Nina Wilner

OCEAN by Layla Edwards

Friday May 25 2007

I dreamt about Nina Wilner last night. In my dream I was so happy to see her. She looked beautiful. I was overjoyed to see her and be with her. There were other people there, and I introduced them all to Nina. I said she was my best friend. I couldn’t remember whether I was 7 or 8, I decided on 8, “she was my best friend when I was 8, she came to my 8 year old birthday party, we used to ice skate together,” I told everyone. “We had pompoms on our figure skates” I told someone. In the dream the photo of Nina in my scrapbook, at my 9 year old birthday party, Nina and my other 3 best friends all together, was clear in front of my eyes. Nina in the middle, so vivid. In fact I don’t remember who else was in the photo, for me it was always Nina. I guess the other girls were the girls in my building, who I played with all the time. Playing with Nina was special, she did not live where I lived.


Now that I am awake, and remembering my dream, but also remembering Nina and our friendship, everything is the same as it was in the dream. I still don’t quite remember whether I was 7 or 8 when we first became best friends, but I would still go for 8. I can still see that photo in my scrapbook in front of my eyes. Everything is the same, except for the pompoms on our ice skates. That is true, we both had those big red wool pompoms on our ice skates that we made ourselves. However I remembered that in my dream, I wouldn’t have remembered it now if it had not been in my dream.


I had bought the photo album at Saks 5th Avenue when I was in my mid-twenties. Never in my whole entire life would I have bought an expensive fancy leather photo album at Saks 5th Avenue, if I had not been stoned on pot. I have no idea now why I was walking along 5th Avenue stoned on pot. It was not something I typically did. Either I stayed in the house when I was stoned, and thought about astrology, and made diagrams to help me, or I walked along the streets of my own neighborhood, the East Village. I did not take the subway up to 57th Street and stroll along 5th Avenue.



However I was strolling along 5th Avenue stoned on pot, and I did walk into Saks Fifth Avenue stoned, a very expensive store I had never been in. And on one of the first counters where you enter, was this black leather very expensive photo album, and I liked it and I bought it. It was completely out of the usual for me, because all I spent money on was clothes. If I had decided I wanted a photo album I would have gone to Woolworth’s and bought a cheapie one. But I had never wanted a photo album, all my photos were stuffed at the bottom of the bottom drawer of my dresser.



Of course having made this extravagant purchase, I came home, got out all my photos, and placed them in the album. It was huge leather-padded luxurious and fancy. Oddly enough, looking back on it, I think it was one of the best purchases I ever made. I never would have had the incentive to actually put all my photos in an album, if I had just bought a cheapie one from Woolworth’s, but of course with Saks Fifth Avenue photo album, you put all your pictures in right away. You use it. And it displayed them all beautifully and kept them safe. And for a long time I had the joy, whenever I wanted to look at the photos, of getting out the beautiful album, and looking at all the photos, put in with care, and nicely set up there.



And that is where I always saw the photo of Nina at my 8th birthday party. My dad took the photo. He took all the photos in my album. He was an amateur photographer and loved to photograph. He was also a brilliant photographer, all the photos were filled with life. He always had his camera with him, so it was more than pics at my birthday party. After I played punchball or stickball with my friends Myrna, Jane, and Carol, in the tiny little park behind my building, I guess on weekends my mom would send down sandwiches for all of us. We'd sit on the little bench and eat them. How my father happened to be there with his camera one time I don’t know, maybe he brought down the sandwiches.


The photo wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else, 4 little girls bent over their sandwiches, in their punchball playing clothes. My friend Diane sitting next to us in the dress she always wore, I have no idea why her mom dressed her in dresses, it meant she never played any rough and tumble games with us, maybe she was “steady ender” if we played jump rope. Also at the end was my brother, because he hung around with us when he wasn’t playing with his own friends. It is a good snapshot because it captures our whole life of play back then, altho all we are doing is eating our sandwiches. But for me, I looked at the photo and see our whole life of play in that tiny little playground, where we played Chinese Handball for hours on end, Asses Up at the end of Chinese Handball, punch ball, stick ball, and Skelsy, also Catcher Flies Up.



The end of the photo album was as unexpected as its beginning. I bought it on impulse stoned on 5th Avenue, it was one of the very few things I took with me to Tucson. 6 months after we moved to Tucson I found “A Course In Miracles” in the public library here and began reading it. After renewing it 4 times I bought it, it became my whole life. It took me a whole year to read the 1000 page Text and then another year to do the 365 Lessons in the Workbook, one lesson a day was the rule. After I finished the Text and before I started the Workbook, I was completely convinced of what he was teaching, that the past doesn’t exist, that the past never happened. I really wanted to believe that because there had been troubles in the years before we left NYC for Tucson, and the idea that the troubles could be gotten rid of, and replaced with a clean slate, was all I wanted with all my heart.


I decided to take my precious photo album with all my precious photos and throw it in the garbage can outside, to be taken to the dump. It took a lot for me to do that because I loved the album. I loved the photos my father had taken. There were photos in there before memory really began for me, of me and my best friend Francis on the swings in Old Forge beach. And beautiful photos of my father and mother, so young and beautiful, when they visited Miami before I was born. Photos of me and my first best friend Betsy in our snowsuits, she had that pink pretty woolen coat with leggings, in Central Park and Riverside Drive, and even one of me kissing her. And one of my father giving me my bottle, you don’t see me, just my father, dressed so nicely leaning over the beautiful high English carriage he had bought my mom when I was born, so it would be easy on her back. There is Leon on Riverside Drive leaning over the beautiful carriage, and maybe you see the bottle. I am not sure if you see baby Annie, my mother took the photo and she does not have my father’s flair for composition.



But I was adamant. Believing what he said in “A Course In Miracles” was my salvation, my way out. I wanted more than anything else in the world for the past to not have happened, and to have all my recent troubles disappear. I wanted fresh new sparkling clean slate, a present with no past. I couldn’t think of any way to put my money where my mouth was, but to consign my beautiful photo album to the garbage dump. And I did it. I felt like acting on it I would make it happen.



I met Nina because both our moms sent us to the same Shula in Forest Park. I don’t know why my mom sent me to that Shula. The reason she gave me, “I want you to know that there are other parents who think the way me and daddy do,” may be the real reason, or may be not. I guess I did ask my mom the reason for everything she did. Altho that surprises me now. I have no memory of ever asking her “why?” about anything, except for the time when she refused to let me go back to Catholic Church summer school when I was 4 years old and I really really really wanted to go back. “Why can’t I go!” I kept saying, “why can’t I go!” “Because we're Jewish, that’s a different religion,” she kept saying. “So what!” I said, “so what!” I said. “We're Jewish it’s a different religion” she kept saying. I didn’t understand her answer but she wouldn’t back down, I was not allowed back. I have no memory of ever asking her “why?” about anything else, unless it was something I wanted with all my heart, she wouldn’t let me have it, “why can’t I have it?”



Maybe I asked “why do I have to go to shula on Sunday mornings?” (Shula is Jewish Sunday school, I went to school all week, I liked having Saturday and Sunday just for play.) And she said “because I want you to see that daddy and I are not the only people who think the way we do.” My parents were socialists, and she was right, no one in my class and no one in my building, their parents were not like my parents, they did not spend the weekends giving out leaflets, or standing on the corner collecting signatures to petitions. And I knew my parents’ ideas were different from the ideas of other parents, because I was warned repeatedly not to say a word to anyone (it was the McCarthy era).



But I had zero desire to give up playing on Sunday mornings to go to Jewish school in order to find out other kids had parents like mine. I accepted my parents were different. It seemed normal to me my parents were different. And in fact it wasn’t their ideas that bothered me (the difference in their ideas). What embarrassed me is they went bicycle riding with their tennis racquets to Kissena Park on the High Holy Days, when everyone else’s parents stood on the corner in their fanciest clothes and women wore their mink stoles. I guess I thought if my parents were not going to observe the High Holy Days, and I didn’t think there was any reason why they should, they should not embarrass me by letting everyone (I guess by this I meant my friends) see them in their Bermuda shorts either. They should stand on the street corner too, in a mink stole which she did not possess, and join the discussion about how not one drop of food went down their mouth all day. Which wasn’t true of course. My mother had served us all the same breakfast she always served when it wasn’t a school day, pork sausages and scrambled eggs, orange juice and toast and cream cheese. I had no problem that our family ate this when you’re not supposed to touch food or water, but it should be a secret, and my mother and father should put on their fanciest clothes and stand on the corner with everyone else and say how they did not eat a thing. And if they weren’t going to do that, they should hide out, not parade on their bicycle with their tennis racquet as they took off for Kissena Park.



Maybe my mother sent me to shula because she had been sent to shula as a kid in Rochester. Her father was a socialist. I don’t know if her big brother and big sister were sent to shula, but little Marion was. Her grandfather (not a socialist) had a Hebrew School (to prepare boys for their Bar Mitzvah) and Gus and Annie were sent to that. But baby Marion was too little for Grandpa’s Hebrew School, so maybe when she got older, her dad sent her to Shula instead.



The Shula I was sent to was in the area of Forest Park, so we drove thru the endless most beautiful park in the world. That drive was incredible. It went on forever. In Autumn the leaves were all changing, I never experienced so much beauty, I loved that drive. I guess during the week it was a private school in Queens, and they rented it out on Sundays for the shula.



We sat in one of their classrooms, maybe it was a kindergarten classroom, we sat on such little chairs, and the toys were all around in cubbies colorfully painted. And the woman in charge of the Shula hung out in the principal’s office, Miriam. However her son always acted up in Shula, so she had to come into our room and tell her son to stop acting up, but he refused to stop acting up. Irving would sit at the head of the table, they pushed all the little tables together, so we sat around it, with Irving at the head and he taught us Jewish history. Then he got up and Martin sat down and we were taught how to read and write Yiddish.



Jewish history was interesting. It turns out that everyone was always trying to kill all the Jews. So all the stories were how about first-- they were all strange names, interchangeable in my mind-- first the Assyrians tried to kill all the Jews, but the Jews saved themselves, then the Babylonians tried to kill all the Jews, but they saved themselves. The names were all like that. The only story which was interesting, even tho the theme was identical to the rest, was the Purim story, because that featured a beautiful young woman, which is the only thing which interested me. Her name was Esther, which of course resonated for me because of my aunt Esther, and there was a beauty contest and the king chose her to be queen and she was Jewish, so of course when they tried to kill the Jews again, beautiful Queen Esther saved the Jews. Remarkably it made no impression on me that everyone was always trying to kill the Jews, that that is what Jewish history is, I could care less, I only cared about how beautiful Queen Esther was.



Then Martin came in and we got out our notebooks and first we learned how to say the alphabet in Yiddish, and we learned how to say “ich bin a maidel, du bist a yingel” (I am a girl, you are a boy). And we learned the Yiddish word for notebook, and for pen, and for read. And we learned how to write in Yiddish “I write with my pen, I write in my notebook, I read my book.” And that is all we learned. We didn’t spend much time learning during the reading and writing Yiddish class because of Miriam’s son acting up. That was very dramatic and took up a lot of time. And culminated with Martin going to the principal’s office and bringing in Miriam. Who would yell at her son to stop acting up, and he wasn’t afraid of his mother, and he acted up more while she was yelling at him. However as a result of all this my mother found out Miriam’s husband was an optometrist, so when I could not read the bottom two lines of the eye chart in 6th grade “line up to read the eye-chart,” she took me to Miriam’s husband to get glasses for reading the board and for going to the movies.



However I think it was at shula that I met Nina Wilner, that has always been my impression of where I met Nina. Altho it seems to me, my mother must have mentioned to Jane Pollock’s mother, Celia-- no! I bet I told Jane, my best friend who lived in the apartment above us, that I was being sent to Jewish Sunday school to learn Jewish history and how to read and write Yiddish, and Jane told her mother “Annie is going to Jewish School to learn Yiddish” and Celia must have asked Marion “where is the Jewish school? how much does it cost? I want Jane to learn Jewish history and how to write and read and speak Yiddish too.” And my mother was boxed in. She didn’t want to tell Celia it is socialist shula for the children of communists. So since the price was cheap enough, Celia decided Jane would go too, and my mother drove both me and Jane and picked me and Jane up when it was over. And fortunately Celia never found out it was socialist shula for children of communists. They didn’t teach any socialism or communism, it was strictly Jewish history, and how to read and write and speak Yiddish. So Jane and I had sat together and had a great time when Miriam’s son acted up, and Martin could not control him, and then Miriam was brought in and she couldn’t control him either, that was really the high point of the morning. Altho I always loved learning and loved to learn what I did there, it was just that it did not compare to playing, which is more fun. Yes I do think Nina showed up, so then it was Nina, me, and Jane. But the reason I became best friends with Nina is because my father was best friends with Nina's mother from “the party.”



This is why on the weekends, when we didn’t drive over to visit our cousins, we would drive over to Nina’s house instead, so Marion and Leon could visit Nina’s mother and father, and I went to Nina’s room and played with Nina. Or we went outside to play jump rope with Nina’s friends.



To explain how much I loved Nina, you’d have to include how much I loved her house, her street, her neighborhood. I lived in an apartment in a housing project, a huge housing project, it stretched for miles in all directions. And right next to it was another housing project, huge, which stretched for miles. And all of this was built on a swamp in Flushing. I don’t think there were any trees at all, just these new housing projects and new shopping centers. There was nothing here for me, for my little girl’s passion for beauty, and for mystery too. Altho I had a great childhood there it was a flat dull world to look at.



But where Nina lived was heaven for me. We rode for a long time till we came to some old part of Queens, it was all old houses, with slender, tree-shaded streets, curving roads, little roads, so many trees, all dark and shady and wonderful; and houses, houses are so much more interesting than identical apartments. I loved Nina’s neighborhood, I loved Nina’s house, and what I loved most of all was going with Nina outside to the little little street with trees all around us, and playing jump-rope with her friends. It is where I learned how to jump in backwards. We had a ball till night fell and I couldn’t see the rope. And on Nina’s 11th birthday party, Nina had a girls and boys party, and I had the ecstasy of playing Spin-the-Bottle and Post Office which I loved. It’s possible the party even took place in the evening. Nina, for me, was a girl made out of treats.


All treats happened when I was with Nina, and especially at Nina’s house, it was a world of treats which I didn’t have in Electchester. Of course we had great jump rope in Electchester too. We played it in one of the parking lots behind the building we lived in, and because of the projects, we had a lot more kids. There was a very long line when we played “Contest”, which is the most fun game in the world, and I was always the leader for it. That was great jump-rope! But there was nothing sweeter than jump-rope with Nina and her friends, in all that prettiness and sweetness of her neighborhood, it just made it such a treat.



I am sure mainly I went ice skating with Jane. First we would ice skake to our hearts content, we had our own ice skates. And then buy pizza and soft ice cream at the concession. Then when we finished ice skating, we would rent roller skates and play on the roller rink. But sometimes I went ice skating with Nina, she liked to ice skate too, and Nina was more special to me than Jane, because I didn’t see her as often, Jane I took for granted, Nina was special.



Maybe my mother was nice enough to drive all the way to Nina’s house to pick up Nina, or maybe Nina’s father brought her. I just remember waiting on the line to get in with Nina with our ice skates around our neck. In the dream all that came out about Nina was going ice skating with her, that we both put red pompoms on our ice skates together, and that she came to my 8th birthday party. Maybe I learned about pompoms from Nina and then Jane and I made them for our ice skates. It is logical I would learn them from Nina because all treats derived from Nina.


The game I played with Nina when we were in the house was “Sense and Nonsense” which was based on a tv show then. But we would skip all the other senses, touch smell sight etc and go right to “taste” which meant we went to Nina’s kitchen and ate all the delicious food which she always had in her kitchen.


And one Christmas her parents invited our family over for Christmas dinner. My parents rebelled against the Jewish religion too but they don’t go so far as to have Christmas dinner. It was the only Christmas dinner I ever had as a child. Sadie, Nina’s mother was named Sadie, my father liked her a lot. And Nina had a little sister too, I forget her name, but she hung around with us.


Then Nina’s parents bought a ranch style house in Long Island, near Jones Beach, we visited once or twice but it ended the friendship, because I never saw Nina after that. And maybe never even thought about her after that, till I began going to the Paradox in the East Village, a macrobiotic restaurant, and there was a guy there who sold belts on a rack, I remember that because when I began to date Bill he bought one of the belts. His name was Jonathan. Jonathan and I became friends, he was quite attractive, and he told me he was dating Nina Wilner. “Nina Wilner!” I said. “Nina Wilner” he said. “I know Nina Wilner” I said, “where does she live?” “On 11th Street.” “On 11th Street!” I said, “take me to her!”


And he took me over to an East Village tenement apartment on 11th Street and there was Nina all grown up now, a young woman with very long hair, she always had long hair, even in that photo of her at my birthday party she had her long hair. And I said “Jonathan is cute,” and she said she doesn’t really go for him, so I said “can I go out with him,” and she said “fine.” But I think I just had one date with Jonathan, if it was even a date. Because Bill became my boyfriend instead, and has been ever since.


I saw Nina about 10 times after that. She and I were both school teachers, her school was near Columbia. I remember telling her as we were walking along First Avenue together “I have decided to give up shoplifting” and Nina said she shoplifts all the time, and the problem is she shoplifts in the same stores where the kids in her class shoplift.



I guess Nina and I didn’t really stay friends, we drifted apart. There wasn’t anything to hold us together now, nothing was happening between us. It was kind of like the shell of a seed, the left-over shell; once the seed has sprouted and turned into a beautiful flower, the beautiful flower was our friendship back then, and finding each other now was just the left-over shell, we had outgrown our friendship. Altho there was a taken-for-granted warmth and intimacy, it was accepted between us we loved each other, but we didn’t click in any way, it seemed a little empty.


Then Bill moved in with me, we began our life together. I quit school teaching and began working part time in various places, first at the Museum for Lew Irizarri again, then at the Museum Shop downstairs, and then for a Wall Street newspaper. And maybe it was towards the late ‘70s that someone who knew Nina and me (but who would? maybe Abbie Cohen) said “Nina is living in California now and she is the girlfriend of the guy who started Esalon.” It was some famous name from the '60s and I was surprised Nina was with a guy who was our parents’ age, also that some famous guy in CA our parents’ age chose Nina for his girlfriend. I couldn’t understand it. I just thought Nina and I sure went different ways, here I am with Bill in my East Village apartment, and she is out in California with a much older man, whose name everyone knows because he started Esalon or something like that, something very California ....

And I guess you could say that was my last contact with Nina, till she showed up so beautiful and happy and glowing in my dream last night.

Love, Anne

"My first summer camp"

painting by Felix Pasilis (Pacifica, CA)

Sunday September 2, 2006

“My first summer camp”

The night sky above the dark trees is just subtly lighter than the trees, so I guess dawn is about to break sometime soon. I can see the outline of the dark trees.

I got snail mail from my friend Basha back in New York City and when I opened it up, it was an article from the NY Times Book Review about Nora Ephron’s new book of personal essays about her life. It was so much fun to read. I have not read anything in newsprint for so long. It was so much fun that someone had selected out something they thought you would enjoy reading, and to sit at dining table with soda on ice when I got back from swim pool and read it.

Basha and I met when we both had just turned 30. I had just started writing then. I had been writing for almost a year and I remember when we went to the Museum of Modern Art together and had lunch in their sculpture garden, I asked Basha if she wanted to hear one of my stories. I had just written one and I wanted to try it out. I read it to her at our table in the sculpture garden.

It was about the first camp I had gone to when I was 12 years old. And the interesting thing about that camp I discovered when I wrote the story, was it had no rules, no rules at all. This didn’t seem remarkable to me when I was 12 years old, it seemed utterly natural for me to be in a place with no rules at all. It was my first time away from home, I was there for the month of July. There was even a cattle pond for swimming, the camp took place in a rundown farm in Vermont, and there were no rules about swimming either. Anyone could go to the "lake" and go for a swim by themself whenever they felt like it. There was no lifeguard. There were no activities you had to go to. Activities were available if you wanted to go. A range of them. The girls in my bunk went to no activities. They stayed in the bunk and played Jacks. But I went to archery, I liked that. I didn’t know why they stayed in the bunk and played Jacks instead of going to activities, but I knew they looked down on me for going to activities.

There was an emotional drama for me at that camp because I had only gone there because I wanted to be with Lenore. My best friend from babyhood, Lenore, went every single summer and raved about it all the time, and told me I had to go, it is so wonderful. And finally the summer I was 12, I asked my parents, and they said you can go for the month of July. And my father sent off the check for 80 dollars, and duffle bag was located, and my mother wrote my name with black indelible ink on strips of fabric and sewed it on all the clothes I was taking to camp. They sent a list, two pairs of shorts, two long pants, bathing suit, two tops, etc.

And then the great day came, and my parents took me to Grand Central Station where everyone was lined up for the train taking them to camp. And we found the line for the train to take me to camp. And there was Lenore. And on the train ride I sat next to her. Altho the seat was turned around so she could sit with her other friends from camp. So there was 4 of us sitting together. And when we got there I took the top bunk above Lenore. And after that Lenore never spoke to me again for the rest of her life. That train ride up to camp was the last time I sat next to her. The great love of my life since I had been a baby, we had learned how to walk together, ended on that train ride up to camp, where I sat on one side of Lenore and her best friends from camp sat on the other side.

I did not measure up.

I didn’t realize it on the train ride. I was so excited and thrilled and loved every instant of what was happening around me, already I loved camp. And it took a while for it to dawn on me at camp too. Altho as you can imagine Lenore quickly changed her bed. Sairy Anne arrived and I slept above Sairy Anne, Lenore moved as far away from me as she could get. She was totally embarrassed to be associated with me. I don’t know how it dawned on me. I guess I would find myself alone with her, and for first time in my life find myself uncomfortable with her and tongue-tied. She was giving every impression of not liking me and not wanting to be with me. And after a while I stopped trying.

It was a new world to me, this world of the clique, and some were in it, and some were not. And clearly Lenore was one of the top girls in the clique. She wasn’t the leader, but she was totally accepted in it, she was part of it. The bunk had 12 girls, not every girl was in the clique, altho most of them came year after year like Lenore. I’d guess 5 girls were in the clique, everyone else was excluded. But that is what a pecking order is. There is the leader of the clique, the rest of the clique is her accolades. And the rest of us are nothing. I had not made the transformation to teen-ager yet. My mind was still child’s mind. So I found it highly amusing I was nothing and the clique was everything. Not amused so much as interesting. I was in a new world, it was a brand new adventure, and I loved everything about my brand new adventure. That there was a clique and I was nothing, was just another interesting thing about this new adventure.

I was upset about losing Lenore, and I don’t think I accepted it. I accepted it that at camp she would have nothing to do with me, but I would not believe our friendship was over. I think I assumed back in the city it would return. Because I think I began a diary the following year, it only had 3 entries in it, and one of them was about Lenore. I wrote “something is wrong in our friendship.” I was disturbed and trying to understand it. The idea that Lenore had changed her feelings for me was incomprehensible. Because it was my very first experience of anyone changing their feelings towards me. I didn’t know such a thing happened. I just assumed when you love someone you love them forever, that that is the nature of love, that the joy of your heart is always the joy of your heart.

I wasn’t bothered about the clique excluding me, altho I knew it made a difference to Lenore, that this is why she wouldn’t talk to me at camp. I had zero feelings about the clique on my own. The idea of a clique is that they are infinitely desirable and superior to the rest of us. And there were girls in my bunk who saw them that way, and were very upset they were excluded from the clique, but I didn’t get it. “Why are you so upset?” I said. “Because they won’t let me in the clique.” “We'll just form our own clique” I said, trying to be helpful.

There were 4 of them. It was on the stairwell. They were all upset about being excluded from the clique, they were commiserating. There were tears. If they wanted to be in a clique so badly, I thought we should form our own. But of course it upset them when I said that. Because they were so upset they were hanging out with someone who was so out of it, she didn’t even know not being allowed in the clique was fate worse than death. After that even those who were excluded from the clique refused to talk to me. I was bottom of the barrel.

I could have been one with the ones unhappy about not being in the clique if only I had known I was supposed to be unhappy. So the clique stayed in the bunk instead of going to activities and played Jacks. And the ones excluded from the clique hung out on the staircase and cried. And I went to archery, and started to get good at it. I was having a ball at camp.

I even had a ball at social activities. On Friday nights there was dance at the Sugar House. It had been a working farm, that is where the maple syrup used to be made. The Friday night party at the Sugar House meant the girls would all sit on chairs next to each other, and the boys would choose which one they wanted to ask to dance. I thought this was a lot of fun. The boys would walk up and down trying to decide who they wanted to choose. I giggled to the girl next to me “it’s as if we are the candy in the candy store, and they are trying to decide which one they want.” The girl moved her chair away from me. It bothered the girls not in the clique very much that they were never chosen, only the girls in the clique were chosen. But I just thought it was a new fun game at camp, being the candy in the candy store. I could care less whether I was chosen or not, I just liked being in the game.

Of course there were great games at that camp else I would not have loved it so much. “Capture The White Flag” was an ecstasy, an adventure game in fields and woods, I loved it. And “Nose Bag Dramatics,” which we played in the barn was a lot of fun too. And on “Amateur Talent Night,” I was the only one from my bunk who volunteered. I got up and threw myself all over the stage in my own interpretative modern dance. I made it up. I thought I did great. I had no idea that for “Amateur Talent Night” you were supposed to have talent, and be up there and demonstrate your talent. I thought it was for anyone who wanted to do anything on the stage. The faces on the girls from my bunk when I finished and went back to my place were a sight. You never saw so much disgust in one place. It did not dim my enthusiasm, I overlooked it. “Why don’t you get up and do something, it’s fun” I told them.

When we went huckleberry picking in the field, the counselor let us take off our clothes and pick berries in our underpants. When we went to the stream to wash our clothes we were allowed to wash our clothes naked and swim in the stream. It was a great camp. I had a great time. One night we all waited till we had been in bed, and counselors were coming around on O.D. to check on us, and then we all ran away. And I hid in the baseball field. And it was so exciting when the counselor found me and flashed his flashlight on me. I had lain there breathless in the dark when I saw the flashlight in the distance. I think that was the highest adventure of all.

Altho it was fun putting on a dress and being driven in the truck to Marlboro for a square dance. I loved square dancing.

On Visiting Day in the middle of the summer all the parents drove up from New York, and my parents drove from our summer house in Adirondacks to pick me up and take me back to Old Forge. “I had a wonderful time at camp, next year I want to go for two months” I said. “As soon as we get back to NYC Daddy,” I said, “you write out the check for two months.”

It was the last summer of my innocence. After that I descended into image. Ego got whole control of my mind. And it took “A Course In Miracles,” when I was in Tucson, to give me back my innocence.

As soon as we got back to NYC my father, per my request, did send off the check for two months. But the owner of the camp, an old man, wrote instead of having camp this summer he and his wife are going on a trip to Mexico and are inviting some of the girls in the oldest bunk to go, and I am one of the ones invited. I remembered the owner of the camp, he seemed like a nice man. His wife didn’t like me. But of course he did not see me thru the eyes of the 12 year old girls in my bunk, all he saw was the joyous happy girl.

I said to my father “I don’t want to go to Mexico, I want to go to camp, find another one then.” And so another one was found for me. This one was run by two teachers and it was all rules. But I was 13 when I arrived, I was a different person. I knew that all that mattered in life was being popular and having a boyfriend and I turned myself inside out to accomplish it.....

My Trip to Patagonia Lake

DESERT VIEW by Layla Edwards
Tuesday May, 15, 2007

The heat has abated a little. It is down to 97 in the afternoons. So the nights have been cooler again. Plus the cloud cover, which held the big heat two days ago, has abated too. So we got 3 treats at once. It was only 97. Without cloud cover the coolers were effective, I didn’t sweat in house all afternoon. And it is huge treat to have cool night follow hot day. I woke up thinking “if only our whole summer were like this.” And I realized this is just what the summer is like in Patagonia, a teeny town, not far from Tucson which features a lake, which is why I have been there.

For a girl who spent every summer of her childhood at the start of the Fulton Chain of Lakes in the Adirondacks, I couldn’t believe they called Patagonia a lake when we finally arrived there. It was our 4th year in Tucson, I wanted to go to a lake. Bill got out a map, and found the closest one was Patagonia Lake. It was during monsoon season of summer. I remember the skies being filled with lightning on the whole drive home. The monsoons don’t arrive till 4 PM, so it must have been late morning when we left. It wasn’t far distance, and Bill found a route which was pretty. I think instead of the huge highway, we went on Old Spanish Trail, which must have been the road before the huge expressway was built. You pass a lot of desert, I bet most of that is filled in with housing developments now. And then it must become higher up because the landscape changes, the desert becomes more meadowier, and prettier to eyes who have just seen desert for long time. It must have seemed enchanting to me because I thought “I wouldn’t mind living here.” Then we hit the town we had seen on the map, I forget its name, maybe Sonoita, and to my astonishment, it was a convenience store and that was it. That was the whole town. We stopped and I went in and got a sandwich and a big soda.

Of course it wasn’t a regular convenience store, like one on every block in Tucson. When it serves a whole hub like that, it has to have everything everyone wants. It had home-made hero sandwiches, it had big video section, it had a lot. And it was busy. We had traveled thru horse country and wine country to reach it. We didn’t pass any houses but I guess it was all ranches.

Then after that the mountain range to the East changed. It was a different mountain range and a very pretty one. You felt like you had seen it before in every cowboy movie you ever watched. And then there was a little town, a bona fide town, stretched out along the route. Not that long but long enough. I think there was even an Italian restaurant. And whole stretched-out town faced directly out at those beautiful mountains, in the most beautiful spot of the mountains. It took my breath away.

It was exactly what I had pictured looking out at, when I saw all those cowboy movies. The town facing those mountains like that, was exactly how I had pictured living out West to be. Here was the whole dream of living out West, the beauty I had pictured. At first I just assumed every cowboy movie ever made must have been made here. Else why was this view so familiar, so dear, so epitomizing for me, and exactly what I wanted. Why else would I feel I have always known this and now I have found it -- here it is in the life, far more beautiful than I even pictured, but perfect in every detail.

The odd thing tho is now that I have been in Tucson 10 years longer, since we drove past that little town of Patagonia (that was its name) facing right into those beautiful mountains, I don’t know if any cowboy movies were made there. Because it turns out the studio where all the cowboy movies were made is in Tucson. I have never been to Old Tucson Studios like everyone else has, but just outside of Tucson, right on our very own desert, is the huge tract of land, of desert, where all the cowboy movies were made. And even “Shane” came on tv few months ago, that is one I saw in movie theater in full color as kid, where the beauty of the West was fully pictured, that wasn’t made in Arizona, that is Colorado beauty. So the deep perfection and satisfaction of the beauty I gazed out at, as we passed Patagonia, “I found it! I found it! this is what I always wanted, this is where I want to live,” didn’t come from any movie. I concentrated very hard as we passed the town, to see what the town had, because I knew one day I wanted to move there.

And right after we passed the town (town wasn’t long, maybe a mile or two miles, if that, a mile sounds right, maybe 50 establishments all told) for some reason it seemed to turn marshy or watery to the right. Where that water came from I have no idea (there is no water on the desert). Right after that, you enter what looks like a State Park parking lot. This is really a riot. Because there are huge State Park roads leading into it, as if you are arriving at Jones Beach on Long Island. Vast roads with major State Park signs about Patagonia Lake. And a whole set-up to pay or show your pass, with men and women in Forest Service uniform in booths. You think where you are arriving is such a big deal, and I assumed it would be. And then you arrive at the lake, and you think “they call this a lake!” For anyone who comes from a world where there is water, it seems like such a joke to have traveled all this distance. Any one of their 3 well-maintained parking lots was far bigger than this "lake". I guess the lake is bigger than my back yard, but not by much.

I found out later it is a man-made lake, and you can excuse me if I scoff at man-made lakes. I know it is a big deal here on the desert, and I once was on a forum where a guy proudly told me his dad helped build Patagonia Lake. Of course they pretend it is a real lake. They had paddle boats for rent, maybe even canoes. And ropes for swimming area. And it was filled with families, and there were places to cook-out around the lake. It had one nice feature, which was there were no rules.

My memory of lakes with lifeguards in lifeguard stands, is the rules. They don’t let you swim past the ropes for swimming area. In Old Forge we had to wait till 6 PM when lifeguard left, to swim across the lake to shore on other side. But of course that was a real swim, thru deep water, a mile long. And don’t forget the huge Old Forge lake, it circled all the way around, it was a mile across at the edge where we sat and played and where the lifeguard was, and ropes for swimming, but after the dock, it continued on for big distance, and then led out into a Channel, which eventually took you to First Lake, and all the lakes in the Fulton Chain of Lakes. The Old Forge lake wasn’t even called a lake, it was officially designated a pond, because all the other lakes are vast. But compared to Patagonia Lake, the Old Forge Pond is vast.

Because there were no restrictions on where you were allowed to swim-- why would there be, the water never went above your head-- Bill and I swam across the lake and sat on the rocks there and watched the birds. Since no one else was there, I took off my suit in the water and I treaded water, while Bill sat on rock, and we chatted, and watched all the birds overhead. There were a lot. I guess because of the lake, they wanted water.

Then I put my suit back on underwater, and we swam back to the swimming area, where I chatted with a teen-age girl. She told me she lives in Sierra Vista. I have the impression most there were from Sierra Vista, it is very close to Sierra Vista. They have to come here to swim, Sierra Vista has no pools. It wasn’t that they have no pool at all, but something very odd. Like only one pool and it is never open (she explained to me). It was the first time I realized that Tucson’s abundance of municipal pools, is not a given everywhere else, in every other city on desert. We are fortunate and blessed to have what we have. Can you imagine having to drive to Patagonia Lake each time you wanted to swim.

Also the water was stagnant. At first I was glad to be back in a lake, and not a municipal swimming pool, where water has texture and you can smell that you are in a lake. But the texture was off, way too cloudy, and even the smell was off. It was the strong smell of stagnant water, rather than the lovely smell of fresh sweet water. But what the heck! It was a Sunday. Everyone was having a great time in the lake and around the lake. I was allowed to swim across it, and took my suit off. Everyone seemed very happy there, and there weren’t any rules. There were cookouts on the "beach".

I am surprised now at the full amount of freedom. People even had their dogs with them. I am stunned at all the freedom, because contrary to my expectations as a New Yorker, the West has no freedom. There are huge vast wild mountain ranges all around Tucson, completely wild and empty, and filled with wild animals. But either the sign says “dog must be kept on leash at all times” or “no dogs allowed.” Of course this is some insane rule, because supposedly there are wild mountain sheep at the top, and supposedly dogs have bothered them. But that is enough for Tucson, or Forest Service, whoever makes the rules, to make rule to take away your freedom. After living out West for 15 years I will now say the only place which has any freedom is New York City. Every other place has a rule about everything or at least Tucson does. Which is what made Patagonia Lake wonderful, there were zero rules, and everyone had a wonderful time there. It was perfectly happy atmosphere. Not much of a lake, but a happy place.

When it was time to leave I saw the lightning start off the mountains, so my Higher Self suggested we take a different route home, away from the storm. The threatened storm never did arrive but it sure looked like it would.

This route was not pretty. It was pretty finding it. We had to drive down to Nogales. This was a lot of fun, because you drive down all the mountain curving roads to reach Nogales. And because of my summers in Adirondacks, I am addicted to curving mountain roads. Also I am addicted to hills which you never see on desert. I loved driving down all the hilly curving mountain roads with houses on either side. All kinds of houses, not development houses, Nogales must be an old town. Nogales is the city which is on the border of Mexico, so the houses were Mexican styled, which made them so pretty, and each one was different. It was fun to see. And set in (am I hallucinating this) woods and trees. Maybe we drove down the foothills of some mountain range.

Then we got on I-10 which is a 10 lane expressway, and I don’t remember anything about that drive back, except hoping it would be over already. And then we entered the city limits of Tucson, and Tucson seemed very cityish after being out in the country. And that was the whole trip. I assumed it was the beginning of taking trips, but it turned out to be the first and last one I ever took. And now I have even forgotten about the idea of taking trips.....