Friendly Ghosts

Last night was cool.

Coming off a roller-coaster day at work, I had made plans to drive into the valley to meet my friend Sheila for dinner before going to see our friend Anne in a play at Theatre West - the place where I tried out my acting chops years ago - and the origin of my little group of theatrical friends I write about periodically.

Sheila and I were to meet at "The California Canteen", a corner restaurant  next door to the theatre, at 6:00.  Had I left my home at 5:00 it would have taken me 2 hours to get there.  So I left at 4:45 and breezed through in time to get me there a full half hour early.  I needed to kill some time.  So I decided to get off the freeway and drive Ventura Boulevard from Woodman Avenue all the way to the theatre located at the Cahuenga Pass, the short mountain pass that ultimately takes you to the Hollywood Bowl.  This used to be my neighborhood and I hadn't been there in years.

A long time ago, when I was in my 20's and 30's and young, I lived in Studio City - 10 minutes from the theatre.  I lived with my then husband, Barry, and then, after we divorced, on my own, in a small apartment on Valley Spring Lane just off Laurel Canyon.  It was a very short walk to Ventura Boulevard and a long stretch of eclectic shops and restaurants that gave the neighborhood a very cool vibe.  Driving down this boulevard last evening was interesting.  The Boulevard looked much the same, some of the stores and restaurants were the same, others had changed.  The beautiful movie house, with the gorgeous deco ticket booth, had sadly been turned into a bookstore - although they retained the integrity of the building and the booth,  "The Queen Mary", a notable building that housed a club offering entertainment "in drag" was now a "Men's Wearhouse and Tux" shop.  But mostly, businesses that had gone had been replaced by similar businesses and I was glad for that.

I was literally flooded with images of my life from all those many years ago - and I was struck by a mix of emotions that I couldn't really identify.  It was oddly exhilarating and unnerving at the same time.  It was like a piece of my life - a piece that I rarely even think of - was still breathing.  I felt like I was in some Charles Dickens' story where I was traveling with the "Ghost of Valri Past" -  I could almost see my 27-year-old self, having a chocolate chip danish at Weby's Bakery or milling about one of the many antiques stores or cool furniture shops.  I got lost in the details and thought of people and places and events that have been boxed and stored somewhere in the back of mind mind.  I could feel what it felt like.

When I finally got to the Canteen and entered the restaurant, the first thing I noticed was the smell.  Old and musty (did it always smell like this?)  I remember it was a fun to go before or after rehearsal or performance.  It was still very cool.  But it also seemed old.  And that wasn't bad - it was just notable.  I loved sitting there.

It was also wonderful to sit and talk to Sheila - we came to Los Angeles at the same time 34 years ago and we have a lot of history.  We were very good friends years ago but I enjoy Sheila much more now than I think I did back then.  While we don't see each other often, we seem to have a kind of full-circle relationship now.  We didn't have a lot of time to talk - but it was interesting that she too was looking back and remembering her life as a young woman all those years ago.

Then to the theatre.   A 99-Seat, Equity waiver theatre, Theatre West is the home of one of the oldest membership companies in Los Angeles.  I hadn't been in that building in 14 years since I did my last show - "Dog Music", a fun little piece with a talented cast of 5, three of whom have passed away - two far too young.  The lobby had changed, the "house" had not.  I remembered what my feet felt like on the stage.  I remembered vividly rehearsals and performances and classes I participated in there.  I hadn't thought of any of it in ages.  Being there again felt - warm.

I only saw a couple of people last night that I had known from the old days.  One was Lloyd Schwartz, one of the producer/playwrights represented in the one act plays presented, and he absolutely made my entire night.  He told me that he will never forget the first time he saw me in Theatre West's production of "A Little Night Music" 25 years ago.  He said I had such "a presence" he couldn't take his eyes off me and so, he cast me in one of his children's shows.  It was a compliment that I will cherish.

Anne was in one of Lloyd's plays with her husband Bill.  They were terrific.  She's a marvelous actress.  I was very glad to have gone.

I have said many times that my life before Bob and the kids seems like someone else's life.  I have been disconnected from it.  Not on purpose - it just happened.  I think a lot of people feel similarly about the first and second halves of their lives.  But it occurs to me now that it is worth it to try to reconnect the dots.  The process of purposeful assimilation can only serve to make the whole experience more rich.  And perhaps this is how some people, in advanced years, can look back and say that their lives have been full.   I want that too.  My life has been kind of cool.  I want to take it out and kind of look at it some more.

Really, Generation Y??

So yesterday, I was prowling around the Internet and I found one of those lists that are supposed to make you feel old but really just make you feel nostalgic.  You know the ones I'm talking about.  They refer to Captain Kangaroo or cigarette commercials that used to run on TV (Winston tastes good like a cigarette should...) or the theme song to The Mary Tyler-Moore Show (Who can turn the world on with a smile...)  They'll show you then and now photos of the actress who played Tabitha on Bewitched or remind you that the first season of that show was in black and white.  Those lists never fail to take me back to the good ol' days but I don't really feel old because after all - those references are not that old.  Or so I thought.

This particular list I stumbled upon was called "48 Things That Will Make You Feel Old" and all its references to television, people, and events were from the 1980's and '90's.  It showed then and now pictures of the cast of "Fresh Prince of Bel Air".  Like is was so shocking to see how they've changed.  As though the transformation from "young" to "only slightly less young" should solicit a groaning "oh my gawd!!!"  It showed the packaging of "Butterfinger's BBs" and observe that you will never be able to buy them again because they stopped selling them years ago!  Like the sight of these chocolate candies should hearken to a sweeter, less complicated time of old - 1989.  It lists that "ER" and "Seinfield" were the top two shows in 1997.  Yes, and...???


And what does this all mean?  It means that kids born from 1975 - 1985 are actually beginning to feel the pangs of aging.  And how could that possibly be?  The oldest of these would still only be 37.  And I just want to go on record as saying that they have no right to feel old.  Because if their list makes them feel old, then my lists seem like the turn-of-the-century.  "Mad Men" must seem like The History Channel to them.

And if 37 is old, I guess they can stick a fork in me.

Youth is wasted on the young.

Lisa

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my older sister turning 56.  I spoke of remembering that day and what was going on in our lives at the time.  We were waiting for a baby.

We were living in a basement apartment in Salt Lake City, Utah at the time.  I have no idea what we were doing in Salt Lake.  I remember the apartment well.  The windows were very high.  You walked down the stairs from the front door to one large area - the kitchen, eating, and living room were all one big space.  Linda and I shared a bedroom straight off this room.  And what I remember most were the water pipes that ran all over our ceiling.  My mother was 24, my dad, 29.

There was a lot going on around that little apartment in Salt Lake.  Once, a little girl on our street was abducted and returned within a short time.  I remember being right there watching as the mother, on her knees in front of her little girl, kept alternating between holding her daughter away from herself to see her face and clutching her close.  And I remember the urgency of panic and concern and relief on her face.  I think I knew this kid but that is a detail I can't remember well.  The police were there.  They wore hats at the time.  My mother told me later that she talked to Linda and I after the incident, warning us of the dangers of talking to strangers.  After serious counseling she asked us: "So now, what would you do if a stranger offered you candy to get in the car with him?" and apparently I quickly answered: "I'd take the candy and run!"  I was four.

My mother started a little theatre group in that basement apartment.  (I heard somewhere a long time ago that it still exists.)  But a group of their friends would meet in the apartment and read plays.  I didn't understand it at the time.  I just thought they were talking.  Linda and I were in bed so we only knew what was going on by what we heard through the door.  One night they were reading "A Streetcar Named Desire".  My mother was either playing Blanch or Stella but my dad - my dad was playing Stanley.  In life, my dad was a yeller.  He had a horrible temper and he could get really loud and it could be scary.  So when Linda and I, lying in our beds, heard my father roaring "Stellaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" we thought all hell had broken loose and started screaming for my mother.  She came running to the door and I do remember her quickly whispering to us: "It's okay girls.  Your daddy's not mad.  It's just pretend".  But it didn't sound like pretend.  We didn't believe her.  That night was crazy scary.

At Easter time, I was in the bathroom with my sister and discovered the Broadway soundtrack album of "The Sound of Music" with Mary Martin hidden in the clothes hamper.  I went running out with it to my mother - to show her the "miracle" of my find.  I remember her saying that the Easter Bunny must have come early.  I seemed to have a knack for ruining surprises.

My point in all these stories is to say that there is so much I remember of that time surrounding Lisa's arrival.  My nearly-five year old life seemed already full on the morning of May 21st, 1962.  It was the middle of the night I guess because when we woke up, my grandmother was there.  I can't remember if it was she or my dad who told us that we had a sister.  But I do remember being there in that little basement apartment and learning it for the first time - and being very excited.  And then my grandmother made us oatmeal.  It was also strange to think there was someone new coming into our world.  I do not remember seeing her for the first time.  I don't remember her as an infant at all.  I do remember my mother watched us carefully to make sure we wouldn't try to hurt Lisa.  (My mother had been 5 years younger than her sister, Barbara, and Barbara used to bite my mothers fingers when she was a baby.) But my memories of our family in that apartment stop after the morning of May 21st.

Soon after Lisa was born we moved back to El Paso, Texas and lived for a brief time with my paternal grandmother until finally settling permanently in Fremont, California.  (That is where my mind pick ups again.)  But it was in El Paso that Lisa took her first steps and I remember that vividly.  We all sat on the floor in a circle - arms held straight out - calling for her to come to each of us.  She excitedly waddled from one of us to the other and we were all so thrilled - happily watching our smiling, pretty baby, on her feet, enjoying all the attention and love literally circling her.  In her cloth diapers and plastic pants.

Now she is a grandmother.  I can't reconcile these two images.

Lisa has dyslexia - school was very difficult for her.  Being the baby had its drawbacks.  She was separated by years from Linda and I and grew up at a time when there was a lot of turmoil between my parents.  She was always trying to find her place.  It sometimes led her to the wrong place.  She has not always had an easy life.  I have spent a good deal of my adult life worrying about her.  But at 50 she is beginning to realize and experience some of her untapped potential and that is a wonderful thing to see.  She has lost over 100 pounds and has started to paint.  Beautifully, I might add.  She is a gifted writer.  She was recently baptized.  She is working and making plans for her future.  Happily, her plans involve moving out of god-awful Modesto.  It seems she is learning to walk.  And like watching her the first time around, I couldn't be happier.

Happy Birthday, Lisa.  If life begins at 50, the best is yet to come.

Required Fakeness

I am on my best behavior.  For three months.

Recently, Sharon the Wonder-Woman (see "A Tornado Hits My House" April 21, 2011) pulled me aside at her house and in her own inimitable way, had me convinced that I needed to take in an international intern from France.  The whole conversation lasted less than 5 minutes.  (How does she do that?)


Sharon and Tim have taken many foreign exchange students over the years and have found it to be a fun and rewarding experience.  We certainly have the room now that our older three are in college.  So, she explained,  a neighbor of hers had hired two international interns to work for his company for the summer.  All that was needed was a place for them to stay.  The choice was between a young girl from France and a young man from Japan.  Having no experience with men in my house (as Bob is really a man/boy), I opted for the girl and besides, I really do want to learn French.  So once I knew she had medical insurance, we were in and within three weeks, Joanna arrived.

Bob had spent the week prior getting a room ready for her.  We put her in Jennifer's room.  It was mostly empty anyway but he shampooed the carpet and moved some of the things Jennifer had in storage into Christine's empty bedroom.  I too was trying to get ready - doing the heavy cleaning, kitchen, bathrooms, pantry, dusting, vacuuming.  It was exhausting.  By the end, I found myself opening drawers and asking myself: "What is the likelihood she will ever look in here?"  Suffice it to say, there are several drawers and closets that still require armor to take on.  I just hope she never needs to go looking for band-aids or cold cream or anything from a drawer in my bathroom.  (If I actually saw her moving in that direction I'd have to tackle her in the hallway.)

The whole week before she got here felt like I was waiting to have a baby.  The night she was to arrive Bob, Grace, and I sat staring at the door like we were waiting for the doctor to appear and tell us she had ten fingers and toes.  Finally, we heard the knock and immediately my feelings shifted from those of waiting for a baby to those of going on a first date.

Would she like us???  In that moment before I opened the door I was suddenly flooded with the reality that we were going to have to be nice.  All the time.  Oh my gosh.  What a Herculean challenge.  


"Wait a minute," I thought. "What if we don't like her?  I mean, she's from Paris.  Isn't there some sterotype about aloofness and rudeness?  Maybe we can be ourselves after all."  


No such luck.  We opened the door to gorgeous, gracious, polite, and friendly young woman who has been nothing but agreeable and accommodating for the past three weeks.


So - we have been nice.  We do not yell.  We do not swear.  We use the manners we were taught growing up.   We exhibit patience.  We are kind to one another.  Even when we don't want to be - especially when we don't want to be.   We yield to one another.  And we keep the kitchen clean.  All the time.   And we do this because we don't want her to think poorly of us.  We do it because we want her to like us.  We do it because we don't want her to tell her friends and family back in Paris - people we will never meet in a million years - that we are pigs.  We do it because we must.  We cannot be ourselves.  And it turns out - it isn't that difficult. 


I hope she stays forever.

Gardens Grow

I own three pair of prescription glasses.  The primary reason for this is not fashion - it is because I am constantly losing them.  I am annoyed and a little frightened about how easily I seem to forget things as I get older.  Names, faces, details -  things that used to come second nature and stick like flypaper, fail to adhere at all.  They are more like post-it notes.  The ones you forgot about.

So it is surprising to me that I can recall, with tremendous detail, things that happened 50 years ago.  My mind is a virtual garden of sweet days from long ago.  Yesterday was such a day.

Yesterday, my sister Linda turned 56.  Naturally, I had forgotten her birthday.  I was reminded when I checked into Facebook and saw all the birthday greetings littering her page.

It was hard to imagine that Linda, Linda the popular, Linda the boy magnet, Linda the wild child, was 56.  But she was - and it offered another excuse to take that familiar trip to the past.  The vivid, technicolor past, the 50-year-old-past that seems so close I can almost touch it.

Fifty years ago yesterday, the photo above was taken.  That is Linda (on the right) and me with my beloved "Mother", our maternal grandmother.  We were dressed like twins, as we often were despite our 13 month age difference (she's older, regardless of what everyone thinks) and we were celebrating her 6th birthday. We were staying with "mother" and grandpa in their apartment in Moab, Utah because my mother - in Salt Lake - was due to give birth to my sister Lisa at any moment and it was felt that having us out from under her feet would make things a little easier.

The night before her birthday I remember vehemently trying to convince everyone of the logic that Linda would have grown out of her pajamas during the night - having become a full year older.  While everyone told me that it wouldn't happen, I was very disappointed the next morning when I saw that my sister looked exactly the same.

When we were little we both got birthday cakes and presents on each other's birthdays.  I have no idea why.  I remember being disappointed when all that suddenly ended but it was still in full swing on Linda's 6th in Moab.  We both got Beanie and Cecil toy guitars.  They had nylon strings that made no musical sound at all.  Their primary feature was a crank handle that played the Beanie and Cecil theme music when you turned them - like a Jack-in-the Box.  And we got magnets which turned out to be very cool.  They picked up all the little magnetic toys over and over again and grandpa showed us how they repelled each other when Linda and I tried to put ours together.  I'm certain he tried to explain the science behind it but I couldn't have cared less.  Those magnets were just fun.  And while we sang happy birthday to Linda, I got a cake too.  Vanilla.  Linda's was chocolate.  We got to ice them.  We wore our "special" dresses - matching white sailor dresses, with red stripes and red pom-poms.  And if mom packed the frilly panties, we would have worn those too - backward - so that we could see the lace if we lifted our skirts to look.  We played outside in front of the building, and that night we watched "Top Cat" before we went to bed.  I remember what it felt like to be 4-almost-5 in Moab Utah.  It was very pleasant.  I felt loved.  I felt secure.  And a little homesick.  And I had awareness of my existence in the world, and it felt completely unfettered and just fine.

Not an extraordinary memory, but cherished none the less.  As it happened, my mother didn't deliver on time and we had to go back home to Salt Lake before Lisa was born.  She came 13 days later, on the 21st.  And this year she will be 50.  Impossible.

In thinking about our lives since then I was washed with the shared experiences - together and apart - and wondered at the arrival of mid-life.  The dreams that shaped us, some achieved, most cast aside have left us somewhat fulfilled, somewhat disappointed, but certainly wiser.  We still look forward with anticipation but back with acceptance.  We did - okay.  And that's a good thing.

So for her birthday this year, I posted a YouTube video of the finale of Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" on her Facebook page.  The song is called "Make Our Garden Grow" and it is one of my favorite pieces of music of all time.  When the chorus stands to join the song, they gloriously proclaim:

"Let dreamers dream what worlds they please;
Those Edens can't be found.
The sweetest flowers, the fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good;
We do the best we know
We'll build our house, we'll chop our wood
And make our gardens grow."

Good birthday sentiment.

http://youtu.be/vDETC5HTxvA