Fall-back

My son was born the first week of November... accompanied by the urban score of Election Day, the NYC Marathon... the first seasonal cold wind, the crush of dead leaves underfoot and the shocking afternoon darkness on the first Sunday of standard time setting. Each passing year I am overwhelmed by the nostalgia of parenthood. Our children cannot understand how we annually celebrate their arrival... how the indescribable agony of childbirth announced that we were splitting ourselves in two... how we sang silly songs and blew out candles but in our heart was the future soundtrack of an unwritten Roy Orbison ballad.

Even with photographs, it's difficult for our kids to understand the young, naive woman who was their mother, the novel intimacy of harboring a growing human inside a body whose power we'd maybe only recently absorbed. In my case, I was fulfilling a callow promise I'd made to my husband-- to have his child, despite serious reservations.  Our courtship had been brief but intense; 'no one will ever love you the way I do,' he repeated as he showed up in airports, intercepted my daily itinerary, flew transatlantic until he was broke, waiting for me to nod my head while he begged, on one knee, for me to become Mrs. British Journalist.  

So when my husband strayed, I tried to brush it off-- he was insecure-- he was dramatic; it would fade. I waited it out, remembering the pleading oaths he'd sworn... and then the surprise of pregnancy. I grew up quickly... held out hope, suffered. It wasn't so much the demise of the marriage as the betrayal of something in which I'd let myself believe. I talked to my growing stomach-- confessed, confided.  I'd agreed to define myself as part of a couple... and now the definition had become smeared-- obsolete... wrong. I no longer knew who I was or even where, having transported all my instruments and gear to the UK.

We urban dwellers learn to sleep through sirens... but the subdued quiet of a West-London 3 AM was more than I could bear. I returned to my city where the noise drowned out sorrow, the autumn rain camouflaged  wet eyes, and pounds of candy corn took the place of whiskey. I got up on smoky stages looking like a balloon and played my blue bass.

Who am I, I wondered, as I walked November midnight streets of Manhattan with a baby carriage? My exhaustion was overwhelming but did not translate into sleep. I felt hollow without my maternal stomach, traumatized at the act of separation and terrified of the task of raising a person when I no longer recognized the skin I was in: someone's mother... a nursing machine, one-half of a couple whose future was a puzzle, whose past was maybe just a terrible mistake-- a con job?

Thirty-six years later I woke up today after setting back my manual clock, having watched the last game of an entertaining World Series I would never have enjoyed had I not raised a sports-obsessed man. The apple fell far from this tree. I began the day with a radio interview; somewhere in the world people were hearing my music... it was shocking, in a way.  Somewhere I was still a musician-- a songwriter, despite this waking image of my life as a kind of huge parchment game-basket with thousands of lettered tiles leaking out in piles. 

Last week I watched a documentary on dying.  It was distressing-- horrifying, dismantling.  Again-- who are we, creatures who frantically train our bodies and minds-- run errands and break hearts... when we are all headed for the same unappealing and painful fate? 

Savoring my free hour after the clock resetting, I noticed Sheryl Crow was on PBS with a less-impressive Jason Isbell, conversing about her songwriting and playing samples in the grand hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art with an exceptional sound system and a rapt sophisticated audience. Jason's accompaniment was annoying.  She is very polished-- even with her pancake make-up and false eyelashes... she can sing. I pondered her lyrics 'If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad.' Is this art? Am I bitter?  The last gig I played I went home on the subway with $60. I considered walking 5 miles to save $1.45. According to the internet, the starting range to book Sheryl Crow is between $300,000 and $499,000.   I remember meeting her, many years ago-- juggernauting along with her endorsements and rockstar hookups, following her dream on the road while I was wheeling around a baby. Not that there is a musical comparison. And after great success, Sheryl has more or less purchased motherhood.

I've noticed my son's friends are beginning to have grey hairs.  This ages me. His very boyish former science teacher greeted me in the street the other day... 'Did I recognize him,' he wanted to know, sheepish about the fact that he was now fifty-something? Are we judged by the way others see us?  I remember well, after a high-school musical performance, my mother asked 'You think you're good? This is high school!' These were my parents... maybe I over-processed their judgment which was skewed by the fear that their daughter might make the terrible choices I've since embraced.  

Tonight in the early dusk the sidewalks are littered with trampled discarded marathon signs and placards. Some of the runners were still limping along Fifth Avenue nearly twelve hours after the starting gun-- some falling short of their goal, some failing entirely.  I'm almost relieved another November milestone is over. Tuesday the mayoral elections will pass, and then it will be my son's thirty-sixth birthday.  He will celebrate with his friends; I will not share my nostalgia and current malaise... he seems to be happy with who he is at the moment-- not to question or doubt, not to empathically suffer along with ill friends and neighbors the way I do.  He will enjoy spending his money eating and drinking. He does not think about his absent father whom he barely recalls, and he certainly is little acquainted with the dark streak that marks my heart like a cross, like a wound. 

Meanwhile, hearing my own song 'Black Bells' on a radio show reminded me I am consistent if nothing else, and not ashamed of what I have produced, although I could always be better. Hard to judge oneself, and if one doesn't exploit social media, there is little access to external judgement or assurance.  Am I happy, in the Sheryl Crow sense?  Do I regret? No... maybe...  I endure these phases-- the doubt and black moods a lifetime of creativity, intermittent betrayal and suspension of belief have guaranteed. They are my 'material', for better or for worse, 'til death do me part.  If I choose, I can hear the sirens, but have learned-- Daylight Saving or Eastern Standard-- to sleep with them. 

SMOKE

Yesterday would have been my father's 104th birthday.  He lived to nearly 97... fairly in compos mentis, surrounded by newspapers, brokerage statements, the bluish glow of Bloomberg on the television screen like a night-light... slipping in and out of consciousness toward the end, my mother in her medicated dementia watching from her recliner like a Whistler's Mother real-time tableau-- alternately panicky when he left the room, or wondering who this person on her sofa actually was-- her brother, maybe... certainly not her father who'd abandoned his family when she was very young.

My father was estranged from most of his own large family, seemed to have judged his parents as harshly as I maybe judged him.  He was never happy to see me; he couldn't pretend, and children see these things, with their heart.  My mother lit up when I came home from anywhere; even when she ignored me in my grungy jeans and motorcycle boots on Manhattan streets in the 1980's, it was a kind of wounded pride-- bourgeois disappointment.

But the month of June has always been about him-- his birthday, Father's Day since he was the true and only family patriarch... D-Day, on which he earned a slew of medals and honors.  I stopped attending family festivities at a point; I began to process his disapproval of me as unhealthy and if my absence hurt his pride in any way he would only have cursed me further.  

Having raised my son alone, we celebrated Father's and Mother's Day. Now so many of his friends have become parents, the meaning has been sort of re-branded.  This year I watched the scores of Mexican families barbecuing in the northern fields of Central Park-- joyfully kicking soccer balls around, celebrating a day off.  Most of these fathers work hard-- sometimes two jobs... the number of kitchen workers who shared the late-night uptown subway with me after gigs was impressive.  Many slept-- exhausted, grateful for the air-conditioning as I was. 

My father never seemed happy. He enjoyed certain men who visited; my parents socialized accordingly-- his tennis partners, commuting companions. Company seemed to provide relief that he didn't have to interact with his family.  He failed to appreciate the gifts we gave; even things I made for him, or a little musical we'd put on... he seemed distracted and preoccupied.  As a child, we take these things on-- we blame ourselves... we learn to judge ourselves harshly.  

I've written so many poems grappling with this... trying to excise the knot of it.  He was complicated, and I surely did not fathom his issues, his dark moods, his isolations, post-alcoholic depressions. Maddens, he once told my son, don't talk.  But I, too, am a Madden... and I do, and I will.

My best childhood friend never let go of her father issues.  To me, hers seemed comfortably flawed-- drank a little too much, crossed some lines... but he had pet-names for his sons and daughters... he was handsome and funny.  His indiscretions seemed human to me... his wife was so 'perfect'... I saw him once or twice in the city with other women... but I kept it to myself.  I saw my own father once with a beautiful young woman.  I did not tell anyone.  My sister and I invented little fictions about my mother-- that she had mysterious callers... I even brought anonymous flowers once... but she only blushed, and he barely looked up from the evening news.

We get over these things... or do we?  I learned in my life that betrayals were inevitable.  A parent failing their child is the first and worst of these.  My own son has not heard from his father for nearly 28 years?  Surely this has repercussions... and perhaps I engineered this in that perverse way psychologists point fingers at us for repeating generational pains and mistakes.  Perhaps I picked my husband because I knew somewhere there would be this 'leaving'.  It was like a prophecy-- a fulfillment.  I see so many couples where one or the other has checked out... they are there, but they are missing. Some have shifted their heart elsewhere... some have simply died, in a way... like an old plant that no longer blossoms.  

Are these punishments?  Deep-rooted desires for self-sabotage?  The meaning of family is so open to interpretation.  Gender has been opened to 'not-binary'.  But despite the extended boundaries of family-- so many of us seem stuck in this traditional and sometimes painful categorization.  There is a Father's Day and a Mother's Day.  Full stop. While I fretted over gifts and hand-made cards and cakes... I actually dreaded those Sunday mornings.  The cookout or dinner or whatever... it was stilted and non-spontaneous. There was no joy, except in the company who eventually went home and left us to our ostensibly perfect family.

Recently I randomly went on my mother's 'Legacy' web-obituary.  Mine were the only posts for some years... but suddenly there was a message from a girl who'd lived next door to us... she was older than I was.. she must be 80 now.  She recalled my mother as a sympathetic, wonderful person... her version was the young mother with perhaps a harsh tough handsome husband.  I remember this woman-- her father, too, was distant and off-putting.  She lives in Boston now... and apparently was having one of those moments-- where the past surfaces and some small component-- like seaglass on the beach-- shines through.  

We women weather life in a different way than our fathers did, all gender stereotypes aside.  Our mothers accepted things; we do divorces and separations and we move on.  Some days I look back and cherish my past love affairs as iconic and true... then sometimes I remember those brilliant guitarists and drummers and sax players... and I think... well, maybe they just wanted a gig.  

On the cusp of another July, entering a holiday weekend with mixed feelings-- Independence Day, fireworks day... I am accustomed to a little isolation-- more-so tonight with our air quality issues warning us to limit outdoor activities. I'm glad in a way to leave the month of June behind, with its paternal connotations-- baggage, people call it.  

Our Father Who Art in Heaven, I begin my prayers every night.  Not my biological father, but my Holy Father who is vague and perhaps judgmental as well. As much as it amuses me that I do this, I do it... like a kind of vow... but it comforts, it reassures, it lifts me... has been with me since I can remember-- mine... available, the words... the sentiment, a kind of vague protection? Or forgiveness.  Really the secret of life-- whether it's family or ourselves... we must let it go, but also acknowledge that (like the wildfire smoke, which is not even our doing) these things linger.  

And Justice For All...

This September-11th week I'm called upon to fulfill my official civic obligation and serve possibly my last stint of jury duty.  This time it's Federal Court-- where the jurors' waiting room with its high ceilings and wall of windows is way cheerier than the claustrophobic quarters of civic and criminal court, as I recall.  The rule in Federal Court, unlike the others, is no-technology-- no laptops, phones or tablets. You'd think this would encourage socializing among the juror pool... but besides rustling of newspapers and the occasional roll-call or announcement from the desk microphones, there was nearly no conversation.

Except for me... somehow I struck up a temporary rapport with a young man behind me in the building security line, and we stayed together, like newly orientating freshman, for the entire first day. We talked-- we shared-- drank coffee,  amused ourselves-- spoke about family and children-- college, musical taste, films, sports-- and stayed awake throughout an uneventful long day of waiting.  Seven hours with a stranger, minus lunch, when I suggested we separate to give him a break from my company.  We ended up ironically running into one another and sitting out the final 30 minutes of lunch at an outdoor table, talking.

Scanning the motley crowd of New Yorkers, I am struck by the irony that by mere coincidence of place, it is we who may decide the fate of an individual or group who happens to be on the weekly docket. What qualifies us, besides citizenship, to pronounce and determine this way?  Do we suddenly sprout ethical wings and rise to some occasion?  We flawed and imperfect humans who make errors of judgment every single day, order the wrong sandwich, forget to phone friends, miss appointments?

Standing in the middle of Foley Square at lunch, I am a little nostalgic.  During my first experience as a juror, the defending lawyer was 30-ish (old, in my eyes) and developed a mad crush on me... he'd look my way and blush as he gave his depositions.  In the court elevator he handed me a note asking me to have dinner as soon as the trial ended, explaining he wasn't permitted to speak otherwise.  I guess it was flattering-- looking back, I had my own agenda then, and my own constantly shifting plans. The whole experience was like a party--  a group of us formed a little clique-- we shared ideas and music during lunch;  I had a little walkman in those days and headphones... we were all happy about missing work and went out to a bar afterward.  We joked about being on the right side of the court barriers, at least for now.  For years, these people came to my gigs. Today I can't remember a single one of them-- one was Jose-- I'd have to look back in my ancient phonebooks.

Less vivid were my pre-marital registry visits to the adjacent civil courthouse, and one divorce.  I remember climbing those stairs, the two of us, to mutually agree to our failure as a couple-- no argument or litigation... Today a funny couple dressed in street clothes was pinning cheap white veils to their heads and taking selfies... a marriage of love or convenience. Who knows?  'I give them six months' a friend used to pronounce every time he saw a wedding party.

Maybe these civic marriages are taken less seriously... or maybe moreso because they lack the distraction of pomp and party.  I personally was way young and made hasty decisions.  I had slews of boyfriends along the way and never really considered or even knew that each of my two young husbands had summarily dumped a decent partner when they met me.  What kind of future did that predict?  My version of commitment was at best under-done.  I somehow knew I hadn't mated for life.  Still, the disintegration of these relationships is painful and familiar.  Our Prince Charmings grow weary and bored; one difficult night-- or you are late from a gig-- they go out and drink and blink their eyes at flirty women who do not inspect their hands for rings.  I, too, found myself inappropriately bonding with band members and artists who confided and begged.  My role as a wife never acquired the habit of fidelity, the ritual of one-bed/one-mate. What wrecked me was the aftermath-- the reality that this person who'd been your absolute intimate-- the left hand of your pair of gloves-- was becoming a stranger, was whispering into a new pair of ears, walking down the aisle with someone else.  Love is the prize of life; then the death of intimacy is lethal and cruel.  Many divorce cases mitigated in these courts are the sad attempts to punish one another for the loss of something that can never be regained, only recalled.  There are pre-nups but no real insurance for the missing emblems of love; there are designated thieves and burglars, but the real culprit is time-- familiarity, lack of trust, resentment... failure.

If I knew then what I knew now... most likely I would have made the same poor choices.  In four years-- my next jury-service date-- they inform me I will be old enough to opt out.  I now know this will pass all-too-quickly.  In my twenties, four years was a virtual lifetime. Coming out of Federal Court I wonder if I am any wiser or more qualified than the young people in this room. One thing I notice-- they don't seem to be having nearly the fun we all had back in the 1970's and 80's.  They are all reaching constantly for their absent phones like an involuntary reflex rather than exploring the experience-- or trying to be cool.  As I said, my friend and I were the only 'talkers' of note... even in the bathrooms on a break, no one spoke; no one laughed.

Today I miss my friend a little-- they placed us on different panels. Still, Monday we bonded and shared.   I am old enough to be his mother, but we exchanged small intimacies and anecdotes and a few laughs and it punctuated the enforced boredom of waiting.  Jason from Irvington-- I never asked his last name, paid little attention to the roll calls... although I know how he liked his coffee and what little league position his son played, his little girl's favorite Disney songs.  The irony of New York-- the five degrees thing-- he might end up somehow reading this blog and thinking I'm a crazy old bohemian bassist-stalker.  Forty years ago we might have exchanged numbers-- or not.  It was like a two-act play, complete with intermission.

These days most of my acquaintances are past not future... here as elsewhere I am among the oldest in the room-- only one or two others, with canes, are close.  No lawyer will ever notice me on the panel, no one will blush or wink or smile or hand me a note in the elevator.  This suits me now somehow... as though the relentless justice of time is finally served.

Exchange

I live on the edge of two neighborhoods… on the cusp, on the border.  It suits me.  I am close to the park and short blocks from grand homes and institutions.  I am also two blocks from the projects.   Across the street from me, my neighbors have an East Harlem zip-code, although I'll wager all of them have a better income than I do. Personally I spend most neighborhood-time going north and east-- past the projects-- exploring bodegas, playgrounds, small bakeries and shops, listening to languages besides English, browsing among vegetables and fruits used in Mexican recipes,  reading labels in Spanish.   Even the Christmas decorations have a different flavor.

At this point in life, I am spending more and more time alone.  I walk; I think; I soliloquize and invent… I may even talk to myself.  I wander-- down strange and familiar streets, into places; when I am alone my ear is sharper-- I hear things outside and inside my own head.  It''s as though I dare myself to become lost in my own city--- to lose myself, to become someone else, in a way-- like a character in my own story… a kind of odd controlled schizophrenia; I leave my house and turn left and suddenly I am anonymous and unknown.  I blend in and I am simply a woman.  No one greets me or looks at me… I am free, in a way-- unencumbered and clear.  It rests me… it provides my blank canvas.

I think I've always craved some kind of solitude-- even the kind you have in a group.  I like people but am reluctant to commit myself to any society that excludes me from other choices. Maybe it was my dysfunctional family (we all have them) and their failure at honesty-- but I never feel that I completely belong anywhere.  Even marriage felt odd to me-- it required my husband convincing me this would be a good thing… and besides, I'd be making someone incredibly happy and giving up nothing.  It seemed to make sense.. and I got to cross another border-- to belong to two countries, as I chose-- and that suited me… but the boundaries of marriage never felt right to me.  Maybe I was a terrible wife, but other women encroached on the walls of my own marriage-- my husband failed to protect me, and I left.  Motherhood was quite another issue-- but I was still someone's daughter, someone's lover, someone's sister… I could still live between identities, go from neighborhood to neighborhood-- play in bands and enjoy my son's basketball games with pride.

It's possible that solitude gives us clarity… in my case, the acceptance of my own penchant for straddling borders--- for being two people, in a way-- the one who walks and the one who observes--  the speaker and the listener.   At my age, I notice I am more blunt, more honest.  I say things directly; occasionally I offend people.  I see my own peers walking around clearly burdened with their pasts.  We have all experienced so much; for some, they are stooped with the weight of it, fearful that little will happen in coming years to balance or complement their life.

My son's friend asked me to help him return a ring he bought his fiancée a few years back.  It's such a beautiful thing-- it's vintage-y and unique.   He lost his Mom recently, and maybe that somehow altered him; he also knows I've returned rings and changed my own mind many times.  It doesn't bother me and I've never really regretted much in my life; it all seems to have brought me to where I am, which is not a bad place.  There's a book of poems I remember reading: Loving a Woman in Two Worlds.  I've always loved that title… as though this is the way I've lived.  Returning the ring-- dealing with the receipt and the agreement and the salespeople… it all seemed so absurd that this intimate, personal decision we make gets so 'handled' by so many people-- the processes-- the invitations, and name changes-- the paperwork and vows and all the guests and witnesses-- the home-buying and the furniture choices… and suddenly it was as though I was so close to my own relationship thresholds-- maybe in the very same store where my fiancé  had bought the lovely ring that had felt to me like a 25-pound weight.

It took my son's friend 5 years: maybe 2 to really believe he'd made the wrong choice, and 3 more to actually find this ultimate closure.  Finality.  He has a new girlfriend now.  When we get older, some loves we realize were addicting, or consuming, or manipulative-- or they looked like someone else, or they reminded you of something, or your best friend talked you into it… or whatever.  And then some affairs look absurd and like some kind of period of insanity.  And after it all, after a lifetime-- there are those moments that shine-- through time, from the half-light of this moment, back to that one… there is still this beauty-- something right and true… and we feel lucky, even though we never held on, that we felt this way.

We have so little present-- all of us.  Just this nanosecond of awareness-- the rest is just a movie-- an invention.  So few of us take the time to appreciate these tiny things we are holding at this moment only-- unless we are on the verge of loss.   We mourn at funerals, we bathe in morning light when we are aware our days are numbered-- we love those we can no longer see, and we miss what we no longer have.  Handing over the ring, I was aware someone else's moments were in my hand briefly--- even the feel of the box-- I could imagine how much it must have meant at the time, and he'd spent many multiples over what was appropriate ('in over his head', as he put it)… but there it was, becoming an item in a shop window for someone else to give their loved one, to become part of someone else's story.  I felt empathetically unburdened.  These symbols never had much credence in my lifetime, as I've said… and the truly spiritual instances of the meaning of marriage are more like star points in the dark liquid sky of my own history.  But then again, I am someone who likes to cross borders, to travel between worlds and rooms and to inhale winter evenings and mix them with older constellations and lyrics I have surely misread or mispronounced… and I emerged, on my way back toward Harlem, to the song of the melting snow, me stepping every block from past to present to future, between worlds.

When I'm 32...

My neighbor was telling me about her daughter today—the one with the 12-book deal with film rights who is overwhelmed by success at the age of 32. Do I know any brilliant men who’d like to go out with a girl who undoubtedly earns more than they, has little time for courtship rituals, can’t find a suitable husband? Who finds it hard to have fun when her college roommates have not just pushed out their second child but lost the excess weight.

Running for a bus in the rain late afternoon I met another girl…on her way to an audition, cursing the weather, splattered and flustered, edgy and twitchy and fun. 32, she tells me. The same number as the balance in her bank account. Sick to death of nothing to show for 10 years in Manhattan in a cramped studio without a view, sick of brushing sleeves with wives of billionaires who seem undeserving of their charmed existence, who take for granted 5-star lunches and nanny-managing, who don’t have to forego Starbucks for dry cleaning.

I read every day how 50 is the new 30. But apparently for these women, 32 is the new 50. Over the hill-- nervously considering another chapter in the dream-book might have to be edited out.

Me, I might be the new 70. I avoid mirrors. I had a woolen scarf on my head today like an old peasant woman. My shoes have rubber soles and don’t slip. If kids didn’t tease me, I’d be wearing Doc Martens. I am 'over it'. I don't even remember what 'it' was. I embrace the last throes of single parenthood with enthusiasm. I am not a man-hater. Both husbands were ‘de-jour’; sex was great, marriage was witty and unconventional; other women envied me, as women do. I envied me, when I looked, which I hardly ever did. Because that kind of marriage doesn’t last. Besides, I am democratic, spontaneous. I let my life-book write itself. I gave up control. No one envies me now.

I stopped in at P.C. Richards to look for a replacement laptop for my son—the one who loses and breaks everything, including his girlfriends. I sometimes wonder what 32 will look like for him, but for now I must consider 32-bits. The salesman is cute…a not-too recent college grad who probably had mediocre grades in a trendy major. Maybe a former athlete, judging from his body…or a refugee from a boring health-club job. Maybe even an ex-military guy. But the guy is energetic—nice. He knows his stuff—is honest, doesn’t talk down to me. Handsome, in a doggish way. So would the successful writer think he is a keeper? She would not. Or the unsuccessful actress? This guy would have no connections. Maybe lives in Queens. How many PC Richards employees live in Manhattan? Not many.

I like the guy. I want to buy a computer from him. I trust him. I wonder if, at the age of 32, I would have gone out with him. I would have. That’s the difference between me and the new 32. I wasn’t looking for a catalyst; just someone who was fun and sexy. And today? I’m glad to meet a salesman who doesn’t treat me like dogshit because I’m wearing a 7-year-old coat from Eddie Bauer’s final closing sale. I appreciate civility. I appreciate my own time, including the minutes in the day I spend listening to disgruntled 32-year-olds and 25-year-olds at my gym who are already miserable or overworked, stressed, hate their mothers, hate their boyfriends, their med-school schedules, their apartments, the weather. I listen. I care about them. I even make them laugh-- at themselves.

I don’t like Pike Place. I want the old Starbucks coffee, even after 5 PM. I admit—I like Starbucks, even though it goes against my hippie democratic grain. But aside from that, life is okay. Even when my own neighbors are suing each other and my IRA couldn’t buy me a decent laptop. I have heat-- at least tonight I do. I like my apartment. I like my ex-husbands, wherever they may be, and I never asked for child support. I’m not bothered that my parents and kids think I‘m a loser. I like my kids. I have a couple of friends which is a couple more than most have. This year my son even sent me a Christmas card. Maybe I like myself. The new 22. Or 66. Who’s counting?