My Love, My Husband

The handkerchief represents my love for vintage.

"Vintage" can be defined in so many ways– it represents a past time, maybe something old fashioned or even something that is considered the best of its kind.

I would consider myself old-fashioned … and this handkerchief symbolizes the renewal of the past in my marriage to Jerry. It represents the feeling that we had, and have for each other. That we still see in each other the innocent, lovely young person that we once were forty years ago … and it has given me tremendous hope for my future … that my marriage to Jerry will be the best of its kind.

I want to tell you about this wonderful beautiful man … but before I do, I want to tell you a little about my family. But first, thank my friends and family who saw me through a rough couple of years … and particularly my sister, Sandy and my mother, Margaret. I would not be standing here, marrying the love of my life, if it weren’t for you.

Many of you may not know but I have 1 sister and 3 brothers. We grew up with music in the background of our lives – my mother, Margaret, brought home the album soundtracks of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, and HAIR. I used to sing along to all the songs, singing them to entertain the young folk of the Broadway ES playground … of course, I didn’t know that, particularly where HAIR is concerned there are just some songs that are not appropriate for the playground … thank you Miss Gifford, for setting me straight on that one. I didn’t know what the words meant … I still don’t … mostly.

My mother also brought home Herb Albert and the TJ Brass- my father, Ken would dance to it [show] … there was also Peter Paul and Mary, I used to torment my brother Stuart aka Buzz with the song, “Ole Stewball was a race horse” with “ole Stewball was a brother, and I wish he weren’t mine …” OR the Mousekeeters Favorites … I dedicated the following song – ANNETTE to my brother Ken … “whose the little lady that’s as dainty as a bee, whose the one you can’t forget, I’ll give you just 3 guesses, Kennette, Kennette, Kennette …” I had no song for my sister, Sandy, I just cut all her hair off at 2, I was 4, it bored me, and I dressed my brother Ed up in girls clothing, and called him Edwina.

But there was this one album –HOOTENANNY AND THE HIGHWAY MEN … I practically memorized it. There was one song I used to listen to and even taught myself to play on the guitar – it’s in a very very minor key … it was called THE OLD MAID SONG. It’s a sad Irish folk song about a woman who at 6 and 40 still hoped for a man who knew her well, loved her well, and lived with her into old age. Her time was running out. It struck me even at 11 that was never a fate I wanted for myself.

Throughout the next 30 plus years I’d pick up my guitar and play the song … no matter what relationship I was in or not in – the song always rang true to me and it made me long for something, for someone, and well … sad.

About a month ago, I picked up the guitar and played the song … or tried to … and … it bored me. I didn’t feel it anymore … I didn’t feel like the song had truth for me … and it’s because of this man. This beautiful, slender, wonderful man .. He knows my faults, sees my warts, and loves me anyway. More importantly, he sees in me, and I see in him, the lovely, optimistic young person we once were 40 years ago, and I love him more than I could ever tell you or him. But … and in a full circle moment, showing how music still continues to have a place in my family, I’d like to try.

Must we let EVERYONE in?

I was driving to work today ... pondering the agenda for the day.

Oh, my, what will I teach today and how will I align myself to the teaching standards required by the state of California, that I am a teacher who "encourages the highest achievement of every student, by defining the knowledge, concepts, and skills that students should acquire?"

All this before I've even finished my caffeine for the morning ... by the by.

And while in that state of contemplation (well, really, state of PANIC!), I noticed the car in front of me stopping frequently, allowing entry to EVERY single freaking car waiting by the side, seeking said entry into our lane.

Questions:  who appointed this person judge to those attempting to merge?  I can understand allowing one car, perhaps two ...but five?

I thought it a great metaphor ... should we let everyone who revs their motor into our lives?

Similar thoughts occurred to me when I was bombarded with friend requests via Facebook not too long ago.

A friend, I wrote, is:  1. a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. 2. a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter.  3. a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile: 4.a member of the same nation, party, etc.

I asked those that wished to befriend me ... is that we are?  

Do I let you into my life?

If so, are you prepared for the commitment?

Do I ask too much of people?  Perhaps the subject of another blog ...

My mind tends to go off on these tangents.  

Ask my beloved.  He once asked me, "what made you think of that?"  

I regaled him with a path of destiny, of twists and turns, of this-to-that-and-then-there stepping stones ... all of which took place in about 30 seconds give or take ...within the labyrinth of my mind.

Welcome to my world.  

How was your morning?

Uncle Colonel the Tap Dancer

So, I grew up, Catholic ... meaning, in a family with more than the average number of siblings ... as did my Catholic cousins ...

When we got together - which I think we did frequently enough - we were a massive bunch.

Oh, while visiting, we'd drive carelessly through the streets, and hills of West Point, sans those pesky seat belts, ten in a car - with an adult at the wheel (I think, or was it my cousin, Patrick, age 9 at the time? Hmmm, hard to say.)

Ah, the '60s ... while the country was fighting in a foreign land, or fighting in our land because there was fighting in a foreign land … we were young and free ...

Free to go jutting forward into the dashboard when the car stopped just a little too abruptly. I think we all have THOSE scars ... I do, still do, on my right eye.

I digress ... again.

I recently came across a picture of one particular summer spent in the company of my cousins at West Point. We are a happy, very rumpled familial group staring intently at my Uncle, the Major's hands - he is frozen in time, gesturing, I think, the universal symbol for "small word." I'm sure we never got it ... I'm sure it was "the" or "an" or "a" ...

But the picture reveals so much ... ah, the commitment from my Uncle ... the "in the moment" need to perform the "small word" with such clarity, urgency ... it's on his face, it's on our faces ...

I also came across another picture of my Uncle, the Colonel, who, for reasons I can't recall, is wearing silver tap shoes in my mother's backyard. He was good, as I recall ... or maybe not ... all I know, he was wearing tap shoes, and looked again ... "in the moment" with precision toe-heel movements.

That's my Uncle, the Colonel.

And I think that reveals so much about my relations.

"Ah, children, children ... "

This is for Jerry, the man with the child in his eyes ...

It has come up before ... and has come up recently ...

I do not have offspring, children ...

Well, it wasn't for lack of trying.

In fact, I went through many years (yes, freaking years!) of fertility treatments that left me altered hormonally, physically, and produced nothing other than a fruitful inclination to question everything.

Nothing says love like your husband sticking your backside with a very long and burning painful needle full of some hideous hormone concoction ... perhaps taking out his frustrations with his own questioning manhood, jabbing that needle just a little too much like he was playing a not-so-friendly game of darts, working out the seemingly inadequacy of his manhood. Who am I to question that? I wouldn't. I didn't ... it was me ...

It was my fault.

I questioned G-d, yes, I questioned my faith, I questioned my purpose, while standing full of toxic hormones that inflated everything - my body, and my emotional well-being ... if I couldn't make children, like EVERY single person I know ... including family members who were told they could never do so ... what good was I?

So, I struggled with that ... for a long time.

My marriage failed ... for many reasons, owing to this? Maybe. But probably not ... that's another blog.

But there's a universal truth that, as a woman, one's purpose is tied into her ability to reproduce. I couldn't. My parts don't work.

There are medical reasons ... owed to my uterus and my colon and the battle they fight, being so close together ...

Too much information ... sorry.

Where was I?

Yes, present day.

I stand here ... well, sit here ... recognizing the significant and profound strides I have made as a human being since those desperate days of very painful injections and hormones and those feelings, back then, that I failed at the one thing that I, as a member of the female species, have been programmed to do ... and I get it.

I understand why.

I'm lovely and complicated. I'm selfish and well, actually, probably more than a little narcissistic.

I've been married ... been in relationships, well, more "situations," a plenty, and it wasn't until recently that I understood WHY (big picture "why") I wasn't able to reproduce.

I teach. I'm a teacher. In a way, I'm adviser and parent to more than 200 teenagers ... who are like my own children.

But, it's not just that.

I've had to work on myself, and I can't even imagine bringing a child into this world given my personality and tendency for the dramatic, traumatic and hysterical ...

And it wasn't until recently that I realized ...

I'm OK. I don't have children, and I'm alright.

More than alright ...

But ... fast forward to my present performance in a play (merely in the rehearsal process incidentally) in which I play a woman who is in a long-term marriage, troubled, albeit British and colored in the Edwardian era ...

There's a moment ... when the husband to my character says, "if only we'd had children ..." and during this rehearsal, I instantly stopped in my tracks, understanding completely what that would mean to a woman who is unable to produce ... it was about as real as I think I've ever been in my acting endeavors.

And I didn't feel resentful. I felt grateful that I understood what this woman felt ... I was her.

I am her, and I'm lovely.

I Left My Heart in the Theatre ...

No, now, I mean it literally.

I wear two hearts around my neck. Chained, silver. One is hollow and intricately detailed, the other tiny and slightly hollow.

I left one in the dressing room Sunday after my recent performance.

I fell in love this weekend.

I bought that heart in North Carolina. I know, it sounds like a song cue … but it isn’t. My niece, Eliza, picked it out. It was purchased at a time in my life in which I needed comfort, needed definition, needed to wear my heart on the outside.

I have always more or less done that in life. I’m very emotionally based and, you know, from my previous blogs … I cry easily.

(Funny that I can cry pretty easily on stage. One production I asked the director if he wanted me to cry during this one moment in a scene. “Well, if you can,” he said. “How much?” I asked. “What?” he said. “How much crying?” I said. “Enough to make me want to hug you, but not so much that I see snot running down your face.” “Got it. Done.” And it was … )

But that necklace … my heart … isn’t on the outside anymore.

Somebody has it. I thought you should know.

The Hum of Gnats

I think I've lived my life, mostly, in a state of perpetual desire.

Desire for happiness in love, happiness in vocation ...

Desire?

No … anticipation …

No … expectation ...

My vocation nearly completes me.

I love my job, love what I do, love the meaning and purposefulness behind what I do.

But in love … well, my choices have led me to some pretty dark moments.

And in my darkest moments … the expectation for happiness in love was only a little gnat in my ear, and in my heart.

Annoyingly present ... keeping me aware ... keeping me reminded of it ... keeping me ...

Ironically, last night while closing my window to the glorious and wonderful cool breezes of the expectation of fall, I noticed about 40-50 dead gnats on the window frame … it occurred to me … are these the gnats of expectation that have been humming in my ear?

Are these the manifestations of the many times in my life of late that I’ve held on because of that little humming in my ear … keeping me present, keeping me hopeful … keeping me?

And … now they show themselves.

As if fully actualized ... as if to show me the physical manifestations of their presence in my life?

As if to show me that they were there all along ... the little humming presence of expectation and ... well, hope ...

That thought moved me. And I still feel the full impact of THAT moment in THIS moment.

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.” –Henry David Thoreau

I Never Wanted to Be Anywhere Else

My first audition - was embarrASSing!

I recall opening my mouth to sing "Raindrops keep falling on my head ..." but what came out was a squeakish, squakish, alien sound ... Oh, sure, I sang the words, but, oh, my G-DASH-d, I don't know WHAT that was ... fear perhaps? Demonic possession? Singing in tongues? Was I feverish?

Lila Lloyd, the director, took great pity upon me and cast me anyway as an ensemble member, townsperson of River City, Iowa.

Rehearsals for The Music Man introduced a strange, wonderful new world to me. After meeting the shining stars of the theatre … 10, 11, 12 year olds who'd each been performing for 25 years, I wanted to be just like them, dress like, talk like them, smoke like them …

How do you teach a 10 year old to act? How did I learn to act? Did I learn to act?

Well, I pretty much copied everyone else around me. During rehearsals, if the young theatre star next to me covered her mouth in shock with her right hand when 11 year old Harold Hill went into kiss 14 year old Marion, the librarian, then I used my left hand to feign shock. If the 14 year-old seasoned professional stamped her right foot in impetuous defiance … I pounded my right fist into my hand … I evolved … Now THAT’S acting …

The day I stepped foot on the Montgomery Theatre stage – my life forever changed.

Oh, sure, sure … I had performed before this moment … I was the Big Bad Wolf in Girl Scout Camp’s production of Little Red Riding Hood, there’s a picture of me – I’m holding up my hands like paws … interesting. And I have a picture of me at 8 wearing a wreath of real ivy with a sheet wrapped around me, no doubt for some Greek comedy production … it had spiders (the wreath, not the toga) … lots and lots of spiders.

The Montgomery Theatre ...

The stage was dimly lit. We took our places. Someone turned on the lights and instantly the stage was washed in beautiful, warm, glowing light. I looked up and was almost blinded … it was incredible.

The light was on me … the light was on ME … the LIGHT was on ME. It went through me, warmed me, held me …

At at that moment I knew, I would always be happy in the light and ...

I never wanted to be anywhere else.