Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so, on the road…Jack Kerouac
On the road, The Wild Atlantic Way
The Day the Music Died
It is 6:45 AM and the sun is slowly rising over the hospital’s still silent campus. Entering the conference room for morning report, I wonder as I always do, what type of day is in store. But the moment my eyes fall upon my fellow Psych Tech and friend, Kay Bauer, seated at the table, her hair adorned in two, tiny sparkling pink butterfly clips, I have no doubt it is going to be a good one.
I am not sure which of Kay’s many talents would take first prize; her epic guitar playing, “you hum it, I’ll strum it,” her way of making everyone she encountered feel like they were the most important person in the world, her endless witticisms, her generosity. The unique way of throwing her voice to mimic barking which never failed to produce a confused search by all, of a dog, that never materialized. The list goes on… Yet sprinkled in all of her talents was a humility and kindness seldom seen in one so accomplished. That was Kay.
We would sit together in the hospital dining room during meals, as the patients called out song requests. The selections wildly varied. From Frank Sinatra, to the Eagles, to Lynyrd Skynrd, Kay accommodated all. Her guitar playing delighted and soothed, with the unique capability of changing a patient’s mood from distraught to joyful, with just a few verses. I too benefited from her playing, requesting many of my own favorite 80’s rock songs, which she never once refused. I loved those days sitting with Kay, I too healed by her music, magically transported back to a time in youth, with one simple song.
Kay loved Duchess for lunch and always asked me and anyone else working that day, what she could bring back. Her favorite was undoubtedly the chicken tenders and I would happily steal one or two, upon her return which she would place on the desk of the nursing station, for all to enjoy. I am a soup lover and on more than one occasion, she would return with a large container of Chicken Rice, that I had never asked for, absolutely refusing to accept the money she had paid for it.
She owned a variety of beautiful hand held fans which I often admired. One morning she bestowed me with a brilliantly colored one, adorned with flowers. In return, during the Covid pandemic, I gifted her with a hand painted mask, bearing a guitar. Another time, I gave her an Irish worry stone, a favorite souvenir of mine from Ireland, whose smooth marble was said to alleviate worries. She told me she kept it close at all times.
But it was her affect on our patients I believe, I will remember most. Beloved and cherished by countless, she recently showed me a book sent to her by an ex-patient and author, who had written a note of gratitude for something which came so naturally to Kay, she was not even sure what she had done to merit it. I recall her on the busiest of days, foregoing her break to sit with a struggling patient who after their talk, never failed to be brighter and more hopeful. A young patient once approached me during my shift, asking for the guitar to play during his free time. When I responded that I did not know he had a guitar on the unit, he replied that Kay had brought in one of her own, for him to use at any time needed.
Kay’s greatest joy in life was her only child. She told me of her pride in a recent 21st birthday and the celebration they enjoyed together. Her second favorite thing in life I believe, was performing in a band, and how grateful she was having been recently asked to join a new one. She would often tell me stories of her days at a venue called Crave, which I have little doubt were among the best of her life, doing what she loved, making people happy.
At the hospital, we ask patients during group, to name one thing they are grateful for. Mine, for today and always, is having known Kay Bauer.
I am saddened at the loss of my friend. Her light, humor, generosity and spirit will remain with me always. And I imagine at this moment, in a different place and time, a group of people stand, patiently waiting. One man, with a tuft of white blonde hair and a music note tattoo on his forearm, approaches. He says simply, “She took care of me, October 2005.
Young and old, tall and short, far too many too count. Lining up, they are all eager to put in a request for a favorite tune. And in the middle of the crowd, guitar in hand, sits Kay, her twinkling blue eyes smiling. She is more than happy to oblige.
In the Comfort of Strangers
In the fall of 2020, my son Owen left our small Connecticut town to embark on a journey; his first year attending Trinity College Dublin, in the land of his grandmother’s birth. Though Covid had the world firmly in its grip, Owen held high hopes. We all did. And arriving the next morning at 5AM, Irish time, he lay down his bags, eagerly awaiting the arrival of five flat mates; four from Ireland and one a country unknown.
But when Owen called home that evening, his voice was downcast, “No one came mom.” And so it was. Those four Irish flatmates never did materialize, choosing instead to study remotely from home, with the continued bonus of their mam’s home cooking. Owen’s meals, supplied by the college, arrived by phantom delivery, vacuum packed and sterile. The students that did come, were confined to their flats, the only allowance being a short jaunt around the courtyard for exercise. Classes for the foreseeable future, remote. A country in lockdown. A college dream on hold.
Then a text from Owen the next morning, a glimmer of hope in his words, “My first and only flat mate just arrived from India mom. His name is Nikhil, he is 6”6, and a gentle giant.”
And with those words, a friendship was born.
They have remained together as flatmates over the past three years and are currently experiencing a far different world; in person lectures, participating in sporting events and clubs, attending the Trinity Ball or simply enjoying a pint of Guinness together in a Dublin pub. They have traveled to neighboring European cities to learn of different cultures and have visited both the near and the far corners of the magnificent Irish countryside.
Life, is good again.
Nikhil is a constant fixture in not just the flat they share, but in Owen’s room as well and often joins in on our FaceTime calls. He has been encouraging Owen to take up soccer once again, and to join him for daily swims in the Irish Sea, a brave undertaking due to the frigid water. Owen has been teaching Nikhil American slang and laughed as Nikhil, a quick learner, enthusiastically described the “sick” party they attended the other night.
Their admiration for each other is evident. Owen describes Nikhil as the nicest person he has ever met. And Nikhil, an only child, once told me, “Owen is my best friend Mrs. Simmons, and will be the best man in my wedding someday.” When I remind Owen to be wary late at night returning home to campus, he responds, “oh, no one would ever dare bother us when Nikhil is around. Everyone is afraid of him given his size. If they only knew how nice he is.”
They are friends as the saying goes, in good times and in bad. One evening Owen called to advise he thought he had a fever but had forgotten to pack a thermometer. “Can you ask Nikhil if he has one?” I suggested, worried it might be covid. I heard the sounds of my son’s furious texting and then, not, 30 seconds later, a frantic rap, rap, rap on the door – Nikhil to the rescue, thermometer in hand.
Owen and Nikhil moved into their new flat yesterday, on that spectacular Trinity campus, steeped in history. They will begin their final year of learning amid the splendor of Dublin City, alive once again with music and song. They are both keenly aware it may be the last time they room together in their lifetime.
A friendship, stronger than any pandemic.
For the love of a sheep
It was a late February morning on Achill Island and the clouds looming above the Irish sea were tinged in silvery gray. Working in unison, they waged war with the sun whose halfhearted attempts to breakthrough fell short, resulting in only faint slivers of light which fell meekly on the ground. The wind though temperate, possessed a fierceness that cautioned. I squinted at the landscape before me and the ubiquitous sheep, scattered in every direction. Their fleece sported a splash of varying hues, from cotton candy pink to a dusty sky blue, a way for farmers to claim a restless rogue who may have wandered off, whether by chance, or choice. I had two things in mind as I stood high on the hillside that beautiful day; to gain closure after the death of my Irish born mother and to find the perfect sheep, by which to remember her.
My mother loved sheep from as far back as I can remember. A love I imagine, which began in an earlier chapter of life, while growing up on a farm, in Cloone, County Leitrim. Though she left Cloone in later years to become a nurse in New York City, her love for Ireland and the gentle creatures who reminded her of her home, never ceased.
A memory materializes. Long gone but cherished still. My family is on a two week summer holiday in Ireland. I am six-years-old, tailgating my mother contentedly, as she makes her way in and out of the local Irish gift shops, in search of the most beautiful and authentic souvenir sheep. Who, if chosen as a result of my mother’s discerning eye, would be gifted with a one way journey back to the United States, via Aer Lingus.
She ultimately chose two sheep, one white, one black. I cannot say, which one was dearer to my heart, as each possessed a unique charm. The black sheep, its tiny horns curled, stood defiantly in our living room, which my mother placed atop the piano, a sentry of sorts, before the addition of our German Shepard, Brandy. The white one, with its soft, knotty curls of white fleece and spindly black wooden legs, was strategically positioned on the always meticulously polished cherry side table of our family room, directly overlooking the front yard. A view not of the sea, but appealing given the jade green grass and vivid pink hydrangea which blossomed in the spring. Yes, I believe our two Irish sheep were pleased with their new American home, and proud to assume the role of ambassadors of our heritage.
The sheep often came to my rescue in times of stress or discord, each assuming a different role. I recall after a particularly hurtful fight with my best friend, holding the white sheep in my hand and stroking its fuzz. That placid, calm face and silky wool, somehow righted all wrongs of the moment. The black sheep in contrast, was a symbol of courage, boldness, perseverance. Holding him in my palm, eyes closed, his sensible nature always prevailed. And if the black sheep could talk, I imagined might offer the wise words of an Irish proverb I had once heard or read somewhere, and loved “There is nothing so bad that it couldn’t be worse.”
When my parents departed this world, aside from the carpets, paintings and other furnishings amassed in life, my three sisters and I each took turns expressing a particular item we desired, one which held a special place in our hearts as a remembrance of our much loved mother and father.
My younger sister Caroline, had hoped for the grandfather clock, a two hundred year old beauty purchased at the Lord Edward in Dublin whose hourly grand chime, never failing to produce memories of my one-of-a-kind father. My sister Sheila asked if she might have my mother’s Irish Shillelagh, which for a lifetime hung unused in her bedroom closet, its blackthorn wood carved with care, a forever symbol of Irish heritage and a reminder of her home across the sea. My older sister Anne had always loved our family’s oriental gong, an item purchased at a local tag sale which appealed to my Scottish/Irish father’s sometimes eccentric nature. He never failed to delight in pinging the gong four or five times dramatically before a special family dinner, its vibrating echo I can still hear to this day.
And for me, well perhaps you can guess? I asked to be caretaker of the sheep, both the white and the black, as there was no way the two could be separated after all those years together. To this day, they sit serenely in two rooms of my home a wee bit older, ambassadors still.
But after the death of my mother, those two little sheep for the one time in my life, were of little comfort. Instead I longed to return to Ireland, the place of her birth, in search of something I could not quite define.
So there I stood on that late February day, high up on a hilltop, lost in thought. And when my eyes fell upon one sheep, grazing not three feet from me, I had to wonder if it had been there all along or if its presence rather, was an illusion. The sheep remained for a good long moment, its black spindly legs planted firmly before the glistening sea. It stared at me placidly then turned and made its way downhill but not before, in that brief encounter, I captured its photograph.
A large canvas print of that perfect Achill sheep presently hangs on my kitchen wall. It is in clear view of both the black and the white sheep, who will never be replaced and forever hold a special place in my heart. I shared my photograph on several Irish websites, my image garnishing over 7,000 likes on one Facebook page entitled “Postcards from Ireland.” I found I was not the only one who was enchanted with sheep, both among Irish and Americans alike and every other nationality sprinkled in. Some favorite comments…
“God’s Hand at Work”
“As far as we’ll get to heaven in this life”
“I want to be a sheep overlooking the ocean in my next life”
“This photo makes me so happy!”
“Magical Achill, where time stands still”
I recently had the privilege of returning to Ireland once again, this time in celebration. It was my son Owen’s 21st birthday. His grandmother Mary, would be proud to know he is spending his four college years in the land she loved so well.
As we walked through the colorful town of Doolin, famous for both its music and iconic Cliffs, a small shop beckoned. Entering, Owen tailgated me contentedly as I examined the beautiful handmade gifts, neatly laid out before us. The proprietor, an older woman with world wise eyes, watched wordlessly then offered “Can I help ye find something special to bring home?”
I paused for a moment, then my eyes fell upon a small, black sheep, half hidden on the shelf, its spindly legs standing boldly before me. Approaching, I picked up the tiny woolen figure.
It was as if he was waiting for me all along.
On the Road Again
“On the road, again, just can’t wait to get on that road again.
Going places that I’ve never been.
Seein’ things that I may never see again.
And I can’t wait to get on the road again.”
Willie Nelson
“Your mother,” began Jimmy Dillon, who sat contentedly perched on the bar stool next to mine. It was Christmas Eve and the atmosphere rang of reunion and festivity. Publicans was our beloved hometown bar; a place where many had enjoyed their first legal drink and to where they returned once again on these holiday weekends, to bask in friendship and bygone days. I studied Jimmy, a boy I had known briefly from my neighborhood who had gone on in later years to become a fire fighter. Close to 50 now, his twinkling blue eyes and shock of red hair still mirrored his sixteen year old self. He continued on, his tone a mixture of fondness and fear. “Probably the nicest woman I have ever met, but the day she picked me when I was walking home from school? I saw my life pass before my eyes!” He took a long swig of his beer in an attempt to quell the memory then proceeded to emulate how my mother would ask him a question while driving and then turn full around to where he sat in the back seat, to hear his answer. He weaved and bobbed on the bar stool his hands flailing wildly as he re-lived the moment. The last thing I remember him saying as he made his way into the crowd was “would you give her my best? She was just the nicest lady…”
We had heard it all before you see, my sisters and I, as my mother was somewhat of a legend for her driving. Our father perhaps bore the brunt of these mishaps most deeply while fielding numerous phone calls in regards to the fender benders my mother had incurred over the years. Our Insurance Agent, Joe Kilhenny, was a fixture at many our family’s Sunday barbeques and in later years attended my wedding.
Growing up on a farm in rural Leitrim my mother’s mode of transportation was her trusty bicycle which she rode around the countryside. She often described a nearby orchard where she would stop and pick apples on her way to school. I remember how she laughed at the memory of being chased by a farmer after tucking a choice few into her pocket one visit.
In her mid-twenties she left her cherished Ireland for New York City and became a pediatric nurse at St. Vincent’s hospital in Greenwich Village. Meeting my father shortly thereafter, they married had four daughters and settled in a suburb of Long Island. And for a good awhile she survived without the need to drive, walking to the nearby market and relying on the kindness of friends when needed. But as the years passed the kitchen calendar grew full. Sports, birthday parties, doctor’s appointments, the rhythm of life – all requiring a car and a licensed driver. She could put it off no longer. And so it began.
It is always debated among our family exactly how many times she took her road test. We settled at nine though the exact number will always be a mystery. The eighth time she failed, her fiercely loyal best friend Eileen Anello, outraged at the injustice of it all claimed she “knew a judge.” And whether by the hand of god, my mother’s ability or that nameless judge, my mother at 50 years of age at last passed her road test.
When I was in Middle School, she drove through the McGuire’s backyard. Claiming the road was slippery from a recent rain, she careened through some hedges, jumped a curb and stopped dead set in the middle of the tidy backyard. Finding no one home she left a note with her name and number, no other explanation needed. The chant of “your mother drove through the McGuire’s backyard!!” echoing through the school bus, haunted me and my three sisters for years.
Our Irish wolfhound caught on early. We never knew exactly what happened but one day after numerous trips driving with my mother to the dog field, he stubbornly refused to get in the car. Nothing worked. Tugging, pushing or being cajoled with dog treats. He was done.
In our early months of dating my future husband was unaware of my mother’s driving escapades. Visiting our home for the first time through the garage he noticed a refrigerator positioned against the back wall sporting a severely dented door. Entering the house he asked my father, “Bill, what happened to that refrigerator’s door in the garage?” Without looking up from his paper came the weary reply, “Oh, Mary uses the fridge as a measuring device of sorts. When she gives it a good whack, she knows she has pulled in completely.”
Then there was the time my sister was homesick at college and my mother as mother’s often do, came to the rescue. Never mind we lived in New York and my sister’s college was in Pennsylvania or that my mother had never before driven on a major interstate highway. There was no question she would go. So she called on the service of her best friend Lily, an Irish cousin who lived close by and in their youth grew up on an adjoining farm. And off they went that Saturday morning, my mother at the wheel and Lily riding shotgun, to visit my homesick sister. As night fell, I watched my father pace back and forth. It was before cell phones and I had never before seen him so nervous. He clearly realized the seriousness of the situation. And then a phone call from my sister…Mom and Lily had arrived! They were a little later than expected having ended up first in the state of Ohio due to a wrong turn but all was well as they prepared to go to dinner. I always wondered if Lily had aged a few years during that ride to Villanova University as I believe we all did.
Though my mother had a series of accidents throughout her life, what saved her I believe was the fact that she always drove far under the speed limit, an unseen angel on her shoulder or the brake pedal. A good deal of the trouble was that her attention was simply elsewhere, like the day she sheared off the side view mirror of a parked car while adjusting the radio to her favorite Irish station. My sister described turning back to see a dangling mirror as they drove onward, my mother blissfully unaware of the damage left behind. They returned to leave a note on the battered car’s windshield. It too a silent victim.
My wonderful mother has since left this world but her memory lives on in all who knew and loved her. I see her now, in a faraway place and time still charming all with her brogue and angling at any chance possible, to get behind the wheel once again.
”I am happy to drive down to the gate to pick up our new visitors,” my mother offers. God ponders a moment always touched by her helpful nature. But he is a realist. “Well thank you Mary but it is a beautiful day. Perhaps you could ride down to meet them on your bicycle?” My mother smiles. If disappointed it does not show. She always did love riding her bicycle
Finding Mary
A visit to a cherished next door neighbor, fifty years later, revealed a surprising revelation; you can go home again.
When my father died, the memories that encompassed me, swirling in and out of my consciousness in the futile hope of comfort, were not of the time and place I spent the majority of my life with him. Rather, my mind returned to a tidy, brick row house where we lived my first six years and whose address remains forever etched in my mind. 34-52-73rd Street, Jackson Heights. It was not so much my childhood home in Queens to which I longed to return but instead to my next door neighbor, Mary Balducci, an Italian-born seamstress who made a lifelong impression in my heart.
She would be nearly ninety years old I calculated. Her husband Alfred had died unexpectedly shortly after we moved and her only son Johnny, had long married and moved away. We had not kept in touch after leaving Jackson Heights though in the weeks and months shortly after, while driving home from New York City where my father worked, would make impromptu visits. On those trips I would recall my father suddenly announcing in a jovial voice “Who wants to stop and see Mary?” and as my two sisters and I shrieked in excitement he would turn the car around for the short detour to 73rd street. While my father sat curbside, we would race to her front door, ring the bell then wait hopefully, but she was always home. She would embrace us with the same two words, repeated again and again “my babies, my babies.” Over the years these visits became less frequent and as we settled into the rhythm of life, eventually ceased all together. And I tucked the memories of 73rd Street and Mary Balducci neatly away.
The search was simple really. No intense sleuthing, no years of tracking down leads on where she had gone. No heartbreak in discovering she was no longer alive. Just a google search revealing her address, followed by a phone number. A chance to return to a past lifetime suddenly lay before me; Maria Balducci, 34-52-73rd Street, Jackson Heights. She answered on the eighth ring, in the warm, lilting Italian I accent I recognized immediately. “Mary?” this is Kathy your old next door neighbor. My father died. Can I come see you?”
They say you can’t go home again…
She greeted me in a simple faded housecoat and pink slippers, her black hair still thick and luxurious, defying her ninety one years. “My baby, my baby,” she repeated over and over. “Come! Walk around! Go upstairs! Look! Remember!”
I tentatively entered her dining room and stood before the breakfront. I recall the bottom drawer always being filled with Juicy Fruit gum which Mary gave to us in abandon. I approached and as she nodded, grasped the drawer which slid open easily, gratefully, as if all these years awaiting my return. It is said that the sense of smell is probably more closely linked with memory than any of our other senses. The aroma of Juicy Fruit gum filled the air.
They say you can’t go home again.
I walked into the kitchen where I had sat countless days at her table eating bowls of “skinny spaghetti” on top of which she painstakingly grated Parmesan Reggiano cheese bought from a market in Little Italy. Gazing out the window I spotted across the way, the neat line of row houses and then the one I most sought out, my childhood boyfriend James Latieri. Years later after we had we left Jackson Heights, I encountered Jimmy quite by accident, at a Chaminade High School dance in Mineola, Long Island. We sat in an outdoor pavilion, smoking cigarettes swigging Budweiser from a quart bottle and contemplating life. We were all strangers but being teenagers that little mattered. And then the conversation somehow evolved to where everyone was born. The next few moments remain in my memory jumbled but I recall hearing the words “Did you say Jackson Heights?”repeated by a lanky teen seated next to me. “Whoa! My best friend Jimmy was from Jackson Heights and he is on his way here right now!” And then as if in a dream seeing Jimmy Latieri, my six year old crush, materialize before my very eyes. Sauntering up to us, cigarette dangling from his lips he flung back his mop of long black hair and listened silently to the story. Trying to maintain his aura of cool, he lost it for a minute when he excitedly asked: “Kathy, is it really you?” We laughed together that balmy night transported from six to sixteen in an instant. His family like mine had moved to Long Island though he would never return to Queens or to 73rd Street. I imagined because Jimmy never had a Mary Balducci living next door.
Gazing out Mary’s kitchen window, I noted the tall looming high rise apartment building still standing adjacent and in that moment, remembered the terror of “the gray-haired lady.” As we played in the garden below she would appear at the window, ten stories above, fling it open and then toss an empty Vodka bottle out which always seemed to miss us by only inches. It was not being hit by the bottle I feared, but the strange, calm smile that would appear on her face right before she threw it. I dreamed about the gray haired lady for years after we left who unlike Mary represented a dark side of life during my short six years in Jackson Heights.
I asked Mary about the turtles. Could we walk out back to the garden? The row houses each had a tiny, fenced in yard behind each home. Mary’s husband Alfred tended to several Box Turtles which he kept in a beautiful pond he had created in the corner of their garden. As a child, I loved to help him feed them and attribute my lifelong love of turtles to this early introduction. As Mary and I entered the garden and stood before the spot where the pond now dry and overgrown once lay, I felt Alfred with us in spirit and hoped he was once again caring for his turtles in another place and time.
She had remained in her home on 73rd street, at ninety one years of age, a testament to her will and independence. She still left her front door unlocked and insisted she was not going to any “old age home” as her relatives urged. She continued to take the subway to Little Italy to purchase the finest ingredients for her Italian recipes. She told me of old neighbors on the street, the ones who had gone and the few that remained. I told her about the lives of my sisters and how we had remained as close as ever but it was an unspoken understanding that she and I had shared the closest bond. I expressed to her the heartache of losing my father; she told me she never quite got over our leaving. And then it was time for me to leave her once again.
Six years later, my mother died. I had no contact with Mary since our last visit but once again felt the need to see her. She would be ninety seven years old now. What were the odds? I waited for weeks then picked up the phone. After several rings a recording. The number had been disconnected. I was not surprised but nonetheless felt the need to have an end to this story. I pondered my next step. And then I recalled that Mary’s only son Johnny lived in Bayside Queens. As a child living next door I had met him only a handful of times. I searched for his name and found the address. But instead of calling, I wrote him a letter. Maybe because I did not want to hear of Mary’s dying through an impersonal phone call, maybe to buy a little more time to process she might be gone. I wrote him of my visit with his mother six years ago. I described how I sat in his childhood kitchen eating tri color ice cream at 10AM in the morning from a china bowl. I shared the indescribable feeling of walking around his home and how it had felt exactly the same. I told him about the still faint aroma, fifty years later, of the juicy fruit gum. I wrote of my memories of feeding the Box Turtles with his father. I told him how much I had loved his mother and my need to know what happened to her. I ended my letter to Johnny with the simple words “you can go home again.”
Johnny called back two weeks later. I was strangely relieved not to be home that day, as if to be spared the dreaded news. He spoke to my husband and told him how much he enjoyed my letter. He loved the part about his father and the turtles, he had not thought about the Box Turtles in years. He recalled how much his mother and father loved our family and Mary’s heartache when we moved away. She never quite got over it, he said. Yes, she was still alive but they had sold the house on 73rd street and had moved her to a nursing home just last year. It was unsafe for her to live alone and she had experienced recent dementia. He had the address if I would like to visit…
There is a portrait which hangs in the family room of my home. It shows myself and my two sisters as children, alongside my beautiful and then youthful parents. A picture that if I brought to show Mary in the nursing home, would be easily recognizable. Her babies. Three smiling girls, frozen in time. I have taken the picture down off the wall so I can easily place it in my car. It sits waiting in the corner of the living room. Waiting. It has been there for a while now but next week, yes next week for certain I will visit her.
Maria Balducci died in 2016 at the age of 99 years.
Whisked Away
My mother was a minimalist who disliked clutter of any sort. Our home was beautiful, warm, open and airy but devoid of any type of knickknack, or paraphernalia she deemed unattractive or cumbersome. A snapshot of our living room: simple sheer white linen curtains, a silky cherry baby grand piano adorned with one family photo and a small Belleek Scotty dog atop its finely polished finish. Two or three tasteful paintings and a crystal Waterford bowl which sat center on the coffee table. If there was a word to describe the opposite of hoarder it would characterize my mother.
We all learned quite early on not to leave anything within her reach or it would simply disappear, forever. We had a theory, my sisters and I, that all those belongings, mostly certain items of clothing, were shipped off to her beloved homeland Ireland. We imagined our relatives or their friends or friends of their friends were the delighted recipients of the new American fashions which arrived in a package stamped “overseas.”
I don’t know how this idea was formulated among us. Had we heard my father in anger accusing her of this rather underhanded deed when he could not find his adored sweater? Had we seen a large UPS box tucked away in a hall closet? Had we heard my mother speaking to a distant relative in hushed tones, promising a shipment would soon arrive? No I do not believe we ever had absolute evidence, it was just a truth we knew existed, though one we could never quite prove.
My best friend once left her prized jean jacket at my house. I swallowed hard three days later when she came to my door ready to reclaim it. Ransacking the house together I finally shook my head in defeat and told her she must have left it elsewhere. But deep down I knew, it was no doubt en route that very moment, via Aer Lingus, to greener pastures.
Another time, my college roommate came home with me for the weekend and left her favorite sweatshirt in my room. She too would never see it again. I imagined another teenage girl, but this one Irish by birth, clad contentedly in the Manhattan College sweatshirt, perhaps strolling the banks of the Liffey on one of those chilled and damp Irish morns or sipping a Guiness in a local pub hugging the sweatshirt close.
My sisters and I were swimmers and divers and over the years accumulated many trophies as a result of our efforts. Years later as young adults, we noticed their absence and asked my mother where the trophies had gone. Silence. Our school yearbooks too had a short shelf life as did report cards, photographs and artwork. And at Christmas, our annual tree trimming, generally a happy and festive time, on more than one occasion ended in angry words and confrontations as ornaments usually of the bulky or unattractive variety, evaporated into thin air. “Check another box,” my mother would suggest.
I think it was my father who bore the brunt most deeply. He would sit in his recliner on Sunday mornings, peacefully reading the papers. Leaving for a short time to drive me to a friend’s house, he returned to find the papers he had left at the foot of his chair, not fifteen minutes before, gone. He would later find them stacked neatly in the garage, whisked away before he even had the chance to get through the sports page.
Was there a method to her madness? I think she simply disliked excess and when she felt we had too many items of clothing we had not worn in a while, decided it was time for them to be on their way.
You might think that this habit of my mother’s caused anger, frustration and hurt within our family. Sometimes true, but it only lasted a day or two being that we could never really prove it was her doing. Though while looking at a Christmas card one year of my four beaming Irish cousins, I could swear the youngest was clad in my old rolling Stones tee-shirt.
As an adult, I too dislike over accumulation and clutter. I am of the school that less is more. I understand my mother’s obsession with less more clearly now. I don’t agree with donating others belongings without permission though have been tempted on more than one occasion, to “whisk away” a number of my husband’s KU sweatshirts. I refrain.
And on those days I long to look at an old high school yearbook, I return to my old friend’s house. The one whose jean jacket went missing.
Ode to a Pheasant
“See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs, And mounts exulting on triumphant wings”
Alexander Pope Quotes , Source: Windsor Forest (l. 111)
I cannot say for certain when I first made his acquaintance or tell you the exact day he stole my heart. We had just moved to a small town in Connecticut from New York City following the 9/11 tragedy. Our new home’s family room sported an enormous glass window which overlooked the back yard, a spectacular bucolic setting of manicured jade green grass, magnolia trees and a pond, all bordering a 200 acre nature preserve. I was growing accustomed to the ubiquitous deer and red fox sightings but had never before encountered a pheasant and was not prepared for the effect his physical appearance bestowed, both in brilliance and beauty.
His presence, generally either early morning or late afternoon, was always announced by a loud and strange-sounding squawk, echoing eerily through the landscape. I grew to love this sound. Emerging from the tall hedges of the nature preserve he would strut and bob in all his splendor, slowly cruising the yard, pecking and flapping his great wings in a display of cockiness and valor.
I often pondered from where this lovely creature came. Was he an exotic pet from some grand estate who had fled to explore new pastures? Or perhaps a restless migrant in search of a mate? I researched the presence of pheasants in Fairfield County Connecticut and discovered that these fascinating birds were indeed not native to this area and rarely seen. My research further allowed that wild pheasants only live approximately five years in the wild unlike raised pheasants which can live up to twelve years in captivity. Our pheasant was chasing the years.
Sadly, the pheasant never did find a partner but instead took up with a group of wild turkeys who too frequented our property. I would often see him among the pack, his brilliance a gem among the other gray birds. The turkeys were a friendly lot and took him in with little fanfare. I loved them for that. I was pleased he had found companions though daydreamed about finding him a soul mate of his own, perhaps from some pheasant farm if that sort of thing existed. I imagined visiting, picking out a female pheasant and bringing it home. And like in a fairy tale they would live happily ever after and create for our town a whole new flock of pheasants for all to enjoy.
I longed to see him daily but as if sensing his importance he arrived only once or twice a week. In an attempt to lure him closer, I bought a bag of wild bird seed and scattered them in a line, starting at the opening of the preserve from which he emerged and ending just inches from my bedroom window. The very next morning, I heard him, louder than usual and realized with glee that the seed trail had worked. He stood majestically, so close to my window that I could reach out and touch him and in that brief moment snapped his photograph which still hangs on my refrigerator and atop this story.
There was something about the beauty of the pheasant and his calm demeanor that somehow made everything so right even on those days that were not. He became a fixture in the neighborhood and neighbors became proprietary. They began referring to him as “our pheasant” if he spent any amount of time on their property. He became somewhat of a celebrity in our small town.
When he went missing for sometimes weeks at a time, he became a topic of concern. I would see a friend in the local market and ask “Have you seen the pheasant.”? I imagined putting posters on trees in the area with his photo and the simple word “Missing.” No explanation necessary.
The pheasant enchanted us with his presence for over seven years, surviving hurricanes, snow storms and numerous predators. After one particularly fierce winter storm I fancied making up a tee-shirt for him stating “I survived the blizzard of 2010” and sending his photo to our local newspaper to feature in their wildlife section.
Then one day as magically as he had appeared, the pheasant returned no more. It has been over a year now. We no longer ask each other “Have you seen him?” There is an unsaid understanding among us. Nothing gold can stay.
Yet I still stare hard when I see the wild turkeys trotting by my window, hoping, praying for that glint of brilliant color amid the backdrop of the woods.
The Days of Wine and Rosie’s
In the summer of 1982 my sister Sheila and I worked as waitresses at Rosie O’Grady’s in midtown Manhattan. Rosie’s was a haven for all those Irish and all those who wished to be. Co-owners Mike Carty and Austin Delaney both Irish born, could always be counted on to find work for a new arrival, fresh off the plane from their homeland sometimes holding nothing more than a few dollars in their pocket and hope in their heart. Everyone, sooner or later found their way to Rosie’s. It was that sort of place. My father Bill Dickinson, was General Manager and suggested that a stint learning the restaurant business would be a summer well spent for my sister and me. So on a hot afternoon clad in white blouse, black skirt and comfortable shoes we left our Long Island home headed to W. 52nd Street, NYC. That summer almost forty years ago, remains one of my fondest and most cherished. I remember those days. When the lights of Broadway still shone brightly and the theme of each and every night at Rosie’s was laughter and merriment. And the band played on…
Glancing at the clock above the waitress station whose hands that night seemed to be moving counter clock-wise, I pondered which song the band would play to wrap up the evening. It was without fail one of two ballads; “Good Night Irene” or “Show me the way to go home.” I made a silent bet with myself on the latter and smiled as the bandleader struck up the tune to prove me right. “Show me the way to go home. I’m tired and I want to go to bed. I had a little drink about an hour ago and it’s gone right to my head…” I knew every word by heart to those Irish songs and on certain days when life seems to be going at a speed I cannot control, return to sweet Rosie O’Grady’s and a time where my father is alive once again. Young and handsome he stands tall at the front door welcoming patrons. We can’t go back again but we can remember.
Dabbing my finger to my lips to reapply my gloss, I tapped my foot merrily to one of my favorite tunes, “Lovey Leitrim,” the county of my mother’s birth and a song especially dear to my heart. Smoothing my apron as I hummed along, I glanced at the kitchen door which at that very moment swung open with a bang. I spotted my sister Sheila with whom I partnered as a waitress. As her eyes met mine I could have sworn for a moment they narrowed. It had always been a source of friction between us, our roles in the waitress hierarchy. Waiters and waitresses were comprised of a team of two -one working outside on the floor and the other inside the kitchen. Sheila felt her job, (the inside) which consisted of standing in the kitchen under the hot lamps of the steam table and then bringing the food to the awaiting customer was the more laborious and unglamorous. I, (the outside partner,) took cocktail and dinner orders. How these roles were initially decided upon remains a mystery though I believe it was reasoned that she was the more physically stronger and better suited to toting the often back breaking trays. I watched her approach a corner table as she balanced two plates of prime rib like a seasoned juggler, a glint of perspiration on her brow. Maneuvering the steaming platters her arm shaking under the weight, she appeared to lose her grip allowing a stream of gravy to spill evenly onto the stunned diner’s lap. Casting the unpleasant scene from my mind I made my way to the bar. I would no doubt hear all about it on our car ride back to LI that night. After all, she had the harder job.
It was the people I met while working at Rosie’s who remain with me. The charming, charismatic bartender, John Carroll whose twinkling blue eyes could transfer a teetotaler into a seasoned drinker and whose life ended in a tragic auto accident far too soon. In contrast was his fellow bartender Miles, who had a smile and wink for every customer but with his quick wit and razor tongue an insult for the rest of us, all in good fun but scathing none the less. There was Mary “O” the vivacious, carefree, fun loving blonde waitress who was rumored to later become a NYC policewoman and her partner Kathleen, who enchanted customers with her Irish accent and sweet smile. Who could forget the middle aged team of Anne and Paula who bickered constantly yet worked together like a finely oiled machine and on more than one occasion held their own during late nights at the Blarney Stone throwing back shots with the younger crew no worse for the wear the next morning. I remember the beautiful, ethereal Laura who waited tables to earn money for acting school like so many other young dreamers and the gregarious and big hearted chef Mohammad whose brilliant smile radiated over the heat of the steam table and whose quick temper terrified those who had not yet discovered his kindly nature. I recall the retired detective Brendan who as host during the day charmed the ladies with his lilting Irish brogue and at dusk, magically transformed into intimidating bouncer ready to escort the occasional unruly patron to the door.
The night would officially end around 2AM. With tables cleared and tips counted we headed to our home away from home, the Blarney Stone for an after work drink or two. And in those late night hours we spoke of life and the occasional difficult customer while Bob Seeger sang soulfully on the jukebox.
But summer days are short. In what seemed the blink of an eye we bid farewell to Rosie’s, retired our aprons and headed back to Long Island to return to school. With us we took fistfuls of cash, a new trade learned, friends we vowed to meet again and memories to last a lifetime.
I am older now with a family of my own. My parents have dearly departed. Sheila and I remain as close as ever. Each Christmas we gather at her house in gratitude. During our last celebration while sipping a glass of wine in her family room, I glanced into the kitchen. Sheila, clad in a tidy white apron was removing with some difficulty the steaming turkey from the oven. Her arm was shaking under the weight of the tray as she balanced the bird. Looking up suddenly as if sensing my stare, her eyes met mine and in that moment I could have sworn, narrowed. The history they say, has a way of repeating itself. I promised myself I would clear the table for her that very night as both a penance and memento to our days at Rosie O’ Grady’s.
Love Letter to Ireland – the Gift of My Mother
Dear Ireland, It is not the distinct and lonesome scent of burning peat from distant cottages. Nor your fields of brilliant green. It is not the timeless waterfalls that cascade in hidden woodland. Nor your winding rivers whose beauty inspire poets. It is not your majestic cliffs that stand like loyal sentry men over the wild Irish sea. It was not the magical taste of my very first ninety-nine ice cream cone with a flake bar neatly tucked atop. All of these things which you have given me I have loved. But none compare to my most prized possession. How do I thank you for the gift of a mother who almost never was?
I would start at the beginning as stories often do and tell you of a girl named Mary Foley from Cloone, Country Leitrim, tomboy by nature, explorer by heart. Who at age nine for reasons unknown, contracted Rheumatic Fever. As the days turned into night and her fever raged on, hope began to fade. A local priest was summoned to give her last rites. But then dear Eire, I would tell you of a miracle. My grandmother Rose heard of an old man who lived alone in the countryside. A man said to have the gift of healing. And on that very day, desperate and determined, a mother walked seven miles to see him and tell him of her daughter’s plight. As they sat together solemnly in his stark thatched cottage the old man spoke, “your daughter will get well, but in her place an animal will die.” As the sun rose the next morning in Drumharkan, Glebe, a rooster crowed, and a child’s fever broke. And in the stillness of the barnyard a cow lay dead. And that was the day I got my mother back.
She left her home in Cloone to become a maternity nurse at St.Vincent’s hospital in NYC, was married and raised four daughters, though her heart never strayed from Ireland. I can still envision her singing and tapping her feet to a favorite Clancy Brother’s tune in our Long Island kitchen. “I’ll tell my ma when I go home, the boy’s won’t leave the girl’s alone…” Her best friend and first cousin Lily would visit often. I would arrive home from school to the sound of laughter and the whirr of the blender concocting their favorite orange daiquiris as they talked of memories of home.
My mother was fiercely independent, stubborn and determined but above all loved by all who knew her. She took her road test late in life and after her eighth go proudly waved the coveted certificate before us announcing she had passed – never mind how long it took her. I remember her driving instructor now a close friend, nodding enthusiastically in approval as he sat sipping tea and eating a slice of her famous apple pie.
Though my parents settled in the U.S. they celebrated their Irish heritage each and every day. My father was General Manager of Rosie O’ Grady’s restaurant in midtown Manhattan, a haven for all those Irish or those who wished to be. An Irish band played nightly and my father never failed to have the band sing “Lovely Leitrim” when my mother would visit. During summers my father would rent a house for two weeks in a suburb of Dublin. My love for Ireland was solidified during those summers. I recall the misty weather and our Irish friends announcing “a heat wave” once the temperature reached 70 degrees as they ran to the beach. One summer, my father took us to a nearby farm where we picked out an Irish Wolf Hound pup we named Connell. My mother and Connell became inseparable and were a familiar sight around town; she driving and Connell sitting tall in the passenger seat. Each St. Patrick’s Day, my mother and Connell would travel to New York City to proudly march side by side in the parade. A tradition they shared till Connell’s death at age six -Wolf hounds do not live long due to the size of their huge heart…
My mother Mary like her beloved Connell, left us too soon. At her wake, an old man who I did not know walked in and quietly sat in the back of the chapel. As the hours wore on and the crowd thinned, he approached me to pay his respects. “My name is Michael Dillon. I lived in the same town as your lovely mother and we walked to school every day. Then one day, she got very sick and I didn’t see her for many weeks.” As he turned to leave, he paused, then added: “but your mother got well and a strange thing happened. A cow died.” And in that moment a legend I had heard for so many years became a truth and my gratitude for having her as a mother forever realized. And for that Dear Ireland I thank you.
Memories of a Fifth Floor Walk up
My best friend Janet and I shared a fifth floor walk up apartment on E. 83rd between Park and Lexington Avenues in NYC during our early twenties. The neighborhood was phenomenal, ideal, a combination of serenity and vibrancy just a stone throw from both the Lexington Avenue subway and the majestic Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Our apartment was a tiny two room structure, the first room comprised of the kitchen and living room and the second containing two twin beds crammed so close together our toes almost touched. A visitor entering our living room with two bottles of wine under each arm once remarked, “I’ll just put these in the kitchen!” to which I replied, “You’re standing in it.”
I remember one hot summer day our window air conditioner dripping rhythmically on the unit directly below us, prompting the downstairs tenant, an eccentric but pleasant woman to pay an impromptu visit pleading, “please, can you do something? that drip, drip, drip is driving me mad. Why the sound is going right through my teeth!” I handed her a pillow to muffle the offending din and politely bid her adieu shrugging the encounter off as typical city living, neither of us no worse for the wear.
On the floor above us resided two young men, Dave and Barry, new to the city from the Midwest. Both possessed polite and kindly natures and we struck up an easy friendship often playing monopoly or simply running up and down the stairwell to each others apartments just to say hello or drop off a plate of brownies. . The casual relationship we shared with the boys gave our apartment building a feeling of dorm living and shelved the belief that living in New York meant never getting to know your neighbors.
Tuesday was “Beauty Night,” a weekly ritual we cherished involving face masks, pedicures and chilled cucumber slices on eyelids. These do it yourself escapes soothed both body and soul though I do recall an unpleasant incident involving a peppermint foot cream which caused a burning reaction on Janet’s feet. I remember one dateless New Year’s Eve cozily holed up in our apartment watching the entire 24 hour Twilight Zone marathon thrilled to not be out with the hoards attempting to hail a cab on a bitter night.
Though it took some getting used to, our apartment’s five floor ascent allowed us the best physical shape of our life and in no time we could sprint up all five floors like marathon runners. An added perk was the old fashioned candy store we frequented only steps outside our front door on the corner of 83rd Street, a neighborhood landmark that has stood the test of time and still serves homemade lemonade and egg-creams. But as they say, all good things must end.
We said goodbye to our fifth floor walk up for a larger apartment in Stuyvesant Town located in lower Manhattan. My dad had put his name on the waiting list five years earlier. “Stuy Town,” as it is affectionately known, allowed more space at a rent controlled price an offer we could not refuse. So we packed up our bags and headed downtown to a two bedroom, elevator building on East 20th Street carrying too, memories bittersweet.
I visited our old fifth floor walk-up last summer, thirty years later and stood on the doorstep, it’s appearance virtually unchanged. I snapped the below photo as a testament to my first apartment and the days of living in New York City.
Though somewhere right now, I feel one thing is certain. Uptown or down, east side or west, a vacant apartment lies waiting. Awaiting a pair of twenty-something roommates eager to unpack their bags alongside their dreams, maybe in a fifth floor walk up…
Cabo da Roca Portugal
Where the land ends and sea begins…
Morning bathers in the mist
Magic Drinks
A Father’s Day Tribute…
ROCHESTER, September 26 — Eastman Kodak Company today announced its intent to stop making and selling slide projectors by June 2004.
“The Kodak slide projector has been a hallmark for quality and ubiquity, used for decades to produce the best in audio visual shows throughout the world,” the company said. “However, in recent years, slide projectors have declined in usage, replaced by alternative projection technologies.”
One of my happiest and most comforting memories of childhood was our family slide shows. These coveted movie nights which generally took place once a year, consisted of nothing more than three simple ingredients: a blank wall in our living room, a Kodak carousel slide projector with my father at the mast and myself and three sisters, huddled on the sofa, pressed together in anticipation like peas in a pod. My mother, who had seen the slide shows too many times to mention, usually busied herself with other things, occasionally stopping in to comment on a particularly beloved picture. Prior to turning off the lights, my father would announce in a deep theatrical voice “Who wants a magic drink?”
They were always different in taste and made from whatever struck his fancy that night; orange juice with a splash of pineapple juice and Grenadine or perhaps apple juice and ginger ale with a jigger of seltzer. The ingredients were unimportant. It was the anticipation of what was to be and the lovely ritual of our movie night routine that we cherished. Those magic drinks were just part of the show.
There was always one slide, without fail, that was turned upside down. This would halt the show momentarily, as my father with a slightly frustrated “tsk” would right the renegade slide. And we were ready to go once again.
I loved that Kodak carousel projector and the faded yellow boxes of slides stacked beside it. They were never labeled so each reel was a surprise in itself. Who might appear on the screen that night was anyone’s guess — my six or sixteen year old self? Our first family pet Bubbles the beagle, or our gentle giant of a Great Dane we called Jenny? My mother posing on the beach in her youth, or proudly cradling her first grandchild? The lack of chronology only added to the experience.
Some days, in the quiet of my mind, I can still hear the slow deliberate click of the projector, advancing slowly, telling without words the story of our life. Slide to slide, toddler to teenager, mother to grandmother, youth to twilight. An entire lifetime displayed on the wall of the darkened living room.
When my parents died, I cared about no other of their possessions except that time warped machine that could somehow transform me back to family vacations, birthday parties and people and places no more. With my sister’s blessings, I brought it to my own home with the promise to bring it to family gatherings, a carousal reunion of sort. Though it is yet to be. It sits up on a shelf in an unused room. I have taken it down one or two times in a half -hearted attempt to have my own family slide show but then, as it spits and jams due to age, return it in frustration to the loneliness of the upstairs closet. I have made myself a promise. I will find a way to restore that Kodak Carousel to the beauty of its youth. And I will mix once again, those magic drinks..
The simple, seasonal pleasure of ice skating
“Winter is here, best time of year, come on along sing a skating song…”
One of my fondest childhood memories was ice-skating on a small rink my best friend’s dad built for us in her backyard. Round and round we would soar feeling the chill of the air on our cheeks. Not an iPhone or computer in sight. This year, to kick off the holiday season, I took my two sons to an ice rink near to us which overlooks the Long Island sound. They enjoyed two hours of skating until they could stand no more. Finally in physical defeat rather than want, they staggered off the ice with tired smiles and wobbly legs proclaiming “That was SO much fun…”
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/time-of-year/
Weekly Word Challenge,”Spare” The Lonely Sweater
Spare (Defined) “Not currently in use; in reserve”
Glancing in the window of a recently closed children’s consignment shop, I spotted this tiny, orange sweater hanging forlornly in the now abandoned store front. I pondered why this one vibrant item adorned with teddy bears, remained. Perhaps a testament to a dream that was not to be or more simply that the sweater was left in haste? I like to interpret it as a statement of fortitude left behind from the proprietor. A symbol that whatever the future brings, he or she will survive. I shall leave the interpretation to you gentle readers.
Weekly Photo Challenge “Jubilant”
Daffodils in the snow
Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty…
William Shakespeare, “The Winter’s Tale”
WPC “Half-Light”
Nature’s first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Robert Frost
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/half-light/
WPC “Time”
“So come with me where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!”J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
Vibrant
“Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.”
Claude Monet
Weekly Photo Challenge – Careful
A red sky at night sailor’s delight. A red sky morning, sailor’s warning.
Scooping up a tiny salamander with care.
Careful! I just got stitches.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/careful/
One Word Photo Challenge – Change
Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
Tomorrow be today.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/change-2015/
A picture paints a thousand words
I discovered this image taken over fifteen years ago in a small town on the Amalfi Coast, while going through a shoebox filled with old photos. As I strolled past a beautiful old church I was struck by these four men sitting together on a Sunday afternoon, the middle two deep in conversation, the bookends, content in their own thoughts. Each gentleman bore a unique expression though their emotions are difficult to interpret. As only in Italy, the fashion sense impressed, particularly the vivid blue socks and old style fedoras. The fellow on the far left sported a more casual but equally dapper attire with his jaunty tweed cap and stylish sneakers.
WPC – Symbol – Irish Worry Stone
I am not superstitious by nature, but this lovely, simple symbol of my Irish heritage is never far from my side. In fact, I keep it tucked in a small zippered compartment of my purse. Made from Connemara marble, the Irish Worry Stone so smooth and cool to the touch, is reputed to keep worries at bay and bring a sense of comfort to those who hold it. My mother loved these worry stones and often brought them back to friends as souvenirs when she visited her homeland of Ireland. My close friend Joe, who was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at 32 years of age was the recipient of one of my mother’s worry stones. When he died, I visited his apartment where his mother was staying temporarily. As we comforted each other with memories of her wonderful son she asked if she could show me something. Entering his bedroom she gestured toward his night table. On the corner closest to his bed, lay the worry stone. I like to think that it brought him comfort.
Daily Post Word Challenge – Early Bird
“Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, with charm of earliest birds” John Milton
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/early-bird/
“My Happy Place” The Marvelous, Magical, Mystical Powers of a Bath
“There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.”
Sylvia Plath
I am addicted to baths. It began in my childhood, at what age I cannot say for certain. I can envision myself and my two sisters bobbing around in our bathtub, a simple no frills fixture unlike the whirlpool spas of today. My mother, who instilled this love of baths in us, laid peacefully center. It was those calming waters which somehow righted every wrong and made life at the end of the day oh so much more delightful. “Can you start the tub?” we would call to my mother nightly and upon hearing the rumble of the water racing through the faucet, would immediately feel comforted.
As I grew into older childhood my nightly baths and love of, continued. I remember bringing into the tub different props for amusement. My fondest memory involve the Barbie dolls which I would plunge into the water, their perfect bodies and pointed toes gracefully leaping from the soap holder which I would use as a makeshift diving board.
When I left for college I realized with some dismay, that my nightly baths ritual would become a thing no more. Bathing in a dorm bathroom shared by who knows how many others was something I did not find appealing – not to mention the cleanliness factor. Yes sadly, my nightly baths ceased upon entering freshman year in college and were promptly replaced by a shower.
Yet one night, the old urge struck. Returning from a night out and perhaps one Tequila Sunrise too many, I made my way to the dorm bathroom. Perfect! At 3AM on a weekday there was not a soul in sight. I undressed and proceeded to the sink, my towel tightly wrapped around me. As I began to brush my teeth I felt the towel slipping. As it fell to the floor I was faced with two choices: pick it up immediately or finish brushing and then retrieve the towel. Given the late hour and the desolateness of the dorm, I opted for the latter – my fatal mistake. As if in a dream I watched the bathroom door swing open to reveal a tall sleepy male, no doubt someone’s boyfriend as my dorm was all women. His eyes, which only moments before were half slits were now golf balls as he gaped at me standing before him, stark nude, tooth-brush still in hand. I shrieked, tore past him and jumped on my roommate’s bed. Babbling and breathless I attempted to explain to her what still rates as one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. Oh bath, how could you have forsaken me?
When I became engaged and began staying overnight at my fiance’s apartment I learned the meaning of true love. Craving my bath one night, I mentioned that his tub did not seem well, completely clean. I asked where I could find his cleaning supplies. “Do you have to have a bath every night?” he asked with some annoyance as he disappeared into the kitchen. Returning with a can of Comet and scrub brush he for the next 15 minutes, painstakingly cleaned the tub for me. And with that gesture, I knew I was marrying the right man.
I have two sons who have inherited their mother and grandmother’s love of baths. I can hear the water running nightly and I have caught them filling up the tub to play their own Barbie doll type of diving game but instead they use pencils. They catapult the pencils off the side of the tub in their own game of acrobatics. At any hour, morning or night, at the slightest hint of a stomach ache or joint discomfort from sports, a tub is running. Aqua therapy of sort. I realize this is a luxury in our society and lecture them on the number and length of time spent in the bath. But it often falls on deaf ears as my son races in from school, drops his back pack in the corner and heads up to the bathroom to turn on the bath. He too understands the healing of the waters.
My adult bath ritual has changed only slightly since childhood. I still take one every single night, but instead of the Barbies I bring one guilty pleasure which I lay on the side of the tub; four Hershey Chocolate kisses. My second favorite comfort in life.
Magic Drinks
ROCHESTER, September 26 — Eastman Kodak Company today announced its intent to stop making and selling slide projectors by June 2004.
“The Kodak slide projector has been a hallmark for quality and ubiquity, used for decades to produce the best in audio visual shows throughout the world,” the company said. “However, in recent years, slide projectors have declined in usage, replaced by alternative projection technologies.”
One of my happiest and most comforting memories of childhood was our family slide shows. These coveted movie nights which generally took place once a year, consisted of nothing more than three simple ingredients: a blank wall in our living room, a Kodak carousel slide projector with my father at the mast and myself and three sisters, huddled on the sofa, pressed together in anticipation like peas in a pod. My mother, who had seen the slide shows too many times to mention, usually busied herself with other things, occasionally stopping in to comment on a particularly beloved picture. Prior to turning off the lights, my father would announce in a deep theatrical voice “Who wants a magic drink?”
They were always different in taste and made from whatever struck his fancy that night; orange juice with a splash of pineapple juice and Grenadine or perhaps apple juice and ginger ale with a jigger of seltzer. The ingredients were unimportant. It was the anticipation of what was to be and the lovely ritual of our movie night routine that we cherished. Those magic drinks were just part of the show.
There was always one slide, without fail, that was turned upside down. This would halt the show momentarily, as my father with a slightly frustrated “tsk” would right the renegade slide. And we were ready to go once again.
I loved that Kodak carousel projector and the faded yellow boxes of slides stacked beside it. They were never labeled so each reel was a surprise in itself. Who might appear on the screen that night was anyone’s guess — my six or sixteen year old self? Our first family pet Bubbles the beagle, or our gentle giant of a Great Dane we called Jenny? My mother posing on the beach in her youth, or proudly cradling her first grandchild? The lack of chronology only added to the experience.
Some days, in the quiet of my mind, I can still hear the slow deliberate click of the projector, advancing slowly, telling without words the story of our life. Slide to slide, toddler to teenager, mother to grandmother, youth to twilight. An entire lifetime displayed on the wall of the darkened living room.
When my parents died, I cared about no other of their possessions albeit that time warped machine that could somehow transform me back to family vacations, birthday parties and people and places no more. With my sister’s blessings, I brought it to my own home with the promise to bring it to family gatherings, a carousal reunion of sort. Though it is yet to be. It sits up on a shelf in an unused room. I have taken it down one or two times in a half -hearted attempt to have my own family slide show but then, as it spits and jams due to age, return it in frustration to the lone closet. Surely there is somewhere that can restore the Kodak carousal to the beauty of its youth so we may once again enjoy those magical images.
And I will mix for my own sons, those magic drinks..
Unsung Heroes
Sometimes, it is those in the background, the ones who are not center stage, that make a difference. The heroes among us who do their work, unceremoniously unnoticed. I have chosen three colleagues of mine from the Psych hospital where I work, who touch the lives of our patients every day and whose acts of kindness, surely will last a lifetime.
The Music Man, Jeff our Driver
“Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens..” Maria von Trapp
On a gray and misty day outside the Acute Care Unit of the hospital, a steady drizzle of rain falls. Ten patients, ranging from 22 to 70- years-of age, await the van which will take them on the short ride across campus, to breakfast. The group is sullen, downcast. Whether it be from their own personal circumstances, or the weather, is uncertain. The van materializes in the distance, then slowly climbs the hill, coming to a stop. As the doors open and the boarding procession begins, the driver, Jeff, greets all with a warm hello. I wait, knowing what comes next. “So, what’ll it be today?” Jeff calls out to a younger patient seated in the first seat. The boy looks up with some uncertainty, then responds, “Sweet Caroline?” In the moments that follow, a meaningful change takes place. The van comes alive as one, then two, then all on board sing the refrain “Sweet Caroline, good times never seem so good. So good, so good, SO GOOD!” And Jeff, who always seems to know the exact song needed at any given moment, may sometimes sing along. He may also sense at any given time, that the sound of silence is the best selection because every day, like every patient, is a little different. Such a simple and small gesture, in offering a favorite song and in using the power of music to transform. A sign hangs prominently inside the front of the van, penned by the kids from Main 3, Silver Hill’s adolescent unit. “To Jeff. Thank you for everything you do!” Another positioned just beside the first reads, “To Jeff, the Magic School bus driver!” The appreciation is clear; the gratitude displayed in their artwork. But playing songs on the radio is hardly Jeff’s only talent. Few know, he is a talented pianist with a penchant for Billy Joel songs, often played so beautifully you would think it was the piano man himself at the keys rather than our resident driver. We thank you Jeff. Your music allows our patients a means of expression when their words sometimes cannot.
The Book Whisperer, Anne, Librarian
“The only thing you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library” Albert Einstein
A young woman sits quietly in her room. Newly admitted she is reluctant to join others in the milieu and has chosen to isolate. I sit down next to her and ask how I can help. “Is there anything that might make you feel more comfortable?” She is near tears and confides “I forgot my Harry Potter book at home and reading is the only thing that helps me feel better.” I smiled and told her about our wonderful library right here on campus and even better, our gem of a librarian, Anne Romano who has the unique knack to track down any book a patient might request, even if not presently in our library. If she cannot deliver a specific book, she will find one that is a close second to a patient’s interests. In less than thirty minutes, after a phone call to Anne, not only was the Harry Potter book found, but personally hand delivered by Anne herself. Two hours later, I approached the woman who now sat contentedly in the day room chair, absorbed in her novel. Calm and content, I am not certain who had worked their magic more, Harry, or Anne. The small library of Silver Hill Hospital hosts an array of choices. Books, both fiction and nonfiction, Young Adult, Poetry, Biography, Magazines, Newspapers, and for those who may not wish to read or lack the concentration to do so, a gigantic crossword puzzle laid out on a table. Anne has filled the library with little touches, all adding to the welcoming atmosphere. A Buddha sits serenely perched in the corner, his half smile welcoming patrons. A wide array of brightly colored bookmarks are free for the taking and a bowl of hard candies in a small dish sit on the ledge for those with a sweet tooth. Extra reading glasses are available for patients in need. A cozy sofa and armchair sit in the corner of the room, awaiting that someone, who may want to do nothing at all. The small and intimate library, offers an oasis of calm and learning to visiting patients, on what can sometimes be a bumpy road to recovery.
A quote by Judy Blume comes to mind when I think about Anne, who is always there to go that extra mile for our patients. “Librarians save lives by handing the right book, at the right time, to a person in need.” Yes, we most definitely agree.
The Magic Man – Psychiatric Technician – Josh
“Where there is kindness, there is goodness and where there is goodness, there is magic” Cinderella
It is mid- afternoon on our inpatient unit. A therapeutic walk previously scheduled, has just been cancelled due to icy conditions on campus. The patients are disappointed and beginning to get restless. “Hey Josh!” someone calls out, “how about a card trick?” To describe Josh’s talents as the performer of a simple card trick does not do him justice. Not only is Josh warm and amiable in his role as a Tech, but he is also a master illusionist that can hold patients mesmerized as he works his “magic.” Several moments later, I glance in the living room. Josh stands center as a group of patients gather around him, transfixed, as he shuffles the cards in a blur of agility and speed. “Who wants to go first?” he asks the group, and several hands fly up instantaneously. Next comes tips on shuffling as several try their hand at learning a new skill. The room has been transformed, the patients engaged and focused as they learn coveted tips from the master. Josh’s dad is an avid poker player which is what first sparked his interest at age eight. He presently owns over 1,200 decks of cards, his favorite, named “Cherry Casino” named for a nonexistent casino, was designed by his friend and has been sold by the thousands. Josh works his magic through both his card skills and attentive nature in caring for our patients.
In the words of Lewis Carroll, “One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others.” Thank you Jeff, Anne and Josh. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
The Day the Music Died
Re-sharing this story which I am reading tonight at Kay’s memorial. Terrified to get up in front of so many but will honor her.
Nature’s Door
“Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.”
Emily Dickinson
We visited the Amalfi Coast on our honeymoon twenty-five years ago. One distinct memory was the colorful tiles which hung aside the front door of each hillside dwelling displaying the home’s number. Each different in theme and no doubt chosen to reflect the personality of the resident. The majority were bright and colorful alike the ubiquitous lemon trees for which the region is known. This door, with its weathered wood and ivy framework portrayed a cool serenity. Its simple beauty proving nature to be the preferred decorator.
Happy St. Valentine’s Day
The Boxer in the Jade Green Dress
If there was one word that would best describe the essence of Margaret Sullivan, I believe it would be grit. Throw in madcap, resilient, stubborn and fearless and you might just capture her spirit perfectly. She was a delightful olio, stirred, shaken and generously poured into the life of those fortunate enough to have had known her. I count myself as one of the lucky ones.
I first met Margaret on my wedding day in New York City. She was the best friend of my mother-in-law Mary, whom she referred to as “Rocky” due to Mary’s maiden name of Rock. In their younger years, the two shared an apartment together in Washington, D.C.. Margaret adored Mary, her outgoing personality in direct contrast to Mary’s unassuming one and although they sometimes appeared to be like oil and water, enjoyed a friendship that spanned through their twilight years.
She wore bright red lipstick, in startling contrast to her large eye glasses and shock of white hair. When she stared at you, the glasses magnified her deep blue eyes. And when she grinned at you, Margaret exuded pure joy. In fact at every glance of Margaret Sullivan, wherever she might be, at whatever moment you happened to catch sight of her, she appeared to be having the time of her life.
It was not until Mary’s death, that I truly came to know Margaret. That was when our weekly phone calls began. She was now in her 80’s, suffering from emphysema though still living independently in DC, the city she always loved. She never once complained except for the time her oxygen tank was on the blink and the company refused to give her a new one. She had some choice words for that company. And in those cherished phone conversations, which sometimes exceeded two hours or more, little by little I got to know and love, Margaret, as I learned of her life, which was slowly nearing its end.
Given up by her teenage mother as an infant, Margaret resided in a Washington, D.C. orphanage. At age six, she was adopted by an Irish nurse, and it seemed at last, her life was on course to be a normal one. But then came the stock market crash of 1929. Her mother, who up until now had been a loving fixture in her life, lost every cent she had. Never quite recovering, she spiraled into despair and a pattern of abuse began towards young Margaret.
She ran away three times before the age of twelve attempting to leave far behind, a mother who was becoming increasingly unstable. Her attempts at freedom, always ended the same. She was found, returned home and ordered back to school. During eighth grade Margaret had reached a point of increasingly disruptive behavior. Her home room teacher, on more than one occasion, perhaps seeking a deeper reason for the acting out, tried to speak to Margaret. Yet with each attempt, received the same belligerent reply, “I bet I could knock you down in one punch…” One afternoon, she clearly had reached her limit as Margaret again taunted, with the now familiar, “I could knock you into the middle of next week..” Picking up two sets of boxing gloves, which were hanging in the back of the classroom, her teacher responded, “Ok, Margaret, let’s put your money where you mouth is.”
And at the end of the school day, the entire eighth grade class, with a mixture of shock and delight, followed their teacher and fellow student out to the school yard, the air thick with anticipation. Moments later, with, one swift jab, Margaret met the ground, the match ending before the end of the very first round. It was a defining moment, she told me, with the only bruise incurred being to her ego. And from that day on, her outlook and behavior changed for the better. Her teacher, became a mentor and life long friend.
She put herself through secretarial school and worked as an Executive Assistant for the government. Highly intelligent and hard working, Margaret excelled in her career. After a brief courtship, she married. For their honeymoon, her new husband took her to his native Puerto Rico where he had hoped to convince Margaret to settle. I recall her lamenting about the number of large bugs and lizards that scurried everywhere, due to the warm and humid climate. But alas, the marriage was not meant to be. When I asked Margaret the reason, her deadpan reply, “Well honey, when your husband won’t sleep with you on your wedding night, you know there’s a problem.” Life goes on, she told me, never playing the victim. It was, what it was. “And there was a silver lining to it all,” she added. When I asked what that was, she replied, “I couldn’t have possibly lived with all those creepy crawlers!”
She told me of a dress she had bought in a small Washington D.C. boutique, many years before.. She described it as jade green in color with a delicate, neckline, and just the right amount of swing to the a-line skirt. “I felt like a million dollars in that dress…” A close friend, admiring it on one occasion, asked Margaret if she might borrow it for an upcoming ocean cruise. Margaret, ever generous, didn’t think twice in her response. But upon her friend’s return, bad news at sea. A cigarette burn in the delicate silk. Irreparable. Margaret was brokenhearted. She revisited the boutique in an attempt to find a duplicate but was told it was one-of-a kind and could not be re-ordered. She never quite got over the loss of that jade green dress. Her story always stayed with me as it portrayed a side of her I had never seen. The Margaret I knew was practical, no nonsense, never “frilly,” yet the dress seemed to bring out a softer more whimsical side of Margaret, rarely glimpsed by those who knew her well.
One of her favorite memories, was a European tour she took with Mary, while in her twenties. Never mind that she contracted hepatitis while abroad. She described feeling suddenly ill, while sitting in a pub in rural Ireland and then laughed, recalling an Irish lad, whose earnest advice was to take a shot of Irish Whiskey, certain to right her in no time. Instead she ended up in a local hospital, fever raging. But the hepatitis was now, just a distant memory. Rather she spoke of bright and brilliant cities, the music and song, and the wonderful people she met during this trip of a lifetime, so many years ago.
Toward the end of her life she spoke of of a dear, old friend Lydia, now stricken with Alzheimer’s, the passing of her beloved Rocky, old movies we both loved and the simple nuances of life. She confided how she had once attempted to find her birth mother and when she finally succeeded through the help of a detective agency, her heartache in discovering she had died, only months before. A reunion never to be had.
She departed this world at age 91, Mary’s son Rick, a lifelong friend, by her side. She left this life gently, quite oppositely of how she had lived.
“Throw my ashes in the garbage. It makes no difference to me. When I am gone, I’m gone.” Margaret’s flat sentiment when asked of her wishes once she had departed this world. No pomp or circumstance. No celebration of life or loss. A simple goodbye. Just remember the good times,” she would say.
I have a vision of Margaret right now, wearing her signature, bright red lipstick, and that joyful grin. She is in a place far too beautiful for words to describe and she is dancing. In a jade green dress.
Bear Mountain
“Everybody in the Pool!” Bear Mountain State Park Swimming Pool Circa 1967
It’s the tiny bear trinket I remember, possibly more than the place itself. A delicate little figurine with a soft sprinkling of real fur fuzz on its body which I loved to carry around and stroke as if it were a real pocket pet. My dad bought this cherished gift for me and my three sisters one summer afternoon at Bear Mountain, a frequent day trip we took from our home in Queens, New York.
I recall as if yesterday kneeling in front of the glass enclosed case of the bustling gift store and seeing the wee bear which sat forlornly in the stark enclosure. It was positioned away from the other bears just begging to be taken home. “We’ll take four!” my father sang out in his lovely baritone voice, whose accent betrayed a touch of his childhood years raised in Glasgow, Scotland. “Gifties,” he called all souvenirs and presents. I believe he took more pleasure in buying them than in the souvenir itself, though I could tell he too admired the look and feel of the little bear. When my sister Anne dropped hers only moments after leaving the shop, she cried and pleaded for him to buy her a second but alas it was not to be. My dad did not budge and although I know it killed him, taught us a lesson that day in responsibility and the value of a dollar – though she did get a new one on our next trip. I often wonder, fifty years later, what became of my little bear but that is not important. I still have the memory of those day trips to Bear Mountain that magical destination situated in the rugged mountains rising from the west bank of the Hudson River.
Although Fall was a popular time to visit with the gorgeous colors that framed the mountains, we often went in the summer to escape the heat of the city. Its expansive pool held promise and delight for hundreds of children and parents alike who arrived in droves weather permitting. On one visit when I was around five-years old, I slipped through my inner tube and a woman sitting nearby jumped into the pool, fully clothed to save me. I remember my father insisting I go up to her and say thank you afterwards and how embarrassed I was in doing so. The photo above was taken by my father. I discovered it in a box of old Kodak slides last year and on a whim, posted the iconic shot to a Facebook group called “Historic New York City.” Within hours it received over 1,000 likes but it was the comments I read that made me realize the memory of Bear Mountain did not belong to me alone. Scores of New Yorkers and others from surrounding areas most now likely in the twilight of their years, recalled their own special memories…
“Beautiful Bear Mountain Memories..”
“I think Bob Dylan wrote a song about going to Bear Mountain…”
“We would take the ferry up the Hudson from NYC to Bear Mountain with our cousins. We still talk about those days…”
“We would sometimes sneak into the pool late at night as I lived close by..”
“Possibly one of my favorite childhood activities was leaving the city for Bear Mountain, picnics and swimming with family, hikes, sledding in winter. Such good times.”
“Did you see the guy on the high dive?? He is doing a handstand!!!”
“My brother Warren got his head stuck between the bars and had to be rescued!”
“My high school graduating class took a day trip to Bear Mountain. One signature in my yearbook reads “Bear Mountain till the bears turn bare…”
“That’s me in the red swim suit!”
Then, the one comment that made my heart stop..
“I still have my little bear ornament from the Bear Mountain gift store…” a stranger wrote. Accompanying the sentiment was a graying and faded but still recognizable photo of the bear souvenir. Not exactly the one in my memory but there it was nonetheless.” I wasn’t the only one…
I have not returned. For reasons I am uncertain. Too painful to visit without my beautiful dearly departed parents by my side? Too much of a heartache to see how the Bear Mountain of yesterday overshadows the reality of today? The reason does not matter. I have my phenomenal photograph of the pool with that forever unknown guy doing a handstand on the high dive. And always in memory, that tiny, bear ornament my father bought me so many years ago…
Shangri-La 