sell by date

Featured by tresswann

Most of my life I’ve been obsessed with the obituaries. Children have a natural fascination with death and gore. The first headline I remember reading was about Marilyn Monroe’s death. Well, it was easy. I guessed from the size of the words. I liked reading the obituaries because they were little stories. I have always liked stories. After a while, I stopped reading them. There were better stories to read and it was slightly morbid.

I started reading them again in late middle age. This was because I had to see who among my friends parents had passed away.

I stopped reading that because it was easier to find information on Facebook.

Now, I view the ages of people who have died when I read the news. I calculate how much older or younger they are than me. Are they my age? Maybe they are five years older or eight years older. If they die at 93, it means they are 25 years older. That is such a long time, but it is such a short time.

It’s like life. There are very few transitions. At one time, I went from attending my friends’ weddings to attending their children’s weddings. There was no break in between. The obituaries have become that way. It is not so much the obituaries as Facebook. It seems that every week someone from my childhood dies. These are usually not my friends. My friends have not had a timeline. They have been leaving since my 20s. It has been a joke that men who date me and leave me die. Just about all my past relationships are literally dead. It no longer upsets me. It’s just a fact.

I was brought up not to disclose my age in public. I have been very lucky in that for the most part I do not look my age. I don’t believe that is true anymore, but people assure me that they are surprised at how old I am. My mother always pretended to be 10 years younger than she really was and she always got away with it. One of her friends was shocked to find out when my mother passed that she was the same age as her mother, exactly. They were literally born on the same day. The age numbers never bothered me because I did have that genetic gift. However, even though I must say that I looked fantastic at 60, it felt off putting somehow. 65 was a game changer. I moved into the last checkbox the demographic selection. I began to feel that time was finite.

I was at a school reunion about 20 years ago. One of my classmates said, “We’d better make the best of it. We are in the last third of our life.” I wasn’t buying it. I felt young and vital. Indeed, I was. I laughed at his statement at the time but once I passed the last milestone birthday, it became very real to me. Time had finally become finite. There was going to be an end to the chapter. And as I had discovered when I was 18, I was not going to know what it was.

There is a group for women over 50. In one of their promotional videos, there is a woman who wants to stay “juicy”. I was definitely juicy at 50. I was anxious to join that group. I went to a local organizing meeting and they tried turning me away at the door. “Honey, this group is for women over 50.” It reminded me of the time that a boyfriend and I went with the gay couple to a gay bar. Another hand came in between us, “This is a gay bar, kids.”   

Recently, I heard on my radio station that the average life expectancy in the US right now is 77.9 years. Time is finite. I now have a sell by date. It’s not the expiration date. We have been educated that the sell by date really means “best used by”. The same can even be said for the expiration date. These dates have become very real for me. The clock is ticking.

My mother came from a family that had “gifts”. She wanted no part of that. Fortune telling and future telling were strongly looked down on. She always related the story of someone having her palm read and being told that they could not find the future line and walking out and being killed immediately by a bus. She believed that one did not need to know about the future. It makes sense. Every day should be lived as if it is your last. This is easier said than done. None of us can know when our time is over. Just because statistics say I only have another nine years means nothing.

What I am going to do with those remaining years is important. For quite some time, I have been considering the best use of my time every day. This now has taken on a greater urgency. My friends and I laugh that time is moving so quickly. One week starts before it seems the previous one has ended. Days blur. Remember when you were a child and it seemed like forever until Christmas? Or your birthday? I heard something recently that said time moves slower when you were younger because you were learning something every day. I still try to learn something every day and sometimes I actually do. However, it does not stop the gallop of time.

I feel an enormous amount of pressure now to make the best use of my time. It is interesting to consider what that might be. I have been writing for years. I had a manager 20 years ago who told me I never complete anything. I’ve always tried to be open to criticisms from managers from whom I am parting. For example, my first manager in fashion told me I was not proactive enough. I did not make that mistake again. However, I have to concede that I do not finish things. I’ve been thinking about the reasons why this might be. My father was a writer and very critical of me but he has been gone for 20 years. Plus, in his last year of life, he told me not to wait until he died to write but to do it now. I did not follow his advice. I am writing now. I am still not finishing. This is something I must do. I have always maintained that fear is natural and must be acknowledged. Fear should not stop you. I have been afraid in my life many times and just sucked it up and got on with it. However, submitting my writing for publication totally terrifies me in a way that I am not familiar. I need to get this done. My grandmother always said that I lived on “put off street”. I need to move!

There are other considerations as well. I love to read. I have been reading less in later years. It is something that soothes me. I used to read several books a week. This year, it looks like it will be only one a week. I have more time than when I was working So what is the problem? How do I find the time for my preferred drug?

Working. I have finally decided not to look for employment. This has been a very difficult decision. It has been based more on my physical condition than attitude and need. Now that I have my sell by date, it definitely falls to the bottom of the pile. I feel a certain amount of grace because my time is limited. This does not mean that I will not work for money again. If I do work again for money, it will be something that comes to me not something that I seek. Who knows? I may even sell a story or two.

Move is a word that’s problematic for me. I have become increasingly immobile. This has also led me to the decision to just stop actively looking for work. My body is betraying me. I thought for the most part I had treated it well. OK, I have had a massive chocolate addiction. I have been able to get it somewhat in check in the last decade or so. I was not pleasingly plump for a while. This usually happened when I was unhappy. I have had periods of unhappiness throughout my life. Plus, it was a delayed adolescent rebellion. Weight was always important to my parents because my aunts were morbidly obese and my mother was manic about her weight and appearance. However, only four short years ago when I was examined by a Medicare physician, I was told that I was one of the healthiest Americans he had encountered. I exercised more or less faithfully for most of my life. If I didn’t belong to a gym, I did an enormous amount of walking. Walking has always been my happy place. I no longer have that. My condition is impacting all areas of my life. I can no longer type, cook or walk. We all know that age will catch up to us eventually. My mother exercised regularly until just after her 79th birthday. Her deterioration was sudden and unexpected. She had definitely done everything right. However, we all realize, even she did, that as we age certain things slow. I am not slowed so much has come to a grinding halt. I do my best not to let it stop me. Of course, it does. What cannot be cured must be endured.

I wish someone would have let me know that I would not always be able to feel my body moving quickly. That one day I would no longer be able to feel the wet sand on my bare feet as I walked along the water’s edge. It’s funny how lust changes along the way. I used to lust over men, clothing and money. Now, I lust after shoes. I see people on TV or in the street and I want their shoes! I watch programs with beautiful stairways and I mourn. No one would have been able to tell me that when I was younger.

Clothing is another thing that changed for me as I got older. I used to be very forward. I had my pulse on something. It was undefined but I usually was a step ahead. Then I became a sort of contemporary classic. My mother had told me that I would grow into things. So, I began to rock Chanel type jackets, Calvin Klein pantsuits, beautiful suits in jeweled colors. Elastic waisted pants were for old fat people or going to the gym. Now, the least path of resistance is elastic. I do not like what I wear. I am succumbing to old age.

Another thing I was brought up to do was to give back. I still do that. I tutor a child. This gives me great joy. It is a gift to help a child be able to read and thus discover new worlds and new possibilities. I will not give this up. It is worth the time. I also volunteer. Right now, I am on my HOA board. It almost amuses me because I bring my experience to the table. I am seen as an older person with experience. It seems like only the other day that I was the firebrand on the board demanding change. Again, there was no transition. Perhaps this is the way life is.

I am actually comforted by the idea of a sell by date. It gives my life a shape. One of the things I had decided some months back, was to try and do something nice each day for someone else. It is selfish. I have no natural children. I do have “bonus” children. I have little cousins and nieces by marriage. These are the closest I have come to children. The reason I bring this up is that I’m concerned about the afterlife. I am part Jewish and to paraphrase one of the prayers for the dead, “you live on in memory of what you have done.” It’s not completely rational but I would like my memory to live on for another generation. I do not know how to explain this. I want my time on this earth to have meant something.

I am looking forward to embracing my remaining years. There is so much to do!

Traditions at Thanksgiving

Posted on by tresswann

Traditions at Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is all about traditions. I’ve cooked essentially the same meal since 1988. It has been through 2 marriages, one partnership and all the in between times.

Time is a definite factor in this story.

I was traveling for business in Italy early November that year. It was not my first time traveling alone, I was in my 30s and had been traveling alone since my 20s. In fact, the very first time I traveled by myself I was only 17 and it was for a university visit. I traveled to Europe, Taiwan and South America for business by myself before this trip. The excitement was over. It was no longer a novelty nor a nod to my corporate capabilities. I remember feeling blue and out of sorts.

Those days were different. There were no cell phones or Internet. Faxing was expensive and cumbersome. There was a certain freedom to that travel because you could be truly away and no one could reach you. There might be messages for you at a vendor sometimes at the hotel but that was unusual. I was researching vendors on this trip, so I was remote. The main purpose of the trip was to attend the leather good exposition in Milan. However, the show was only a few days and the president of the company was cheap plus he believed in enriching his employees. For example, he gave me and his secretary the afternoon off when he found out we had never been to the South St. seaport. Another employee had a wife who worked at the special events department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and he pressured him so that the secretary and I could go on company time to private viewing as a Van Gogh exhibition. He believed in us and wanted us to see the potential in the world. Therefore, I was going to be required to travel through Italy for the remainder of the week. I was to go to Florence, Venice and Rome. Travel was to be done by train.

I traveled with magazines. It was important that I know what was going on in the world, specifically anything that related to fashion. I subscribed and read 22 magazines. These would come to my parents’ house because it would have sent up a red flag on my illegal rental. They insisted that I give the mailman a huge tip every year because of the volume and weight of the paper. I read all kinds of magazines-women’s fashion, men’s fashion, beauty magazines, home decor, business magazines. It always amazed the men that I worked with that I could discuss business issues. I traveled light. In my early years, my mother had despaired because I traveled like a typical Jamaican-lots of bags, parcels tied up with bits of string. She kept at it until I could travel with the minimum amount of fuss and luggage. It also helps that I understood clothing. In later years when I did not have a responsibility for fashion I could travel for a week or two with just the carry-on barrel bag or if the company provided business class, the barrel bag plus a garment bag. However back in the day I will travel with lots of magazines. They would keep me company in the hotel at night because of course there was no Internet or streaming and it got wearing to listen to programs not in English. I was blessed that I could understand a little bit of other languages. Sometimes I just let the sound keep me company and roll over me. On a much later trip, I was thrilled to hear the voice of Harry Belafonte in Italy. I would only catch snippets of his voice before they cut to the translation, but it was still comforting to hear the sounds that I knew in a foreign place.

I would shed the magazines as I traveled. If there was a fashion reference, I needed for work I would shove it into a folder then ditch the rest of the magazine. I used to imagine the hotel maids enjoying what I had left behind. I was traveling probably between Milan and Florence or Florence and Venice when I came upon a recipe for a Thanksgiving menu in Better Homes and Gardens. It was one of the magazines that I used to understand trends. Clothing is not just clothing, it’s what also surrounds us. Also, it was always a joke, but it started at that time that I used to lose weight in Italy. I was used to dining alone and did so in New York and very comfortably in Paris but somehow it didn’t feel right Italy. I ate in sandwich shops. Particularly on this first trip, it had taken me some time to figure out how to order the food and I had a few rather hungry days. Food was definitely on my mind. Better Homes and Gardens not only had decor but also recipes. I looked at that menu and I could just imagine it. I ripped out the article with recipes and carried it with me until I came home.

My mother was not big on Thanksgiving as she always told us “I did not grow up in this country (she was Jamaican) so I did not have this holiday and I’m doing it strictly for you kids.” My father was the children of immigrants also that had grown up during the depression, so this was not so much in the tradition for him either. My mother had not known how to cook when she married my father and it was something that she did not particularly enjoy. No one really liked to eat turkey but went through the motions every year. I decided that I was going to make Thanksgiving that year and have it at my apartment. She did not argue. I realized I am so much luckier than my friends and now in laws because she readily gave it up.

The turkey recipe was somewhat revolutionary at that time. Now what I do with it is referred to as brining and is quite commonplace but back then it was just a marinade. The bird had to be marinated at least 24 hours in advance in a mixture of soy sauce, honey, white wine and spices. It was also cooked breast side down which makes an awful lot of sense. It was accompanied by angel biscuits (the recipe has since been lost) a gelatin mold starter which was never attempted, sweet potatoes with a sorghum butter and then an apple cornbread stuffing. There was some sort of pumpkin thing for dessert but I did not extend that far. We have made this sweet potato cake for about the past 20 years as our dessert. That was from another magazine but not one that I had to rip out and discard as I traveled.

I lived on Long Island which had moderate winters at that time and definitely not snow in November. Thanksgiving morning dawned with eight inches of snow! Totally unexpected. I lived just 6 miles away, but my father was not going to drive. I was cheerful and my mother threw a fit and they came. The meal was totally enjoyed. The turkey was moist and delicious. Apparently, this is not the case for most Thanksgiving events. The technique  I used were very advanced at that time.  

It was my job from that day forward to make Thanksgiving. I would add in different things over the years like the sweet potato cake. Some years there were appetizers and other years there were not. My first marriage broke up and there was a problem. I had moved home which had its own issues. However, I like to cook and they accepted that from me. My mother used to joke when I still lived at home and was out of work that she could easily gain 5 lbs because of all the food I made. It was going to be easier to do Thanksgiving in one way but not in another. My father was very finicky about his food and had very specific ideas. He claimed to detest garlic, but my mother always made spaghetti sauce with garlic in it which she did not know. Soy sauce was a no no for him. We used to laugh over his limitations because the only thing he would eat in a Chinese restaurant was pepper steak. It probably had soy sauce in it but as long as he didn’t know, it did no harm. My mother was sure that he would find out that the turkey was marinated in soy sauce and then decide that it didn’t taste any good. He never found out but WOULD right marvel each year on how delicious and how moist it was.

Eventually I moved out again-this time to a partner. Since they despised him and would not come over, it was my job to cater. I would cart it up and bring it over. My father never complained about the food, only about the man. That ended when I was back in my own apartment again, able to host again.

I met a new man, married and we continue with the turkey. The stuffing is now his job and he does it superbly. We no longer get a whole bird but rather a bone in breast. It looks disgusting but it’s still moist and delicious.

It’s hard to believe that the menu has stayed with me for so many years and made people happy at Thanksgiving. And I am always transported back to the time in my life with trains, travel and possibilities.

Ridiculous optimism

Posted on by tresswann

Pollyanna Smiling in the Back Row

I never considered myself a happy child. I didn’t fit in. I grew up in a neighborhood dominated by Irish Catholic and Italian Catholic children. Mostly people were blonde. I had dark eyes and dark hair. My family was different. Primarily, we were not Catholic but Jewish and Protestant and interracial. I read a lot of books. My great grandfather had said that books are your best friends. They certainly were mine. I can remember staying in the library so long in the summer that they had to tap me on the shoulder and say it was time to leave. Full disclosure though, the library was air conditioned.

 No one had air conditioning then. When it was really hot, we would beg to sleep in the backyard. The parents would put out plastic tablecloths and we would pile on to them with our sheets. We would fall asleep watching fireflies and wake up in the morning covered with dew and squashed bugs. It always sounded better than it actually felt. There are no pictures of those nights.

However, it is now the era of Facebook. I post pictures from my childhood and see that I am smiling in them. In my mind, I must have been doing this with the camera. My childhood friends, of which I still have many and pre-Facebook, tell me that I was always happy. They tell me I always had a great smile.

I admit to the great smile. It is one of my strengths as an adult. I am known for it and people miss it when I do not. One of the useless facts that I retain from college is that smiling is a form of aggression. Soldiers bare their teeth before they go into battle, apes bare their teeth when they are threatened. My smile is my armor. This is not to say that I do not find joy in life. I do. I am ridiculously optimistic. I am definitely a glass half full kind of person. I do trace this back to my childhood.

My parents were always telling me that I was Rebecca of Sunnybrook farm or Pollyanna. I had to read both books. Pollyanna was particularly a favorite especially after I saw Hayley Mills, my girl crush in the movie. Another favorite book was Heidi. And something less commonly known was Misunderstood Betsy. This one I had inherited from an aunt. It’s the story of a girl that must go live with her relatives and somehow comes out of it alright. And of course, there is always Anne of Green Gables. So, what do most of these books have in common? Girls overcoming adversity and difference. But what also sticks out now in my adult mind is that Rebecca, Pollyanna and Clara from Heidi were all paralyzed. They all lost the use of their legs. How prescient was I? Was there something in my body that knew from an early age that I would be facing these challenges? Did I revel in my differences so much?

I don’t know if that is a question that I will ever be able to answer. My ridiculous optimism has served me well. Is it a defect or is it a strength? It has enabled me to get through many things in my life. People think of me as courageous and inspiring. This is certainly not how I think of myself nor of how I want to be regarded. I’m trying to live my best life.

Once again, I find myself leaning into that optimism. Lately, I have not been feeling well. This is something that growing up in my childhood home was not allowed. You never let anybody see what might hurt. There was always someone worse off than you. Even when I did get sick as a child, it really wasn’t bad. My mother swore that when I had chicken pox, I only had one spot. German measles I remembered as maybe one or two bad days and then being forced to stay home from school for too long. I did get to read lots and lots during that time. I had strep throat or scarlatina but again, one or two days that were bad and then locks of reading. So, for me to say that I’m not well is admitting defeat. I should be realistic. Somehow, I have ended up in senior citizen land. Breakdowns and slowdowns are to be expected. I fight and reject that. I have less time ahead of me than I did behind me.

Denial. My last blood test seemed to indicate that I may have a rare autoimmune disease. It was nonalcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. This is ironic on so many levels. My husband is the one that drinks, not me. Actually, for most of my life I’ve been ridiculously healthy. Four years ago, I had my first Medicare checkup. The doctor said that apart from my mobility issues, I was one of the healthiest people he had ever met. So, what happened?

I am running out of strength to keep on fighting but it’s my nature. I have no other option. The blood test must be wrong. And it was! So here I am again. Still different, still trying.

A Sleep Story from The 1980s

Posted on by tresswann

A sleep story from the 1980s:

I could fall asleep but I could not stay asleep. Sleep has never usually been a problem for me. I can sleep anywhere, any place, anytime. At that point In my life I was working in fashion. When you work in fashion you are usually flavor of the month. So, for a long time I had a very short shelf life. Jobs had a tendency to last only nine months. I would be out of work. I was low level so occasionally, unemployment was not a bad thing. I didn’t have to pay for commutation or for pantyhose. However, extended periods did cause me distress. I found myself in the position of having to accept the job, any job.

I have always been the anti preppy. Before I grew into my present classic persona, I was the edgy one. I dyed my hair aubergine in the late 1970s. I was at least a decade ahead of my time. I wore pajamas to work. I embroidered my jeans long before it became the thing. But here I was out of work and desperate. I was offered a job at Izod Lacoste. It was right at the height of the preppy movement. I had to do what I had to do.

I was interviewed by a gorgeous man but he was not my type and did nothing for me. Plus, work affairs have always struck me as a form of incest. I wasn’t to work for him directly. I was assigned to merchandising which was run by an older man in conjunction with a younger woman. E was the only woman I have ever known that freely admitted to sleeping her way into her job. She was having an affair with the man who hired me. He was rich and married. I was a threat to her although I did not know it. She was very New York. She had grown up in the Bronx and had the matching accent. He had frosted layered hair like Farrah Fawcett, silver booties with wings, black leggings and low decolletage. She snapped gum and wore heavy perfume. Jay, her counterpart was an older man with numerous children. He didn’t live far from me on Long Island and sometimes we found ourselves on the same train. I would move to another car. His teeth were rotting so his breath was always bad. He wore cheap polyester so he always had an odor too. Despite all this, he was well meaning and kind. He was also terrified of E because he desperately needed to hold on to his job.

The office itself was terrible. It was on 7th Ave. close to the railroad. It wasn’t the glamorous building at that time although it since has become one. Back then, it was filthy and I do not recollect any glamorous clients. The showroom and design offices were on the 23rd floor and the operations offices were on the 24th floor which was the top of the building. There were little dishes with rat poison in each of the corners of the office that I was in. It was a huge room. The desks were the old metal kind. They were grouped in clusters  of four and six pressed together. One of the managers was a woman who bore a remarkable resemblance to Fred Flintstone. Most of the other employees were younger than me and that was saying a lot because I was just 24. They were not experienced and did not know what a proper office environment was. The conditions would not have been acceptable in the present day. Inappropriate comments were made all the time. For example, a young couple worked there and had become pregnant. The girl was contemplating an abortion but before that could happen, she actually miscarried. Fred told everyone she’d had an abortion. There was another girl with luxuriant red curls. She had been adopted by a Jewish family. Fred told her that she was clearly Irish because Jewish people did not have hair like that. This is where I found myself.

Shopping has also been an escape add therapy for me. Clothing also allows you to reimagine yourself. It can be a new way of presenting yourself to the world. It can be armor, literally and metaphorically. Some outfits make you impenetrable. Suits and pearls have always been a defense. The act of shopping itself has always been soothing. It’s a hunt; a journey, an exploration.

Shopping could not me soothe me there. It was at the height of the preppy movement. The nearest store was Macy’s. I used to love Macy’s. There was The Cellar which was revolutionary at the time. All kinds of exotic foods were available down there. The houseware floors were imagination worthy. The prices could be accessible. I purchased a beautiful black velvet reversible white satin bedspread for $25 on sale. I was only making around $200 a week so it was a huge investment. My boyfriend called it the shroud. However, entering the store from the 7th Ave. side, you were greeted by huge Izod signs. There was no escape. I felt haunted and trapped.

Sunday night sleeplessness became an issue. I have always gone to the bathroom during the night. My mother was always fascinated that I could go right back to sleep. I used to explain to her because that was because I did not put on my slippers, tie my bathrobe and turn on the light before I went to the toilet. However, Sundays became an issue for me. I literally would have to urinate every 15 minutes. It was not only a feeling but I actually did urinate. Of course, it wasn’t a lot and it hurt. I tried not drinking any fluids after 4:00 PM. It didn’t work. I always read before bedtime. Reading and relaxing didn’t work either. I would arrive for work on Monday, totally drained. It was clearly Izod related. I had no problems sleeping on a Sunday if Monday was a holiday. To say I was unhappy with an understatement.

I was considered a troublemaker and an agitator. Once, my desk was placed facing the corner as if I was a child being punished. Things came to a head. I lost it one day. I forget exactly what caused the eruption but I remember standing up at my desk, pounding on it and screaming obscenities. It was as if I had joined the club. I lost my outsider status. I was horrified and realized that it was definitely time to go. I found a job I actually liked. That is a story for another day.

There is always a silver lining. I did meet people that I held for many years in my life. I learned early about AIDS, long before the general population. I’ve also developed another great coping mechanism. E would yell at me. As I said, we were on the 24th floor. I would picture an enormous King Kong hand coming in the corner window, grabbing her and dropping her. This allowed me to gaze at her with a slightly glazed expression but without processing the word she said. I have been able to share and use this technique over the years with great success.

My Sunday sleeplessness disappeared once I left the job. I went on to have a career that I loved where on Sunday night I was excited to be going to work on Monday morning.

Thanksgiving Ghosts

Posted on by tresswann

Thanksgiving is upon us once again. Someone asked me what I was going to do. It’s only my husband and me for the last few years. We will do basically what we have done since 1988. Well, I should not say we as we have only been together for 21 years.

In 1988, I was working in my dream job. I was merchandiser for men’s accessories for a large firm. I traveled to Europe twice a year. It was in the days before technology was so advanced. Nothing was digital. Also, at that time I subscribed to 22 different magazines. Most were for work, some for pleasure and some were mixed-use. I love and need to read. Library books were too heavy and too risky to travel with. I used to take magazines with me and shed them across Europe. I was feeling particularly melancholy that year. I’d left behind both a new boyfriend and an old boyfriend. I missed the United States. I missed hearing my own language.

Another thing about Thanksgiving was that it wasn’t particularly big in my family. My mother as she frequently told us had not grown up in this country and only did Thanksgiving for “us kids”. She didn’t like to cook. She definitely did not like turkey. We had had several disastrous Thanksgiving so over the years. One year my father had gotten a turkey at work. It was the tradition at that time to give workers a turkey at Thanksgiving. It was huge, 22 pounds. There were only five of us. The Levittown stove is very small. In fact, if I remember correctly, it was a custom built. The only place you could buy it was at Jay’s Appliances on Hempstead Turnpike. Anyhow, the turkey was too big for the oven and broke the element. Another year, my brother was going to make biscuits. He was in one of the first classes of boys to take home Ec. He broke it that year. Another infamous year, we traveled to my great aunt’s in New York City. She lived in Peter Cooper village. Aunt Dorothy always said that she had a view of the river. You had to stand in her kitchen and peer through a tiny window to maybe catch a glimpse of water. I always lied and said I could see it although I never could. My father cursed the whole way on the Parkway. He didn’t like to drive in the best of times. Of course, there was tremendous traffic that was going to make us be late. My father was always manic about being on time or early. You could never tell him that you had a party starting at 8:00 PM because at 7:30, he would start telling you that you were going to be late. He didn’t understand that of course, you needed to be late. Anyway, we finally arrived at Dorothy’s. Now, she was supposed to be wealthy. Her sister, Matilda was also supposed to be wealthy. They competed. Aunt Dorothy was having all the cousins as well. We often did not get to see each other. One set of cousins were orthodox Jews. The males would never come to our house as it was considered unclean.    I glimpsed them so rarely that I could never tell you what they looked like.

It wasn’t a particularly large apartment nor was it small. I remember the dining table being set up as a buffet and scattered card tables around the room. My mother and grandmother were horrified as Aunt Dorothy had had it catered. I was impressed because the turkey had been pre sliced and put back together. It was also the first time that I tasted barley and I really liked it. The catering was not what upset my mother and grandmother nor the fact that the card tables were covered with paper clothes but it was the paper plates that really set them off. My grandmother and later on, I had a dish fetish. We can also be fairly formal people. My stepsons laugh at me because I always tell them, “the right tool for the job.” There is also the right dish for the meal. It wasn’t even the heavy duty paper plates but the cheap ones. There probably was real silverware. My mother was particularly incensed because Dorothy had a “girl” a few times a week. Dorothy would not even have to cope with the dishes. We never did that again and I am not sure if Dorothy ever did it again.

The caterer Thanksgiving debacle made an enormous impression on me. I was precocious junior high student. It annoyed me and still does that for most people Thanksgiving is it day of gluttony. I found it highly hypocritic. Growing up in my household, if you had anything to say you wrote it down. My father was famous for his letters to the editor. My parents did not protest. My father wrote letters. Therefore, I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper expressing my thoughts on Thanksgiving. I was harassed at school and told I was a communist.

I hate to fly. One year, I traveled 20 weeks out of the year.  I used to be teased that if there was a train that went across the Atlantic, it would be my preferred method of travel. So, once I arrived in Europe, I always took the train in between countries and cities. I like to travel in between countries at night. It saved a hotel bill and was easier on me. I’ve always been able to dine on my own but this put less stress on me. It was a great opportunity to relax and catch up on some of my magazines. I would leave my magazines behind in hotel rooms and on the trains. I hoped that they would end up in hands that would appreciate them. I was on the train in Italy heading to France. Italy was never enjoyable for me. I found the people arrogant and it was expensive. I was glad to be leaving. I was reading Better homes and Garden on the train. This was one of the ones that I was reading just for me. It was outside my comfort zone. I am not known for decorating and at that time in my life did not have ready access to a garden. There was a Thanksgiving meal by Lee Bailey. It spoke to me. The weather had been unusually cold and damp. I could taste the recipes in my head. I tore them out and put them in my luggage.

I arrived home and announced my intention of cooking Thanksgiving dinner. My mother was very pleased. In addition, to it not being her holiday, my mother did not like to cook. She had grown up with a cook and when she met my father, she knew how to boil an egg and make a cup of tea. It gave her no pleasure. She had dutifully made Toll House chocolate chip cookies with me once because that’s what you did with little girls. However, she had encouraged me. This she had done despite several disasters. As Campfire Girls, we made a four layer cake in two layer pans and set the oven on fire. She took this rather calmly. I made gingerbread cookies in 7th grade that were really gingerbread men. They were enormous! My first sugar cookies broke my grandmother’s tooth. My best friend and I made the most disgusting chicken with apples for French class. I do not know how they let us serve it. Well, we are all alive today and we’re not poisoned miraculously. By this time, I was quite an accomplished cook. I’d been given all kinds of cooking magazines. My mother worked for Standard Brands and her boss used to send me recipes from their test kitchen. I had graduated into making cookies. I used to make around 1000 for Christmas giving. It had started when I was 14 and slowly morphed since then. I usually started what I termed “cookie production” on Thanksgiving weekend. This would definitely eat into my time.

I started the preparations. Now it is referred to has brining, then it was just marinating. The turkey is marinated in a mix of soy sauce, honey and white wine for 24 hours before. Cooking. This requires defrosting the turkey so that it can be marinated on Wednesday. I had to leave it out on the kitchen counter. There is a beautiful stuffing that is cooked separately from the turkey. This allows the turkey to be moist. It requires making a cornbread beforehand. There is a lot of chopping and preparation for the stuffing. The first year I also made Angel biscuits. My father and brother were finicky eaters so yams with marshmallows had never appealed to them. My mother and I were not fond of it either. I made simple baked sweet potatoes that year and mashed potatoes. We did the usual store bought pies. I cooked my guts out.

New York, especially in the 80s was very temperate. It almost never snowed, especially not in November. That particular Thanksgiving morning, there was unexpected snow. It had hit the whole East Coast. I lived just under 6 miles away from my parents. They lived on a main road. We had always laughed because we never knew how bad the weather was. A town Councilman lived a few blocks behind us so our street was always beautifully plowed. However, the way to my house was on main roads. I lived a few blocks off of Sunrise Highway so that too was plowed. My father always had a fear of driving and of snow. He announced that morning that he would not be coming. My mother read him the riot act and they showed up. The whole meal met with raves. From that day forward, Thanksgiving was my responsibility in addition to cookie production.

This went well for several years. Then I made the mistake of getting married. We rented a beautiful cottage. I even had double ovens! My parents and brother came over but my mother did not want to leave the cat at home by itself. We didn’t think it would be a problem has the cat loved turkey. In the years before I started making it, the cat would lie down in front of the stove for the entire cooking time. Plus, the cat truly loved me. Lo and behold, the cat was having no part of being at my house. We had a beautiful fireplace and the cat tried to climb up the chimney. My parents left with doggy bags.

The marriage did not last through the rest of the following year. However, I was still there for Thanksgiving. I cooked the turkey at my house and brought everything over to my parents. I moved back into my parents’ home shortly before Christmas. My mother complained about the smell of butter and sugar in the house as I still had to do cookie production.

The following year, I had to make the turkey at their house. Now, as I said before, my father was a very picky and finicky either. He had always maintained that he did not like soy sauce. If we went to a Chinese restaurant, he would only order pepper steak and never ever put soy sauce on anything. He didn’t like garlic either or so he thought. We would put garlic in things unbeknownst to him. The turkey marinade had cloves of garlic. I was the first in the family to use them. My mother used to season somethings with garlic powder. I actually used cloves. We knew if he found out what was in the turkey, he would not eat it. He would claim something smelled funny. We held our breath and I made the marinated night while he was watching TV. My mother complained about the smell of turkey in her house. It was much the same as it was with the cookies. She loved the results but didn’t want to deal with the operation aspects.

Unfortunately, I had to live there for several years before I moved out. I moved in with someone they did not approve of. They would not allow him in the house. I catered. They wouldn’t allow him in the house for Christmas either. It began to create a huge rift for us.

Miracle of miracles. One year, they finally let him come for Thanksgiving. As usual, I brought everything over. He and my father seemed to have a good time. My brother was excited thinking that everything was behind us and we could have a normal holiday season. This was not to be. They were even more adamant that he could not come to our home. So, that year my brother went out of state and I did not go over. It created great pain.

Now I am married to an active alcoholic. Thanksgiving rarely happens on Thanksgiving Day. And there are only the two of us. Today, it looks like it will happen. It is bittersweet. the ghost of Thanksgiving Day pass will definitely be at the table. There are so many things that I am grateful for. I’m grateful for the knowledge and insight I have gained over the last year. I am grateful for friends old and new. As always, I am grateful to be warm, safe and dry and have something to eat. It is not about the meal nor the memories but rather profound gratitude.

GRADUATIONS

Posted on by tresswann

It’s the time of year when we once again have survived graduations.  Yes, survived.  Those of us who graduated survived.  And those of us who watched also survived.

A series of pictures recently came up in my memories in OneDrive. It is amazing now with technology that our memories are timed. These were photos taken  the day of my college graduation. The university had two ceremonies – one in the morning for the entire university and then one from the College in the afternoon. The afternoon ceremony is where you were given your actual diploma. In the morning pictures, I am radiant.

I thought at that time of my life that I was never going to get married and if I did, there would be no reception. People on both sides of my family did not marry or if they did, it was more of a matter of fact, justice of the peace situation. Therefore, graduation was going to be my day. Also, I had come by it hard. Due to unfortunate events, I had flunked out of school my sophomore year. I was put on probation which had only ended halfway through my senior year. Life had changed for me. I had become and continue to be manic about getting excellent grades. My father had also made me slightly paranoid. Decades ago when I graduated, technology was not a thing. Papers were typed painfully on a typewriter with carbon paper and copies. Copy machines were not ubiquitous. I always made an uncorrected carbon of all my work. I was a terrible typist and had been sent to school with typewriter erasers, erasable paper and white out. My father also insisted that I get a receipt from the department office anytime I handed a paper in that was not given directly to the professor. This was not welcomed by the office staff. I have memories of running up flights of stairs in Gilman Hall as the clock was tolling the hour to get a paper in on time. Students were not allowed to use the elevator. So, I was usually sweaty and semi hysterical by the time I reached the department.

I wanted nothing to go wrong my last semester. I even took an extra course to ensure that I had enough   credits to graduate even if by some weird quirk of fate, I happened to fail a course. I had two courses with a married couple. They were from Norway and returned home immediately after the semester ended. They were the last papers of my then college career and I did not make carbons nor did I get my usual receipt.

I had become very poor during my senior year. My father had lost his job during my junior year and I could no longer depend are my family for any kind of living expenses. I had run out of work study plus we had made a decision that I would concentrate totally on school my last semester. I had been working for 20 to 30 hours a week during the last part of my junior year and first semester senior year. I lived on a diet of eggs, grapefruit, rice, perch and smelts. I swore to myself that I would never eat a perch or smelt again and I have not. However, I knew if I was home I would be able to once again eat real food. There was a break between the end of term and senior week. This was the week with all the parties and celebrations. I left campus after turning in my papers and went home and took a temporary job. I needed money.

The university, of course, had my home phone number and address. The Dean was also very familiar with me due to my probationary status. I used to be able to look from my living room across the street into the building where the Dean was housed. At times, it seemed too close for comfort. It was a type of university housing although it was not on campus. My roommate had stayed behind on the break between classes and graduation ceremonies. We had a university extension. This was also back in the day when to have your own telephone was huge. Before we had the university extension, we would have to find a phone booth and make a collect call to reach home. We could receive calls on the university extension. All this is to explain the unnecessary horror of what happened on graduation day.

I was back on campus for a few days. I attended the balls and parties. My parents arrived the night before and we all went to the cocktail reception for graduates, sponsored by the university.

Graduation day was hot and sunny. I remember thinking that Nikki Z was the only smart one amongst us. I wore a striped sun dress (that’s what they were called then) and platform sandals under my cap and gown. Nikki wore shorts! She was the only one who didn’t have to actively fight wilting.

After lunch, we were lining up for the afternoon procession. Someone, I don’t remember who, tapped me on the shoulder and told me that I would not be graduating but could stay in the line and would receive a blank diploma. I did not have enough credits to graduate. My professors had absconded to Norway without turning in my grades. We later found out that they were only accessible by dog sled. Again, this was back in the days before cell phones. Indeed, international calls were still an expensive and lengthy process. I couldn’t cry at that time. I cannot even identify the feelings I had -shock, anger, disbelief, faintness, disappointment. I was told that they had been unable to contact me prior to this moment. My glow disappeared and was replaced by a pale, drawn angry face.

My college boyfriend had somehow worked his way so that he was beside me on the line. He had already graduated. He knew something was wrong when he saw my face and I was able to whisper part of the story to him. As always, he was and is incredible. I do not know how he did it but he was able to crouch at the end of my row. Meanwhile, my parents could not imagine why I looked so angry and  stiff as I received what they thought was my diploma.

I ran to them once the ceremony was over. I started to cry hysterically. Well, this was the way I was brought up. My mother slapped me across the face, told me to pull myself together and slapped a pair of sunglasses on me and told me to stop crying. Of course according to them it was all my fault. I did not have the receipt. How, looking back why would I have had it when I was in line from graduation? I did not have the carbons.

We were able to find out after that disastrous day that they had allegedly tried to reach me. This could not possibly be true. I was easily findable. We worked out a deal where I was able to recreate one of the papers and have it graded on a pass fail basis by another professor whom I had never met it was unbeknownst to me. My diploma was mailed to me.

I had actually been seeing a therapist prior to my graduation because I was so concerned about it. Hopkins gave you so many free counseling sessions and I’d saved mine up till the end. It definitely says something about the school that they realized decades ago that mental health was an important issue. At the time, I just thought it indicated how twisted the institution was. Many of us have had a type of PTSD  from our experiences there. I called my counselor to tell her what had happened. I wanted to take action against the school and I wanted her to attest to what had been done to me. She was in agreement with me. However, my parents were not. I was surprised when I posted the morning picture on Facebook with a brief snippet of my story that so many of my close friends never knew. My parents saw it as shameful. The shame should not have been on my part but on the university. I now know that my parents actions were predicated on their lives. It was also the era where deference was given to those in authority and girls and their concerns were minimized. I do not know if anything would have changed if I had retained a lawyer. I know I was not the only person that had this experience.

I did go on to get married, not once but twice! I did have a reception for the first one much to the surprise and dismay of my family. I have always done things that were not done. It wasn’t the last time that I got smacked across the face and had sunglasses slapped on me so that no one could see me cry. I do cry and sometimes I even let people see me do it.

Seven years ago, my husband was looking through things in the room I used as my office and discovered a mailing tube. He opened it and there was my diploma. He insisted on getting it framed. It hangs in my office right now. Survival!

Route 66

Posted on by tresswann

So, this year I’ve been on Route 66. I am lifting this from a high school acquaintance who used this term for being 66. We were not friends in high school. I was weird and she was different, tougher. I loved the fact that she wore purple socks with her gymsuit every week. It was a small act of defiance. As adults, we speak to each other during high school reunions. I wasn’t going to the main event one year, just stopped in at the pre-event for a drink. She told me she was disappointed in me because we had to show up, we had to show that we had survived high school. Well, I certainly have survived high school. It was a time in my life, but it is a time in my life that I do not look back upon fondly. However, I am deeply grateful that I did not have to go to high school in this current era.

I’ve been on the real Route 66. It had always been on my bucket list except we never used that term. It was merely a list of places we wanted to go to and things we wanted to do. I have been blessed to have crossed many things off that list. My best friend and I were in New Mexico on vacation. Times are different now and we were more innocent and dumber, despite the fact that we were in our 30s. We retained a positive outlook on the world. This is not to say that the world had not harmed us or that bad things had not happened to us, they had but we had dusted them to the side. Our New Mexico trip was one of the best I ever had. We were young, irresponsible with money and drove all over the place. We loved the road. It’s part of that Route 66 mystique. To this day, I get a thrill seeing the open road in front of me. We found ourselves back in Albuquerque before we had to leave for New York. Another thing we loved to do was drink and we certainly weren’t driving. We had become friendly with the bartender. Bartenders usually liked us, not only because we drank but when we were around, men also drank. This bartender was different. She was a woman. As such, we had a different relationship with her. A cowboy came and sat down next to us. He was fascinated by us and bought us drinks. We were hard drinking women. We drank strong Scotch, unusual for women. We are special, unusual women. I remember what we wore. I define my life by clothing. My BF had a short pink wash denim miniskirt with a pink and white vertical stripe shirt. I had on my favorite black halter dress. He asked, with genuine curiosity, if I was wearing any underwear. Funny enough, I don’t remember the name of the cowboy. He liked my BF. Somehow, the topic of Route 66 came up and he volunteered to take us, to a cowboy bar, no less. We consulted with the bartender who assured us he was safe. And off we went into the night. We clambered up into his pickup. This was real! And then, he pulled his gun out from under the driver seat and told us we would be safe with him. This was back in the day when you could drive drunk relatively safely. In other words, unless you were weaving madly, he would not be stopped. I had never seen a gun in person, nor have I ever seen one again. Can I say I was freaking terrified? I thought I am going to die because we wanted to see Route 66. Route 66 was a neon blur.  All’s well that ends well. We arrived back to the hotel and the cowboy tried to take my BF off the elevator in his arms. I demanded he put her down immediately. I have felt badly about that for years. However, recently I found out that she was glad. Well, that’s less weight to carry around for sure.

Reaching Route 66 has been quite a journey. I have been blessed to travel. I have been privileged to see so many things. I have seen Basques dancing outside a church in Barcelona. I have seen real flamenco in Madrid. I’ve been propositioned by Mike Tyson’s people in Tokyo. I have been driven all over Taiwan. I’ve been to an alligator farm in Taiwan. I’ve been to Punto del Este in Uruguay. We made the bus go back and forth over a Gaudi bridge. The bus had an award winning high school singing group from somewhere in South America. They sang Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on fire” in English although they did not understand a word. I’ve seen tango danced by real people in Buenos Aires. I have attended ready to wear in Paris more than once. I survived hurricane David on the beach at Club Med in Haiti. I’ve been invited to private views at museums. I have seen The Rolling Stones twice, once for my 30th birthday and once for my 50th birthday. I loved a postal postal worker and he loved me. I have been so very lucky. I didn’t know what it was at the time. But now I am on Route 66 and looking back. One of my friends said about 20 years ago or so that we should have written a book, “had I only but known”. It kind of sums it up.

And it wasn’t all the physical, material journeys. I have had the best, the very best people in my life. I have been lucky enough to recognize that. So much love and support. I had a dream of knowing people from all over and it has happened. It’s wonderful. I used to take books out of the library when I was little about different countries and I wanted to learn different languages and I have!

What I didn’t account for was the presence of AA’s in my life- Alcoholism and autoimmune disease. My husband has one and I have the other. Actually, alcoholism is a family disease, so I have two. Not so lucky. A change in the bucket list or the dream list or whatever you want to call it. I am almost completely immobile. I can no longer say that when I sit down, I feel like me. That is no longer the case. I look in the mirror some days and I see a little old lady. Who could she possibly be? It’s me. This is much the same sensation as when I would catch a glimpse of an adult in a window and realize it was me. My insights no longer match my outsides. Inside, I am not a tiny grey haired lady in a chair. I am vibrant and not immobile. I still actively engaged with life. I keep on learning. I have also come to realize that I have a lot to share. The events and experiences of my life have value to others. In sharing and examining, I also gain additional insights into myself. This both pleases and scares me.

So, Route 66 will end in a few months but not for me. I still plan to be that woman travelling down two lane blacktop whether it’s virtual or in the real world. I will continue to make stops along the road that will both terrify me and help me continue to grow. I am going to get my kicks on Route 66.

Graduation

Posted on by tresswann

I attended my niece’s graduation via YouTube this weekend. It’s an upside of COVID. I was able to see her face more clearly than her parents. This is only the second undergraduate graduation I have attended since my own, decades ago. I attended my bonus son’s about 10 years ago or so. It was different because first of all, he was a boy and secondly, we had to deal with the issue of his mother. We never know what she’s going to do. It didn’t impact me on a visceral level. My niece’s graduation hit me in a whole different way.

I have seen her grow up since she was two and a half. Therefore, I had a much longer association with her. I have delighted in seeing her grow and excel. She is truly a remarkable young woman. Quite frankly, I am in awe of her and her accomplishments. However, it brought memories of my college graduation brutally back.

I had had a very hard time at my university. I really didn’t fit in, nor did I want to. I had academic challenges based on significant personal events. I had actually been forced to withdraw due to academic performance but was able to reenroll on a probationary basis. This has made me the maniac I am today about grades. I worked furiously. At that time in my life, I did not see marriage or definitely a wedding as having any place in my future. Therefore, I viewed my graduation as my day. This was going to be the hugest moment in my life. Because of everything that had happened to me academically, I always made carbon copies of my papers and I also demanded receipts for them when I turned them in. My last two papers were with a husband and wife team of professors. It was the last two and I neglected my usual practices. I could see the Dean’s office from my window. This becomes important to little bit later. The university had two ceremonies – one in the morning for everyone and then one in the afternoon for each college where the actual diploma would be received. The morning was glorious. I felt a real sense of accomplishment. I had overcome my obstacles.

Morning

In the afternoon, whilst getting into line, I received a tap on the shoulder and was informed that I had not met the requirements for graduation and would walk the ceremony and receive a blank. This was inconceivable to me. Decades later, as I write this, I am on the verge of tears. I have a radiant, joyful smile. I am known for it. My boyfriend saw at once that something was wrong. He crept over to my seat and found out what was happening. He sat at the end of my row. My parents in the audience could not understand why they could not see my smile.

When they reached me at the end of the ceremony and asked what the problem was, I became hysterical. My mother slapped me across the face, told me not to cry in front of people and placed her huge sunglasses over my eyes. My day was totally destroyed. Actually, I had been in therapy(the school gave you 10 free sessions a semester and I had hoarded mine) because I was so consumed with graduating. I discovered once we arrived home that the Dean allegedly had been trying to reach me. This was completely untrue. I also discovered that my two professors had not turned my grades in before they left the country. I cannot make this up. They had returned to Norway and were only accessible by dogsled. I had to recreate both final papers and have them graded by someone else. Memory shields me but I believe the only thing that could be done was to give me a pass and not a grade. I received my diploma in the mail later that summer. My parents being my parents, did not wish to make a fuss and would not consider suing the school. I have survived and overcome except that I am manically obsessed with A’s. Watching the graduation on Saturday brought it all back to me. I wept for my niece and I wept for me. It’s hard to believe that it has stayed with me for so long. It took me forever to be able to stand on campus without shaking or having stress reactions. I can attend reunions now without a lot of pain. I am proud of myself for my resiliency.

Afternoon

Graduation also carries with it the weight of great expectations as well as new possibilities. This can be weighty. At school, the job is simply to get the grades and coincidentally the knowledge. Then life happens and there’s supposed to be a job, no, a career. This is an unknown unless there is a particular affinity for a field such as medicine or law. My degree was in social and behavioral sciences with a concentration in urban anthropology of the Third World. My particular area of concentration was the synchretization of African religious beliefs in the New World. You might say it was my own fault. Surprisingly, in recent years these topics have come to the fore. I always was trendy and before my time. I did learn things I could use. I learned about how people communicated and acted in groups. I learned how to assimilate a vast amount of material in a short amount of time. This has consistently helped me throughout my working life. I also became part of an old boys network. It is old boys because at the time I was there, it was mostly boys. So, that was another unexpected benefit. I do very well in a male environment. I am more comfortable working in a room with all men than I am with women. It has taken me a long time to realize these strengths. I do wonder if my life would have been different had I been able to have that moment of radiant joy.

These thoughts have been on my mind since this weekend and I had begun writing. However, Tuesday changed them in a whole other way. To say I am grief stricken is an understatement. I do not know the words for how I feel. I only know that 19 little children are dead. 19 children have been shot to death at their school. They will never have graduation. The survivors will always have an incomprehensible loss. Their lives will be filled with ghosts. All their possibilities changed in a matter of moments. They will bear the weight forever.

My niece, the graduate, is a teacher. Her life has also inexplicably changed. These murders coming so closely on the heels of her graduation must surely impact her future. We can only imagine and then prefer not to imagine. Her moment of radiant joy will resonate for a long, long time.

The Lady of Shalott, Me and Pandemics

Posted on by tresswann

I am truly my grandmother’s child.  Grandma shared with me. As was common for women of her generation, she had many things memorized – the Bible, poetry.   I adore the Victorian poets.  This must in large part be attributable to her. Grandma introduced me to Tennyson.  So, while others in high school found Idylls of the King tough going, I did not.  One of her favorites and one that appealed to the dramatic, romantic teenager was “The Lady of Shalott”.  For those of you unfamiliar, the story is that the Lady is cursed, confined to her room and sees the world on the river  pass by.  She cannot venture out but sees the world reflected in a mirror.  It works for her until one day she sees Sir Lancelot drifting by on his way to Camelot.  The mirror and distance will no longer suffice.  She breaks out, gets in a boat, unleashes the curse, floats down to Camelot and dies.  Ah, melodrama, the romance.  What stayed with me through the years was the Lady of Shalott not being part of the world but viewing it through a mirror, removed.

I have often thought of the Lady of Shalott in recent years as my world narrowed.   I used to sit in my home “office” and look out the window into the backyard garden and woods.  Indeed, I was unable to venture into the yard without assistance as there were uneven, unrailed steps.  I watched the world go by.  I missed the smell of the air and the earth.  I missed the feel of the sun on my body.  I watched.  I wanted to break free but knew I had to be safe.  It’s hard to express how confining it felt. I could still see but wasn’t an actual part of the outside world.    Almost no one understands when I reference the Lady of Shalott.

Another Grandma legacy – “for now we see through a glass, darkly…” It was one of her favorites and always appealed to me.  The adult me can connect it to the Lady of Shalott.  Hmmn.  As I age and become more infirm, mortality looms.  The phrase takes on a different aura.  It resonates.  It’s one of the verses that repeat as I stare out the window/mirror. What is seen? What is known?

It came to me recently reflecting on the pandemic and its conditions, that I have become what people used to term ” a shut-in”.  I do not leave the house.  We moved into a new home March 10 which is the last time I had human touch contact with someone who wasn’t my husband.  One of the movers literally carried me into the house as I really don’t walk well.  The cable guy came by on March 13. We were distant as I couldn’t move. I can quantify my contacts.  I closed on March 5 so there was the Uber drivers, the receptionist, the realtor, the attorney.  Before that, the realtor came to tea in December. I truly do not have much physical contact. It’s more extreme here than it was before I moved but not by much. I used to drive and from time to time struggled into the library or the grocery. How I hate reading and writing those words.

I was extremely introverted as a child to the point that people thought my parents only had a son. I am used to being quiet and unseen. I overcame. I took a Myers-Briggs test once and I am now an extrovert. The examiner knew I had been extremely shy because of my results. She said I overcompensate. I enjoy people. I enjoy their stories. I watch and listen. My parents used to call me Madame DeFarge.

Another factor in my Lady of Shalott equation: I have been a pioneer. I was one of the first women at an all male college. I became used to being an “only” and somewhat isolated. Because of this careerwise, I have been successfully one of the few women in… I worked for years as one of the only women in management at a company. I learned how to balance my world so that outside of work, I could have females in my life. I became a woman in an IT department. Not only that but I would venture to say I am probably one of the least IT people you could meet. You are reading me. I am so not linear. I bounce. So, again, I know how to compensate. I used to take creative classes – at craft stores, the library. I played with flowers, painting, mixed media. It all balanced the IT numbness. I know how to do this. I may be a Lady of Shalott but I have a big mirror. Even before I became confined, my friends were spread over a wide area. Th Internet age has collapsed and opened the world.

So, back to Grandma and the pandemic. Grandma’s story is a romantic one. She fell in love with a man old enough to be her father. Indeed, his daughter was older than Grandma. The family objected and put her and her sister, Beryl on a ship to the States (Grandma was Jamaican)

Beryl and Leonie

My grandfather was a ship’s pilot and he snatched her off the ship. They eloped and married. Beryl went on to the States, alone.

So, what does this have to do with the pandemic? Beryl died in the Spanish flu pandemic. My grandmother felt guilty for Beryl’s death for the rest of her life. I was raised on the conjoint story. Beryl’s death was blamed on her not understanding the change in the weather. She must have not dressed correctly. Remember, this was over 100 years ago. Our family rule was once you put on your winter coat, it was on. If it was 72F in December, you kept the coat on. An unseasonably cold day in May? No coat. Beryl’s story became our story. We knew what a pandemic could wreak on a family. Beryl lives forever frozen in time and disease.

The Covid 19 pandemic brings Beryl back and is very real. On the other hand, having been the Lady of Shalott for so long, I am used to interacting with the world through my mirror. But a mirror doesn’t prevent you from engaging in life.

Two Little Girls in Green Dresses and…

Posted on by tresswann

This is about two little girls in green dresses, families, a school dance and how it changed lives, and its reverberations.

Amazingly, at least to me, this story starts 50 years ago.

I grew up in Levittown in the era of large families.  It was a time of stricter Catholicism and an innocent optimism. Birth control was restricted and popping a pill was not yet a common thing. There were these huge, iconic families with children in every grade. People said that Levittown looked alike.  It wasn’t the houses.  It was the children, families of  little rubber stamps.  About 10 years ago, I went to a party of Levittown people.  One of the men asked, “Do you know who I am?”  An interesting question that I have heard throughout the years. There were at least 3 – 4 of them, one older than me, one my age, one my brother’s “You are one of the P brothers.”  We all laughed and he told me which one he was.  He was my age.

Another family was the Gs.  I don’t know how many there were but there was my age and brackets. B had a crush on  me when he was in kindergarten and I must have been in third grade.  Upon seeing me at a reunion decades later, he asked, “Don’t you feel anything between us?” “Yes, I do.  Your wife.”  His brother T was/is my age.  The family was large, popular and unbridled.  I remember Mrs. G writing a letter to the local paper about her children being able to look into what passed for a strip club at the time, at 9:30 at night!  My thought was why were they out then when that was my bedtime.  T was popular and arrogant with that teenage boy swagger.

He was part of a crowd of those boys.  Every school has them, in every year.  They band together in their adorable cuteness.  Girls love them, for the most part unrequitedly.  Teachers pander to them in order for their classes to be unencumbered with chaos and testosterone. They rule the halls, the classrooms and the schoolyards for that brief, shining moment in their lives.  It’s been my experience, for the most part, that those charmed boys and girls, once school is behind us, morph into fatness, polyester and, for the guys, baldness. I had liked T in 2nd and 3rd grade but outgrew it.  By the time junior high school rolled around, I steered clear of him and those boys. They weren’t part of my world and I didn’t want them to be.

I met Sue(no initials here, we share the same name) in the fall of 9th grade. She had transferred from Catholic school.  We were introduced because we had the same name. 9th grade is a cusp between the child and the young adult.  We shared a name so we must have similarities. Well, we did both have brown hair, wore glasses and were “nice” girls.

There was a holiday dance that year.  These were simple affairs. It was in the cafeteria.  There may have been crepe paper.  The lighting was dimmed.  There were records with pop tunes.  I had attended the end of school dance the previous spring, worn white lipstick for the first time and had had fun with my friends.  We were nerds although the term was not in use then.  I believe we were known as  weirdos.  We were the advanced class and in many cases had known each other all our lives.  When you grow up as closely as that, you have a defined role and place.  However, there was still the remote possibility that things might change. A dance held magic, unnamed possibilities for a girl like me.  Glamour was an undercurrent. It was still the era where girls could not wear pants, let alone jeans to school.  Mini skirts had arrived but were not yet micro. 

The afternoon of the dance, E asked me if I wanted to go?  Sure. I didn’t take it as a date.  My first real date happened on the last day of 11th grade. I had known E since we were both  7.  He was funny and nice.  He liked comic books.  He was thin but was gaining a bit of weight  He was blond.  I don’t particularly care for blond guys.  Apparently, E saw it as a date, as I found out later.  We were driven separately.  In those days, once you arrived at the dance, you stayed.  Your coats were taken and left in the gym.  It was only E and I from our regular set that night.  As soon as the coats were locked and we entered the cafeteria, E had a severe asthma attack and had to go home. This apparently was brought on by the pressure of the “date”.  Instead of telling a teacher, we had come together which would have allowed me to call my parents and leave; I was adolescent, awkward. embarrassed and found myself to a folding metal chair at the edge of the dance floor.

I had been excited about going to this dance. It was an occasion.  Since, it was late notice, my mother let me wear her green sheath. Since it was hers,  I felt it was the height of sophistication.  She gave me a long chain necklace with green stones.  I had graduated from white lipstick to pearlized pink.  I have always had my own specific sense of style. In my mind’s eye, I was adult and glamorous. Teenagers at that time in Levittown went to Mays Department Stores for their clothes.  Everyone wore the same thing.  This was not me.  It accentuated my differences. The houses may not have been the same but at times, it appeared the people were uniform.  So, there I was in my version of sophistication, sitting on the edge of the dance floor, counting the hours and minutes until I could escape.  Counting the minutes is something that I later learned from Sue to do correctly.  A group of about three of those boys approached.  The only one I remember after all these years was the ringleader, T.  Those boys mocked me, asked me to dance, grabbed at me, made apelike motions.  It was awful.  I sat there, mortified. The chaperones didn’t materialize.  A was a stocky boy.  Boys are not fat.  A was middle of the road.  He was smart. A was also brave.  He stepped up to those boys.  “Leave her alone.  Just leave her alone.” They were stunned. And then, Sue swept in.  “You are in a green dress, so am I.  C’mon and dance with us.”  Sue was in a moss green chiffon dress that had been cut down, if I remember, from a wedding. An age of glamor, mystery and possibility. Two little girls in green dresses;  she led me by the hand to a circle of girls dancing .  The evening eventually ended.  I went home, cried hysterically and threw up.  My parents declared I was never to go to another dance again.  I never did until I reached college.

the green dress

It was the start of a decades long friendship for Sue and I.  She has taught me so much about how to live my life.  I carry those lessons with me. Counting the time lets me cope with infusions and MRIs.  Okay, I also sleep through MRIs. She taught me about connecting to life and to others.  Reaching out and being brave can change a life.

We ran into A at a reunion some years back and thanked him for that evening.  He remembered! He also remembered that he was slightly scared because he, too had to go against those boys.  It was the right thing to do. He is still a lovely man.

T is in my life.  We saw each other at our 10th reunion.  We spoke.  I met his wife.  He was adult as was I. Years later and I don’t remember how, he asked me to read a play he was writing and subsequently had produced.  He knew that I read tons and attended lots of theater.  We became distant friends on Facebook.

All three of us have faced  significant health issues and situations.  It has been a true and deep comfort to share with people who knew you when and before. We weren’t always broken.  When we talk, I picture us as we used to be. We are young and healthy.

T is now my health insurance broker yet we speak of many things.  “Of shoes — and ships — and sealing–wax —. Of cabbages — and kings —. And why the sea is boiling hot —. And whether pigs have wings.”  We have a common past.  It’s not only a shared geographic past but of a certain time and place, a shared youth.  We have never spoken of that dance.  I don’t even believe he remembers it.  We talk of people.  And if you are reading this T, this is what I want to say, not what I should say. We have had conversations around that topic. I love that my life moved on and can still include that boy.

I recently came across that green dress.  Yes, I still have it although I had forgotten.  It looks so tiny.  It’s hard to imagine my mother wearing it; let alone me.  I kept it for all it represented to me – sophistication, pain, strength, deep and abiding friendship.  Two little girls in green dresses at a dance  and a lifetime.