What Makes Me Beautiful - long version of More Magazine contest entry

What Makes Me Beautiful?

The long version of the entry to  More Magazine’s “What Makes Me Beautiful Contest”

My birthday fell in April, I became seventy two.  This year, when my driver’s license came up for renewal, it was required that I appear and take the written test, and have a new photo taken.  Knowing that I would have to look at this picture for at least five years, I dressed carefully, and put on makeup, including a bright red lipstick.  I considered carefully what color flatters me, and put on a deep royal blue tee shirt with a man’s blue and white fat stripe shirt over it.  When I looked in the mirror, what I saw pleased me.  I had been thinking for a while about the phrase, “What makes me beautiful?” and it occurred to me that this was close.  I was not wearing anything fancy or pricey, and I had not taken the time to put on eye makeup, something that frequently makes my eyes itch, but as a whole, I spoke the phrase; “not bad for an old broad” and went on my way to DMV.

This week, the license appeared in my mail, weeks earlier than projected and I opened the envelope with great trepidation.  Anyone, everyone knows that DMV photos are notoriously bad. Thinking that this was how my father would do it, I reached for his old letter opener and peeked within, what I saw more than pleased me.   I looked damn good, especially for “an old broad.”  I have been showing it around because I was so happily surprised and then I looking again and said, aloud, “I need an eyelid lift.”  I have been going around thinking that I don’t look like 70 something and proud of it.  And here was proof, proof that I have to look at for 5 years that I do look 70 something.  Does that make me not beautiful?  No, just makes me still damn good for my age. 

My mother, who is now 93 and the prototype for Betty White, emphasized looks, in her day and mine, you got dressed to go to the supermarket, and she went to the hairdresser every Friday, something she still does.  I think for her and her generation, how you looked or thought you looked impacted how you felt, and your self-esteem.  Growing up, with this role model, looking beautiful, meant and still means more to me than I want to admit.

Beautiful is not on the outside, I bewail that in our modern era, the outside has taken on more importance than the inside.  Beautiful on the outside is what you are given at birth, and it is something that can be taken away in moments, ask the model, who accidentally walked into a propeller.  Beautiful on the inside is something you can cultivate. I want to believe that the things that I do deliberately that other people reflect back to you, your inner beauty, are the things that really make me beautiful.

I grew up in a world of financial comfort, my parents, also, grew up in financial comfort and it would be easy, given that background, to be like many others, focused on doing those things that satisfy only my own desires.  But, my parents and grandparents taught me that I have a responsibility to give back, that having financial comfort means that one needs to work to make the world a better place than it is today. Celebrities like George Clooney and Angelina Jolie would probably tell you that it is not always about the money, it is about making a difference, sometimes it’s about getting your hands dirty.  Thus I make certain to give a little more than I think I should to various philanthropies that capture my heart , but I also make sure to reach out and touch, doing things like making bag lunches for the homeless shelter, washing sheets for the overnight shelter, leading a workshop to make comfort blankets for kids from troubled families or even co-coordinating a widow support group with another recovered widow.

And so,  I make it my business to do random acts of kindness.  It is my hope that when I do these things people perceive me as beautiful.  I take a moment out after having done one, and tell myself that it was beautiful.  Sometimes it is a simple as holding the door for someone else whose hands are burdened or maybe I just got to the door first, or handing a couple of pennies to someone in a checkout line, when it appears that they are searching.  I savor having given someone something unexpected, like handing a hamentashen (purim cookie) through an open car window in the parking lot at my supermarket after hearing that the woman was speaking Hebrew on her cell phone.  Her smile made me feel beautiful.

I have over the years taken up art in the form of painting and collage, among other media, and when people admire my quirky style, I feel beautiful, I have also become a poet, unpublished as yet, but I share my writings with those whose thoughts have inspired my words, and when they tell me that what I have written is beautiful, I feel beautiful.

Beauty comes from inside and how we behave and believe infuses the outside of us.   I don’t believe that it requires looking the way society defines as beautiful to be beautiful.  Not wishing to be political, but I have great difficulty with the super rich;, not giving back to me makes them ugly.  This week Facebook went public, and I read a column in Newsweek discussing what Mark Zuckerbeg should do with his money.  Charity was mentioned but somehow dismissed.   Vast wealth should bring vast responsibility not a vast desire to hang on to it at the cost of the quality of life of those who cannot.   It is my belief that there needs to be in our country a desire to make the life of every individual beautiful. 

The Past as Prelude

The Past as Prelude

I used to say, “My children are going to have the responsibility of emptying this house, because I am never moving.” That was thirty five years, three towns and four homes ago. I sit here looking around the home, into which I moved into less than a year ago, the new one, the one that now makes me happy, thinking that this is probably not the last place I will live in.  I used to think that what is today, is forever.  I should know better.  In my childhood, I lived in three different homes, as my father’s fortunes rose.  Today, when I go back to Columbus Ohio, I can only drive by those homes and the apartment they moved into after I left for college.  My mother is still alive and owns two residences, which she inhabits based on the time of year.   The condo in Florida is the third home in which she has resided, during the years, she has been wintering in Sarasota Florida.  She should move out of the house in Ohio, where she spends the summers.  It is in need of repairs, which for reasons too complex to go into, we will not inherit, and thus appear to be a waste of dollars, but it has a pool, where she does her water exercises and she won’t let go. 

All of those changes should have given me a clue, told me that permanence of residence was not what was in store for me.  It should have taught me not to acquire belongings that would need to be transported, packed up or given away. But, I continue to acquire, and I continue to move.    

When my late husband and I informed our daughter that we were selling the house she grew up in, and moving her response was; “I planned to get married in the back yard.”  After all that is where we had celebrated most of her birthdays and held the celebrations of her and her brother’s B’nai mitzvahs.  My husband promptly responded to her; “you better hurry up.” Parenthetically, I should note, that she did not hurry up, and did not marry in any back yard.  

            And so, we moved out of her suburban childhood home, into a condo near downtown, New Haven Connecticut.  That condo taught me something I did not previously know about myself.  Although I had enjoyed creating a city environment and loved that we could walk downtown and thoroughly enjoyed all of the culture that was so readily available, what I had not known about myself was that seeing sky was very important to my psyche.  In that lovely apartment, in order to see sky, from all but the living room windows, in order to see the sky, I needed to bend over and look up.  I hadn’t known how important sky was to my soul.  So, we sold the apartment and moved to an oversized house on Long Island Sound, a fifteen minute drive from New Haven.  I loved the light, I loved living on the water, so much in fact I hung an ad from the New Haven Register that said “when I win the lottery, I will buy a house where even the closets have a view of the water.” My house had closets with a view of the water.  I was in heaven.  I loved that house.  I loved everything about that house.  It was light, it was bright, my life was happy in that house, my artistic talents came to flower while living in that house.  My marriage was in a wonderful place, we both enjoyed the yard, spending our summer weekends in hammock chairs hung from a tree, watching the passing boat parade and listening to public radio, after we had finished our gardening.  We even enjoyed watching the snow on the deck banisters and listening to the seagulls shriek.  We built a studio over the garage, and had his and hers drafting tables, where we spent companionable hours, him doing his pointillism drawings, and me painting with exuberant colors or pasting my collages. 

            Entertaining in that house, was pleasurable, both doing all of the holiday meals, enjoying out of town visitors, and topping it all were the Fourth of July celebrations, punctuated by the fireworks display put on by the local VFW, off the dock just a football field away. 

            I was going to die in that house, but life is full of surprises and he died there.  One minute he was there laughing and joking and the next he was not.  The week following that event was full of love, full of family and friends who came not only to comfort me, but to feel his presence in the place that he loved and where they could remember him.  It should have made me sad, to be there without him, but it did not.  He was there, I continued to feel him there, even on the summer weekends, I would sit in the chair hammock with the radio playing the old familiar programs, and talk to him as if he were there.  I would still be there today.  I knew the house was far too big for just me, but I still loved it, it had so many happy memories, which wrapped around me like his large tallit did him on the Jewish holidays.  I knew I should move, and one year after his death, I began to ask him, to ask God, for a sign.  I asked, I pleaded for an answer, “what is next?” I would ask “Make the answer loud and clear” I would cry.  Three months into this process, as I was packing to spend the winter with my mother in Florida, the phone rang, as I was sitting in his office paying our bills, thinking the house was expensive to keep up, it was my daughter.  “I have good news and bad news.” She said. “Which do you want first?”

“Give me the bad.” I replied, thinking the good might take the sting away.  “We are moving to California.”

My heart sank into my feet.  They were going to move to California, all that way across the country and they would be taking my very special granddaughter, the person who lit sparks in my heart.  They were taking her away; another loss.  All of our wonderful weekends in the Berkshire house they owned, would be no more.  All of the times when she would stand in the driveway as I drove up and put her arms out yelling “Grandma.”  All of the … my mind flashed through the pictures and the emotions.  I was on the verge of tears, but I needed to hear the good news.  “So what’s the good news?”

“Jon, got a fabulous job, after two years of contract work, punctuating the periods of unemployment, it promises stability”  drawing a breath,  she added “Jon won’t move unless you come with us.” 

“Yes!” I answered.

 “But, Mom you didn’t even think.”

Knowing that my daughter doesn’t believe anything about the afterlife, about signs from God, divine intervention, or anything spiritual, I knew that telling her that this was the answer I was looking for, I hesitated telling her the truth.  But in the end, an answer was required, so I gave her some version of what I was thinking.  Don’t ask me what I said, but whatever it was, her response was that she needed to call Jon and tell him, so that he could accept the job. 

It took me more than a year from that phone call to accomplish the move.  Walking out the door the very last day, would not have been possible, if my son had not made it his business to make sure I was not alone.  The house, and all of its memories wanted me to stay, but I knew that I needed to move on.  That place was only one wonderful part of my journey, I needed to continue, to write the next page, take the next step, and discover what was in store.

It is nearly ten years, and two homes later, that I write this, I do not know what comes next, that is what life is about, the journey continues and I wake each morning whether I wake to bright sunshine or marine layer, I awake smiling and invite whatever life has to give, thinking as my husband would say, “Every day is a good day, some days are better than others.”

Mother's Day

My Mother, The Golfer

Growing up, when the weather was nice, my mother wasn’t there, she was out on the golf course.  It was just a fact of life in our growing up, as were the myriad of trophies that covered the shelves in our library.  Mom was not only a golfer, but a damn good one.  In her prime, she was the club woman’s champion. It saddened her that none of her three daughters ever took up the game.  You see, her mother was also a champion golfer and mom wanted it to go through the generations.  I didn’t like the game, didn’t see the point in doing something that you struggled to do well.  All of the conversations, I ever heard revolved around how poorly the game had gone that day, how much time one spent in the rough, whether one three putted, or shanked it into the woods. But my mother adored the game, she took every opportunity participated in every tournament offered to her.  And on weekends in the summer she and my father were on the golf course.  That’s where they were the day, I jumped into the pool backwards and skinned my chin open by missing the edge and was taken to the emergency room by my “uncle” Morrie, who watched my debacle.  That’s where they were when…   My sisters have their own stories; I think that is why not one of the three of us ever wanted to play.  It was where our mother was whenever we wanted her, or felt we needed her. 

I don’t want you to think she was neglectful; she left us in the very capable hands of our housekeeper, Rosezella. whom we all called Rosie.  Rosie was always there, she did everything that a mother should do, had the milk and cookies waiting for us when we got home from school, wiped our tears and our skinned knees and made sure we got to school on time and into bed at a decent hour. 

Mom is now ninety three and just last year, she gave up playing golf.  She had had health problems for nearly a year, before we found the magic doctor who restored her to the kind of health she had only dreamed of.  But, in that year, she had lost strength in her arms, and her body had lost some of its muscle memory.  But, once she regained some strength, thanks to her trainer and her water exercises, she eagerly returned to the golf course and her golfing buddies.  But, her game was not what she wished it to be.  Three years, prior, she had cut back from 18 holes to 9, and now she was ready to play again. 

When we went to Florida this past winter, we remarked that she had no golf games on her calendar, so we asked about it.  Her response was “I gave up golf.”  “Why?” we asked.

Her prompt answer was “My long game has gone to shit, and it is no fun anymore.”  I suggested that if she were to go out to the driving range, she might reestablish those skills.  She looked at me as if I were suggesting that she take up brain surgery, “I don’t do that!” ended the conversation.

I sent this piece to my mother for her comment, before publishing it on my blog, and she said she liked it, but thought it made her sound like a not very good mother.  I have been thinking a lot about that, since receiving her comment.  I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings, but told the truth as I saw it.  There were lots of things going through my head that I could say to her as a way to apologize.  The first I thought was “You did the best you knew how” I also thought, if one were to ask my children they would say that I wasn’t very attentive mother either.  Mothers in my day and hers were not like mothers today. When I was growing up, I frequently heard the phrase “Children are to be seen and not heard.”  At the other end of the spectrum, mothers today, hover, we call them helicopter mothers, and they are involved in every little detail in their children’s lives.  Are their children better off than I was, better off than my children?   I don’t think so.  I went back to college when my daughter was eleven and my son nine years old, my children hated it, they hated the extra responsibilities, they hated that I was so busy doing my homework, that I didn’t have time to work on theirs and they hated that I didn’t have time to be a den mother or girl scout leader.  But, they got good grades; they grew up into responsible adults who have become wonderful parents with high achieving well rounded children.  My daughter called me, while she was still in her twenties, to thank me, thank me for being the kind of mother that I was, because she realized that her contemporaries were less capable of taking care of themselves than she was.  I took that as an apology for all the garbage she had handed me as a teen.  I tell the story today, when I encounter those helicopter moms, to suggest that they are doing their children a disservice.   At a certain point, all children leave home, and we, as parents, have the job of making sure that they can live as independent responsible adults. 

So, Mom, here is my Mother’s Day present for you.  You gave me just the kind of parenting that I needed to grow up into who I am today.  I think that you are proud of me.  I love you, and am proud to be your daughter.  I brag about you all the time, and people are really jealous of me not only that I have you in my life still, but that I have a mother like you.   

Songs in My Head

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Songs in My Head

We all have a touch of it, many of us deny, ignore, repress, or try to persuade ourselves, that a sixth sense doesn’t really exist.  How many times have you known who was on the phone begins to ring, or know that it is going to ring moments before it does,  as it, or had a thought that you should leave more time to get where you are going and find yourself in the middle of a traffic jam?  There are lots of little things that happen that most of us ignore, but most of us don’t attribute to ESP or a sixth sense.  And then there are those who say that they know the future or can read it.  Many don’t believe in that, and it is true that, some psychics are fraudulent; it is just difficult to know the real from the fakes. 

In our family, there is a strain that runs through, I only know three generations, as the lore from before my parents’ generation is lost.  My late aunt, Fredi had the gift, but even she chose to use her “gift” to manipulate her children.  Her daughter, my cousin does readings, and is often accurate when she chooses to listen.  Her son, John, has a touch of the gift but has chosen not to spend time refining it.  One story I like to tell of John dates back to a time early in our reconnection when we were both fairly well along in years.  I had put in a call to him and left a message on his home answering machine, to invite him and his wife, for the first time to our annual Fireworks party.  He did not return my call, and after a while I became annoyed and started mentally yelling at him.  After a few days, of looking at my RSVP list, noting he had not called and yelling again, my phone rang.  It was John, yelling at me “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”  In those days before cell phones, he had been camping in the National Seashore and had gotten neither, my invitation or my phone call, but he had been aware that I was trying to reach him and upset that he was not responding.  Now when I want to contact John, I don’t use the phone, cell or internet, I simply think about wanting to talk to him, for a few days and he will call.

My gift is a little stranger, but in recent years, I have become aware that I have a gift.  I hear songs in my head.  I can hear you saying,”Sure we all do.”  Yes, I know the phenomenon of having songs get stuck in your head, and that is what I thought was happening to me.  What I have discovered is that when a song starts either at a time when it seems silly to be hearing a song or when a song goes on and on for days or weeks at a time, there is a message. 

The morning after my husband, of forty two years, dropped dead without warning, I woke with a love song playing in my head, as clearly as if it were playing on the radio.  But, my house was silent, all of my visitors were still sleeping and I was the only one awake that early dawn.  And I heard the song.  That morning it was John Denver’s “Annie’s Song”

ANNIE'S SONG (John Denver)

You fill up my senses like a night in a forest
Like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses come fill me again.

Come let me love you, let me give my life to you
Let me drown in your laughter, let me die in your arms
Let me lay down beside you, let me always be with you
Come let me love you, come love me again.

It didn’t make any sense to me on that very sad, first day of my widowhood for me to be hearing songs, no less a love song, but I listened and I heard, and I cried.  The next day and for months on end I heard another song, heard it in Frank Sinatra’s inimitable voice.  In the beginning I heard only some of the words, and then I remembered that my late husband could never remember all the words, but he loved to sing.  This song was Time After Time

“Time, after time, I’m telling you that I’m so lucky to be loving you.” I even heard it while I was standing graveside, and while others were singing “Oseh Shalom”  The song continued to play on, in my head, for quite a while, I didn’t notice when it faded, but even now, more than ten years later, I will hear it at odd times.

        Then several years later, as I was helping my mother to move out of her house into an apartment, another song began.  This time I heard “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot”  I think this song was my unconscious speaking to me, I had been spending my winters sharing this house with her, and when she moved into the apartment there would not be enough room for me to spend an entire winter with all my hobbies and activities.  It was to be the end of another era in my life, and I was not a happy camper, nor was she. 

        While I was house hunting in California, my real estate agent had asked whether I wanted to live on a lake or whether I wanted a view.  Indicating that I didn’t really care one way or another, she broke the showings into mornings for houses with views and the afternoon into houses on the lake.  As we drove up to the first house on the lake, a song went on in my head, softly at first, the song was “Old Cape Cod” and when we came to the house that I was to buy, the song got so loud that I was certain my agent could even hear it.  I apologized to her, told her about the song, and she laughed. 

        I have heard songs now and again since then, when they play for more than just a morning or an afternoon, I pay attention.  One morning, just recently the lyrics “Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
everything that's wonderful…” by Lesley Gore

I have no idea why I am hearing this song.  Maybe, it is because, I have finally, nine months after putting it on the market, sold that house on the lake.  Maybe it is because after years of writing, I have started to submit my poems to contests and publication, and it is telling me that I will get some recognition.  And maybe it is because… (Think, shrugging shoulders.)  Often, it just takes a long time for me to figure out what the songs are about, or just what the message is about.  Meanwhile, I am enjoying the joy that comes each time I hear the song, and each time it unexpectedly comes out of my mouth and I hear it in my ears. I wonder, what it wonderful thing is coming my way.  Stay tuned, when I figure it out, I will share it on my blog.