Sixties Chick

The cryptic message on the machine said, “This week, ask yourself this question: Who Am I?”

Damn her, that Dona. Do I need this? And from a friend no less. Doesn’t she know I’m smack in the middle of a “freaking out over finances” frenzy? There’s been no trickle trickling down and the cash that needs to flow has dried up somewhere in that proverbial pipeline. Where’s my stimulus package?

So with time on my hands and against my will and better judgment, I begin to ponder. Let’s see. Who am I? Dear me. Maybe it’s better to start with who I am not.

Clearly, most people would agree I am not my bank account (thank God), my marital status, the car I drive, the house I live in, the success and failure of my kid, or the pedigree (or not) of my dog. And with all due respect to nutritionists, not even the food I eat.

OK. So, maybe I am She who writes. It is, after all, how I like to define myself. But then, what if I never wrote another word? Suppose I got permanent writer’s block or my digits were blown to bits? Who would I be then? And if I am She who writes, do I need to qualify it with I am She who writes less well than Faulkner, a major He who wrote? Can I define myself as such without even a book to my name? That can’t be.

Am I She of the accrued experiences that began in May of 1947? She whose mother died when she was 16? She, the second of four girls? She who lived abroad? She who speaks Portuguese, and loves the arts? She, a mother at 40 with a liberal bent and a rebellious streak? Is that really who I am? Might seem so, but I think not.

Half way through the week, feeling quite put out by the whole exercise, I conclude that I am not my body, my nationality, my education or my religion. I am not my personality, not even my talents or my flaws.

How could I be She who doubts her own capacity? Or She who worries about money? Or She who looks in the mirror and sees crow’s feet instead of light? In my understanding of the cosmology, limited as it is, what sense would it make to be She who is not enough? But, at times, that’s how I see myself. Sometimes, I think that’s who I am.

I’m still working hard on this, though I expect a breakthrough any day. For now, I’m stripping away the best I can – the roles, the stories, the beliefs, the ego’s small vision of who I am. My answer, I suspect, will be found in that deep and silent place where the mind can not go. I’m hoping for something like She who’s fulfilling her purpose. Whatever it is, I will get to the bottom of it.

And when I’m asked how it is I came to know myself, to be so very enlightened, I will smile and say, with gratitude, “T’was all that extra time on my hands, thanks to a lousy recession.”

Last night I heard fellow English major Garrison Keillor say that when he was a young man, he had a fear of living an ordinary life. It was not until he reached middle age, upon witnessing the quite common yet wondrous event, the birth of his child, that he discovered that “ordinary was good enough.” I loved the comment, but then I love Garrison Keillor, bushy eyebrows and all.

With the death of Michael Jackson, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to live what can be called a not so ordinary life. To be famous, always in the public eye, under constant scrutiny. What must that be like? Clearly, there can be consequences.

My friend Dona took Michael Jackson’s death hard. She remembers sitting on the stoop of her North Philly row home in the heart of the Black ghetto as a little girl. “Everyday was the same,” she shared with me, “a stultifying sameness, day after day. Nothing ever happened. There was nothing to do and nowhere to go.”

“When Michael Jackson came along,” she tells me with tears in her eyes, “the kids began to put on shows right there in the street. Here was their star; a five year old who looked like them, afro and all, from an ordinary family and an ordinary place. He was all the proof they needed that it was possible to get out. And they didn’t even have to wait until they were grown-up.” Dona remembers how the kids came alive in the desolation of the North Philadelphia “hood,” thanks to little Michael Jackson.

But for all the gifts he had and shared, Michael Jackson’s story feels so tragic at its core. The mania with the ever-lightening skin, the plastic surgery, the paranoia, the drugs, his refusal to grow up – clearly, this was a tortured soul. For all the adoration he got, why was it he never learned to adore himself?

Michael’s not alone. The list’s a mile long – great ones hurling themselves head first down the path to self-destruction – stars, tycoons, socialites, politicians, rulers and religious leaders alike. It is curious; after all, what could be so bad about being loved on a grand scale? To be the world’s darling? Even without the bling, the mansions and the limousines.

Yes, it might be a glorious ride indeed, but fans are fickle. The winds do change. Truth is, if you look to the outside world for proof that you count, you’re up shit creek. And if you aren’t willing to wrestle the demons deep inside, you’ll be without a paddle as well.

There’s no way around it I’m afraid, you’ve got to know who you are. Who you really are. Not the profession. Not the persona. We’ve all got to muster up the courage to dig deep inside and pull out the weeds. To look at them, embrace them and then finally, let them go.

There’s really no other gig worth playing. It’s about learning to love oneself. And for my money, learning to love oneself is what merits a big round of applause and a whole lot of press. For those willing souls, take a bow.

Boy, it’s been tough getting this entry out.  I’ve started at least ten times on four different topics, all four stopping about two or three paragraphs down the page. Thoughts on the creative process, on listening to my gut, on being oblivious to the obvious, nothing seemed to jell, nothing felt quite right. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t feel like staying the course, slogging through to the finish line. Just didn’t feel up to it. Lethargy, I’d say.

Anybody else out there feeling a bit lethargic these days? I imagine I can’t be alone. Always anxious to find reasons for my behavior (anything besides laziness), I chalk it up to the never-ending rain we’ve been having lately. It is said that barometric pressure can be quite debilitating. No doubt.

It could, of course, be a reaction to the state of the world which is pretty intense, getting more so with each passing day.  I don’t linger on the news much, can’t watch it on TV, and find I can hardly read more than the headlines in any paper or on-line news. I catch snippets.  Bankers Pay Soars, Americans Struggle to Pay for Health Care with 40% Delaying Treatment, Unrepentant Rumsfeld Slams the Media, Nokia Provided Regime’s Censoring Technology, End of Line for Jon and Kate. Among the talking heads, the pundits, politicians, the power people – there are far too many egos having at one another. There’s no respite. It’s exhausting. It’s TMI.

Add to that the constant emailing, cell-phoning, texting, skyping, facebooking, youtubing, tweeting and linking in. It’s so pervasive that even if you’re only doing a quarter of it, it’s more than enough frenetic, electromagnetic energy swirling about  for any one planet.  Frankly, I’m too tired to even think about it. Stay in touch with whom exactly? How many? And why? It can take a lot out of you.

Perhaps there are other possible explanations for this lack of get-up-and-go, but I am feeling far too weary to even come up with any. All I know is that I want to sit quietly. I do not want to be disturbed. And as Dietrich so fetchingly once said, “I vant to be alone.”

With a list the length of my arm of things I needed to do this past Saturday, I plopped myself down on the sofa instead and read a wonderful book, 289 pages cover to cover, in one sitting except for an occasional snack and a quick bolt to the bathroom. It felt so luxurious. So good. To detach from all the noise and lose myself in the magic of a beautifully told story.

Today, after I minimally apply myself to a “pressing” work issue (after all, this family does have to eat), I am headed for the library for yet another one of those books. My hope is to be able, shortly thereafter, to head for that oh so soothing, horizontal position, head and feet elevated, and  lose myself in the lyrical yet compelling narrative of someone else’s world.

In the meantime,  if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll just go lie down for a quick…

There is nothing like slow dancing to old tunes to stir up romantic yearnings. You know, the “I can’t sleep for thinking about him” kind. Yes, dance to any of those old songs from decades past, and I dare you not to feel 15 or 16 once again, melting with a longing for love so powerful that palms go clammy and knees weak. Songs like At Last or Can’t Help Falling in Love can conjure up feelings you thought you put away in the closet with the rest of the high school memorabilia. Those songs and the goose bumps they cause must be part of my cellular memory I’m thinking.

Last Saturday night while attending a most wonderful birthday gala, I danced to one such song. And there they were, once again, those same dewy-eyed, dreamy feelings I had known long ago, sparked the minute the music started. As the Righteous Brothers sang out, “Baby, baby, I’d get down on my knees for you. If you would only love me like you used to do,” my dance partner commented that if this guy had to get down on his knees, it was probably too late. “It’s over,” he said. I had to stop and think about it. Who knows anymore?

I am out of practice in the romance department. Love in that particular form is a little like the foreign country I haven’t visited in a long time. I can still recall some of the sights and sounds, and I know I had a wonderful time, but it’s all a bit hazy. My dance partner continued, “You know,” he said, “a Nigerian once told me that love is a Western concept.”

Rabu would agree. He’s one of the Indian IT guys I worked with at my last job. Rabu went back home for the sole purpose of meeting and marrying the woman his parents had found for him. In two weeks, he was back at work after a huge henna-ed wedding, busy making arrangements for his new bride’s arrival in the U.S. He had only just met her, but Rabu was giddy with happiness.

No question about it, it probably pays to be practical when it comes to love. Maybe that’s how couples make it to a fifty, sixty, even a seventy-year anniversary. They learn acceptance, forgiveness, compassion – all very practical tools when sharing a bathroom with someone over a long time. They might well up at the voice of Etta James, but they certainly know that making love last is not about moonbeams and lollipops, dew drops and roses.  And it’s a good thing.

No doubt I’d have been better off coming at love from a more practical point of view, a less fanciful state. Instead of always being drawn to the artist, the poet, the radical, the guy who searched, the one who struggled – perhaps I should have listened to my father. For one thing, all those years I spent worrying about paying the bills would have been completely unnecessary if I had only been a little more practical and a lot less willful.

Perhaps like Rabu, my mate should have been chosen for me. Even if the “chosen one” had been someone like Hershel Finklestein, who came complete with brains and BO, you just never know. I may have had to let go of that lovin’ feelin’, but today I might be singing a very different tune. This one, a voce alta, to Hershel, and this time, it’d be My Guy.

A “crisis of confidence” she called it, my 21-year-old friend who wrote from college. This tall, strong, beautiful gazelle of a young woman was going through a crisis of confidence.

Unlike so many girls her own age who obsessed that their thighs were too big or breasts too small, she’d never seen her body as flawed. An exceptional athlete from early on, she knew her body’s brilliance and had always been grateful for the things it had allowed her to do. Suddenly, she was feeling very big, unattractive, less than.

“Any advice?” she asks.

Oh yeah, sure, I think. I’m a perfect one for advice. Just today, my daughter points out that in the space of a couple of hours, I have walked into her room three times to use the full length mirror, and every time, I have made a disparaging remark about the way I look.   “Oh,” I say, feeling like a shamed kid. “Really, I did that?”

I think back. How long has this been going on? When did it start? If I were to compute the time I have spent fretting about my appearance, how many minutes, hours, days, weeks, yikes – even years would it come to?  How many cumulative moments of my precious life have I wasted on it …..on the too fat, too short, too thick, too thin, too round, too flat, too little, too big?

A lot. Decade after decade, beginning at what – twelve?  That’s a lot of time. And I know better. I know that “I am not my body.” I know that what is real and true, lasting and good has nothing to do with appearances. But it can be tricky in a culture that’s all about what it looks like – in spite of  constant reminders to the contrary, the Marilyn Monroes, the Bernie Madoffs.

“I want to be young,” a 65-year-old friend tells me the other day. “Well, good luck with that,” I say. “A losing battle for sure, but you do get to decide how much time you want to devote to the fight,” I tell her.  The aging process conspires against us. Or just maybe, it brilliantly forces us to finally shift our focus to what counts.  With so little time left, do I want to spend another second lamenting my fallen ass? I think not.

Once, upon seeing a 98-year-old woman sporting jet black hair, I asked the same friend at what age she thought you could stop the dying and the frosting, the coloring, the covering.  “When do you say, enough?” I wondered. Ever the fighter, she turned and emphatically replied, “Never.” I immediately flashed on several stunning friends of mine with beautiful silver hair.

Never. Really? Isn’t there a time when we must finally embrace it all – the crow’s feet and the cellulite, the sagging this, the mottled that – if for no other reason than to get on with the important stuff of life? The alternative seems quite absurd. Are we to leave instructions in the living will, “Do not resuscitate, just cover the gray”?

As for my young friend, I tell her that I have been plagued by these “crises of confidence” for far too long.  These days, I know that the sooner I can quash the voice that says the wrinkles make me less than divine, the faster I can get  on with life, into the moment where all the fun is. How else will I see the beauty all around me, not to mention inside me?

“I don’t do it 100% of the time,” I tell her, “but I’m determined to get there. I’m a late bloomer,” I say, “but as anyone who has ever really looked at a flower knows, better late than never.”

Productivity is overrated. There I’ve said it. At the risk of sounding Un-American, or worse still, like a no good loafer looking for a free lunch, I believe that we in this country value “doing” far more than it deserves. Like Barbara Ehrenreich said about work, “I have nothing against it… I just don’t happen to think it’s an appropriate subject for an “ethic.”

Though I certainly don’t mind doing my share, I must admit to you that I am not an extremely productive person by nature. Not that I don’t applaud people who are; I’m always in awe. How do they manage to get so much done in a day?

Blame my biorhythms, but try as I might I just can’t be a type A bunny – on the go and still going, as American as a BlackBerry pie. I am amazed at the schedule some people keep. I wish I could, but I can’t. Why, even my horoscope told me to take it easy today.

There are others in the world like me, you know, and it’s no surprise that I’ve always been drawn to locations where they’re in the majority. To places with a cultural  appreciation for doing nothing, where lollygagging is considered high art. Places where people sit over dinner and nap after lunch, where they stroll the beach, lie in a hammock, chat in cafes. What could be better? I have always suspected I was born in the wrong place.

Yes, born in the wrong place and much too “unproductive” to get into heaven. But if crossing things off a list were to win us points for the afterlife, wouldn’t it be enough just taking care of our personal maintenance requirements? Aren’t the daily demands of our upkeep enough?

For many of us humans in 2009, that list can be quite long. And quite daunting. Besides regular bathing, there’s brushing, cutting, and washing of hair (blow-dry, color and curl optional), dental care, skin care (just the moisturizing alone!), nail care, foot care, back care, eye care, ear care, shaving, plucking and OMG, for some, there’s the make-up too. There’s housekeeping, clothes cleaning and the ever challenging planning, buying, fixing and eating of food, never mind counting calories and carbs. Careful of the trans fats. It’s exhausting. Add to this other vital tasks such as exercise, mind/spirit enhancement and social interaction – and who has time to be more productive than that?

Not convinced? Still won’t give your sluggish self a pass? Then think back to 12th grade English, remembering the old Bard who could always teach a thing or two. Let us not forget that the words Will penned were “To be, or not to be.” “To do” was out of  the question.

The other day I attended a funeral in the very same place a rabbi gave a eulogy for my mother 43 years ago.

As I sat quietly in the pew before the service began, I thought how impossible it would have been for me then, a sixteen-year-old child, to believe that one day I would be fine. No way could I have imagined that I’d recover from the pain of it, no less come to see that there were blessings to be gained. Nevertheless, it happened.

It got me thinking of a quote that appeared in my e-mail last week. Paul McCartney’s, and it’s had me smiling ever since. “Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.” What a hopeful thought. What a gloriously upbeat sentiment.

Apart from not being able to imagine where I put the car keys, I’d say my imagination is in pretty good shape. In fact, I would agree with Paul that it is getting better with age. More fertile, definitely more fun. Not from any particular gift, mind you, but simply by virtue of having some years under my belt. If you live long enough, you get to see some pretty extraordinary things. Real humdingers. It’s got to expand what you consider possible.

A walk on the moon, a surf through cyberspace – these wonders aside, what about the ever curious manifestations of human behavior? Stories abound – from the acts of  evil that leave us speechless to the miracles born of love which take our breath away. Mind-bending twists of fate with “impossible” outcomes are heard every day. If your eyes are open, don’t you have to believe that anything’s possible?

Yes sirree, I say. The only thing that could possibly stand in the way would be… me. With an endless supply of doubts and fears, my voice of reason can certainly put a damper on even the slightest flight of fancy. You know, that relentless voice that says, “Forget about it; that can’t happen,” and “Crazy to even consider it,” and, “Who do you think you are anyway?” I am my own worst killjoy.

This year once again, just when I was beginning to doubt that spring would ever come, damn if those magnolias didn’t burst into bloom. And when in the dark of winter I wondered if I’d make it to May, here it comes again, bringing me another birthday along with a reminder to reconsider possibilities. This year, I’ve decided to tap into my imaginative powers more than ever. To pull out a few more stops.

For one, I have placed a clipping by my bed. It is the first thing I see in the morning, the last thing I see before I shut my eyes at night. It is a picture of a book with a title I have photoshopped in. Not surprisingly, it is the same title as the book I am working on. There is a blurb pasted on top as well. It reads big and bold, New York Times Bestseller. Takes imagination.

What kind of person would kill her own cat, I wonder as I stand by the kitchen counter, knife in hand, ready to cut a big head of red leaf lettuce. Missy, my cat of 14 years, is crying, no screaming next to me. She is doing it now just as she does everyday, all day. Is it a cry for food? Attention? The urgency to get outside? A catnip fix? What then? I’m convinced it’s simply to undo me. And she’s doing a fine job because her cry is the most excruciatingly irksome cry I have ever heard. Worse than a baby’s… and there were times I wanted to kill her too. What kind of person, indeed!

Obviously, someone who would contemplate killing her own cat would not be someone who volunteers at the local shelter, nor gives money to PETA, nor feeds ferals slinking about in the back yard. It would not be someone who believes the stuff about the nine lives nor one who buys the concept of Karma. I, for one, know that killing my cat would not bode well for my next life, so I’d never risk it. But I am not proud of these urges, either.

This very morning, Missy sat by the side of my bed, quite poised and proper, screeching at the top of her little lungs. It was 5:10 am. She was inches from my head, her big Sophia Loren eyes staring at me as I came to; I, her kindly meal ticket, irritated as hell to have to wake up to such cacophony. Pleading with her to stop and go back to sleep, I extended my arm out of the covers to pet her. As I reached for the top of her lovely head, I could not help but think in that instant that I could put an end to this misery, hers and mine, particularly mine. All I had to do was merely slip my hand around her neck and squeeze hard. She is a petite cat. How hard could it be?

Now before you crazy cat lovers make a frantic 911 call to the SPCA, have a little compassion. Put yourself in my shoes. The cat I’ve known for so long has gone and done a Jekyll and Hyde on me. After13 peaceful years, Missy has morphed into someone else’s pet, an animal I no longer recognize. This once independent, low maintenance, quiet and serene felis catus has become a ferociously demanding feline. Loud and bossy, unrelenting, a nagging shrew.

I ask myself daily, “What happened to this docile, low maintenance cat? What happened to this good-natured, easy-go-lucky little kitty?” She had always been a good girl, a model pet, that is if you exclude the time she peed in my sister’s suitcase. But that was definitely the result of extenuating circumstances.

Could it be that she’s simply getting old? And with it cranky? Demanding? Wanting what she wants when she wants it? Could it be she’s sick and tired of waiting around for me to get the hell up in the morning, or annoyed at how long it takes me to open the back door, or disgusted with the generic brand of cat food I’ve been buying in an effort to cut expenses? Maybe she’s thinking, enough already. Attention must be paid!

Poor Missy. As her age increases, her patience decreases. Just like mine. As she grows old, she has less desire to put up with the nonsense in her world, with what aggravates her. Just like me. I watch her and think, that could be me some years down the road. I could be impossible too. I commiserate, but the fiendish thoughts of Dr. Catvorkian do not stop. The screeching could go on like this for another six years.

I have told my daughter who ironically nicknamed me Kitten several years ago, “if I should get like that, you know, ornery and irritating, bullying and ill-tempered, (that is, more than I already am … and I mean a lot more), you have my permission to quietly slip something into my margarita. But make it my third and only a margarita.”

My daughter laughs. She knows she’s stuck with me. Just as I’m stuck with Missy. What are ya gonna do? As they say, there’s no remedy for love. At least that’s what Missy and Kitten are counting on.

I am sitting in the Mayor’s Reception Room, an ornate, mahogany-paneled room with high coffered ceilings. The walls are lined with gilded framed portraits of the former mayors of Philadelphia. From the looks of some, the ones wearing the wigs, they go back to the earliest days of the city’s history. They represent the movers and shakers of yesteryear – all old, white, men. The achievers of their day.

The audience of a couple hundred people is made up almost exclusively of African Americans. These are the people who now occupy positions of power in city government, the ones who now run the municipal show. Achievers all.

In front of us, on risers, sit 17 young women, Asian, black, white, Hispanic, all in their 20s, all here to be acknowledged for their achievements – achievements that already go well beyond what I can imagine accomplishing even now, forget at such a young age. There’s the founder of this nonprofit, the head of that community law project, the vice president of such and such bank, the music director of some orchestra and the very youngest entrepreneur ever enrolled in the Chamber of Commerce. Young women with a lot of drive, focus, persistence, passion and belief in themselves. Outstanding young women, the quintessential achievers.

It got me thinking about achievement, there below the inscrutable gaze of those old, tight-lipped, white men. What does it really mean – this construct that can make us mere mortals shake our heads in wonderment. How do we process this cult of achievement without feeling bad about ourselves, as though we’d fallen short, wasted our lives, like we were good for nothing ne’re-do-wells? Surely I can’t be the only person who, when faced with a roll call of exceptional go-getters, asks herself, “Are they simply better than I?”

Now, not withstanding an ever so slight twinge of envy, I would be the last person to downplay anyone’s good work on this planet. In fact, for me, anyone who manages to get to the gym every day deserves my deepest respect. But I think it all depends on why we think we are here. On the earth, that is.

So after I take a deep breath and forgive myself for what seems like a few bad choices made along the way, I suggest that this challenging, tragicomedy we call life, is about self discovery. That everything we do, good works included, is designed to move us toward that end. The work, the passions, the goals, the failures, the fellow journeyers en route, friends and foes alike, all serve to help get us there – to help us figure out who the hell we are so we can know what we’re doing here.

The ancient Greeks, smarter than most, thought the idea was important enough to inscribe on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. “Know thyself,” was written, big and bold. They didn’t specify how. “Just do it” is implied, whatever way you like. You want to feed the homeless, great. You want to be a father of three, wonderful. You want to strip in Vegas, God bless you.

A cop out? Maybe. But I think the Greeks had something. The value of the “doing” is that it can lead us to the “being.” The external trek serves the inner search. The inner search gets us to the knowing, the knowing – to love, which is what it’s all about anyhow. Without it, we’re talking ego and we all know the trouble that can get us into. Just ask O.J.

If you’ll forgive my presumption, I’ve decided I deserve an achievement award too. With all humility and a slight wink to my feckless younger days, I hereby confer upon myself a lifetime achievement award for my on-going, valiant attempt to know myself. At times, kicking and screaming, and always with varying degrees of success, I honor myself for my willingness to get to the “bottom” of me. Not because I find myself so terribly fascinating, but because I’ve always had a suspicion that it was the only way I could uncover the fully joyful, loving, divine being that is me. And every one of us, for that matter. Without honors, titles, kudos, medals, applause, and even thanks, I salute myself – for  at least trying to face my inmost self with courage. On some days, just for simply getting out of bed. On some days, even that’s an achievement!