there would be a substantial bonus for me as a result of my hard work. I was stunned. I fought the urge to look around to see to whom he was speaking because surely it wasn’t me.

His generosity along with other factors in my life changed my situation and outlook. There was a connection, after all, between my actions and the end result. Now I was going on a shopping spree.