Times Go By

This will be the last neurotic-nostalgic-year-end blog, promise. I'm under the influence of shorter darker days. Colder air. That time of year. I apologize. I don’t do much in the way of resolutions, and try not to become too terribly immersed in soul-searching, but the spirit of Scrooge has come over me like a shroud.

Another year. Another decade. How did this happen? Time evaporates, more rapidly each year. As if everything we do, every activity, every emotion, were sucked into an invisible vortex, jammed together with all the other years, all the other people and all the emotions that go with all that. An emotional black hole.

Wasn’t it just yesterday that we celebrated the arrival of the new millennium while expecting the demon of Y2K to wreak havoc on our now nearly obsolete technology? Wasn’t it just yesterday that I sat in my CT home-office fighting back tears, clutching the phone to discover the whereabouts of my husband and friends in downtown Manhattan. Wasn’t it just the other day that my daughters graduated college [2000 and 2003] and now they have completed graduate school – Dana in practice and Julie on her way. Can it really be five years ago that we lost Rusty and four years since I resettled in Laguna Beach? I know it’s a cliché, but where has the time gone?

Time, unlike nature, moves beyond any vacuum in our lives, unobstructed, constantly plowing forward like a high speed train. And, like those trains, speeds also seem to accelerate each year. Something about age that makes the time pass all the faster, we all speak about it, marvel at it, complain of it. No stopping the clock, not in this linear space-time continuum. The only respite is the length of the day and here is where time tricks us. Just as the year winds down and the days have become almost unbearably short, winter solstice kicks in and the process reverses. So in the midst of darkness the light returns. Just a little bit at a time, nearly imperceptible, but there if you pay attention. The days grow longer, as if adding time to our lives, even as we watch the calendar pages turn and memories take on greater prominence than the moment.

The passing of time yet another reason, as my daughters remind me often, to be conscious of each moment, which so quickly slips away. More of our lives devoted to yesterday than tomorrow. I suppose this is why I find myself of late resenting the proximity to senior status. Before long, I will be old. More and more of my life is past and less in the future. I don’t fear dying, not at all, I only wish to live as well as possible as long as possible. If I don’t appreciate each moment as it comes, it will too soon be gone. As so many are. The first decade of the new millennium merely memory now. Fodder for nostalgia. In the blink of an eye, we will find ourselves celebrating the quarter century – OMG!

Happy new year.

It's Complicated

As soon as the presents were opened, breakfast complete, Julie and I honored the Xmas holiday by going to a movie; before Noon, the theater was packed. No wonder distributors make such a fuss over films opening Christmas Day. Clearly a tradition enjoyed by not just the Jews, but those who favor an outing or simply a less traditional day.

We saw “It’s Complicated.” Always happy to watch Meryl Streep work her magic. Lighter weight films are preferable on a holiday, no need to be immersed in existential struggles or conflicts.

To my surprise, the story is as existential as they come. What does it mean to be married? To be in a loving partnership that never lives up to its promise. To be left behind. To make choices that impact so severely and forever those we love most. That’s what this so-called comedy was about and it hit me hard. Hard for me to hold back tears at several scenes and, once out of sight of my daughter, the faucet blew. I loved my husband dearly from the first moment I met him, sometimes unexpectedly and often irrationally, but love him I did, and he loved me, although our relationship was often tenuous and painful. Not so much opposites attract, as our values were on the same page, but two people who approach life differently and seek different outcomes. What we had in common was our children, our community, our mutual respect and a lovely group of friends. It should have been enough.

His loss was devastating to me. I have found it exceedingly hard to transfer affection and thus have been denied [or denied myself] romance for most of a decade. [Although present me with an architect with the humor of Steve Martin and I'm there.] I still find myself reaching for the phone to call him after I’ve spoken to one of the girls as he was, despite his frequent absences, a co-parent. No one loved our children more nor shared the same concerns as we. I often complained that I was a single parent, and then the reality set in. He’s not here.

Unlike the characters of the film, there is no possibility of communication. No chance for reconciliation. No apologies. No connection whatsoever. I find myself mourning as fully now as I did five years ago, August, when Rusty died and closed the door behind our lives so tightly and so fiercely, as if a vault. Only the memories remain and these grow dim with age.

Sometimes it is so terribly hard to live in the present when we long so profoundly for those of the past. I indulge myself in these moments of sadness infrequently and without remorse, because to live in the hearts of those left behind is to live forever. A psalm. The words imprinted on my mother’s headstone. Gone 33 years and even now, now and then, I wish I might chat with her as well.

Sometimes I so deeply wish I might go back into my past and start again. Impossible of course. The stuff only of movies and fantasy fiction. And then I think: what exactly would I go back to? And would I want to live through these losses all over again? Better to keep moving forward. Stopping only occasionally to remember, to weep, to mourn, to reflect, and to smile in gratitude for the time we had.

That’s all there is. That's all there ever was.

Harbor House Cafe

I frequently walk down to Harbor House Café for Sunday breakfast. Armed with my favorite sections of the NY Times I enjoy a lazy morning and an indulgence: pancakes, a short stack of course. Harbor House is a large place, with classic counter and booth seating, with an adjoining glassed in patio with patio style glass-topped tables and plastic chairs. I favor that space as the light there is better suited for reading. Open 24 hours, this café, originally called a coffee shop, is equivalent to an East Coast diner. Reminds me of long ago late night dates with the gigantic menu of cheap eats and the slightly grungy ambiance that fits poor students and large families.

Down a dark hallway to the ladies room there is a large framed photo of Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke that always makes me smile. This is but one of hundreds of film-related photos and posters that line every inch of wall, and I mean every inch. These are not signed photo’s as at Sardi’s. Nor are they reserved to celebrities who might have lived in SoCal. No rhyme or reason. I once asked a waitress the significance of the film memorabilia and she had no idea. I asked at the counter, a shrug. I can only conjecture that the owner has a passion for film. Perhaps a family member has a Hollywood photo business. Or some poster store shut down just as the café was opening: instant décor.

A clue to the mystery is found on the website: Harbor House was founded in 1939, an exceptional year for film. Gone with the Wind. Gunga Din. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Wizard of Oz. Destry Rides Again. And the year before [one has to look] Holiday and Jezebel, two of my favorites. So I understand the passion for film at that time. Makes sense. Why Harbor House Café? The right of ownership.

The photos, while lots of fun and recalling many of my own favorite movies and actors, creates a real disconnect in this place more frequented by bikers and blue color workers than stars. I need metaphors and I can’t find one here. We are 70 miles from Hollywood. The photo montage covers nearly a century of film icons, well before the café was founded. As far as I can tell, even the wait staff has nothing to do with film production. Now and then I look up to see James Dean or Audrey Hepburn smiling at me and while a pleasant distraction, makes no sense. Of course, a patron with the New York Times in her face makes no sense either [LA Times and OC Register sold in machines just outside the door] so I am just as much a contradiction in this place as the photos. Perhaps that’s the connection in the end – we come from everywhere and end up here.

Whatever. Paul Newman always makes me smile.

Generosity

Ah, the spirit of generosity. Tis the season. I am always grateful for the abundance of our rich culture and also, especially this time of year, anxious – will the funds come to meet our operating budget? Every day, I see the generosity of good people unfold. I know my donor base fairly well now, after two years Friendship Shelter, but people invariably surprise me, stepping up to give more because they know the need is great. Or, apologizing because they cannot give more but wish they could. I know how they feel.
I understand the delicate balance between the need and the response, much like the balance in nature in all things, and certainly in humanity. I truly believe that most people, even in America, strive to do their best and live by some sort of personal code. I believe more people are misguided and misinformed than unkind and I don’t much believe in evil, only the degradation of the human spirit. I avoid the fear mongering and just plain nasty media, which is most of it these days, in favor of NPR and PBS. These are the only sane media choices, balanced and observant, and endlessly interesting, well beyond the “news.” Still, stories are often so bleak. 25% of homeowners in danger of losing their homes. 40 million without health care and not all of them will be covered, despite so-called reform. Boys and girls dying every day in Afghanistan et al. Pro-life fanatics using health care to further their ends. Democrats and Republicans posturing and politicizing the most basic of human needs. Locally, social service providers jockeying for position, defending turf and pointing fingers instead of seeking meaningful solutions. Children dying daily because of abuse or drunk drivers, or languishing from neglect. Middle school kids beating up on peers because they have red hair. Elderly more concerned about death panels than quality of life.
I could go on and on. I won’t.
Instead, I retreat, as I often do, into the world of fiction. No picnic there, of course, but one has the benefit of that willing suspension of disbelief that serves as a buffer: the land of pretense that makes even the most realistic of stories fiction. Richard Powers, a favorite of mine, has just published a stunningly intelligent and engaging story about a woman who is endlessly happy: “Generosity.” His protagonist, a refugee of unspeakable horrors, is so caring and forgiving that she is unfathomable to those around her. They must study her. Investigate her true nature. Reveal her Achilles heel. The psychologist proposes a bi-polar mania. {Powers responds that of course this must be the case as the whole of society is now bi-polar – certainly Wall Street would bear that out.] The writing instructor is intimidated by her ability to transcend the usual maudlin quality of poetry and entrance all readers. The geneticist seeks the answer in her DNA. The media sensationalizes her story, turning her into the modern day equivalent of the bearded woman. The blogosphere seeks her identity and the lonely seek her blessings. Perhaps there is a Christ-like figure in this beautiful embodiment of the generosity of spirit, although this author rarely explores the spiritual – a realist and humanist, he prefers to peel back the layers of nature versus nurture. In “Echo Maker” he examined the power of memory. In “In the time of Our Singing” the essence of race relations. In “Gain” the conflict between big business and personal freedom. I love this writer. He makes me think, he makes me laugh, and sometimes cry, but never manipulates my emotions. No escapist fiction, rather an intelligent exploration of human potential, and failure, ever so much more meaningful than the harsh reality of harsh reality.
So, at this time of Thanksgiving, I am grateful not only for my health, my divine daughters and their good health and good lives, my wonderful friends, important work, fresh air, sunshine and blue waters always on my horizon, a sense of personal safety and the simple pleasures of music and the arts, I am grateful for a way of rising above what ails us every single day and remaining steadfastly devoted to the half-full glass. The generosity of giving, and a giving heart, has the potential to heal all wounds.
Generosity is a true blessing.
Post Script: Words to think about from "Generosity" by Richard Powers:
If a reasonably alert person wants to be exhilarated, she just has to read a little evolution. Think of it: a Jupiter flyby, emerging out of nothing. A few slavish chemicals producing damn near omnipotent brains... That discover is better than any drug, any luxury commodity, or any religion. Science should be enough to make any person endlessly well. Why do we need happiness when we can have knowing?

Asia Journey The Finale: Vietnam

We depart lovely Laos for Vietnam, flying on Laos time which means an hour late, and arrive in bustling noisy Hanoi. A long ride from the airport traverses streets lined with factories and then with a series of 4-5 story narrow buildings, many separated by empty lots, like NY brownstones but even narrower. The reason: taxes paid based on frontage, so lots of narrow lots in and around the city.
At first I think I won’t like Hanoi. Almost impossible to process the mélange of images, sights, sounds, smells, a real assault on the senses. Wide boulevards intersected by so many narrow roads, packed with walkers, mopeds, and stuff, lots and lots of stuff. Shopping streets are defined, and often named, specifically by their wares – silks, shoes, blouses, ties, lanterns – rows and rows of stalls of similar wares and again, as in other markets in SE Asia, just so much stuff its mindboggling.
As I am running late, I rush to meet Byron and Gerry at the poolside bar at the Metropole, an old world posh hotel like something out of a Somerset Maugham novel. They look so relaxed and welcome me with open arms – what a thrill it is to meet up with dear friends in a foreign place. Gerry takes us to a French-Vietnamese fusion restaurant [Le Vertical] run by a French chef that occupies a whole building. On the entry level is a spice shop, filled with hundreds perhaps thousands of little jars of spices specially mixed, and the air deeply scented. On the second and third level are the dining rooms so that you feel as if you are dining in a private home. The food is rich and beautifully presented, and for a couple of hours I feel as if we are in Paris.
Traffic in Hanoi: I repeat, like NYC or Hong Kong on crack. Makes Rome look like a village. Only a decade ago, everyone was on bikes, now they drive mopeds, some cars, taxis of course and buses. Most motor-bikers where masks, made of colorful fabrics, nearly to the edge of their eyes, making them seem all the more mysterious. Children are frequently wedged between parents, some wearing tiny helmets. Many of the many roads are the equivalent of 4-5 lanes, if there were lanes, and almost no traffic lights. While there are cross walks, pedestrians do not have right of way – this is not California, no one stops. So the good counsel of our tour leader, which I take seriously, is to step off the curb and walk at a steady pace – no sudden stops, no speeding up – so that the traffic can continue around you, which it does. This is not the place for country bumpkins, nor the feint of heart.
I leave the boys to have a day together and enjoy my last day with the tour, although it is a free day and I take off on my own to visit the Temple of Literature, an homage to Confucius, where PhD students where pale blue full length aprons and serve as guides. Down the street I take my life in my hands to cross a crowded boulevard to visit the Museum of Fine Arts, where I am one of only two visitors, as this place is not on the tourist highlights list which favors the prison or Ho Chi Minh’s palace. A quiet place in a large colonial style mansion, most of the collection is interesting but not exciting, until I walk into a room of Buddha porcelain statues painted in the 18th century, so humanistic that I am moved nearly as powerfully as only last year by the Pieta. One particular, whose expression of sadness, likely for the state of the world, even then, is palpable, and I find myself in tears.
I head over to a café for lunch that our tour leader has recommended – one of three run as a non-profit to train street teens in the food trade. Young men and women are dressed in their starched white jackets, proudly preparing food in the open kitchen, while others manage or take orders. The food is excellent and while I there I chat with a woman from Chicago who teaches science at the American school in Jakarta, and previously in other foreign cities, and often takes a long week-end somewhere else, a wonderful way to devote herself to her profession while seeing the world.
People belch loudly and often, likely the sign of a satisfying meal. They crowd the sidewalks at lunch time with their small plastic tables, stored between meals. They can also be seen crouching to pee or eliminate on the sidewalk or in alleys. Vietnam, like the other countries I’ve traveled on this trip, has not had the pleasure of evolving slowly over time, despite their ancient histories. They have been catapulted from primitive to emerging to a modern world. Culture is still tribal but guided by television and Internet and cell phones. Like a toddler who leaps to high school. Will we ever understand a culture in the throes of warp-speed rapid advance.
Our last group activity is the water puppets, a charming operatic performance, and then the farewell dinner at the top of a building overlooking the lake and the lights all around that mark the center of the old city. I have always excused myself after dinner while the younguns of the tour head to the bars, but tonight they insist that I join them and we head to the Funky Buddha, a bar with strobe lighting and DJ and funky cocktails and have a great time together one last time.
Byron and I leave in the morning for Halong Bay where we board our three layer boat to explore the Bay of Tonken for a day and a half. The berths are of higher quality than most of the guest rooms I’ve stayed in, and the meals a feast. In a bedside basket, there are scrolls filled with hand-written bedtime stories. We enjoy the company of a delightful French couple, and also an interesting Australian my age traveling with her two grown children. The boat nearly drifts through this amazing bay of 3,000 islands, glacier formed, once the site of severe military action with the Chinese and now utterly serene. I kayak through caves into lagoons with water the color of jade. A cave is climbed. Some swim off the boat in the late afternoon while I relax on the upper deck with a book. We drop anchor for a totally quiet rest and peer at a sky filled with stars. At last I drink some good wine. The perfect conclusion to this long and amazing journey.
On our last night together back in Hanoi, we walked along the lake, lit so beautifully and surrounded by charming stone sculptures. Groups even at 9:30 PM are doing aerobics or yoga, rollerblading with children, or simply staring at the few stars that penetrate the haze. The markets are active late into the night, hoping for yet another tourist to purchase something, anything, that one purchase that will likely support a family for at least a day.
The next morning I leave at 5 AM to make my flight. Hanoi at day break is a city of shadows, the calm before the everyday storm. The city is still dark, the streets just coming to life. A few motor-bikers have precariously attached to them large plastic bags filled with the wares they will sell that day. At the early morning markets, strings of pin lights point to stalls and they are already crowded. Women are already cooking the traditional morning meal over petro-stoves: noodles in broth topped with a poached egg, although my taxi driver munches on a baguette filled with what looks like ham and cheese. I find myself torn – happy to be heading to the comfort of home, sorry to leave these fascinating lands. The very essence of travel.
For those of you reading, thanks for joining the journey with me.