stories of my life in Tucson AZ and NYC

Saturday, June 28, 2008

“Big Shopping at Fry’s Yesterday”


Tucson painting by Felix Pasilis

I haven't written in 3 weeks
and it was 3 earthshaking weeks
One of those months you never forget, there was so much emotion and intensity
And so much soul-searching
So it makes sense when I decided to return to my writing this morning, I wound up writing this simple little story about grocery shopping yesterday
LOL it is how we return to the world, when we have been out of the world
All my love, Anne

“Big Shopping at Fry’s Yesterday”
5:43 AM, Saturday, June 28, 2008


It is a soft morning. End of June, July is in a few days. Monsoon season on the desert has started, so early morning air is soft warm dampish. Already some clouds have appeared. The world of green out my window is soft and blurry. Without clarity nothing is distinct. All the leaves seem to blend into each other. This is not a world of high definition, it is the reverse, this is the soft world.

And I can see how a baby would be born in this soft world, warm and moist, where there are no edges. It is a soft new-born world. Just a soft attractive green blur where the trees are. Everything has been softened for baby’s first day. The world has been turned into a nursery.

I did a big shopping at Fry’s yesterday. It was the highlight of my day. I woke up with booboo in my foot, another ascension symptom (the body adapting to moving into faster frequency). It was so hard walking from room to room, I thought “no way will I able to do my shopping at Fry’s today. No way will I be able to do anything, go outside and open windows on truck, put the dishes in the dishwasher, and supermarket shopping at Fry’s is out.” But in fact when Bill walked Beanie, I did hobble out and open all the windows on the truck. And that gave me confidence. So I did load all the dishes into the dishwasher and even walked around the house looking for more dishes. And that gave me a lot of confidence, because it meant everything is on schedule.

I didn’t think I would be able to do grocery shopping when it was so hard to hobble to the truck to go swimming. I thought “we will just have to make do with the food we already have in house.” But I swam for whole hour at Billie's pool. And I thought “this long soak must be good for my tootsies,” and I realized I really wanted to do that shopping, it would make me feel strong to do it. I swam over to Bill just before I left the pool and said “do you want to do Fry’s after the pool?” He said “it’s up to you, is your foot up to it?” “Yes” I said. Of course getting out of the pool was not easy, I had to climb that ladder to get out and my foot just couldn’t take the weight. I was stymied! Finally I simply crawled onto the cement deck. It didn’t give me confidence that I couldn’t climb the ladder to get out of the pool, but had to crawl on the cement deck, but at least I had gotten out of the pool. I took my shower and washed my hair. I really wanted to do the supermarket shopping.

I thought, I will have that big shopping cart to lean into, it will make it easy for me, plus Bill can help me out, he can get the soda and the vegetables, and dish detergent for washing dishes. I was very motivated to do the shopping because there were some things I was all out of.

We haven’t been to Fry’s in long time. It is close to Billie’s pool but not close to Fort Lowell pool, and we have been swimming at Fort Lowell pool every day. Plus ever since Sunflower market opened, it has been so appealing to go there. It is close to home and on the way home; it is small intimate market, I know everyone; and it is so attractive and everything there is nice. It is so easy. That is why I always wind up at Sunflower. Altho I always loved Fry’s, it’s just that it is a huge supermarket so I always wind up doing huge shopping.

And it is luxurious a huge supermarket, because it does have everything. Sunflower has very nice food, but if you need dish detergent you have to go to another store, or if you want soda you have to go to another store. I was out of a lot of things that Sunflower doesn’t carry. It was so nice to be able to buy all the food I wanted plus all the other things I was out of. And anyway I just love Fry’s.

It is a big experience, an adventure.

Plus I knew if I did big shopping at Fry’s it would put it in perspective for Bill about my foot. Of course it alarmed him when he saw me hobbling, but if he saw me do huge shopping at Fry’s, he would realize it was no big deal. And so would I! It would put it in perspective for me too. It is a bit of a nuisance but it is a big nothing.

I really did have a great time shopping at Fry’s. While swimming at pool I had memorized all the things I needed. I didn’t want it to be a shopping where, when I got home, I realized half the reason I went there I forgot to buy those things. Plus now that Sunflower is my main market, I have clear ideas what Sunflower doesn’t have, what I have to go to Fry’s for, and I wanted to be sure to buy those things.

So I did huge shopping and loaded up my cart. And Bill took his own cart and got all the soda and the vegetables, frozen vegetables to make suppers out of, and fresh vegetables for salads, and dish washing detergent too, two boxes of it. And it made it so easy for me that he chose his frozen vegetables for cooking dinner, and I didn’t have to figure out what he likes.

I knew it would be huge heavy shopping to take into house, but he was so overjoyed to see that my foot was no impediment to accomplishing huge shopping, that he happily brought it all in.

When we got to check-out counter, we arrived together, the girl who was bagging my groceries asked me if I was from Queens. I lit up with delight. Who in the world would recognize my accent as a Queens accent! Most people in Tucson are thrilled out of their mind when they identify it as a New York accent. They ask me very tentatively “are you from New York by any chance?” Or if they are not that confident, they say “where are you from?” And when I say “New York” they say “I guessed it!” They are so excited and happy at their insightfulness, so delighted with themselves. I don’t know if any of them have even heard of Queens. So you can imagine how excited I was when the woman said “are you from Queens?” “YES!!!” I said. I knew she had to be from Queens too to recognize my accent.

And when she met us at the truck as Bill was stowing away the groceries, she told us all about herself. I don’t know the part of Queens where she grew up, Queens is very big, and there are so many parts I don’t know at all. But it turned out her dad was handball player, Bill had become a handball player in New York so he knew that world. On all the holidays her dad would go to Brighton Beach where the top handball players from all over the city congregated to play with each other. And her dad would go fishing there too, on party boats, just as Bill did. Her dad liked handball and fishing, just like Bill. She said her parents moved to Tucson when she was 19 years old and she came with them, they all moved out here together, so she has been here long time. And she told Bill “you look like a contractor, are you a contractor by any chance?” Because, she told Bill, her husband Raul, he is Mexican-- “I love Mexicans!” I said, which is true-- does the cement work, but he got laid off when the building boom in Tucson stopped. And she said “it is causing marital problems.” She got the job at Fry’s because they needed money, but it makes him feel bad that he can’t take care of her, and she really wants him to find work, it will get him out of the house, plus he will feel good again. And she wrote down their name and phone number.

And Bill said on the way home, “if we had money, I would hire him to cement that outside wall, where the big crack was, I did the job but I don’t like how it looks, I would have him do it all over again, plus the wall in the kitchen which is tumbling down.” “We might have money” I said, “I forgot to check my lottery ticket while I was in Fry’s, we could have money and not know about it.” And we both thought about all the work we would hire him to do, so he would get out of the house and be happy again.

And the woman said “I don’t know why I am telling you this,” and then she told us about her 99 year old aunt who is so independent and how she called her, and her aunt said “Bethie! I am so happy to talk to you,” and she told us “Bethie is my baby name.” But of course I called her Bethie after that, it is how I learned her name. But I could see she was surprised that the only person in the whole world who calls her by her baby name is her 99 year old aunt, and a girl in the Fry’s parking lot.

Post script, well the sun rose, sky is blue, birds are out and about. And my foot is all better. I guess shopping at Fry’s did the trick.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

“Ted’s birthday party”


Tucson painting by Felix Pasilis

6:20 am, Sunday, June 8, 2008
“Ted’s birthday party”
(his wife invited all the people in the Tucson Ron Paul meet up group)

Yesterday was Ted’s birthday party. His wife gave him the party. It was in their backyard behind their house. And you could say in some ways it was the loveliest party I have ever been to. She had a lot of food she had prepared set out buffet-style on tables when you first entered the yard, right behind the house. And it was all such perfect food. Just exactly what you love to eat, and exactly suited for the time of day and the weather. She even had delicious iced tea already sweetened and lemoned as one of the assortment, huge assortment, of soft drinks. She just had everything. It was like a fairy land. If you arrived in Heaven and there was a picnic party to greet you, and all you had to do was to desire something, anything, and it was immediately in an attractive bowl to help yourself right in front of you, that is what Jacqui's party was like. Except you didn’t have to figure out what your heart’s desire was, Jacqui had figured it out for you, it was all there. And she is so talented at food preparation, everything she prepared was just perfect. I don’t know how she did it. She is just a genius hostess. And she must love her husband very much to make such a nice party for him, that is a true labor of love. And her backyard likewise, was set out perfectly for the party. Her talent must extend to home-making to have a backyard like that. There may have been two tables, but the table where I sat down, a nice big comfortable rectangular table, was solid, big, and had some kind of tiles as its table top, maybe ceramic tiles, very attractive and comfortable and inconspicuous. And very comfortable chairs to sit in and comfortable chairs like that all over the yard. And another table, maybe slightly smaller, just like that too. It is her touch again, nothing conspicuous, just your heart’s desire without even realizing it is your heart’s desire, just that it fits perfectly.

Her husband said “Annie!” when I arrived, he figured out it was me. He was standing in middle of yard near buffet table. He was younger than I thought he would be, young and vibrant and handsome, and happy. A wife like that, and who loves him so much, how could he not be happy. And those eyes! You could see in his eyes, how it was that he sent an email to everyone in the Ron Paul meet-up group in Tucson, asking them to become a precinct committeeman, and as a result I did! The energy in those eyes was tremendous, the boldness. I guess you could call him a leader. It is a different kind of leader than Jacqui, where the responsibility for making all those people perfectly comfortable was squarely on her shoulders. And she did it! Magnificently! He is the leader of a movement, that is something else. But he does it with as much ease and grace as his wife does hostess, it fell so easily and naturally on his shoulders, without effort or strain, just like his wife. Two totally exceptional people who simply naturally express what it is to be human. He is friendly warm easy-to-talk-to generous and kind.

Jim and I got lost going there which made the trip 5 or 6 times as long. We could have gone there and back 6 times in the time it took to find it, and it is not close by. It could be 10 miles away, easily. I hadn’t bothered to read the directions on the email because when I told Jim the address, 7901 East Manitoba Street, he said “I know where that is.” So all I wrote down was Ted’s name and the address. I didn’t write down his phone number or the directions because Jim was born here and grew up here, he really does know where places are, and as he said as we were driving along to get there (this is before we got lost)-- he said “I used to be a gas man, so all I did was find addresses.” Jim worked for the gas company in Tucson, when there is a problem and you call the gas company and they dispatch a technician to your house, day and night, Jim was the one dispatched. So naturally since Jim had said “I know where it is” on the phone, and said “I used to be gas man, all I did was find addresses,” it never crossed my mind we would be lost for 2 hours and almost have to give up and come home.

He actually was familiar with Manitoba Street and had an idea of where it would be, and when we got as far East as the 7900 block he did turn South to find it. We began off on the right track. But I guess he didn’t go far South enough, because when he didn’t find it, he tried to backtrack north again. He decided it must not be this far south, and must be further north. But he turned onto a big street which looped around everything, which went in a wide circle, and then he began turning north, and we went all the way north to Speedway without finding it. We really had driven for an hour now, and instead of getting closer to it, we were hopelessly lost, had no idea where it was. He said he should take me back home so I could get Ted’s phone number, and I said we should stop at a convenience store so we could look at a map. “They won’t let you look at the map” he said “you’ll have to buy it! we’ll go back to my house and look up Mapquest on the computer, I have a computer now.”

We passed a gas station on every corner and I kept saying “can’t we ask at the gas station where Manitoba Street is?” And he said “those aren’t real gas stations they are just convenience stores, they don’t know anything.” “We have his full name and address, can’t you call on your cell phone for Directory Information and get his phone number?” “What is Directory Information?” he asked. “OK” I said, “take me to a pay phone and I will call directory information.” So he found one outside a convenience store in a parking lot. “How much is a pay phone these days, is it still a quarter” I asked Jim. “I don’t know” he said, “but they’ll return your money.” It turned out to be 50 cents. But then I saw written on it “for directory information dial 1 and 411, and deposit 65 cents.” Which brought me to nothing at all, and my money didn’t come back. So then I pressed operator, and finally someone came on, and I told her. And then a supervisor came on and I told him, and he said he is very sorry, but directory information is 555-1212. And I said “I don’t have another 50 cents, can you return my money” and he said “I am very sorry I can’t do that but I can take your name and address.” And I said “my friend is right here with a cellphone, what does he call?” And the man said “he can call 411.” The operator supervisor was very nice to me and very sympathetic. I told him “we have been driving around in circles for an hour, we can’t find it and now I want to call and get his phone number so I can ask him.” He was tremendously sympathetic about driving around in circles and that I lost my 65 cents and could not reach directory information and there was no way he could connect me to it. So then Jim called 411 on his cell phone and he was told it was an unlisted number. I guess that is when we hit bottom, we had reached total frustration.

I think Jim wanted to give up and go home. “We can’t keep driving around at 4 dollar gallon gas, I will run out of gas.” And I still had the idea somewhere in my mind that we had to find Manitoba Street, that the logical thing is to find Manitoba Street and then the address on it, 7901. Jim kept insisting I had written it down wrong and our whole problem is it must be 7109. This is the second time I got lost with Jim and after he said he knew where it is, so I didn’t write down directions. And the first time I accepted it, when he said it was my fault, I wrote it down wrong. But this time I didn’t! I knew I had just copied it from Ted’s email and I had copied it right.

So again we set off blindly. “I know where 7500 is,” he said, “we'll go along there.” And he said “I do have some idea where Manitoba Street is, I remember it, I have an idea where it is.” So he drove west somewhere, till he decided to go south, and then we went south a great distance, we were around the air force base. And Jim kept saying “I know where Manitoba Street is.” And then we turned east, to get near 7900, and Jim with his great eyesight, like a hawk, said “there it is, that must be the party.” I don’t know how he did it. He found Manitoba Street he found the house, he found it all in one fell swoop! “How do you know that is the party?” He said “the gate is open, it must be in the back yard, I heard the sounds of the party, and there are the cars.” So we parked and went thru the gate and walked into the middle of back yard.

And a very nice young man standing up right there said “Annie!!” I said “yes, are you Ted?” and he said “yes.” And I said “this is Jim he drove me, he is the one who changed his registration so he could sign my petition and vote for me.” Jim was so concerned about not knowing anyone there, and was he really invited, that I wanted to say right from the get-go how helpful Jim was to the cause. Ted had really really really wanted me to be pc (precinct committeeman) and Jim had made it all possible to happen.

I was so thirsty by now, and Ted’s wife put ice in a glass, and I poured 7 Up on it and got one for Jim. I discovered there was food and put a sandwich on my plate and one for Jim. And then you could say the party began for us. Everyone else had not gotten lost, had shown up on time, and were now finished eating. Jim got into conversation right away with a very nice young man, standing up by buffet table, the guy Ted had been talking to when we arrived. So I took my plate and drink over to one of the picnic tables.

And I immediately told the woman sitting on my left how we had gotten lost. I was very amused that Jim a native of Tucson, plus a gas man expert at finding addresses, had been lost for two hours. Plus it is so different from Bill. Before we go anywhere he gets out the map, knows exactly where we are going. He never wings anything, everything is done with meticulous care ahead of time. As I told the girl next to me, “I am not meticulous like my husband, I am more wing-it, but I’m not as extreme as Jim.” In fact I like having an idea where something is, I don’t have to be exact about it. Which I guess is what Jim thought he had, but hadn’t, but then turned out he had. She was a lovely attractive very nice woman and the man she was sitting with was not her husband, because when he returned with two beers, they both told each other they had never tasted this one before. A woman at the other end of the table was doing all the talking, and the attractive woman and the man she was sitting with, were listening. The man next to the attractive woman (his name turned out to be Pat) asked the talkative girl when she moved to Tucson, and she said “4 years ago.” And he said “where did you live before?” And she said “Yuma.” And she said her husband is in the Marines for 20 years, I guess he just retired, so they had lived in lots of places. She looked and seemed like a bouncing happy friendly girl but she made poor impression on me. Because apparently she works at Desert Museum now. That is off in the mountains in the desert east of Tucson, I was there once, with all the animals of the desert there (a desert zoo) and big parking lot. She said if someone arrives with their dog (I guess no dogs are allowed to come in) and leaves their dog in car in parking lot, the guard calls Humane Society, they take away your dog, and you have to go up before a judge to try to get your dog back, and it is not so easy. The reason for this is because summer heat has arrived on the desert. I really have a problem with this. In Tucson they take away your children and they take away your dog, and you can’t get them back, if you leave them in the car when it is desert heat. When we first moved here we took our dog Clio with us everywhere, she wanted to go, and she would curl up on seat, we left the windows open, when we went into a store. I guess we were just lucky they did not take Clio away from us and refuse to give her back.

It was deeply weird for me to be at a party which I thought was libertarians for Ron Paul and have a woman endorse this policy. (Maybe she is a relative or friend.) Why else would I run for precinct committeeman if I didn’t want to get rid of all the laws in Arizona which take away your pets, your children, and your liberty!


Pat, himself, turned out to be Precinct Chairman. “O!” I said so excited “you are my precinct chairman, I am precinct committeeman, so what is the idea behind all this? we are going to do a revolution and take over the Republican party?”

He said there are various groups in the Republican Party, but most all want lower taxes and less government restriction. And Tucson is nearly all Democratic voters and our goal is to get people to vote Republican to get Republicans into office. “O” I said “O.” I thought to myself, ‘I can’t believe I am doing all this just to elect Republicans, if that is what this is all about, why am I doing it! And the whole idea that I would try to entice someone who likes to vote for Democrats to vote for a Republican seemed absurd to me. I don’t believe in trying to change anyone’s mind.’ I was completely confused.

So then I tried to talk to the man on my right, I didn’t want him to feel left out. There was an ashtray there and I asked if it would be ok if I smoked cigarette? And you have to give that man credit. He said “I have had asthma since I was 3 or 4 years old, smoke is the worst thing for me, but I joined the smokers rights group, because I believe smokers should have rights and their rights should not be taken away from them.” And he told me the logo for the smokers’ rights group is a dove smoking a cigarette. I told him “I love that logo, because I love doves and I smoke cigarettes, and I want to see the picture, is it on the internet?” And he said “Yes, just look up smokers rights alliance.” And I said “I give you great credit for putting your money where your mouth is, I never met anyone before who acted on their principles like you.”

And then I decided to get a little more food. The conversation had changed to politics, which is a conversation I like and I am interested in. I would have liked to hear what they all had to say, and to say my two cents too. But when I went to get more food the guy Jim had been talking to had left. So Jim said “I’m tired and I want to leave.” I said “can I eat a little more food first?” But he looked at my plate and said “all that! it will take long time.” So instead I just heaped up my plate, I thought “I will take it home for Bill and I will drink my iced tea and eat my delicious coconut ices in the car.”

So I brought the heaped-up plate to the car, put it on seat under steering wheel, and when I returned Jim was now in conversation with Ted. Ted said he is libertarian so he will vote for Bob Barr. And he and Jim got into big conversation about trucks and diesel and getting tickets for noise and I don’t know, car talk I guess. I was just standing around, drinking my iced tea, waiting for Jim to leave. I hadn’t been quite ready to leave when Jim said “time to go.” I was ready to have my dessert, a little more food and my iced tea at table and talk about politics. But when Jim said time to leave, I never returned to table, I stood around and waited for him to be ready to go, but now that he was enjoying his conversation he didn’t want to go.

It’s interesting. I am so used to Bill and how he does thing, and having a rhythm with Bill, and him understanding me and me understanding him. And I like things to be clear. Either we are leaving, in which case we leave. Or we are staying, in which case I make myself comfortable eating my food, sit at table, and partake in conversation. This in-between thing, leaving and not leaving, standing around, waiting to leave, is not how I like to do things. I guess Jim got bored when he had no one to talk to, so he wanted to leave, and then when he enjoyed his conversation with Ted he didn’t want to leave.

At the table I had asked, “who is here? is it Ron Paul people plus Ted and Jacqui’s friends?” And they said “yes, about half and half.” The woman next to me, and maybe Pat too, said they had met Ted in the Ron Paul group, but then had become friends.


Finally Jim was ready to leave. So I thanked Ted and said what a wonderful party it was and to please thank his wife for me. And she was getting out the birthday cake, it said “Happy Birthday Ted” on it, she is such a sweetheart.

And Jim and I drove home very fast, long beautiful route, as Sun was going down. “That was a very nice party” I said. And he said “I’m not going to go to the art gallery on Sunday.” The plan had been for Jim to take me, we would stay an hour. Because Layla’s show turned out to be a group show. It is at Dahlia’s gallery all the way down town. And Layla had asked if Bill wanted to be in the show, and to call Dahlia and mention her name if he did. And Bill had brought down 10 paintings and Dahlia chose 4 which will be in the show next Sunday. And Dahlia even had Bill sign a contract, a 3 month contract, that she can sell the paintings at 60-40. And she took photos of two of them and put them on her website with the other art she has contracted to sell.

This show is a huge deal to Bill. Other than student shows at the art colleges he has been in in Tucson he has never had his work in a show. And Layla is a great artist, and likewise Jerry, whose metal sculpture will be in it. Jerry is a great artist. Bill is in very good company. This is a tremendous thing.

Bill will want to be there the whole time plus help Dahlia clean up. I thought Jim would take me and we would stay an hour. But he said an hour is too long, he has no interest in looking at art, and he doesn’t want to drive all the way down to Stone Avenue. We’ll see what happens. Jim had agreed to take me to Ted’s birthday party because Bill had helped him with his car last week, drove him home from the garage and then to garage when car was ready. But apparently Jim had fallen asleep, he woke up and thought “holy shit! I am supposed to drive her to that birthday party” and had come right over.

I really have no idea why Jim decided he didn’t want to go to art gallery next Sunday. I think he had nice time at birthday party. He enjoyed very much the two people he talked to, he is a libertarian himself. He got to eat nice food, and it was pleasant in the backyard.

But maybe he thought I’d rather be home watching television, and he decided one big favor was enough, and he wasn’t going to take me to the art show....


Layla

Friday, June 06, 2008

“Ethical Culture” or “15 years old in New York City”

WATER OF LIFE
by Layla (Flora Edwards)


Friday, 5:40 am, June 6, 2008
“Ethical Culture” or “15 years old in New York City”

June 6th is such a special day to me because I think the mass awakening will occur on June 6th. It is very powerful spiritual day. When I first moved to Tucson I had friend in the apartments, Michael Siegel. He had moved here in the summer, from Boston, we arrived Thanksgiving week. So he had already been here a few months. But I think he knew Tucson better than we did, because he had come to take care of his mom. She must have been here for a while or long time and when she needed help Mike arrived. He might have a brother who was living here too. Mike grew up in Brooklyn. I think his dad delivered The Daily News. Which meant his dad was up all night and slept all day. And now that I think about it, I remember Mike telling me on the phone, one of the last times we chatted, because we lost touch 10 years ago, that he too went to Ethical Culture in Manhattan on Friday nights. He has such fond memories of that. He went into ecstasy as he remembered ethical culture.

I really don’t know what to say about Ethical Culture. Mike went into raptures about it. He loved going and had a great time. I just remember I was 14 years old, and it strikes me now what a huge year 14 years old is, what a big thing it is to be 14 years old. That is when your whole life changes, everything begins at 14 years old. As a kid I dreamt and dreamt about my Sweet 16 and being 16 years old, that was always the nirvana which lay ahead. Every romantic dream, every dream of happiness, all my dreams, were wrapped up in my Sweet 16, and 16 years old. It was my idea of paradise as kid. But in fact I never had a Sweet 16, and it seems to me being sixteen, that year, I was vaguely depressed. I didn’t think of myself as vaguely depressed, and would have never thought about it that way. But my friend from camp Bobbi (who was exactly my age but had skipped a year because of S.P.) had gone off to out-of-town college in Ann Arbor Michigan, the year we were sixteen. I was in my senior year in high school, and I used to write to her all the time, just because letter-writing is something I liked to do. And she wrote back “you always sound so depressed in your letters.”

In fact I didn’t learn the word “depressed” until I went off to out-of-town college, and a boy I had a crush on, and had started a brief relationship with, broke up with me in the school cafeteria saying “being with you depresses me and when I am depressed I can’t study.” That is how I learned the word “depressed.” So Bobbi must have written “you always sound so unhappy in your letters.” I don’t think I was unhappy that year. I think it is more like, what someone once said “if you read back your old diaries, it will sound like you were always unhappy.” Maybe no one writes in their diary except when they are unhappy. And maybe that is when I wrote to Bobbi.

I think I got the idea I was vaguely depressed the year I was 16, because I was once in Central Park stoned in my early twenties. It was on a Sunday. And two girls, two friends, who lived by the park were sitting on bench talking to each other. And somehow I knew they were both 16, and I could see in their faces they were vaguely depressed, and I must have thought to myself “that is what being 16 is like.” It’s not that they looked like their mothers or were trying to act like their mothers, but there was too much of their mother influence all over them, they didn’t feel original to me. I think now they were deeply bored. Somehow they were leading a life which wasn’t really theirs. Some quickening of life was stunted or shelved, some cocoon they hadn’t broken thru yet. Glorious 16 was not glorious for me.

But 14 is when the world opened up, when all the excitement started. Of course the huge thing was finally becoming attractive to boys, and having boyfriends, or a boyfriend, falling in love, being in love, passionate making-out. But before that happened, that happened the summer I was 14, before that happened, in the spring before I was 14-- No! it had to be the Spring I turned 15! Hahaha, Ethical Culture is the story of turning 15! the forgotten year! 14 is when it all happens! 16 is the year of glory which is not glorious at all! In between that is 15.. O that is not such an easy year, but it is an interesting year. Because that is when things start to trigger in the mind. I mean the intellectual world opens up. LOL that is when you become a budding intellectual, which let’s be honest about it, just means you want to be cool. You have had a whole year now of being attractive to boys. As earthshakingly wonderful as it was when it first dawned at 14, you’ve already fallen in love, had your first boyfriend, been broken up by him, went thru that long awful period.

There really is no experience like that first experience of being broken up with by someone you want with all your heart. Because it takes so long to wrap your mind around it and accept it. You spend so long trying to get him back, or not accepting it happened. It’s odd now, looking back and seeing the ecstasy and the suffering as all one big pot of stew, each one a rich interesting experience. I mean I look back and see the ecstasy of that first summer romance, my first romance. And then the long Fall leading up to Winter of accepting the rejection, he must have broken up with me soon after we returned to the city, it just didn’t work in the city. But of course I wouldn’t believe it, because I didn’t want to believe it.

I did learn a lot from reading my diary at the time 25 years later. I still had my diary in a file cabinet somewhere in my East Village apartment, and Liz Horn, Ruthie’s friend from when we were all teenagers-- I told her how I had never read my diary, I must have thought I would hate the me I found in it. And she said “read it! you won’t! it is interesting!” I don’t know if I was high on pot when I read it, altho it’s possible I had started to be a writer already, or maybe just before. My dad had given it to me as a little present right before I went off to camp when I was 13. It began off with such a childish mind, I remember my first entry ended up with “I guess I am just a typical teen-ager.” But the next year I did write my experiences at that teen-age camp. Altho I think I stopped writing nearly every day when my relationship with Fred began, that was earthshaking, too big to write about, too consuming. I wrote about the boys who were interested in me or I was interested in them before I met Fred, or my activities with them. One took me in his convertible sports car to a movie in Pittsfield. That was fun! Altho the movie was way too advanced for a girl who had turned 14 two months ago, a French movie about a middle aged French woman having an affair with a young Englishman, “Room At The Top.”

But interestingly enough, when summer was over and I started high school and the first thing which happened was Fred broke up with me, I did use the diary to try to help myself. All thru the Fall and into December I tried to deal with the rejection in my diary. And what struck me when I read it stoned on pot at 27 years old, was that by December I had reached the point when I didn’t want to suffer about it anymore. I had decided to be philosophical. I actually saw it right there in my own handwriting. I didn’t use the word “philosophical” at the time, maybe I wrote “I think I will accept it.” But I looked at it and thought “what do you know! I decided to be philosophical.” Which oddly enough is the first and only time I have ever used the word “philosophical.” I guess I felt that I had decided back at 15, after so many long months of eating my heart out about it, that I had decided to detach from it in some way. I must have brought in some other way of seeing it, or some other way of deciding to look at it. Probably all I did was decide to accept it, what else could it be? But I was impressed with myself, reading it, so many years later. It was clear I wanted to end the suffering, I had made the decision to do it, and I must have used my mind to do it. That is probably why I said to myself “look! I was philosophical.” I must have felt that I brought my mind into it for help.

And oddly enough it was that Spring following that-- warm weather had come in, so it may have been June. I was coming back from a party or something on the subway with a girlfriend, and I bumped into Ellen Klein in the subway. She was with her friend and she was wearing some cool looking beatnik outfit. And I said “where are you coming from?” and she said “Ethical Culture.” Maybe I was with Ruthie Hurwood and she was sleeping over. And I said “what is ethical culture?” It was a Friday night, that is for sure, because Ethical Culture took place on Friday nights. And Ellen said “kids come from all over the city to it.” I had no idea what it was, but Ellen looked so cool, and it sounded so cool. So you can be sure the following Friday night Ruthie and I arranged to meet at it. And we must have invited Leslie and Sheila, the 4 of us had been foursome for two years, we all went to camp together the summer I was 13, camp parties all year. Ruthie went to different camp the following year, but Shelia, Leslie, and I all went to the same teen-aged camp where I had my first boyfriend.

And we all agreed to show up at Ethical Culture the following Friday evening. And sure enough, there were all the cool kids from all over New York City, especially the really cool ones from Manhattan and the Bronx. Manhattan and the Bronx was always the coolest. They all looked like budding intellectuals, which was the cool way to look back then in the '50s. Since Ellen had told us to go to “Philosophy,” when we arrived we asked “where is Philosophy?”

And so we went to a big room, where everyone was sitting on the floor, and all the coolest looking ones were there. And oddly enough the guy leading the discussion, this came as huge surprise to me-- I don’t know how I recognized him. In fact there is no way I could have. I must have recognized his name, he must have said it. When I was child in Old Forge, one of the families of New York City school teachers, we were all families of New York City school teachers, the kids Martha and Carl played with (my two older cousins) were Rita and Hank. Rita was Martha’s age, two years older than me, and Hank was Carl’s age, 4 years older than me. Their dad was Bernie Sackler, I don’t remember their mom’s name now. Their mom, Rita, and Hank were all skinny but Bernie wasn’t. Edith! Edith Sackler was the mom’s name. Obviously I never said a word to Hank. Boys simply don’t talk to girls who are 4 years younger when we were all children. You are aware of them, they are older boys, gods! but they are not aware of you. But Hank was notorious to me, because the day he was supposed to take his Junior Life Saving Test he was in bed with a fever. It was freezing cold day, as all the days are up in Adirondacks, freezing cold and rainy. He had been forbidden to take the test. But he had snuck out of the house to take it. Which appalled all the grown-ups as they sat on their beach blankets talking about it, but which thrilled and excited me, my hero! It was my idea of heroism to defy your parents to take your Junior Life Saving test. After that when he was a teenager, he would come to our house and my mom would stand in the backyard and give him his hay-fever shot. He was even allowed, I heard, to stay in Old Forge a few months after the summer ended, because Old Forge is hay-fever free and the hay-fever is so bad in New York City, I don’t know where they arranged for Hank to stay.

And after that I of course never saw him again. The last time I saw him was standing in my own backyard getting a hay fever shot from my mom, the nurse.

A completely skinny guy.

So how could I possibly recognize the bear-looking guy, big and round like a bear, with huge big reddish blond beard. The skinny 14 year old I had last seen, now smoked a pipe, had this huge beard, and seemed to be 5 times his size, he had taken on the shape of his dad.

He said the topic was “the meaning of life” and all the cool teenagers in New York City had something to say. That was how Ethical Culture worked. The person leading it would say a topic, and then I guess everyone would talk, they would say what they thought. Naturally I had zero interest in the meaning of life, I just liked sitting on the floor and being where all the cool teenagers of New York City were, I didn’t listen to what anyone said. I just looked around to see which boys I thought were cute, or what the cool girls were wearing. Altho oddly enough I still remember what Hank said at the end. It was all over, he hadn’t done any talking all thru it, he said “the meaning of life for me is the meaning I give other people,” which sounded like a profound thing to say, even if it had no meaning to me.

And then the good part came. We all went to Horn & Hardart across the street and I got coca-cola with ice and cheese danish, I always loved to eat. And I sat with Ruthie and Leslie and Sheila, and we watched all the cool kids from New York City walking around Horn & Hardart. We were all too shy to talk to anyone at Ethical Culture, we never did the whole time we went, all we ever did was talk to each other. But O how we loved it. Every Friday we put on our outfit, and took bus and two subways, and went to Ethical Culture, went straight to Philosophy, sat in a big room, where we didn’t understand a word and then to Horn & Hardart for coco-cola and danish.

And then we went home. We loved it. We loved being cool.

But you can understand why, when 4 years after I moved to Tucson and I was chit-chatting with Mike Siegel on the phone, and it turned out we had both gone to Ethical Culture, and he went into raptures about it, “wasn’t it great! O I miss those days so much, we had so much fun,” I thought ‘what am I missing here? how can anyone miss ethical culture, nothing ever happened.…’

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Waking up to green garden delight after dark night of dreams


Tucson painting by Felix Pasilis

6:12 AM, Sunday, June 1, 2008
“After the darkest dreams, I wake up to sunlit world”

Well it’s a beautiful morning. So lit up, so green and colorful and blue sky and so much light, such a garden of delight, that it is transforming to look out at it. Because I had dark dark dark dreams all night. I was in such a dark spider-webby world all night, that it is incredible experience to pull my awareness out of that deep darkness and look out at all this prettiness and light. To see in reality it is a beautiful morning taking place, and not such deep darkness. I’m not mad about my dreams tho, because they had such purging effect on me.

I feel like I spent the night in a dungeon and opened my eyes when I woke up to paradise.

I explored the deepest darkest corners of my mind in my dreams. Even that awful place where the awful hot withering breath of fear lives. The awful dragon which lives in the awful dungeon of my mind. The denizen of the dungeon, who presides over the underworld of my mind. He blew his fetid fumes all over me and I experienced his full withering effect. It destroys everything, but beyond that, it destroys all hope. The sign to his horrible underworld really should read “abandon all hope ye who enter here.” It really was awful coming face-to-face in my dream with that experience, being so laid low by it.

But I woke up, saw dawn had just started, shut off all the night lights, put up the coffee, and to my surprise fell back asleep and to my great surprise, I don’t know if I have ever done this before, the dreams took up where they had ended before. To my very big surprise, I was sitting around a room with the very same people, where the awful breath of fear had happened. And the man turned to me, to my big surprise and said “what did you dream?” And I said the dream to him and the group. And to my big surprise he was on my side. I really wanted him to roll up the venetian blinds which covered all the windows, and to let the light stream in, and to my surprise he did it. O it was so nice to see that light stream in the windows. And he suggested we make a movie of my dream, and I thought that was a good idea, I was excited about the project.

And there was a nice dream, a dream where my big cousin Carl and his dad, and me and my dad, were all going to take a vacation together. That was special because Carl’s dad went to Heaven when he was in college, my dad went to Heaven 14 years ago, in the dream we both knew that, which is why it was so special. Father and son, and father and daughter, would all join for vacation together.

And then the last dream. I was in B & H back in New York City on the Lower East Side, on 2nd Avenue between 7th and 8th Streets right by St Marks Place. That is such a tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant. And for some reason I walked behind the counter to get to the bathroom in the back. I opened the door and went in. But in my dream it had a bathtub in it, with spigot of cold water on one side, and spigot (I hoped) was hot water on the other side. And I filled it with water and I was washing something. And then I woke up to all this light and green paradise out my window.

It was such a change from being in that tiny bathroom in back of B & H, a room no bigger than a closet.

And from meeting the monsters in the deep subterranean realms of my mind.

But it’s still funny to wake up and know those were dreams I needed to have. I needed to have those experiences, that somehow I came out ahead from having them. That some kind of housecleaning on a deep level went on.

Altho I have no idea where I am now. The night before I had had all happy adventure dreams, and woke up happily washed ashore on beach by edge of sea, all was sweetness and light. This was the exact opposite. This is the deep awful monster underworld of my mind. All I feel from going thru it all is very cleansed somehow. Of course I would give anything to believe that after entering the fear mind so totally in my dream, coming face to face with it like that, that I could somehow be free from it. That is all anyone wants. That is what the Mass Awakening is, now exactly two years away. We simply rise up into a consciousness the fear mind can not rise up to. It is the end! Ganug! Good riddance! All over! Good bye to the fear mind!

And I tell you having met it face to face in my dreams last night, it is totally rotten. All it seeks to do is destroy me and my family. Me, my sweet husband, my two sweet dogs.

O well in two years it will be over for everyone. It is on its way out as we speak. We will all open our eyes to paradise together, and remain awake together.

But right at this minute I don’t know where I am in life. Except in this very instant. Watching the sparrow play with himself all thru my tree. Hopping from branch to branch, preening himself on each branch. Rocking back and forth and whistling and then moving on, hip hop to the ground. It is as if my dreams wiped all slates clean.

And all there is, is this garden out my window.

And the morning dove calling off in the distance.