Happy Birthday Bodhisattvas!
On June 8, 2015 by Speranza
Last night we celebrated a double birthday dinner for my Best Friend in the World and my eldest, Frasier’s 24 years, a fact that fills me with such strong emotion that I am unsure how to carry it or how to process.
It’s such a cliché to hear so many mums lamenting throughout the years about how fast time goes and since this is one of the worst things that one can say to a new mother strung out on no sleep I can proudly say, that I have never said it myself – honestly – but the fact is? It’s the icy, shocking, can’t-believe-this-is-happening-to-ME truth. One minute I was running down the street with a forgotten lunch bag or volunteering on a school bus trip, breathing in the heady smell of little-kids’-feet and strawberry Chapstick for two hours and now here I am surrounded by colleagues and a Significant Other who are all quoting gloomy economic forecasts, consulting charts and obsessing about retirement. How did I allow this passing of time to happen without holding on to key moments more tightly than I did? When am I ever going to be pretty now? Why do my ankles suddenly swell for no good reason, lending that camel-feet look to every outfit? Will I soon begin cultivating an interest in supportive underwear? When exactly is my writing career going to take off in earnest– and how long can I keep kidding myself that this is even a thing? I mean how pretentious to even try, my inner voices accuse darkly, pointing out the futility of this very blog, as a feeble exercise in self-absorption. Oh and why is it only about shaved or regular slice at the deli counter now, when it used to be about looking up from under my lashes at the swarthy and romance-cover-worthy butcher?
Now the butcher seems to be only eleven and wants me to hurry up, already, between the stone-roast ham or the Black Forest.
MadMen Allusions No Illusions
On June 1, 2015 by Speranza
No one has captured an era more effectively, more poignantly and frankly, more truthfully than the creators of ‘MadMen.’
I won’t make this into a thesis paper – even though I am tempted and could go on and on with psychological examples – but the way that children were treated back in that time slot especially resonated with me.
Consider the following conversation circa 1965 between myself and my perfectly lovely mother.
ME: “When Daddy leaves the car running, I get really scared. I know you can’t drive and I worry that the car will drive away on its own. What would happen?”
MUM: (Lighting a cigarette and snapping open the newspaper) “Don’t talk daft. Now, are you peeling the carrots?”
You will notice the distinct absence of any heartfelt “When you say, I feel …” conversations, no one-on-one explanations and certainly no therapists were consulted.
And you know what? All I wanted was a practical answer like, “Hell, we’d pull the car key out” or how about “I know where the hand brake is!” I continued to fret for YEARS about this and have since relegated it to simple childhood anxiety although truly, I was just trying to find out if ANYONE would know what to do.
It’s not that unreasonable!
Gardening on the Long Weekend
On May 16, 2015 by Speranza
I was reading lately that gardening fills a void for some women as they mature and become “empty nesters.” This is a term I personally loathe but it’s an economical way to get the point across. As I was kneeling in my garden today, gratefully breathing in the heady scent from my two lilac trees and allowing myself to pause, whenever I liked really, to admire the iridescent navy-blue throats of the grackles that everyone seems to despise but me or to visit with the tiny toad who crossed my glove and then became very still, one foot up, one foot down, in case I had seen him (which I had and was delighted) I thought how different this experience was from an earlier version of my-gardening-self some ten years ago when it was imperative to get those vegetables planted, perennials divided and seeds planted in a kind of dizzying Operation Desert Storm long weekend which bore no resemblance to the calm, contemplative, almost Zen-like experience I enjoyed today.
Happy Mother’s Day!
On May 9, 2015 by Speranza
I can’t remember my mother’s voice or even her face sometimes. On some sensory level I can still feel the softness of her skin as it encased the bone when I would trace my hand back and forth across the planes of her cheek and brow but it’s been nearly forty years now. I dream of her sometimes and all of the normal things I would have liked to have done with her and never did, like treating her to some highlights at the hair salon, imagining her squealing delight at my sons – especially as babies – or having an English tea out somewhere a bit fancy.
My mother was truly beautiful inside and out and possessed great vats of personal charm. In the hospital she received flowers from every tradesperson we had ever hired – and the milkman too, all of whom had received “a bit of cake” and a cup of tea when they were working at our house.
In now vintage photos with her hair falling in a shining rope (“I don’t know, I s’pose you just wound it round your finger, really” she answered unsatisfactorily when I pressed her as to how this was achieved) she looked exactly like Lauren Bacall, a childish pronouncement that pleased her immensely. I once asked her sister (my aunt obviously) if she thought I bore any resemblance to my mother and she looked at me and said “Weeeell, not to be rotten but your mother was a very good looking woman you know.”
Nice.
Why Reading (At All) Still Counts …
On April 20, 2015 by Speranza
Dana Girls
Frasier ( Son #1) has often told me that people are not reading less now but rather, reading differently. He cites his own reading habits here – and many of his hipster friends – who may dip in and out of many respected, intellectual websites and blogs/instagram accounts daily but not necessarily read an actual book with any degree of regularity. But is the ability to settle down and enjoy a longer body of work for pleasure gradually being edged out by all these shorter blasts online?
Is there a case to be made about our attention spans atrophying since the onset of the internet?
I’ll try to keep this brief …