Reflections

It was inevitable. The time when long-time friends begin to die.  And it doesn't come as a shock the way the earlier ones did.  It is sad, not cruel.  The news makes me think I am entering a gathering place for the final march.  People are taking their places one by one.

What will guide me as I take my place among them?  Things are easier to see now.  Clearer.  Death beats divorce.  It beats injustice among siblings, pain over missed opportunities, guilt over friends ignored or left behind.

In sports, they say : "Father Time remains undefeated."  Death tells us there is no victory, only what we bring to the game.

The Family

Elsa went to Miami to interview her family for the book she is writing about her life in Cuba and the U.S.  She timed the visit so she could see her father who was visiting from Cuba.  Elsa's family is divided between the two countries.

The book is going to be about her stormy roots and how she emerged into the successful artist, wife and mother she is today.  I knew a little about some of those early days.  Elsa's family story includes mental illness, abuse, infidelity, divorce, and jail.  All this happening --- as I bet you suspected --  in severe poverty.

"Elsa," I asked, "were they reluctant to reveal themselves to you?"  (I was thinking of my family who manage to keep some pretty dark stuff to themselves.)  "No," she said.  "They were just happy that someone was interested."

As we talked more,  I began to realize that Elsa's parents lived their lives as a series of unchallenged events they never attempted to explain.  Elsa helped me understand that shame and pride (which keep my secrets safe) come when there is education and status. Something "valuable" to protect.   The Moras were too poor to know of any of this.

Elsa said goodbye with: "You know Joan, the one thing they all told me that I took to heart is that they are happy."

The Importance of the Artist's Eye

My daughter-in-law, the artist Elsa Mora, is having a one-woman show in New York City in May. (Bravo!)  She asked me to look over the press release which introduces Elsa and this current work.  The show is titled TIMELINE and expresses her insights from living both in Cuba and in the U.S. during turbulent times.

I was struck by her perceptive awareness that the challenges she faced growing up in a dysfunctional family replicate the challenges of the dysfunctional relationship between Cuba and the U.S. during all of her life.

I've long thought that it is the artists among us who can capture history in the deepest and thus the most enduring way.

Great White Hope

For the past few years I've been telling my friends (in a "say it isn't so" tone) that the next President should be a white man.  My reasoning is that we are living through an eight year nervous breakdown over having a black President and we cannot afford another breakdown over having a woman. It will spark another round of ugliness.  Ugh.

You know me.  Of course the white man has to be a Democrat.   At first,  I thought I might have to settle for old Joe Biden.  All the while dreaming the impossible dream of Gavin Newsom.

But no! Bernie Sanders is the one.  Wow.

Nothing is simple.  Do we now have another cause for nervous breakdowns?  Let's see:  black vs. woman vs. Jew.  My head spins.

As my friend Bonnie says:  "Oy."

Celestial Surroundings

The urge to tout one's religious beliefs must be primal.  Or at least instinctual enough to overcome social norms of behavior in public.  I'm thinking of my "elevator preacher" who manages to deliver a sermon as we ride from the 26th floor down to the lobby.

Then there is my beautiful garage man Clement.  He has traces of an English accent via Africa.  On Sunday mornings I tease him about setting me "straight for the week."  I'm listening to his church music while waiting for my car.  (Yes, it's Sunday morning and I'm only going to the store.)

When I was living on the South Side and taking the El from 95th, it was a chorus of "praise Jesus" all the way into the Loop.

I don't get all of this worshipping.  And it makes me sad when I think of how religion keeps us at war.  But, I do know that we all look for ways to "get us through the night."  So, I am happy to smile and let the blessings fall where they may.

A Good Place to Start

This is about the endurance of the written word.  As I was walking by the give-away book table at my senior center today, I stopped and smiled.  I had spotted Starting in the Middle by Judith Wax.  Judy and I were friends and neighbors when our children were teens.  Even as Betty Friedan loomed large, we did not yet have "careers."

I watched as Judy began her career in writing.   She wrote movingly about her experiences as a mother whose son had gone off to India to join a cult.  It was published in the New York Times.  Later, she comforted me as I worried about my daughter who was -- alone -- on a protracted trip around the world.

Her poem, The Lovesong of G. Gordon Liddy, made it into Time magazine during the Watergate frenzy.  The book followed.

I have no idea how many copies of Starting in the Middle ever sold.  It's life was cut short, as were the lives of Judy and her husband Shel.   Their plane crashed at O'Hare.  They were on their way to the Los Angeles Book Fair for interviews, readings and publicity.

I just took my copy off the shelf and I'm going to look at it again.  I hope some senior will pick it up too.  I remember it being a very good read.

Going the Distance

A good sub-title for the film 45 Years may be The Loneliness of the Long Distance Marriage.  (I'm borrowing from the star Tom Courtenay's previous -- and most famous -- role.)  This is a meditation on who we are as a couple and who we are as ourselves.  It explores the choices we make which can lead to happiness (maybe contentment or satisfaction are better words here) or unhappiness --  or if these are choices at all.

At first I thought the story was going to be about lost youth, lost love,  and the power of the past to invade the present.  And yes, these familiar themes are evident.  But the film gives us much more when it goes on to explore how and if we can ever know one another,  and how resilient we can be when coming to the inevitable realization that we face life with what is inside us and that has to be enough.