stories of my life in Tucson AZ and NYC

Saturday, December 09, 2006

"Jane"

"Desert View" by Layla Edwards

"Jane"
Friday June 24 2005

Jane Pollack's birthday was yesterday. You remember for a long time the birthday of your best friend when you are little girl. She was year behind me in school cause cut off date was April 30th and I was born at start of April, Jane was born 2 and half months later on June 23rd. I had an earlier best friend, Debbie Bernstein before I started school, when we still lived in Manhattan. But that is further away in my mind. I see the passionate little girls arrive with their moms at the pool and their passionate friends, and their new baby brother just born, and how the whole world revolves around Madeline, Madeline is one of the little girls, and I know that was me back in the days when Debbie was my best friend. It is the world before school, you spend much more time with your mother.


By the time of Jane I was in 3rd grade, Jane was in 2nd grade, and we were best friends. She lived in the apartment above mine. I was in 3F and she was in 4F. It would take a writer with far more talent than I have to do justice to Jane because there is nothing to say about her. She is the salt of the earth and she is bland. It may have to do with times. Maybe there is a time from ages 8 to 12 when your whole focus is on your skills, your games. Jane and I played with each other but what we played were games. We played Jacks with each other, we played cards with each other, we played board games with each other, and outside we played in groups. We played chinese handball, regular handball, punch ball, stickball, and jump rope, also Potsy and Girls and Boys. Also Jane and I did things together. We traveled by train to Rochester to visit my grandfather. We traveled by subway to lower east side to take modern dance classes. We traveled by bus to Jamaica to take ballet. We went to the movies together. We rode our bikes together along with two other girls. We took the subway to her dad's office on Fulton Street where he sold jewelry. We went to Woolworth’s together for sodas. And had lunch at the Woolworth’s in Jamaica. We were together a lot. And the friendship lasted till I was about 15 because I remember Jane looking out my window when my cousin Richie arrived for Thanksgiving when I was 14 and saying “your cousin Richie is good looking.” He had just bloomed into his good looks as I had bloomed into mine. And I was in high school then. And the June before high school when I was 14 and few months, Jane and I were together in my room when Jane espied my date arriving to take me to the prom. So we did continue to hang out together even when the time of games was over.


But she was central in my life during the time of games. Every Friday night when her dad returned home from the city he bought Jane a new board game, and we played with them. That is how I discovered “Go To The Head Of The Class” a game I loved. Also Jane taught me “Candyland,” a board game she had already had. The only board game I had was “Monopoly” but Jane also had wonderful game, “Chutes and Ladders.” O I also had “Clue” but Jane had all the games. “Chutes and Ladders” was a lot of fun and I think there was a game called “Sorry” too. We played board games until we both discovered Jacks. Then all we played was Jacks. But somehow there was always a lot of cards. Jane and I learned cards tricks together and played them. We played “Double Solitaire.” Jane taught me “Knucks.” I guess our big game was “Rummy” which we played endlessly. If Myrna and Carol were also there we played Poker. Jane and I were well matched, we competed.


In June they put up the sprinklers in the kiddie playground behind our building, the playground we all played in, and Jane and I got into our bathing suits and went under it. Also when Jane's parents took Jane and Amy, her little sister, to visit their friends or relatives on Long Island who had a sprinkler, I was invited to go under their sprinkler too. And when my parents took me and Danny, my kid brother, to Jones Beach, Jane was invited to go into the ocean too. I remember Jane being with me at Jones beach because after we had finished swimming and wanted to go back in the water Jane and I both went in in our underpants, that was fun. And amazingly one summer, while we were up in the Adirondacks, Jane's family came and spent a week on 4th Lake. It was a country club at Rocky Point, but I guess they rented a cabin. I remember being excited when we got in the car to drive Route 28, a winding road thru the mountains to 4th Lake, and I could see Jane. I had my own friends in the mountains. But returning back to NYC and seeing my NYC friends was always big thrill at first. I would get out of the car and rush to Jane's apartment. And Jane's mother, Ray, would water my mother's plants for us when we were gone.



On the other side of the building was Sheila and Jane and Sheila were also best friends, and Ray was best friends with Sheila's mother Frieda. I really have no idea how Jane and Sheila played together, they seemed so different to me. I would play with Sheila after school cause she and I were in the same class and our way of playing was so different than what I did with Jane. We didn't play games. Sheila introduced me to her books. She had the “Honeybunch” books and then the “Bobsey Twins” books and I borrowed all of them from her. Then we would watch “Hit Parade.” Sheila introduced me to “Hit Parade.” And Sheila had sheet music. These were the songs which were on Hit Parade. It had the words and I guess the notes. Sheila would sing “Dance With Me, Henry” and I would sing along with her. In Sheila's room we would play “school.’ Sheila never played outside with us. She didn't join us for chinese handball or punch ball or jump rope. Sheila did not have a bicycle, she did not learn how to roller skate. That was another big thing Jane and I did. We roller skated at the school playground, or around the buildings, and thru the drive ways. We got my mother to take us to the rink, where we ice skated and roller skated both. So it's a mystery to me what Jane did when she went over to Sheila's room to play. Altho when we were all in the playground and the mothers were sitting on the benches we heard Sheila screech out the window “Jane is eating raw hamburger meat.” I guess Sheila was telling her mother this. Jane always liked to eat and so did I. We spent a lot of time eating together.


Jane had TV before we did so we spent a lot of time also on the living room rug in front of her TV. That was how I discovered “Father Knows Best.” Jane discovered it and I watched it there. It was thrilling at first. I watched it with her every week.


I watched TV with Sheila at Sheila's house too but the programs she liked were grown-up shows. We would watch Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. At Jane's house we watched Superman.



In the dining car on the way to Rochester Jane and I ordered a jelly omelet. It was the first time I ever tasted that, I liked it. And when we got to Rochester we turned on my grandpa's TV and watched “Kukla, Fran and Ollie,” I had never seen that either. When someone is your companion in play you mainly remember them at play, not that much catches your notice about them. I noticed when my dad gave us arithmetic problems to solve in the car as game when he was driving us somewhere, Jane was very good at arithmetic, even better than me. And I was surprised when I learned “Knucks” from Jane because it is cruel game, Jane was never cruel. And I remember the smell of her father's garage, when we would go over there to unlock it so Jane could get her bike. My bike was in the bike room downstairs of our building.



All I can think is Jane must have been incredibly easy going if we never once conflicted, or rubbed against each other. Her habits were different from mine. When I got something new to wear I wore it right away but Jane liked to save it in its original plastic and keep it in her drawer and show it to me in her drawer. As soon as I saw her pretty new sweater sets in plastic in her drawer I wanted that too. I was the same as my dog now is about his bone. As soon as I give him one he rushes into yard to bury it, but then he wants one to eat also. I wanted to wear my new clothes and save them all pristine in my drawer too.



I got to see Sheila once when she blossomed into lovely young woman. I was coming home on bus when I was half way thru college, or perhaps it was only my 2nd year, and to my astonishment the glamorous girl with all the make-up on and looking very pretty was Sheila. She told me she was secretary in Manhattan and I was astounded at her salary. Sheila was very smart, smarter than me. We had been in the accelerated class together in junior high but I could not keep up and Sheila had no problem.



I guess I played more in Jane's house than she did in mine because she had the board games, she had the TV. We did play Jacks on the linoleum in my foyer, but we played a great great great deal of Jacks in her bathroom. Her apartment had wall-to-wall carpet everywhere except in kitchen and bathroom, so we squeezed into that tiny bathroom, just enuf room for two little girls to squeeze, next to the clothes hamper under sink, and played endless Jacks there. We learned how to do Backsies there and how to do Fancies, Cherry-in-the-basket and Jack-be-nimble. And of course endless card games on the rug. For “Double Solitaire” it's possible we needed two decks of cards.



She had a cousin Harriet who was a few years older than us, who lived in Building 5, and sometimes we would visit her cousin Harriet and her cousin Harriet would come over. And of course half the time Myrna and Carol joined us for play, there were 4 of us playing Jacks on my mom's foyer linoleum, or 4 of us playing Poker at Carol's dinette table. Myrna and I did conflict, there were fights, and then Myrna would put a note in the empty milk bottle outside my door saying “let's make up” and we would. That is why I don't understand, in all our furious competition, all our games, all our closeness, all our long afternoons together, how it is possible we never conflicted. Not about Jane, who could conflict with her? She was perfectly easy-going nice girl. But look at me. But maybe just as Jane and I were perfectly matched in every single game we played, I guess it's possible we were perfectly matched as friends too. She had that warm easy-going nature, in astrology she is probably Taurus, that lovely sweetness of a cow, akin to placid. Jane was unruffled and unruffleable. And she was rooted as a tree. She never objected to me. Because altho I never attempted to budge Jane, I am sure she would have been unbudgeable. So even tho all our games were outdoor games of action or indoor games of mental or physical concentration, it's like those lovely fields you pass in New York State, the contentment of the cows outside, and deep shelter shade trees over them. For 3 and a half years I spent all my free time with Jane, or most of it, playing with Jane, and it was an instant which stretched into eternity. Because Jane provided the sweet cowy contentment and the sheltering shade of tree. We lived in apartment building projects surrounded by more apartment building projects somewhere out in Queens. Both our dads worked in Manhattan. But for Jane, who was daughter of Mother Earth herself, extended all the sweet graciousness of our lovely Planet to us. All that is sweet and warm and nurturing came from Jane. It was blessed friendship.

Teaching Sophia email and remembering Alfredo Leonardi


Tucson painting by Felix Pasilis


Friday May 20 2005 Tucson AZ

I had a great time helping Sophia yesterday. We had fun. She picked me up exactly on time and the ride there was enjoyable and fast. Her sweet dog was there to greet us. I sat down in chair in computer room, and Sophia brought in from the car the plastic bag containing the items she had just bought herself at Value Village that morning.

First she tried on the jacket, it was champagne silk and fitted her perfectly. Either it was brand new or had just been dry cleaned, it was exquisite. It was 3 dollars but today is half price day. “$1.50!” she exclaimed with huge glee.

The blue cotton blouse was also lovely. It was the shade of blue of the sky and a very nice cotton. Like what you'd wear on a yacht. This had been two dollars but at half price was one dollar. Sophia was ecstatic about the blouse and the price.

The two white tops were lovely too. One was simple but elegant white cotton pullover sweater. The other was elegant white sweatshirt for walking Seema on winter mornings when it is cold. “50 cents each” Sophia announced with joy. “I will take you to Value Village” she said. “I don't have very much money to live on” Sophia said, “I like Value Village.”

We had talked about money in the car on way over. She said she appreciated me helping her because she doesn't have the $35 or $40 to pay someone to do what I do. When we sat down at the computer Sophia said she has a perfect life but she doesn't have enough money, all she wants is more money.

“Me too” I said, “I want more money. I am playing the lottery.”


Sophia got very excited. “It is 17 million now, I will buy 5 tickets.”

I said “I buy 4 tickets each week.”

She said “if either of us wins let's split it, half for you half for me.”

And I said “Great! Sophia, we double our chances.”


This time Sophia was in charge of the whole lesson which went so well, she knew exactly what she wanted. First we went to email and she said “I will write an email, I will write to Bal.”

This is the guy she is in love with. She remembered perfectly how to do it. She got out her pad and paper and wrote “I was happy to hear your voice this morning, it brought me big joy, I would love to see you now.” Something along these lines, more mushy. It was a love letter. “Love, Sophia.”

After Bal she did not know who to write to. First she said “I will write to Mark,” that is her son, then she changed her mind. Then she said “I know who I will write to” and she looked all over the kitchen for the address and could not find it.

We tried spell-check on her letter to Bal so she could learn spell-check. I was totally shocked at AOL spell-check. This letter only had 18 words in it. But they picked up every time she had left two spaces between a word and also there were a lot of punctuation errors. The only spelling they picked up was the spelling of his name and her name, which of course she spelled right.

So then Sophia decided I should teach her internet. She had used the word internet interchangeably before for everything, which had thrown me off. She used the word internet when she meant computer. “Teach me internet” she had originally said, when she meant teach me the computer. Then “teach me internet” she said when she meant email. But I think this time she actually meant internet.

I couldn't figure out on the AOL browser how to get into internet, so I just had her type google on top of the page we were in, and google showed up. So then I knew my way around. I said “ok Sophia let's pretend we wanted to find out about the Racquet Club.” The Racquet Club is the club Sophia and I both belong to and where we met.

“You type in 'Tucson Racquet Club' and we will see it.” Neither of us knew how to spell racquet. Sophia wrote it down on her pad, and I said “I think there is a 'c' in there, let's try it.”

In the course of doing this Sophia learned how to go forward to next page and back to previous page. We found Racquet Club and she read off all about our club.

Then I said “let's look up the guy I was friends with before I met Bill, he was Italian from Rome who was a film director, if we can find his email on google I can write an email to him asking if he will read your screenplay.”

Sophia was totally into this and so was I. So I wrote down his name on her pad for her to type in, Alfredo Leonardi, and we googled it. There seemed to be a lot of movies directed by Alfredo Leonardi and starring Marco Leonardi, who I figured was the little boy, his son, when his wife came at the end of his visit to NYC and they went back to Rome together. Finally one of the entries was for a film collective in SoHo in Manhattan which lists Alfred Leonardo movies to buy and the film collective had an email.

So I said “OK finally an email address, I will write to them and ask them to forward it to Alfredo Leonardo.” “Great” Sophia said. So she got up and I sat down in her computer chair. And I composed my email outloud as I was writing it. At the top I wrote “will you kindly forward this email to Alfredo Leonardi since we were old friends.”

Then I wrote, “Dear Alfredo, do you remember me” and I wrote my maiden name. And I said how I had stayed in the same apartment in the East Village in Manhattan where he had visited me for very long time till I moved to Tucson Arizona. That I met my husband a year after he returned to Rome. That I remembered the nice times we had, going to the beach together, and when I jumped out of the canoe.

I said how my friend Sophia wrote a screenplay and is he willing to read it. Would he send it to another director if it is not for him. And I gave my own email address cause I said I am on Sophia's computer. And would he write back and say hi to me because it would be fun for us to say hi again. And I sent my love to his wife and son.

Both Sophia and I were delighted with my email. I changed the font to make it prettier and then I did spell-check which picked up one mistake. I had said “I am no longer wild but I am not conventional.” And I had put two “i's” in wild. So spell-check corrected that. I showed Sophia how spell-check takes out the misspelled word and replaces it with the rightly spelled word, she was impressed.

We were both satisfied with my letter. “I hope the gallery sends it to him” Sophia said. “I hope so too” I said. And Sophia was lost in awe at what internet could do. She saw with her own two eyes here was someone I knew in the '60s and because of internet I was able to write an email to him. I even think we might have found his own real email if Sophia had had the patience to press all the different entries for him. But this was a start, even if the email doesn't get to him, Sophia got an idea of what internet can do, which was the point of the lesson.

And of course it was tremendous fun for me to be writing to my old friend Alfredo Leonardi. We had been best friends, I have total warmth for him, and I never would have emailed him except for Sophia wanting someone in the film industry to read her screenplay.

I am curious if Alfredo will write back. I have never kept track of the boys who walked in and out of my life before I met Bill. At the time of course I was involved with the boys I had crushes on, and the boys who were just my best friends I didn't think so much about. But now I don't remember so well the boys I had crushes on and I remember perfectly the ones who were just my best friends, because those are the ones I shared my life with.

Alfredo and I hit it off right from the start because we were so relaxed with each other. He wasn't at all what I expected when Anna from Rome, who I had met the week before in the laundromat and who invited me to a party at her apartment that evening, said she had given my phone number to her friend Alfredo, who was film director from Rome.

This was the time of Marcello Mastroianni, Michelangelo Antonioni, etc. I thought I was being fixed up on a blind date with Marcello Mastroianni. I guess he must have met me at school where I taught and then we walked over to a luncheonette nearby for our date. And he was not one bit like an Italian movie star. He was very diminutive to start off, and he strikes me now as looking English somehow with his rolled-up black umbrella as he waited for me. I guess he wore dapper clothes too.

But since he didn't look like a movie star and I was not attracted to him I relaxed instantly. And for some odd reason that I can't explain we totally hit it off in the luncheonette on Grand Street. It was an orthodox Jewish neighborhood, the neighborhood was like my Jewish neighborhood back in Queens except they were all orthodox. I guess it was a good setting for me to relax in.

And all I can say is from that moment till he left for Rome, or to be more exact when his wife and little boy arrived at the end of his NYC sojourn, Alfredo and I were inseparable.


What I did was take Alfredo with me to everything I did in my life, except go to work. He couldn't come to women's liberation meetings with me because those were all women, but I took him to everything else, and I guess we had our meals together in the restaurant on Avenue A too.

When I went to the beach on long Island on weekends with Helen and my girlfriends I took Alfredo. His bathing suit totally embarrassed me. He wore a teeny weenie white bikini men’s bathing suit. I didn't say a word but Alfredo looked around Jones Beach and said “I see I am the only one wearing a bathing suit like this.” “Yes!” I said pointedly.

When Marilyn called up me and Helen to invite us to the week-end conference for socialist Jews at a bungalow colony in the Catskills, I invited Alfredo. I have no idea what Marilyn's group was all about. We went to the meetings and there were big fights. But I had only wanted to spend a weekend in the country. That is when Helen and me and Alfredo paddled in the canoe and smoked pot and I got stoned, took off my clothes, and swam naked to shore.

I alluded to this in the email I wrote him from Sophia's computer yesterday, since he had told me next morning it had made a big impression on him. I thought what made a big impression on him was my adventurous act of jumping out of canoe and swimming to shore. But when he detailed the big impression, it wasn't about what I had done, it was about me naked. Because we were just best friends and not boyfriend and girlfriend, I had not let him finish telling me how much he had enjoyed that.

But when I was writing a “remember-me” email all those years later, I figured that would reawaken his memory if he forgot me.

The last time I saw Alfredo was at Lynn's party. His wife and little son were there, and his wife was blond and pretty and wore wrap-around skirt and was very interested in women's liberation. She was a very nice girl. Alfredo and I really were two ships which pass in the night. It was easy come, easy go. He waltzed into my life so easily, he waltzed out of it so easily. It never occurred to me to try to hold on to the friendship.

In fact I never gave him a thought after he left till I was writing a story about my days with Helen in women's liberation, and I remembered how Alfredo, me, and Helen had gone to that conference at the bungalow colony, and that brought back my time with Alfredo to my mind.

And I remembered him again when Sophia said she is looking for someone in the film industry. And I thought I know an Italian film director....

Saturday, December 02, 2006

I was helped by my friends


by Ronnie DeNota
Riomar Cafe on Little West 12th Street, NYC, 1998

“Gurus and Companions”

Saturday, January, 7, 2006

Today is Jeannie’s birthday. Helen’s birthday was last week, Cora’s birthday is next week. And my 3 friends named Sue have their birthdays at this time. Sue my friend at college, Sue who used to talk on phone about astrology with me back in NYC, and Sue at the swimming pool who got me back into writing. My Moon is in this astrological sign. These women have been paths for me. Cora opened up the greatest path for me, love and spirituality. And Helen took me further along that path. Jeannie taught me women’s liberation and art. My friend Sue in college taught me intelligence. You could say they were all my gurus, they were my teachers.

The teaching styles were very different. Cora arrived at my apt. every evening, sat at my kitchen table while I made her coffee, and asked for my advice and told me all her problems. No one had ever asked for my advice before. I was famous for being an idiot, a chicken without a head. People would say “I worry about you, Anne.”


Everyone saw me as a mess. But not Cora. We'd have coffee, she’d settle down happily and tell me the long stories of her problems. At that time she was still trying to hold a job, so most of it had to do with jobs. She was a waitress at Wall St. lunch counter when she accidentally dropped the piece of luscious chocolate cake the man had been eyeing on his lap. She was in the typing pool when the women kindly and gently and lovingly took her aside and explained she has to be fired because she arrived 3 hours late at work every day.


In Cora’s world everyone was an angel. She saw everyone thru a loving empathetic lens. She had such sympathy for her landlord, Mr. Kessler. Each month Cora would arrive with five dollars to pay down on the rent she owed from 4 months ago, until Mr. Kessler couldn’t take it anymore, and said “Cora let’s start from scratch.” Mr. Kessler was a saint to put up with this the whole time Cora lived there. She did not get evicted until the neighborhood changed and landlords were offered big money for their tenements. As Cora explained to me, “having another de-rent controlled apt. sweetened the deal.” Cora was evicted from her rent controlled apt. where her rent was only $70 per month. She was 6 months behind at that point.

Because Key Food closed at 9 PM, at few minutes to 9 she would put on her coat and all her scarves, and say “thank you dear sweet Anne” and look at me with face of such love, and try to get to Key Food in time to bang on the doors and get them to open for her. “Is there anything you want at Key Food she would ask?” So sometimes she would return with something I needed.

Compared to Cora the official story that Anne is such a mess I realized was not quite true. I was able to keep my job. I was able to pay my rent. I paid my electricity too. When we had the big black out, Cora was reading by a candle. She looked outside when she heard all the noise and saw the streetlights were out. “Why are they making such a fuss about the streetlights being out,” she thought, and went back to reading by her candle. She didn’t know electricity had gone off for the city.

But what I learned from Cora was everything. I learned from Cora that all people are angels and I am an angel too. Before that I thought all people were monsters and I was a monster too. I had no idea you could see people thru the eyes of peaceful love, and as a result see yourself that way too. Cora used to refer to herself that way. She would refer to her own sweetness. And I, who had always hated myself, was floored that Cora loved herself. And she saw me thru such loving appreciative eyes. I began to see myself that way too. You could say Cora liberated me. She did.

Cora was a good antidote for me for my friendship with Jeannie which had preceded it. What ruined that friendship was my intense envy. At first I just whole-heartedly admired Jeannie and I expressed all my admiration. I was happy admiring her and expressing it and she was happy to be admired. But then she wrote a book it got published she became famous, and I became very envious of her. Before she wrote her book she had been a painter. It was my first introduction to the world of art, and to the life of a working artist. It caused a great switch in values for me. I had never considered anything other than the professions before. In fact I was school teacher during our friendship. Jeannie was quite contemptuous of the professions. “Women are always shoved into the helping professions” she announced at a women’s liberation meeting.

In our personal friendship I saw how much art gave her. For Jeannie art gave her everything. “An artist’s childhood is their treasure chest” she told me, “it is what the artist draws from.” Because of Jeannie I wanted to become a writer, I wanted it with all my heart. And it had never occurred to me to want it before. It had not even occurred to me I could do it before. I thought you had to have talent. But Jeannie had said “the best painter in art school said ‘there is no such thing as talent.’” She said the other girls in art school made their own clothes, did crafts, and did other things. “They spread themselves too thin” Jeannie told me, “you have to just do your painting in order to be good at it.”

Helen was my friend when my big troubles arrived. She taught me that prayer works, and also she got me to consider Jesus which is why I opened up the New Testament and read “The Gospel of St John” when I was so frightened my beloved dog would not make it. The spiritual path I am on now came from Helen.

But I would never have been open-minded to spirituality at all were it not for Cora. Cora’s solution when things got very bad, which they always did, was to pray. That is how she balanced herself. She had a moment when the landlord had evicted her and all her stuff was on the street, when she lost her balance. But she prayed to Mary, and she regot her balance. Mostly Cora prayed to God, she said “the Father is stronger than the Son” but at times of extreme crisis, and her whole life was crisis, she would remember her mother’s words about Mary and ask Mary for help.


I, who never had any balance, watched Cora hold on to her balance no matter what was thrown at her. And finally asked “How do you pray Cora? Do you just ask God for what you want?” “No Anne” she said “you thank God for already giving it to you.” I didn’t begin to pray till my time of great troubles arrived and Helen said “prayer works.” But it is from praying that I first found out God is real. Everything else stemmed from that. I would be totally desperate and then I would remember about praying. And at first I would think “what good will praying do? I won’t believe God is real till He sits down next to me and smokes a cigarette with me.” But I was so desperate I would pray anyway. And always to my amazement I would find I was calmed down from it.

Irene was my companion during my great travails. She was born in October, she wasn’t one of my teachers like the other girls. We learned from each other. Our friendship consisted of communication. We would share experiences and see what we learned from it. We were partners learning spirituality together. We had the same problems at the same time and we learned from each other.

Gurus matter but so do learning partners. You learn from gurus from the examples they set. I learned from Cora from Jeannie from Helen by watching them. Irene is how I learned from my own experience. You have to have someone to share your experience with to make it real.

My last friend before I left NYC was Marjorie. We would walk our dogs together, or she and I and my dog would walk to Delancy Street for her to place her bet at OTB. Her husband Joe did not follow the horses but Marjorie said he had genius with numbers. She would place the bet for him, and they would always win. I did not know about the winning. Finally after doing it for months, walking with her to Delancy Street, I said “why do you bet Marjorie?” She said “people assume betting means you lose money but Joe wins.” It never occurred to me anyone ever wins, I thought betting was way to lose money. You could say Marjorie taught me about gambling.

I’m trying to think what I learned from Marjorie and it doesn’t seem like very much. Once I wore a black T shirt and she said “you look good in black Anne.” Mostly I loved Marjorie because I loved being with her. I just found everything she said interesting. We both took out lots of library books. She said “it is the women in the Agatha Christie mysteries who are so interesting.” She read books about everyone, rock stars, everyone. She said “I am like Joe Friday, ‘just give me the facts, Ma’am.’” She read a biography of Jim Morrison of “The Doors” and talked about it a lot, so I read it too.


Marjorie was a painter too. “What do you paint Marjorie?” “I just paint paintings of people committing suicide” she said. Marjorie had tried to commit suicide. She went to flea bitten hotel and took pills. But Joe, who was her boyfriend then, found her and took her to Bellevue and had her stomach pumped. He saved her. Marjorie used to say “I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life, I never expected to live past 30.” Marjorie and I were both working as part time secretaries for psychiatrists. Marjorie said “I see the patients when they walk in, they are so upset, and then I see them when they leave, they are so calmed down.” She had so much respect for the psychiatrist she worked for.

Marjorie cared passionately about the Mets and the Yankees. She would listen to the games on the radio as she painted. In some way Marjorie is the most like Bill, not only because they are passionate sports fans, but because from each of them I got to be in another world. Marjorie was born in July, she is not the same astrological sign as my gurus, and she was not a guru, she was a friend.

Our friendship fulfilled itself after I moved to Tucson. I would write to Marjorie but she never wrote back. Finally after a few years she wanted to argue with an astrological insight I had sent her. “I don’t know how to write a letter” she said “I never wrote one before, but I will try to do what you do,” and she wrote back. By then I was totally with my Higher Self so I would write her my experiences with my Higher Self. And after a few months of this, Marjorie connected to her Higher Self too. So we shared our experiences with our Higher Self. We wrote to each other every single day for 6 solid years, sharing our daily life and our experiences with our Higher Self. We each knew every single detail of each others daily life.

And then Helen taught me how to be on internet and I never wrote another letter again. I always hoped Marjorie would understand. I guess I thought she would, because what I learned from Marjorie was understanding.

"Momentous Decisions"

"Gypsy Dancer" by Layla Edwards


"Momentous Decisions"
written Saturday October 14 2006

Huge cloud cover. Like a giant bowl. At rim you can see a little turquoise blue peeking thru, as if the cloud cover bowl is slightly too small for all of sky. Cloud cover is grey. It is not like yesterday where the white cottony clouds against the blue sky massed so much the Sun didn’t shine thru. This is bona fide cloudy day. One huge massive grey water-filled cloud is covering the whole sky in all directions.

O first bird just arrived. Tucson birds are not early risers. They chirp at break of dawn but sure take their time leaving the nest. O he is pecking at the stale english muffins I threw into yard. Now his friend arrived also pecking at the english muffin. O now another one, two of them, are pecking at it. First one flew off with fat crumb, second one flew off with fat crumb. O the morning dove arrived and chased the sparrow off the english muffin.


The light is growing a little brighter. Even tho there is tremendous cloud cover, the rising Sun is still bringing more illumination.


The man of the house arose. This is early arising time for him. The basset hound put in her first appearance. She slept like a log on my feather quilt all night. She didn’t open her eyes when I got up.


O the Sun has peeped out somewhere from the huge grey cloud. I see it shining against Caren’s shed to the west. And the sunlight is now dappling the leaves in my yard. Hahaha I guess the cloud cover does not extend far enough to cover where the Sun is now, that it rose above the mountains. There are contrasts now in the sky. The deep dark grey of cloud cover-- and trees lit up, illuminated in light, against backdrop of the dark grey. Of course the Sun and the light will win. In Tucson the light always wins. Our Sun cannot be stopped. It doesn’t matter how thick, dark, grey, the cloud cover is, the Sun will shine it away. The mighty monarch has arisen.


Many people are sent here to the land of the Sun, after they have done battle with light and dark back in the Northeast. By that point they are under guidance of their Higher Self and are moved to Tucson. I thought I was the only one, but back in the days when Access TV Tucson had more spirit shows, and people came on to tell their story, I discovered I was not unique. A dark haired woman from Long Island told her story. The details did not match mine. She had been successful business woman and owner of a few companies on Long Island. Her siege of troubles were in a different department of life than mine. She too eventually turned to her Higher Self for guidance. And upshot was her Higher Self had her and her husband move to Tucson too. Hahaha we are the new immigrants to this sun drenched, highly lit-up, part of the world. We were drawn here by the light.


Altho not everyone follows the same path. Ronna Harris was in San Diego channeling Archangel Michael and he had her move from San Diego to Reno. When you line up with spirit a big move occurs. Your new spirit-directed life takes place in another location.


You start fresh. In that sense you know a few things. You know how you got here, it was suggested by spirit. And you know where you are, a place of more light. And that is enough to take you out of the world. Your new life in the new place is organized by spirit and moves fast. You live in the apartments for 11 months and spirit says “buy a house.” You look at 3 houses and spirit says “buy that one.” And month later you are living in your own house. One year after spirit first suggested you leave NYC and move to Tucson, you are living in big comfortable house in Tucson with huge yard. You have gone from a tiny tenement walk-up in inner city, to big house huge yard in Tucson Arizona in the Southwest USA.


And in the exact middle of that year you are guided by spirit to find the books which will change your life. Because, as much courage as it took to leave all that was familiar in NYC to move to totally unfamiliar unknown Tucson-- it requires far more courage, and is a far more radical move, to give up all your engrained beliefs, and accept brand new diametrically opposite ones. To change how you see reality. To accept that whatever you believed was real before, is unreal. And what you believed was not real, is real. This decision is more life changing than moving to Tucson.


Yes being asked to decide to move to Tucson is scary. I was only able to do it by not wrapping my mind around it. I could decide to do it and I could do the move, but I could not think about it. It took 8 months for the shock to wear off, for me to be able to say to myself “I left New York City, I moved to Tucson.” Before that I could not think about the magnitude of what I had done.


Deciding to believe an opposite belief system is not heart thumping scary like that. And you can’t do it with your eyes closed. It is not like moving to Tucson, which turned out to just be action and no thought was required. Here no action is required. Merely a decision in the mind. But it is a big decision and hard decision. Because, according to the belief system you are being asked to give up-- the new belief system you are asked to accept, is insanity. You are being asked to believe something, which up until this moment you considered insane. In fact you still do believe it is insane.


Yes you have now been logically convinced into it. Your old belief system no longer holds logical water, the new belief system presented to you does. But beliefs take place at a level far deeper than convincing logic offered to your mind in a book does.


In some ways it is like standing at a precipice and told to jump off. Like the decision to move to Tucson, the decision only took 5 minutes to make. In both cases I knew it was do or die decision. In both cases it meant my whole life. And in both cases I did it. And in both cases instantly I made the decision, I was on the other side. And knew it was exactly right decision. That whole new wonderful life and what I always wanted, now stretched out ahead of me.


I had made right decisions. There never was any looking back. There was just joy that I had traveled far enough to be presented with that decision. And was on the other shore where new adventure in life began.