Hot Nights

Women going through menopause during the summer know how hot hell is.

I cannot believe how it comes over you.  You're just laying there, dying of stifling summer heat with no air conditioning, trying to think cool thoughts so you can try to sleep when suddenly, from no where, your body (clearly very angry at you for having gotten old) ups the ante by turning on some internal furnace - full bore.  This furnace has yet to be found on a CAT scan but believe me, they will find it eventually because it is there.  Your first inclination is to "drop and roll".  Realizing that, no, you are not on fire you hold your breath for a moment in anticipation of spontaneous combustion - which at this point you would welcome.

And then, as quickly as it came, it is gone.  But it will come back.  And you will go without real sleep for an undetermined time.  Three months and counting...

By the way, body - you got old, not me.

From the Eye of the Beholder

My baby is now a teenager.  Of course she was born 19 so she still has some catching up to do.

It didn't start well.  She was so ugly when she was born I was speechless.  She looked like a hairless mole rat.  I had imagined a Gerber baby.  No such luck.  The prettiest thing in her hospital photo is the pink bow they taped to her head to identify her as a female human.  Now before you start thinking how awful I am, we all laugh at this - she was a tough delivery and her face was very swollen right after she was born.  Soon, she got very cute.  But she looked like a boy.  She looked like a boy for about 4 years.  In fact, even though I dressed her in pink, people would ask me what "his" name was.  Really.



Now I look at this gorgeous teenager and wonder where she came from.  And I also know from experience that the next few years are going to fly by in a flash. She'll be gone before I know it.

But last night, after seeing a scary movie, she climbed into bed with us and put her hand on my back just so that she could feel I was there in the dark, like she did when she was little.  And even though the extra body drove me to the very edge of the bed where I couldn't move for fear of falling off, I endured it - because she was a little gooby girl again - for a little while.

(She asked for a lemon meringue pie instead of cake - like her Grandma Carol.  How would she have known that?)

Living in the Land of Huck

I have known Bob since he was 15.  To know him then is to know him now.

Bob is loyal and sensitive and good to the core.  He works hard.  He is kind.  He is generous.  He is loving and quick to forgive.  He is talented.  He is ethical.  He has great faith.

He is also a boy.

I'm told all men are boys at heart and I believe that is true.  It takes very little to make a man turn into a goofy 12-year-old, howling with laughter till milk comes out of his nose at fart jokes and The Three Stooges.  But Bob actually prefers to live in the land of Huck Finn and so I, naturally, assume the role of Aunt Polly.  You remember her?  The killjoy.  The strict one.  The grown-up.  The one no one likes.

Huckfinnian hijinks abound.   Yesterday, to warm himself, he stood on the edge of a fire pit while the flames lapped at his jeans.  I screamed.  He looked at me like I was crazy.  I mean, he was cold.

I always loved Aunt Polly.

Double Nickels

Oh my god! I've done it again. I've lived another year.

This year, 50-FIVE (I have to find creative ways to write it so I won't freak out at the sight), is particularly notable for me for a couple of reasons. First, my mother died at the age of 49 so my first few years beyond 49 felt only cautiously optimistic. Six years later, I can throw caution to the wind.

Secondly, a million years ago when I was 21 and worked for Kelly Services in the Traveler's building in mid-Wilshire, there was a little sundries store in the lobby with a really sweet little Indian guy whose name escapes me. Part of his culture was to read palms. Now I don't believe in palm reading - and I didn't believe it then either - but he looked at my palm and told me I would live about 50 years. I remember thinking that 50 was "young" but it was still light years away sooooo - so what, right? Well I am hear to tell you that as 50 crept into focus during the next three decades I couldn't get that "dead date" out of my head. And when I got to be 50, I started paying close attention. So for the past 5 years I have sort of assumed his words "around 50" to mean the 50 - 54 range. I appear to be safely out of that range now and so I can put that nonsense to bed and start worrying about much more realistic stuff like what if I spill salt or break a mirror or something like that.

Fifty-five is weird because there is no fooling yourself at 55. Fifty still sounds reasonable. But 55 is really getting to the point where you can't convince even yourself that you aren't on "the other side". You may be just on the other side but they dead-bolted the door behind you. You can still be fun and hip and cool, but only "for your age". You could be nearly everyone's mother. And there is no getting around that fact that gravity does not reverse itself. Even with surgery you are at an age when people no longer would say: "Fifty-five? You don't even look forty-five!" Instead they would say: "Did you have it done in Beverly Hills?" Because at a certain age, no matter how good it is - you can tell.

Still - I look okay. In the right light. If I hold my up slightly. Through gauze. And only in a portrait frame because full length is not my "best side". I have a friend Linda who told me that you either keep your body or you keep your face. I've kept my face. But my neck gives off not-so-subliminal reminders of Thanksgiving so its only a matter of time.

The weirdest thing of all for me though, is to think that my dad has kids in their 50s. How can anyone have kids in their 50s? I can't be his kid. I can only be some blood relative. Even though he can still stop me dead in my tracks and make me feel like I am 16.

However - none of that is important. I am grateful and blessed. I may be imperfect and at an age when I could be a grandma (don't you dare, girls!) but I feel in the prime of my life with limitless opportunities and potential. In fact...


...My amazing employer, Sage Publications, offers all its employees an incredible gift. My employer will pay 100% of all expenses to go back to school to earn a degree. And so, starting in the fall, I am going to college. For real.

I may be 55 but I am as excited as a school girl. Happy birthday to me.

Required Reading

It isn't often that you read a book that changes your life. For me, there have really only been two: The Bible and Steinbeck's East of Eden.

Now there are three.

When I was in my early twenties I worked with a few girls who have remained lifetime friends. Meg was one of them. This was in the very late 70's and early 80's. She came from a large Catholic family and her eldest brother, Greg, a Jesuit priest, had recently begun work in the hardest of the hardcore gang infested neighborhoods of east Los Angeles. She told me of her brother's dangerous work, trying to reach gang members to give them hope in what seemed to be hopeless lives in the midst of daily gang warfare. He routinely put himself in danger. He had compassion for people who scared the hell out of me. In the early days, the police were not fond of Greg.

Father Gregory Boyle is now known across the country and the world. He is regularly awarded with honors and prizes for his extraordinary work and the founding and development of Homeboy Industries. He has been asked to speak in front of dignitaries and presidents. He has been a guest of the White House. I have only met him a few times. He would not remember me. But he strikes you as an unassuming, "regular" guy who happens to wear a collar. You probably would never pick him out of a crowd as an extraordinary person, yet his singular life, his mission, his passion is the kind that can, and likely will, change the world.

As a Christian, I have struggled with my desire to follow Christ and follow His commandments to love Him first and foremost, and then my neighbor as myself. As Jesus said, follow these two and all the rest will follow. The rest are no problem. The first two are difficult - because they require that we set aside our own plans and desires in pursuit of jumping into whatever God throws in our path. It isn't that we aren't supposed to want a nice life, enjoy our homes, our possessions, our careers, our plans - but they are to become secondary in priority to God's plans. It is a perspective that is difficult to embrace. Enjoying our own lives and following a self imposed plan can, I imagine, co-exist with experiencing what God would want for us - but the fear that God might ask us to "give it all up" keeps us (or at least me) from always being available to what God might ask me to do.

I finally read Father Greg's acclaimed book Tattoos on the Heart. It bears a truth that I would like to describe but cannot. I couldn't possible do it justice. It is a book you must experience. Because it does, in fact, burn a tattoo on your own heart. This is not a book about being a Christian. But I will say that it speaks more truth about what a Christian life looks like than any book I've ever read before. And as a Christian, it is something I wish more people could understand.

We do great disservice to Christianity by getting it wrong ourselves. It isn't really about what we do. We can spend a life doing "service" or "works" but that isn't really what it is about.  It is the tenderness of our hearts that matters. From that tenderness, "service" is born.  Father Boyle is able to articulate what that looks like, what it means in such as way that you cannot leave that book and forget about it. I have only one book that I have highlighted and underlined and marked. This is that book. He suggests that we "be in the world who God is" and that we seek "a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgement at how they carry it." He tells story after story of the pain and trials of people we believe not to be like you and I, but who really are just like you and I and talks of the transforming power of "[locking] on to the singularity of  love that melts you. It doesn't melt who you are, but who you are not."

And for me, the most profound statement of this book is summarized when he says that we must stand with our brothers and sisters in their hardships in order to understand them and that "All Jesus asks is, 'Where are you standing?' And after chilling defeat and soul-numbing failure, He asks again, 'Are you still standing there?'"


Christian or not, this book should be required reading for everyone in middle or high school. And everyone on my Christmas list is getting a copy.

Read it.

Follies!

I know people who don't go to the theatre.  I know people who don't even like the theatre.  I can understand people who don't go - theatre tickets are abusively expensive now.  I used to have a brass key chain that was a replica of a Broadway theatre ticket to A Chorus Line, circa 1975.  The price for an orchestra seat showed $15.00.  No kidding.  Now orchestra seats start at $150.00.  I blame Andrew Lloyd Weber for that- but that's another rant.

I can like a person who doesn't like the theatre, but I can't understand them.  So when I am still floating down from the ceiling after having seen a truly great show, I am frustrated by those who look at me as if to say "that's nice, but its not my thing".  And I've been seeing that look all day long.

Last night Bob and I went with Sheila Shaw to see the Broadway production (with original cast minus Bernadette Peters) of Stephen Sondheim's Follies.  It is at the Ahmanson for a limited time.  We decided sort of last minute to go.  We weathered the traffic getting to downtown and paid $25.00 for a tablespoon of risotto in a big bowl at the outrageously priced Kendall's (but it is right downstairs from the theatre so what are you going to do?) but the show was nothing short of miraculous.

We nearly missed it.   There was a day when Bob and I saw everything at the Ahmanson or the Pantages or the Playhouse but we haven't been regular goers in years.  And we live far away now.  I knew this show was coming - I wanted to go - but was it worth the effort?  We decided to pass (what has happened to me????)  Anyway, my friend Cyndy saw it and said seeing it made her cry so I decided to go.  Soooooooooooooooo worth it!

I am from a generation of theatre lovers who were around when all of Sondheim's shows were brand new.  He's had a few failures but mostly gems.  Company, A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park With George, Into the Woods, A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, Sweeney Todd, and arguably Merrily We Roll Along and Pacific Overtures were his big hits.  He also wrote lyrics for Gypsy and West Side Story.  As a theatre junkie and aspiring actress back in the 70's and 80's, I knew these scores by heart.

But Follies!

Although today - today - I am appalled!  I have no one to gush with.  I am thrilled beyond measure for having experienced such a memorable evening of musical theatre and I can't relive it at the water cooler with anyone!  Apparently it wasn't just me.  It seems that everyone has stopped going to the theatre.  Such a letdown. 

The only good thing about this inexplicable lack of interest in this production is that tickets are now half price.  So I am thinking of going again - and maybe taking Grace so that she might hopefully experience the same thrill I have experienced seeing it, and remember that she shared that experience with her mother.  Because this is the kind of thing your really do remember.

There is a bit of melancholy in this story though.  While I was turning 40 and sadly waiving goodbye to all the leading lady roles I had wanted to play that I was now too old to play, always in the back of my mind was the thought : "...there's still Follies!"  Well, unless I miraculously get an agent who has magical powers to get me into a production of it somewhere in the world - after not having been in a union show in 15 years, I will be saying good bye to that dream as well.  Because I am on the long end of the right age for the part in this show I'd love to play...  And in fact, if I remember back 35 years in my own life - like the lead characters in the show do - I'd be about the age I was when I first heard this score.

"It's like I'm losing my mind..."

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.