photo by Stephanie Blackman

Bliss
Leap out my children
Put your dreams in your hands
and open them out into the world.
Pour forth
Take that idea you have and put it into your shoes
Let it inform your steps and squish up and out your toes
Feel the strength of your beliefs in every fiber of muscle
As you flex your convictions you will get stronger
Close your eyes and jump
Don't fear for your safety
The vision you possess is clear
if you allow it.
Those of us who have always loved you will be the current
of air for you as you soar
Let your courage stretch out as your hair flies free in all directions
Singularity will come
Be free now
Leap out my children
Jump

That's the thing about being Specific

My favorite movie of all time is Out of Africa. One of my favorite lines (and I have many, including "Sh, shoo, shooooooot her!")is "When the Gods want to punish us, they answer our prayers." I should have paid attention, as that same kind of prediction has come along to bite me on several occasions.

First one. My friend Caren and I were out at a Motown Dance club - the Crush Bar in our early 20's. We sat at a table with our glasses of wine, or maybe a Tequila Sunrise talking about our singledom and how we planned to overcome it. We fantasized about our weddings, our careers, our futures in general. I remember sighing and saying, "I just want to meet somebody funny and nice." We finished our drinks, got asked to dance, danced, sat down, danced more. I was dancing by myself when a guy appeared before me and started dancing with me. He was nice and he seemed interested in me. We talked as much as you can in a loud bar environment. He asked for my phone number. I'll be darned if he wasn't a comedian. Caren asked him when he'd be performing next and said we'd go see him. The very next day, he called me. I called Caren right away and we giggled and reviewed our evening. She asked me if I planned to go the Comedy Store to see him perform, and I said, "I don't know. Maybe." She said she'd go with me and we should definitely go.

Well, we did, and long story short, Steve and I started dating. He was very nice, very funny, and very attentive. I was used to being the pursuer, not the pursued, so it all seemed very nice. Everything was good, except maybe one thing. I maybe should have thought to specify a few more characteristics besides funny and nice. While those are splendid qualities, I realized it might be nice to have a few others to go along with them. I don't know, smart, energetic, ambitious, grown up? Because as nice and funny as Steve was, it was pretty much all he was.
We eventually broke up. I'll always think of him with fondness, but long term potential we didn't have.

Come to years and years later, I'm now in my 50's, and embarking on a new passion of writing, thinking of turning it into a career. I love doing it, and have had some positive feedback from friends and family and even a few people I don't even know. I've had a couple pieces printed in our local paper, "The Palisadian Post" and just recently, achieved my goal of having a piece published on the Huffington Post. I am thrilled about both of those.

So, you might ask, how could you have been more specific? Well, that takes me back to graduate school. Usually when one is in graduate school, it's to hydroplane you into a well paying career. I got it half right in that regard. I got my MBA from UCLA! Whoot Whoot. But here's where I went wrong. I specialized in Non Profit Arts within the general MBA program. And it seems that's what I'm now earning from my art. NON PROFIT. Maybe that time I shouldn't have been so specific.

86. Foiled Again

86. Foiled Again


How lucky are we, my kids and I, that we have my parents in our lives? From the time both my kids were born, they’ve been there. Actually, I had to kick them out of the delivery room when I started to push Alice out 18 years ago. They’d stuck with me through labor, all 12 hours of it. But when I started the active pushing phase, and I could see their feet under the curtain blocking the door, I said, between agonizing breaths, “go home now.” Then I saw all four feet scurrying away. Now it seems funny. It’s an image locked in my memory jail.

They’ve celebrated every milestone with us: birthdays, divorces (well, luckily only one), marriages, anniversaries, Hanukkahs, school plays, graduations, Bat Mitzvahs. You get the idea. They drive up, or we go to their house. Their house has always been pleasure central for my kids. It’s just five minutes from Disneyland, features a pool (albeit, more like a 300 square foot bathtub) and steady supply of frozen waffles and miniature Dove bars. For some reason, my Mother’s standards have slackened for this generation. If they go outside and it’s cold, she doesn’t make them wear a sweater. If it’s raining outside, she doesn’t make them wear hideous rubber boots. Catch my drift there? And so far, she hasn’t slathered heavy white zinc oxide on their noses and cheeks.

I think the only time they’ve expressed any, any, any sort of imposition of a parenting opinion was when I was deciding to let my 15 year old pierce her nose. I remember my Mom saying, a little sharply, “do you have to let her do that?” But then, my older, multiply pierced, psychologist sister intervened, and she backed off.

I can’t count the number of times they’ve helped me out in jams, pickles and indulgences, like the time one summer when my husband and I were fighting over a trip to Aspen. He wanted me to go with him, and I wanted the kids to come. I eventually came around to his way of thinking, but by then he was so upset, he rescinded his invitation. I reacted by booking a trip for my oldest daughter and me to Hawaii. Mom gamely offered to keep my rambunctious, non-sleeping two and a half year old toddler for five days. Alice and I had a wonderful time. Of course I missed Milly, but I knew she would be well cared for and doted on. A few years later, my sister (yes, the older, multiply pierced, psychologist one,) chided me for leaving my rambunctious, non-sleeping two and half year old toddler with my 75 year old Mother, as she claimed Mom got absolutely no sleep the whole week. (I felt kind of bad about that.)

My Dad, who has come to both rely on, and tread lightly around issues of technology, likes to talk tech with all his sons in law. When they’d come up to my house to baby-sit, we’d try and guide him through the heavy machinery of how to get onto the Internet, how to manage the TV and VCR. At the house I shared with my first husband, he couldn’t even turn the lights on or off because we had a fancy dancy remote control X10 system on the lights. Sure it was convenient for Jeff to be able to turn all the lights on or off from one master control panel, but none of the rest of us could really seem to manage the individual switches. We’d sometimes come home to find Mom and Dad huddled around a desk lamp. One of the very first things I did when we divorced was to hire an electrician to change the switches back to plain old fashioned on and off. I still get a luddite thrill from the click of a wall switch turning the lights off.

So, last night, they came up to stay with, (not baby-sit,) (Milly the twelve year old hates when I say it that way) my one remaining offspring. Her older sister, who had filled that “staying with” role, has wandered off to college by now. Before we left, we explained how to turn on the TV, how to change the channels, how to find Jeopardy and the news on the TIVO like mechanism, and explained that Milly knew how they all operated and to just ask her if they got confused. Dan and I went to a play near by and had a lovely, lovely, much needed night out together.

When we got home, there was no sign of television in the living room. I found them sitting around the dining room table reading. I knew instantly what had happened. It’s not that reading is a foreign art to them. My whole life and childhood was about reading. I just knew that he’d been foiled by the TV controls. And he didn’t want to disturb Milly from her preteen Skyping or supposed homework doing. So, they found some old New Yorkers and sat and read for the ninety minutes we were gone. How frustrating it must be for my poor 86 year old Dad to just want to watch Jeopardy in peace and have no way of figuring out how.

Well, when all is said and done, the evening wasn’t a total loss. We’d all had dinner together, we all got updated on the goings on in our lives, they’d had a chance to see their grandchild and a break from their not so busy, newly retired lifestyle. I’ll always be grateful for their continued presence in our lives, and maybe next time, when they come to baby-sit, I’ll hire a TV tech to help out.

Take a picture. It lasts longer. Or does it?

First I have to say, Happy Anniversary to Me and Dan. 3 years. We’re going out to dinner tonight. (Beats our last two celebrations; colonoscopy prep and spending the day in an airplane.) Being Saturday, we each have our own little things to do that bring us joy in the morning hours. He typically wakes early and takes the dogs for a hike up the mountain behind our house. High peak. I sleep in and sometimes stay in bed, reading, writing and resting. But today, I had a ticket to a women’s competitive dive event. So, I roused myself and made it over to UCLA to check it out.

Going on my own, I managed to snag a good seat. What a show. Such gorgeous bodies in complete command, flying off the platform, bending, twisting, rolling into the water. Watching was a mix of euphoria and stress. To see a successful dive is to breath a sigh of wonder. The stress comes as they waver at the top and edge of the platform. Either facing backwards, or upside down, they have to spring up and away from the concrete edge, and I worry they won’t clear it. But they always do.

To my title, I was trying to take a picture just as a souvenir of such a satisfying event. The first one I took captured a guy perfectly horizontal, even with the platform. The perfect picture, from my cell phone, which almost never takes perfect pictures when you want it to. But, I couldn’t save it because I didn’t have enough memory. (oh Iphone, I’m comin to get ya). And I knew that I’d never be serendipidously lucky enough to get another pic just as good.

I spent the first few rounds trying. Sometimes the divers weren’t even in the frame by the time the shutter clicked. Other times I just got feet, or arms, or blur. I realized, I was trying so hard to capture the perfect image, that i was about to miss the whole show. So I put my phone in my bag and watched.

Take a picture. It lasts longer. Not always.

Off to College

Off to College

My oldest daughter is about to head off for college. I get asked a lot, “are you just devastated?” or “oh, I’ll bet you’ll cry won’t you?” Up until a year ago, I’d have laughed both of those off with a rallying cry of “no way. I’m so excited for her. I’ll be happy for both of us.”

But sometime last year I ran into a friend at Starbucks, who I would have gauged to be as sensible a parent as myself. She was stirring her coffee, gazing into space. I said “Hi Robyn. What’s up?” She sighed, and said she’d just seen her son off to college after his winter break. I assumed my usual cheerfulness and inquired after where he was going, and how it was going. She slowly turned her gaze back to me, and said “it’s so hard to see him go.” We talked a bit and I learned that she had been as excited to have him have his college adventures as I am for my daughter, but the reality of his leaving home, and the reality of those emotions threw her for a loop. She was happy for him, but deeply touched by his absence. I thought a lot about that over the coming months.

As my own daughter’s senior year approached, i found myself in a delicate balance of joyful anticipation and respectful consideration. I knew that I couldn’t know how I’d feel when she actually had moved away, but I could pay close attention to this, her senior year and treasure it and be conscious of it. And that’s what I did.

This year has been great. We’ve done things together, just she and I, and she and her sister and I. I don’t beg her to stay home ever, as her achieving independence is exactly what she should be doing, but I make myself available to her whenever she wants to hang out. I am making a conscious effort to treasure this particular chapter of the book. After all, this is still part one; the part where she lives at home.

I am thrilled that she found a college that she’s excited about. I love that she’s ready to move on. Will I be sad? Of course. Will I cry. Most likely. Will I gaze into space while stirring my coffee at Starbucks after winter break is through? Who knows. But I do know that I am ready to read the next series of chapters in this book. And now, she’s writing it on her own. What fun.

My 1st 4th of July, PacPal

Believe it or not, what sold me on Pacific Palisades, 15 years ago, wasn’t driving at sunset, seeing the Pacific on a pristine view day. It was driving down Sunset on the days preceding the 4th of July and seeing all the chairs set out on the curbs. We were looking for a home, and I’d thought I wanted to live in Westwood. It seemed more central, if a bit vehicularly dense. But our realtor told us what a village-like feeling “the Palisades” had, and that was appealing. The simple act of residents leaving their beach chairs on the curb for the local parade suggested a small town feeling unequalled in what I knew of Los Angeles. Equally small townish was reading the Palisadian Post “2 cents column” later and finding out what a controversy those chairs were. But it was what zinged me at first sight.

Our first year as residents, we did it all. Starting at about 8 a.m. we strolled down to the park with our 3-year old daughter Alice to catch the exciting race finishes. I could hear the announcer from the time we left our house up in the Alphabets. Festive bunting was strung across the finish line while sweaty, proud men, women and children in their race T-shirts crossed it to cheers and photoflashes. Quite the excitement.

After a patriotic brunch at home, (featuring my ubiquitous flag design cheese cake), our family and friends meandered down the car-and-carefree streets towards Sunset to watch the parade. I pictured the musical “The Music Man” where one by one, two by two, neighbors join the procession walking down the street. We found our chairs just where I’d parked them the day before. I’m a pretty strategic advanced thinker, so by the time the parade started at 2, our chairs were nicely positioned in the shade, to the relief and admiration of my guests. The kids were on the curb. They seemed to get a little thrill from darting out onto the big empty boulevard to drool over the street vendors’ wares. I later learned not to buy trumpets and silly string. Rookie mistake. Being rookies, we’d missed the parachute crew, but we figured, there’s always next year. And the year after that, and another year after that.

I was delighted to see our honorary mayor Anthony Hopkins riding in his convertible. Just as impressive were the tykes on bikes. Seeing those kids motivated me to teach Alice to ride. Years later, when we were part of the biking group ourselves, I heard her say, “Mom you’re embarrassing me” for the very first time. She was 9. She didn’t like my being loud and waving. Of course, that was only the first of many such declarations of embarrassment to come. I’ll always associate it with our 4th of July parade. But, It’s all good.

We returned home, waving our four-inch American flags, to recharge the batteries. Then around six, we headed out to the bluffs for a backyard BBQ at our new friends’ house. Eating is good on the 4th of July. (Maybe I should think about running in the race one year?)

I then parted company with hubby and child to bicycle to the high school and meet some other friends on the field for the fireworks. Alice, at the time, was frightened by the sound of fireworks, so Jeff offered to stay home with her. I naively thought I could find my friends easily. By the time I got there, all I could see was a blanket of people from the goal post to the far 30-yard line. That’s a lot of people. By some miracle, and not a cell phone, I spotted my group. We were enjoying the anticipation of being right under the fireworks display. I love fireworks. Growing up, as I did, five minutes from Disneyland, I was accustomed to seeing nightly summer fireworks from my bedroom window. I consider fireworks to be my own little personal connection with the fantastic.

Just as the lights were starting to dim, who showed up but Jeff and Alice! She had decided to try the fireworks after all. But after one boom, she slammed her little trembling body into my arms and begged to go home. Jeff gamely rode her home, on his bike no less, singing her favorite songs loudly and distractingly. He told me later that she was laughing as they neared home. (Of course, I was down on the field worrying that she’d be traumatized for life).

At the end of the fireworks show, I stood there, amongst the disassembling crowd, savoring the Mayberry feeling. These were all my new neighbors. And we’d just spent the whole day together. This was going to be good.

Hanukah By The Book

as printed by the Palisadian Post in December 2010


Hanukah by the Book


We had a tradition when I was growing up that we would get a present each night of Hanukah. My Mother would ask us if we wanted a big, small or medium present. Nothing was extravagant, just enough giving to last 8 nights, like the oil that spawned the holiday.

So, one night, (I think I was seven), after we’d lit the candles, I asked for a medium sized gift. I remember unwrapping my flattish package and turning it over to see that it was a book. I quickly announced with childish agony, “THIS ISN’T A PRESENT. IT’S A BOOK!”. Oh, what had I done? After I was informed that my response was both ungracious and rude, I was sent to my room for the remainder of the evening. I think there might have been some yelling involved.

What thoughts must have gone through my parents’ minds that night! “Oy vey Naomi, we’re raising an illiterate,” my Father must have said to my Mother. “We take her to bookstores everywhere, we have over 7,000 volumes of every genre on our bookshelves. We read every night after dinner. We had her read “Eloise” and “Winnie the Pooh” to us. She CAN read. What does this mean?” I don’t think my mother could have consoled him. It was a tragedy in the making!

In my room, I ruminated. What had I done? Was it really so wrong? I didn’t like reading. I liked playing and swimming and Barbies and,,,,, TV. I didn’t even like that all my family ever wanted to do was sit around and read. It made me crazy that my older sister would sit in the chair right in front of the TV and read and not watch. I couldn’t talk to her about what Dr. Kildare had just done to his patient. She wasn’t paying attention.

As Mom always did, after sending me to my room, she eventually came in to talk to me. I wasn’t too open to conversation. She calmly explained that even if I hadn’t liked the present, I should have thanked them anyway. To reject it so instantly was the zenith of impoliteness. “Why don’t we read it together” she suggested, “and then you can decide if you like it or not.” I recall not agreeing, but obviously, I heard her.

Well, here we are some 40+ years later and I’ve come to terms with it all. I finally read “Mr. Poppers Penguins.” (I realize many of you will gasp to think I wouldn’t want to read that particular classic) when my oldest daughter was in a production of it at Pali Elementary. It was cute; the play and the book.

And, what do I find now in my youngest daughter? Lean in and I’m going to whisper this, she doesn’t like to read. You know what? That’s ok. It kills a little bit, but what can you do? You can’t force someone to like what they don’t like when they don’t like it.

Eventually, I learned to love reading. It started with a love of biographies. (Probably because I’m so nosy). That evolved into historical fiction, drama and the rest. I think the only kind of book I still don’t like is science fiction. And so it might be with my daughter. I still buy her books, for Hanukah. And I expect her to be polite, even if she has no plans to read them. I don’t have 7000 volumes in my house, but I have a lot. And one of them is the 47 year old copy of “Mr. Poppers Penguins”.

How the heck can you get into college?

As printed in the Palisadian Post in March 2011


College Today


If I was going to college today, I don’t know if I could get into college today. In the freshman profile of several top tier schools, over 90% admitted seem to come from the top 10% of their graduating classes. Where do the other 90% go I wonder?

When I was going to school, the goal was to get good grades (B or above) in college prep classes. The standards for the University of California system placed you in relatively good stead for just about any university in the country. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not so old that there were no additional criteria needed. We certainly did things that would “look good” on our college applications. I think I walked a 20K for the United Way. I also joined some clubs, ran for a few offices unopposed (thankfully I didn’t have to disclose that I never actually beat anyone else in the election), and played Yente in “Fiddler on the Roof”.

I never really thought about any of this until the first of my friends had her kids. Once they were of high school age, I started hearing about what it would take for this generation to get into college. She spouted a list of criteria. You can’t just play sports, you have to play varsity, can’t just be in the orchestra, you have to be first chair, can’t just be president of a club, you have to be president of the student body, can’t just have a 4.0, you have to have a 5.9 by way of advanced placement and honors classes. And it helps if you have a part time job, and volunteer to build houses while in a foreign language immersion program in either Central America or Africa.

Some years later, while standing in line to have blood drawn at my OB’s office, I heard two women discussing “the” school you just ‘had to” get into if you wanted to get into a decent high school or college. And they were talking about PRESCHOOL. Apparently their unborn 4 year olds were college prep before they were even in utero.

I don’t begrudge those high school kids who are either naturally Type A students, or severely ambitious achievers. It’s great to swim competitively, play tuba and get an altruistic thrill from reading to blind geriatrics. I just hope that those who are more moderately motivated can go to college too. There’s so much to be said for the slow, sure process of getting to know who you are, which has always been the hallmark of the high school experience. Frequently a class that isn’t an honors or AP class is still challenging. To honor that challenge, for that individual is worthy. Spending a Saturday afternoon reading a book that isn’t on the required reading list can be as bracing and eye opening as a more ambitious community service project. Practicing the art of photophraphing a friend and capturing that spontaneous instant is just as valid as having a piece in a juried show. And what teenager doesn’t grow from writing their own angst-ridden soliloquy even if they don’t perform it at the high school spring follies. If a teen grows in Brooklyn but the College Board doesn’t see it, did they still grow? Depth and introspection don’t always translate into “achievement”, but are valuable nonetheless.

Kids have their whole lives in front of them. Is it really necessary for them to know it all now? Isn’t that what college is about? For further discovery, advanced learning and preparation for a life of independence and accomplishment?

Meanwhile, I sit by the mailbox anxiously awaiting the old fashioned yea or nay letters. I know it’s futile. The responses will either be emailed directly to my applicant (and not her mother), or else the envelope will be too thick to read through. All the patience I thought I’d been perfecting these last 17 years is suddenly gone. Check back around April and we’ll see.

Crush

CRUSH

When I was 14, I fell in love. Oh, it was slow to build, but it was steadfast and true. I met him at camp. He was 20. He was an adonis. Tan, tall, and charismatic. Our senses of humor meshed like strawberries and whipped cream. Tart and frothy. He said he liked how open I was to the experiences of friendship and novelty. I couldn’t articulate my likes, I just knew. We teamed up in sports, on beach days, and the mock Olympics. At the Saturday dances, he stood back in amazement as I displayed what I’d learned from the dancers on the Lloyd Thaxton Show. I think I felt admired for the very first time. We agreed to marry when I was 20, and he was 26.

When camp was over, we wrote letters. In those days it involved pen, paper, storytelling and a stamp. I was the envy of my camp buddies to be his regular correspondent. Even my older sister, who did everything better than I, was a little jealous. He told me that all the guys at his Harvard dorm lined up at his door whenever he got one of my letters. They were all dying to know the further adventures of me. He assumed I had dozens of suitors to choose from, but downplayed his own romantic life. But he told me when he had a cold, when his mustached froze after skiing, his decision to become a teacher. We were confidants.

I lamented as I maneuvered into high school that while of course I didn’t really think I’d marry David, I was sure I’d never find anyone else as perfect and amazing as him. Who could top him? I had plenty of crushes in high school, but I sort of watched the romantic scene from a distance. While outgoing on most fronts, I was shy on that one.

College came, a little more success on the boy front. But a piece of my heart was still heavily invested in David. His letters filled me with an invaluable sense of worth. He took the time to listen, to comment, to admire, to pinpoint my strengths and to pay attention. To an uncertain kid, that meant everything.

The letters dwindled down in the latter years, as I was in college and he was settling into life on the east coast as a high school teacher. I felt certain the kids in his class would be in for some awesome years, as he would encourage them to find their strengths, and discover great new things about their inner lives.

Finally, I got a card which sort of drew my crush to a close. The card announced that on August 1, 1976 (just 21 days shy of my 20th birthday) David would marry his beloved Christine on a cliff in Laguna Beach. Feeling my crush crushed, I slowly released the hold he’d held over me these wonderful 6 years. I sent a card to wish them well, and set my standards accordingly.