Renewal

Stewart at House of Sternberg has issued a challenge. He calls it "an assignment." We are to create something which has to do with renewal, and since I am writing haiku tonight, here is my offering:


bare bones of winter
trees, one crocus in the snow
you'll love me again

Possession

astonishment of
hisses green eyes whiskers fur
the cat claims her chair

Sometimes I Wonder if God Believes in Me

My brother tells me that our cousin's son has become an Orthodox Jew. He has committed to an arranged marriage in Jerusalem, which will take place this month.

He used to be an actor.

The young man, J, met a Rabbi a few years ago who introduced him to the "Shuva" movement, which apparently means the "return" or the "answer," and is intended to bring secular young people back into the religious tradition.

J's bride-to-be was chosen for him by the Orthodox community in Israel. I don't know if they have ever met.

Everything in me recoils at the idea of allowing others to make the most important decision of ones life. My mistakes, marital and otherwise, were mine. The idea of marrying for anything other than love is deeply threatening to me.

When I read of women being married off to consolidate land holdings or for any kind of family advantage, economic or otherwise, it shocks me. I know that so-called "romantic love" is a relatively new concept in the world and that in many places it still does not exist. But it should, damn it. It should.

I cannot even fathom the degree of trust a person would have to have in her parents and in God to abdicate responsibility for choosing the person with whom to live out ones life, every day of it. I would not be capable of getting into bed with someone I did not find highly attractive, who could make me laugh, and who shared my most important values.

Judaism has traditionally had three major divisions: Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform. Plus the one my parents subscribed to, which I always called Resigned.

My brother and I were raised with no religious practice other than being kept home from school for the High Holy Days. The family credo was that we were "Just American." I regarded those conspicuous absences from school as an embarrassment, even a punishment, and generally experienced Judaism as a lack of something, rather than the rich tradition it surely is.

We did not attend Sunday School or Hebrew School, nor did we have the traditional coming-of-age ceremonies at age 13. My parents' participation in Christmas was half-hearted. We had no tree or lights, yet presents were exchanged. We knew nothing of Hannukah.

I was given an Easter basket once or twice, but never associated it with a cute, fluffy animal that hopped. Not that the peeps and jelly beans were not yummy anyway. They just had no attachment to anything remotely Animal, Vegetable or Biblical.

I was fascinated with Catholicism. Their churches had gorgeous stained glass windows and glorious pageantry. I was especially enamored of the "bridal dresses" little girls wore at age 6 for their First Communions. I lusted for a white dress and veil, and patent leather maryjanes.

On Sundays, when all my friends wore their shiny shoes and pretty dresses to church, I skulked around the neighborhood in jeans and sweatshirts, feeling like a pariah. I always welcomed Mondays because I fit in again.

It did not escape my attention that Catholics enjoyed a number of Saints' Days, for which they were actually excused from school.

I informed the principal that my parents were Jewish and Catholic, one of each, and that they wanted me to observe all their combined holidays. He bought this wild fabrication, and for several years, I attended church on Saints' Days with my friends while my parents kept me home on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, although we never attended a synagogue. On Protestant holidays, the schools were closed.

It was a lovely state of affairs for truants.

This delightful existence continued until the Ash Wednesday I met my mother on the street. I was walking with a group of Catholic kids, and we all had ashes on our foreheads.

To protect the faint of heart, I won't go into details here. Let's just say it wasn't pretty. And the upshot was that my exquisite dalliance with Catholicism was abruptly canceled.

In Confession, I would murmur, "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I am not a Catholic." And the priest would assign me Hail Mary's and Our Fathers as atonement. I read a dog-eared Catechism in my room at home, memorizing the questions and answers, which didn't always seem to match up. I attributed this to my own ignorance and lack of indoctrination as I did not have the benefits of a Catholic home.

I finally decided that organized religion was not for me as my beliefs were an amalgam of ideas from many religions. The system that comes closest to the mark is Buddhism, yet I know that Buddhist nuns are not treated as well as their male counterparts. This offends me as much as the patriarchal practices of Judaism and any other system which does not consider women as valuable as men.

All religions have rules and dogma. Being human, we all break rules sometimes, and dogma can trip us up. This causes guilt, which doesn't really further anyone's quest to function on a higher plane. Some religions have a political bent as well, which seems inconsistent with God's will.

After searching for answers for many years, I have concluded that while all religions which teach ethical behavior are good, the answers we seek really lie within us. Truth is where we stand to look at a thing, and our own eyes, hearts and experiences instill our deepest values.

I think the creed that can unify us all is the one which practices compassion for all. It has no name, but it has roots in many traditions. Perhaps it should just be called "Lovingkindness."

God knows there are already enough religions.

Something on my Mind

During the years that I was a single mom, I worked at many jobs. Most were fairly unpleasant because I lacked the confidence and credentials to apply for better ones.

The job of shortest duration was at a nursery in Western North Carolina. I was required to work with bare hands in a white, powdered pesticide which was stored in a huge vat. The owner did not issue gloves or masks to me and the other woman who was also a new employee. We placed handfuls of the powder in potted plants and mixed it into the soil with our hands.

I love plants so I had thought that working in a greenhouse would be pleasant.

Several hours into the day, as I began to feel nauseous and dizzy, my co-worker complained of the same symptoms and then collapsed. Neither of us could speak coherently.

I went to tell the supervisor that the other woman was lying on the floor and that I wasn't feeling well, either. He thought we were slackers, and told me that we should stop complaining and get back to work.

I hauled the other woman to her feet and told her that we were leaving. She was in no condition to argue, so I loaded her into my car and drove us both to the local hospital.

We were both confused and unintelligible by this time. The hospital staff immediately placed us in isolation, took away all our clothes, even my brand-new sneakers, and gave us decontamination showers.

After several hours of monitoring, we were discharged. I must have driven myself home, but don't remember it. I never saw the other woman again.

Later, I learned that the nursery was using a pesticide which had been banned in the U.S. They were able to purchase it very cheaply for that reason. I am still outraged to think that they had so little regard for the lives of their employees.

They later reimbursed us for the cost of our clothing, including my brand-new sneakers, which had to be destroyed. Ironically, I come from a family of lawyers, yet I never sued them. I didn't have the means to hire one, and besides, I wasn't thinking clearly for a long time.

For many years, I suffered from the effects of this incident. It was as if some of the circuits of my brain had been burned out, and I would begin a sentence and then lose the thread of my thought. I was brain-damaged, although most people probably didn't realize it because I was able to compensate: If the word I wanted eluded me, I could substitute another, and nobody was the wiser.

I don't know when it happened, but at some point, it seems as if the holes that had been chemically burned in my brain fused themselves together again. I no longer have the feeling that my synapses are damaged because my thoughts now flow as they were intended. (As far as I know.)

This morning, I woke up thinking about this incident and wondering how it might relate to Alzheimer's Dementia. My husband, Flip, was diagnosed with AD several years ago at such a young age that for a long time, doctors were unsure of their diagnosis. Sadly, both MRI and PET-scan confirm it, so it seems as if in this area, as in so many others, he is precocious.

So far, his abilities are impaired only with regard to short-term memory and losing things. Flip is a musician and artist, and his creativity seems unaffected. He is a lucid participant in conversations which, however, he may not remember afterward. He has begun to struggle for words on occasion, yet his quick wit is still intact. He remains in every way the delightful, charming, kind and positive man he has always been. He is the most generous person I have ever known. In fact, Flip is pretty nearly the perfect man.

There is no way to tell what the future will bring.

In his words, "It's a small price to pay for being here."

I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't affect our relationship. I have more control than my fair share now, and handle our financial affairs, make appointments, and sometimes speak for him when he is unable to express his thoughts to others.

I get very angry with myself for not always being as patient as I should be, and as he deserves. I am so aware that it will get worse that it is ruining what we could have now. And I know that someday, when it IS worse, I will kick myself for not fully enjoying his company while he still knows who I am.

Alzheimer's is the best argument I know for living in the here-and-now.

Still, remembering my own brain damage and how it apparently healed itself makes me wonder if somehow, Alzheimer's-afflicted brains could do the same. I am not a scientist, nor am I a believer in religious miracles, although I think that I would take him to Lourdes if I could, just in case there's anything to it.

I wonder if neurologists could determine anything from my experience that would be useful in treating this ghastly disease that robs people of themselves, a bit at a time. There must be a link that has not been discovered, something in our brains that could be accessed to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

As every child knows, even earthworms, cut in half, will wriggle away in two pieces, smaller but still complete. Surely we would not exist if we did not also have the ability to repair ourselves.

Somewhere in this large mass of grey matter that we carry is the key. We badly need to find it. Now that the Baby Boomer generation has come into middle age, Alzheimer's is occurring in younger people all the time.

The pressing need for Viagra has been resolved, and hopefully, scientists will now have some free time, energy and research dollars to dedicate to curing this cruel disease. After all, even Viagra won't be of much use to someone who can't remember what it's for.

Mutts on Beaches

I'm sure it's March, early March, but today was the kind of sunny summer day that would make July proud.

We went to the beach and played with dogs. Since we have none of our own, we are required to use other peoples' dogs for fun and frolic.

The word is out on me in the dog community. Strange dogs approach me on beaches and sidewalks, straining at their leashes to lick me. They are always grinning, and when we make eye contact, they prance a little. Sometimes they have erections.

I can't remember ever having quite that effect on men, but maybe I've just forgotten.

I have always been a beach person. Water sign and all that, but I really love beaches. I love the smell of the ocean, and the feel of sand between my toes.

As a child, I swam out beyond the breakers and cavorted in the surf all day. When my mother called me back to shore, I was always shivering, with purple lips and shriveled fingers and toes. But I would protest that I wasn't at all cold until she finally let me go back in the water again.

My mother made me wear my brother’s outgrown dark woolen swim trunks with white mesh liner (for storing ones penis) and curved metal belt buckle. At eight, I was mortified to appear bare chested in public as other little girls wore cute outfits with frilly tops.

I pleaded with her. “Can't I get a real girl’s bathing suit?”

“What’s wrong with this one?” she asked. “It was Richie’s.”

She said it like it once belonged to God.

“I want one with a top.”

“You don’t need a top. You don’t have anything to put in it yet.”

As usual, my mother was missing the point.

I acquired my first girl’s bathing suit at the practically senile age of 11 when two perfectly symmetrical mosquito bites appeared on my chest. The suit was a one-piece skirted affair of printed cotton chintz in an indeterminate color which hung loosely on my skinny body.

I forgave its ugliness because I finally fit in with other pre-teen girls, our perfectly flat bras serving no purpose but to honor our future breasts.

A few years later, a boyfriend told me, “A woman’s breasts should fit perfectly into a champagne glass.”

“Have you really had champagne?” I asked.

Yesterday

My childhood friend, Bruce, lived in a house with no lawn, just brown dirt where grass should have been. His family had the only swimming pool in the neighborhood, but it was very small and never had any water in it. It was full of garbage bags and discarded tools that had rusted.

Summer brought drought conditions to Long Island and by August, the abandoned golf course behind Bruce’s house had yellow hay that was taller than we were.

Bruce and I sneaked out there with a pack of his mother’s Lucky Strikes. He lit one and dropped the match, and the hay at our feet burst into flame. Instantly, the whole golf course was burning with a loud hissing sound.

We ran through the fire in melting sneakers until we got across the dried up creek bed. We kept running until we got to my house, where we crouched beside the living room bookcases and listened to the fire engines. The fire was so big that four different fire departments answered the call.

We expected to get arrested and go to jail for the rest of our lives, but no one ever questioned us. The neighborhood smelled like smoke for weeks.

A year later, they built a shopping center on that land.

Bruce won a new car in our school raffle, which his mother sold to buy a mink coat. She had long, platinum blond hair and makeup like spackle, unlike the standard neighborhood moms with short permed “do’s" which required them to sleep on satin pillowcases and wear shower caps when they bathed. Bruce’s mother was hardly ever home, but when she was, she had a lot of male visitors who stayed exactly 20 minutes. Bruce and his brothers were not allowed to come home until late at night.

Bruce had a grey German Shepherd-mix dog named Laddie who was never home either. Every time anyone's dog had a litter of puppies they looked like Laddie, which was a real shame because Laddie was the ugliest dog ever born. When he wasn’t passing on his genes, he lay in the sun with his head tucked under his back leg, zealously polishing himself with his tongue.

Bruce’s older brother joined the army and his little brother tagged along with us big kids most of the time.

If they had a father, he was a well-kept secret. No one had ever seen him.

By the chilly light of the harvest moon, Bruce and I hiked to the next town and tried to peek in the windows of the Hi De Ho Inn. The building was huge and dark and had a four-sided flashing neon sign that said "Girls Girls Girls Girls." We expected to learn the secret of life here, so we crept through the bushes and sneaked around the foundation, seeking enlightenment. The ground floor windows were boarded up with old two by fours that splintered in our hands. We stood on each other’s shoulders, but enlightenment was unattainable to 12-year olds.

I learned recently that Bruce is dead. We hadn't seen each other since 9th grade, so I have no idea what he died of, or more importantly, what kind of life he had. I hope he was happy. I hope he loved somebody who loved him back, and that he found work to do that fulfilled his deepest dreams.

And I hope he finally learned the secret of his own life. I'm still working on mine.

Oh, Baby

"Is there any chance you're the baby's father?" I asked Flip. He's a musician. Surely it's possible.

He denied it. Insisted he never met Anna Nicole.

My husband is a faithful sort. And I'm younger than Zsa Zsa.

"Are you sure you're not?"

"I'm sure. Sorry to disappoint you."

We could raise a baby. I love babies. I feel terrible for that child. She may stand to inherit millions, but right now, she needs warm arms to hold her and a soft teddy.

I really want to know. In all the hoopla with her mother's funeral, and speculation that Anna Nicole's mother will body snatch her back to Texas after interment, who is taking care of Dannielynn?

Lawyers don't know how to change a diaper.