Wrecked But Remembered

When Marguerite told me that the wrecking ball was attacking the three-flat where we had lived on Belmont, the news brought up a familiar feeling.  Another place where important parts of my life had been lived was meeting its fate. 

Is it grief when it's a building?  Yes.  Not being able to drive by and smile or groan at the memories is a loss.  My Northwestern years are not forgotten but my freshman housing in the fake "foreign student home", and my sorority house are long gone.

My friend Lail says she doesn't want to return to Cherry Street.  Not even to peek at whatever the developers did with her old home and spacious yard.  She did enjoy knocking on the door of her grandmother's home on Balmoral.  The young mother who answered was generous and friendly enough to let us see the rooms.  Still standing, still lived in and loved.

Measles Defines America

Victory is hard to maintain.  First the foe disappears and then the memory of the foe.  Victory invites lazy thinking.  It makes room for false notions of "individual rights" and "religious freedom."  The power of community action -- the power that achieved the victory -- is now squishy, soft, easy to cast aside.

And so we begin again.

Who Calls the Tune?

I was invited to a piano recital at Orchestra Hall next Friday but it has been cancelled.  The symphony is on strike and no one is crossing the picket line.  In fact, supporters of the CSO have been showing up every day on Michigan Avenue to express their love.

In the meantime, the musicians have gone into the neighborhoods.  They are performing all over the city to adoring audiences who have probably never been able to afford a ticket.

My friend Gerry, who is an expert on the history of the orchestra and tells some great stories about it, says this: "there were some huge struggles and some courageous leaders that brought this group together.  They are the toughest you'll find anywhere."

An orchestra is the perfect expression of the power of collaboration.  I hope the strike gets settled soon. . . and the solidarity of the musicians and the city pays off.

P.S.  Just heard this today: New York musicians are playing in support of the CSO strike. 

Why We Write

Just as I was welcoming my new book, Joan Chandler Today,  from the publisher, I came across these words from Susan Orlean in her book, The Library Book.  She is such a great writer.  I'll let her explain a little of how I feel.

But if something you learn or observe or imagine can be set down and saved, and if you can see your life reflected in previous lives, and can imagine it reflected in subsequent ones, you can begin to discover order and harmony.  You know you are part of a larger story . . .

Joan Chandler Today, is available at lulu.com

Climbing the Tree

Several years ago my nephew Jim, using genealogy, explored our family tree.  He found a long lost cousin.  Joel turned out to be an attorney in LA associated with some very famous murder trials.

Now, Marguerite is time traveling with the Ancestry people.  On my mother's side she has traced us back to a castle in Sweden.  But her latest discovery would surely delight Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and whoever else cares about this stuff.

If you go back three or four generations on my father's branch of the family tree, you end up in a small town in Russia.  If you do the same climb on Marguerite's father's side, you end up in the very same town!

When she told me, I said: "Maybe when I met Jay, my DNA recognized his DNA and it was enough to seal the deal."

My Year as a Foreigner

My application to Northwestern was a spur of the moment decision made later than the normal time.  When the acceptance letter came, I was told the dorm rooms were full, but if I would agree to live in the “Foreign Student Home,”  I could come to school in the fall.

“Foreign Student Home. Sounds like an adventure. Yes!”, I smiled.  So I unpacked my bags at the  mansion on Orrington Street eager to meet my new exotic friends. Here were the others who showed up that day:  several girls on music scholarships, most from Chicago, some of them black(!); the rest like me, the dormitory overflow.  Not a foreigner among us.

My roommate Joy was a tiny blond girl from the southwest suburbs.  She played the piano like a dream.  (She went on to a great career at the Acorn on Oak in Chicago.)  All the music girls were talented.  The practicing and the jam sessions went on way into the night.

On Friday and Saturday nights Joy played piano at a bar on the “wet” side of Howard Street.  That was the dividing line between Evanston (dry) and Chicago.  We soon found out the hard way (being kicked out of bars in Skokie), that the Howard Street place was the only one that would seat our little integrated group.

Looking back on that fabulous year, I guess our black and white bonding was a pretty foreign adventure after all.

   

Regarding Us

One of my all time favorite films is Regarding Henry.  It stars Harrison Ford and Annette Benning and was produced by Sydney Pollack.  It’s the story of a high-powered, high-priced lawyer, at a high-prestige firm in New York.  He is shot and suffers traumatic brain injury.  With the help of a dedicated, wise therapist,  he comes back to a functioning state.  However, he now experiences the world from a place of innocence and innate decency.  With his new personality, he slowly bonds with his wife. His young daughter understands him completely.  In one of the most poignant scenes, she says: “Here Dad, this is how you tie your shoes.  Now you try.”

Eventually, Henry’s old ways reveal themselves to him and he rejects them.  His powerful colleagues patronize him at first, and then despise him.  I think the billionaires feel the same way about us.  We’re just so nervy to exhibit bedrock values and want to shift the power just a little bit.

Is Regarding Henry telling us that it's going to take a rewiring of our brains to turn us in a different direction?