All Good Things Come to An End

Someone asked me recently whether a blog like this would stay in the ether long after the writer is gone. I thought the answer was "yes." But it appears that I am wrong. AOL is ending its Journals on which this one has been lodged at the end of October. They are, they say, working on a way to move those who wish to continue to a new blog site, but in the meantime, they have offered this method to save that is still printing out behind me, and I can see is difficult for the endless novice like myself and far too time consuming for the impatient. So, I will see if I can download to a memory stick and reconcile that after a bit over a year, and then see what happens. I will be looking for a new site, something easy, preferably, to begin again. I'll hope that whatever "easy" method for transitioning AOL is talking about will let this journal survive and make the end a new beginning without ado, with nary a beat skipped. But warning to those few of you who have been faithful readers. According to the counter, in only a bit over the year well over 1,000 hits. Not many comments, but a fair number of hits. Some of them are me checking in, others, friends, others who knows.

I wonder if this all means that AOL is about to go bust. Blogging is hot, so when they have to end their blog site, one wonders.

In this fragile economic and culture time, everything is in transition.

So, as they say, "we shall see what we shall see". Maybe the next version of this blog or another blog on another site will be more creative. I hope that you'll stay here until it fades away, or follow me to the next site.

Djinn from the Bronx

Sunday Rambling

The last debate that was of any interest was the one between JFK and Richard Nixon in 1960, and I was too young to see it live.

This recent one, with Obama and John McCain, was lackluster. Who won? Nobody. I don't think debates really demonstrate who can lead, although I wouldn't mind a stirring one, one election year, if only to engender a temporary confidence.

As to the Biden-Palin one coming up, I worry that they have been hiding Ms. Palin from spontaneous speaking. A National Review Commentator (a woman herself and conservative) is expressing some rising doubts about whether Palin can hold her own in any dialogue about foreign policy or the economy. I am hoping that my sense of her being a bright woman, well spoken, quick study, was not misplaced. But I will still vote Republican because the ideals simply match mine more than those of the present Democratic party (which is nothing like its predecessor back in the day when JFK was its candidate). But wouldn't it be nice if Sarah shows she is sensational?

With the failure of major financial entities, WaMu, Lehmann Brothers, AIG, some of them like a hundred years old, I find myself amazed that we humans, have actually made it this far, without complete self-destruction. If you look too closely, everything we lay a hand to is probably falling apart, like the new construction with cut corners, that as long as there isn't a earthquake, nobody will know about, like the engineers on trains who probably regularly don't pay attention at the controls, but usually, the unknowing passengers squeak by in continuing to live, or the airplane passengers who find out that a pilot (thank God, not the co-pilot) had a few before he took the big can up 30,000 feet.

There is a lot of luck, providence, something, that keeps us intact, more or less. But let's not get too wild and crazy folks. It's all very tenuous, the line between life and death, safety and destruction.

Was over to see my dad at the cemetery today. A particularly beautiful day to sit in that corridor with the breeze blowing, writing in my journal, doing a tiny bit of praying, and just taking in the sounds of life where so many rest. Birds. Flowers. Laughter of visiting families.

Bought a new camera yesterday. My present digital works just fine, but I could not resist a Nikon Cool Pix, 10 megapixels and a much bigger screen than the one I had. So, the purchase was made, along with a new album to put loose pictures in from different time periods.

There's always so much in my head, but just now, I feel like I'd rather vegetate by watching further television. So, off I go to a well used living room couch.

 

 

Dreams of Change

My father has been dead for over five months, surprisingly close to the six that mark half a whole year. Nothing, and everything has changed in that time. Nothing in so far as I still am at the same job, still in the same apartment, still living essentially the same life, except he's not in it. On the other hand, his entire condo has been emptied, and freshened up. The furniture, with a few exceptions, is gone. The place is up for sale now. But though it looks the same, there are things in the works that will complete the turn of the page, begun as if a wind had blown, but completed by my hand.

I am not sure how this is related, or if it is. But the other day as I walked down the aisle of my church before Mass, a woman who had known my father, had driven him home sometimes from a class he attended on Thursdays asked me how I was doing.

"You know, I miss him, but I'm doing good." My father was 90 and it almost seems ungrateful to be complaining how I lost him when he had as long a life as he did and I had him 54 years of mine.

"Do you dream about him?" I wanted to say, yes, but truth is, I haven't. I had one dream he was in before he died that I am guessing was an unconscious premonition, except for the part that involved Pierce Brosnan (yes, Pierce and my father were in the same dream, make whatever Freudian conclusions you will!). But it was before any crisis. I have felt his presence, I think. Could be wishful thinking, though. And then there have been a couple of events, the near fire in dad's refrigerator averted because I decided to stay over, my wallet that was nearly lost, should have been lost, but ended up not getting lost on Waikiki beach. I could have sworn he was looking after me. Could have been coincidence though. A dream seems like it would be a more direct contact. People tell me they dream about loved ones all the time. I have had three people die that I cared most particularly about (meaning I have cared about others but the death of these folks was, well, life changing, so maybe there is a connection to my introduction), my father, my mother, so long ago that sometimes I forget how much of a change her death effected in my life, and the man who had been my therapist, but after the termination of my therapy, became, along with his family, a friend. This latter association with the attendant aspects of how it came about, the dicey issues of ethical boundaries (is a continuing relationship with a former client ever tenable, even if it is not forbidden? ), transference, countertransference, is a story unto itself but I will save that for another time, perhaps never, who knows. The crux, though, is that my mother, dead 30 plus years, I have dreamed of only once and in the dream she had aged, gracefully, and smiled at me ever so briefly in a way I had never seen in life. Bill, my erstwhile therapist, appeared twice, each time offering the lessons of the mentor and caring soul he was to most anyone (as I have come to learn) whose path he crossed. In the dream, as in life, I heard him saying, knowingly, "Grist for the mill." Everything that happens in life gets ground up and processed within us, if we are lucky, teaches us things that better enable us for our relationships. Make it possible for us to love, and be loved. But I don't exactly kick out dreams of family and friends with any regularity.

And not at all so far with dad, has there been a dream. I'm not pushing it, though, because even the not dreaming of him is grist for that mill. And change is indeed happening, especially when I least notice it.

    I can see our time is up.  . .

Maximilian is Diogenes?

This will be my first "crossover" entry. The crossover is to my other blog, the one dedicated to my father, "Legacy of a Courtly Curmudgeon". http://djinnfromthebronx.blogspot.com/

The precipitating story is my encounter with a homeless man. I did not realize initially that he was homeless.

I decided about 1 this afternoon that I wanted to run a garage sale with a few items I have been putting in a pile for just such an impulse. I put out a table to house some collected, but mostly unused mugs, and DVD's, some really good films, but not ones that I have tended to watch a second or third time, a bunch of books, some of them from the psychology book clubs that I always kept even when I could have sent them back cause I really did not want them (I'd always think, well, maybe it'll have some use for me, but they never did). I put out a tiny color television I used to keep in my kitchen. A not inexpensive print from Cost Plus (over 100.00, and that's a lot for a garage sale) that used to hang in my dad's apartment, but isn't something I think I'll use anywhere for me. I really wasn't looking to make a buck, and quitely literally, in the three hours I was out there, with little foot traffic, I only made about three fifty selling a few DVD's and a cap. I always feel a little guilty running such sales, cause I am either going to give away the stuff ultimately or leave it out there for someone to pick up. But I figured, some of this stuff is useful, so why not.

A man who clearly had been at the local thrift shop judging by the plastic bags that encased his purchases, wearing a baseball cap, a nice, though open black filipino style shirt and khaki pants and a gray wild beard came up and scanned the various books.

Yes? No? Will he? Won't he? He did. He picked two, one "The Uses of Enchantment" by the late suicided Bruno Bettleheim and another on Asperger's Syndrome, an autism spectrum condition.

He asked "how much". I said "Fifty Cents for both". "Really?"  "Yeah, I am not trying  to make money on this stuff."  And by now I had realized he wasn't flush anyway, since he pulled his coins out of a tight plastic bag. I liked something about him too. Couldn't put my finger on it.

"People say that I have Asperger's" he pointed at the book. And we were, or rather, he was, off. It's always hard to know what to believe when anyone speaks about their lives, let alone a man who acknowledged he was a street person, by choice. But he was surely smart, and listening him talk about radiation beams and sun spots (yes, he got there somehow), and his book that only sold in Germany and Iceland, "Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Roadkill", I found myself fascinated, although it surely looked as if he were content to stay with me for hours. He was born in Germany, speaks several languages, had taught but found his life long resistance to authority made it easier for him to live the life he was. He goes to libraries. He hangs out in Starbucks. I said, "You seem happy". He said he was.

I believed him. His real name, he said, was Maximillian, but he calls himself, to others, "Miles Smith."

I suggested that he write about the various things he shared with me. I told him that if I saw him in Starbuck's I'd say, "Hi Maximillain" and I'd hope he'd remember me.

It occured to me after we parted that maybe I had met the man that my father, in his writings, dubbed "Diogenes", an intelligent, articulate homeless man that he wrote truth about and used for his fictional process as well. Somewhere I have pictures of that man, in my, in dad's stuff, if I haven't misplaced them.  Or thrown them away.

We cannot know what is behind the face of anyone, homeless or wealthy or smiling.

There was much behind the face of Maximillian, story upon story that led to our meeting on the stoop of my LA apartment. I felt lucky to have met him somehow and luckier still that I had not disregarded him as I otherwise might have.

So maybe now you'll go to my other blog and read a story my father wrote regarding one of his talks with his homeless man, maybe the same one.

But for all practical purposes herein, Maximillian and Diogenes, they are one.

Questions Without Answers

I am beginning a purge of my apartment, slow and seeming without a dent in the clutter. Lots of reasons for "why now?" The idea of moving is settling into my brain. The aftermath of losing my last parent. Maybe other things. All culminating in a need to turn the life page, which includes going through some old life remants.

I bought some albums in which to put items, things from high school and college I still can't let go of-the handout for the 1972 MSU graduation, the entrance song a the Mass, "You've Got a Friend". The announcement of passing the Bar Examination in New York. A letter/announcement and photo from some friends whose son, then 7, and a budding drummer, met Phil Collins.

And some of my "writings", pre-blog age. Sometimes I actually think I was a good writer when I look at my scribblings. This one happens to be somewhat apt, given the train  wreck in LA, a man made disaster, albeit one without evil intention, and the hurricane battering Texas. Why?

It was written in 1999, nearly ten years ago, it stuns me to realize. And yet still that same question.

Chalk it up to news media hype, if you will, but like it or not it remains true--horrible things are happening.  They always have.  They always will, till the end of time. Acts of nature.  Acts of man.  The most recent courtesy of nature is a 7.8 earthquake in Western Turkey. Twelve thousand are known to be dead.  The reporter says that due to inadequate rescue resources many now alive under the rubble of buildings which were badly constructed in the first place, will join the dead.

Then there are the acts of man. Well known to be a spewer of angry platitudes caused by some long ago real or imagined pain inflicted on him, an otherwise impotent Buford Farrow goes to a Jewish Day Camp and tries to kill children with a gun.  Several kids are wounded, one almost fatally, but all have lived.  Of course, he has succeeded in killing their innocence, maybe some souls too. That remains to be seen. 

All this is to be borne with stoicism for after all it is the portion of the first sin. Two creatures (allegorically speaking) disobey. Death enters the world.  Paradise is lost. The Judeo-Christian traditions agree on that. I think. After that, it's every religious man and woman for himself or herself on how to cope with it all.

In the abstract, theological answers bind anxiety. I can only write a little of my own tradition. Christianity says that we have been saved because God became Man and took all our sins on his back, with the Cross. He was nailed to it.  He died. He rose with a promise of eternity with Him if only we take on our own comparatively little crosses and follow Him in His Act of Trust and Faith in God. No matter what we see, no matter what happens in the world, of in our own lives, that is al we are asked to do.  We are asked to be as Job, to love God when the answer to our cry of "WHY?" is "My Ways are not your ways." That all we are asked to do? The person under the rubble, the shot child reaching for the paramedics on the stretcher, the psychiatric patient battling schizophrenia, the endlesly lonely, it is indeed a demand for ALL, in the face of apparent absolute abandonment. I remember an old priest I once knew, Fr. Skiffington, who, after a number of medical problems ended up in a nursing home. He asked why he had been abandoned. He looked forsaken. this was a believer. A holy man. A Jesuit trained in the Faith. We are creatures, weak, in need of proofs, beset on all sides by ourselves, by our environment, and by knowledge of our certain death, and yet God asks that we have the faith of His So. How can He ask this of us? His Son was fully Man, but He also was fully God Himself. Is that not a huge advantage over us?

I just asked God if it's ok that I wrote all this.  I am not being facetious when I note that I am afraid of the answer. I try to remember that also in my faith it is said that God loves us unconditionally. I hope that at least, is true. Maybe sometimes it's better not to ask any questions.

 

 

Thursday Fragments

Just finished watching the last of "Live Free and Die Hard" I think it was, Bruce Willis' latest incarnation of fighting policeman John McClain. I admit it. I enjoy this series. I like his snappy comebacks in the middle of threats of personal and global destruction. But of course I know that it isn't real.

The real. Seven years since 9/11. And we said we'd never forget. What do you think? I think we did at least based on the coverage in the LA Times today. 3,000 plus people haven't had a life course because of pure evil. There are those who think you can negotiate with evil. Woe unto us should they hold sway.

On a cheerier note. I think. Today in LA managed to feel like fall. Dropped temperatures, clouds, a kind of gauze over the colors that just were summer.  Dark by 7. I always resist its coming on, the fall, loving the pervasive warmth of summer. I hear that we'll have some regenerated warmth this weekend.

Saw a movie this past weekend I thoroughly enjoyed. The only thing that exploded were some Napa Valley grapes. Really they were crushed, to make wine. It is the story of the California Winery, Chateau Montelena,

 

whose Chardonnay rated number 1 in France in 1976, and blew the myth of European (specifically French) wines were always best. It is also the story of the people in the middle of the fray, including a irascible, snobbish, but ultimately loveable wine expert who samples the Napa fare and finds the gem that changed the industry. Go see it. It really makes you smile this film. Called Bottle Shock. Word of mouth will make it profitable, in the small movie way. And anything would be better than Dark Knight. Talk about mass hysteria that people called that one the best of the year.

 

This weekend, our last Hollywood Bowl outing, Brian Wilson, Beach Boys' founder. I think I shall listen to his new album before I go, then I'll be familiar with the songs, which he absolutely will be playing in between the old stuff. I hope he'll do the old stuff.

And fireworks! Yippee. Later dude. 

  Djinn Avatar.

 

Tell the Lies Enough (about Palin) and Hope the American People Will Buy Them

Just noticed as I begin my journey to Circuit City, Supermarket, and ultimately, home, the headline on today's Los Angeles Times, to wit, "Defiant Palin comes out Swinging".  Well, I guess you could say that's true. Except the full picture is that she was swinging back at her nasty detractors when she had the floor, finally, at the Republican Convention. Then, the little header for the column says, "McCain's running mate shakes off controversy and mocks Obama in her speech introducing herself to the nation". Then under her picture:  "Debut:  Sarah Palin cast herself as a victim of hostile reporters and a scornful Washington establishment." She CAST HERSELF? She MOCKS? Dear dear. She responded to very real hostility and a scorn that eclipses any of which Clinton (Bill or Hillary) supporters bemoaned in days gone by. And she pointed out the frailties of her confreres in the Democrat party. What she did, is defend herself. And, yes, some of those defensive remarks included sarcasm directed at the people who have been mercilessly attacking and making pronouncements that make no sense.

Suddenly, liberal democratic women are saying that she should stay home and take care of the kids and not be bothering herself about this VP thing. I agree with Dennis Prager that a woman is only considered a feminist if she accepts the liberal democratic worldview. If a woman candidate of the Democrat party had five kids and a Republican suggested that she wasn't properly directing her focus to her wifely and motherly duties, there would be recrimination for that pool soul. Double standard. Double think. Double Speak. I'm seeing double. It's ok if you don't agree, but don't say whatever comes to mind and expect that no one is going to call you on it.

But's it's ok, I think you've overplayed your hands folks. Keep it up. A lot of the undecideds are deciding, and they aren't buying the lies and vitriol.

 

 

 

 

Tags: Palin, double speak, lies, left

Creatures who Bite Wires and Backs

Really, I promise to make sense. The subject for today is my cat, Bleu, and the Democrat (I tend to agree with some conservative talk show hosts that they may be Democrats, but they are not democrat-ic) Party's pundits and media blitzers (including Wolf). Both bite things. My cat, Bleu, likes to bite wires in my apartment. He has severed the one that allows me to access the internet. I have made other arrangements until I can get new wires and "bitter apple" to lather on them so that he won't do it again.

But he is a cat. What does one expect. He bites things, although he has never bitten a human being. This is not something one can say about those dancing on the other side of the political aisle who bite the backs of anyone that moves and challenges their syllogistic theories and pronouncements. Today, the fact that her 17 year old daughter got pregnant, makes Sarah Palin a hypocrite. Really? It seems that it means only that the daughter did not listen to her mother about abstinence, and that meant a child who mom is going to help her keep, completely CONSISTENT with her stated values. Am I to understand that if I a member of my immediate family fails to meet the values I advocate that I am a hypocrite? Am I forbidden to have a value because someone in my family fails to abide by a certain value promulgated as an ideal? Am I forbidden to have a value even if I fail to abide by it? We have all likely not acted in accordance with our values. Digressing to the apostles, as I must, except for one, each of them in turn promised to follow Christ and promulgate his message of objective Truth, and each of them failed miserably. That doesn't make the value any less, just points to human frailty. So Sarah has a teenager who got pregnant. That doesn't mean her advocacy against teen pregnancy has any less force. And then there are the other speculations that have been posited as news without ANY investigation. Do you want salt with that bit of back? Rabid would appear to be the word du jour.

I said in my prior entry that she would not have time to enjoy the announcement of her being named the VP running mate of McCain. I did not think it would be less than a nano second. Excuse me, I have to make another donation to the McCain campaign.

 

 

 

Sarah Smile

Don't know that Sarah Palin will be doing much smiling in the next days, weeks and months. It would be lovely if she could enjoy being the first woman ever on a Republican presidential ticket, but given that she was already being besmirched with the story of how she fired her brother in law the Alaska State Trooper and was under an ethics investigation even BEFORE McCain announced her, I am guessing that she will get little pleasure and lots of grief. Why anyone would want to run for public office, I sure don't know. There isn't anyone without something that someone wouldn't designate as a skeleton in his or her closet that couldn't be neutralized by an enterprising other side.

As to her "experience". I am less concerned with Barack Obama's experience than I am with his political positions and an abiding belief that he is a demogogue, the likes of which this country has not experienced, though other countries have, to their great misfortune. We think we are invulnerable to take over from "within". What was it that Krushchev or someone said, "We will bury you!". They'll use our democracy. They are. They have been. Mr. Obama is not alone seeded within the government. He is just the current incarnation. It seems I am now become my father in my prophesy of doom and gloom. Obama has the gift of Orwellian gab and half the country, intelligent people, no more or less than I am, are buying it. But IF I were concerned about experience, then my answer to those of the liberal democrat persuasion is this and it is not my answer alone: The Vice President can and often does, learn on the job.  One also might remember that Harry Truman was so out of the loop that he knew nothing about the Manhattan Project and the Atom Bomb until after Roosevelt died and he was taking his place. The President arguably has less wiggle room in that regard, is expected to take the reins upon the prior resident's vacating of the White House.

But back to Sarah herself. I don't exactly know what caused it, but when I read about Ms. Palin, after hearing the selection, I found myself smiling. A lot. I donated to McCain, something I had no great inclination to do before, though I planned on voting for him. Aside from the fact that I am more in accord with her political views, I think yes, it was risky, but she is not cut from the usual mold of politicians, male or female. She appears to be nobody's fool and in nobody's pocket. She is more articulate than any candidate I have ever seen, and I am hoping that she will blow Joe Biden (btw why are his old skeletons so happily back in the closet that were so well publicized in days gone by while Sarah is being so curiously focused upon by the media?) out of the water in their debate. I assume they will debate, unless Joe is taking Obama's tact and avoiding anything but canned conversation.

Of course, time will tell, and probably not much by the way information moves in this society and opinions run rampant. My opinion? Well, something about all this has me doing something I have never done before, openly stating them. I live in California and if you are not against W, and drilling for oil in the glaciers, and pro-abortion, you keep quiet at dinner parties, in movie theatres, at your office, well, pretty much everywhere where you'd think free speech would be allowed, that is, liberal turf. But no more, I hope. Sarah somehow has done that for me, one woman for another.

And anything I can do to keep her smiling, I'd like to. And if she needs a shoulder to cry on in these next weeks, as I am suspecting she will, as her opponents tear her reputation apart, I offer mine. And while I take issue with McCain in some things, he represents the America that maintains itself as a beacon of freedom and with her, let us hope no demogogue will prevail against them.

 

 

Tags: vote McCain Palin, Sarah Palin

Meanderings

 

All these idle thoughts pop in and out of my mind.

As I drove home, there was a man wearing sneakers and a pork pie hat walking down the street.

                                  

Why are these hats popular again? There was a book about the so called "Tipping Point" in events, trends, views, something that was not paid attention to that suddenly because of some group, or individual, becomes the cat's meow. Who wrote that book, Malcolm something. Anyway, back to the hat. Why that hat? Not the most beautiful of hats, but it is kinda what? Kinda cool. Kinda devil may care. Kinda, look at me, ma. Kinda everything old is new again.  Kinda whas' up, although that phrase is already outdated, tipping its way out of sight.

Watching an old Law and Order: Criminal Intent with Vincent D'Onofrio. He really has gone from lean to, well, not lean. I forgive him. I understand the problem, she said, having eaten far too many flour tortilla chips with fresh avocado tonight. But I wish he could do someting about it. I should worry about my paunches, and not his.

After 26 plus years in the same apartment without airconditioning, this year I broke down and bought a small one for my bedroom. What was I thinking before? Idiot.

I have been reading a book about sociopaths. They say one in twenty five people is a sociopath. My feeling is that in the legal profession, that the percentage is way higher.

Went to another HB (Hollywood Bowl) outing on Saturday. Donna Summer. She was great. But the real show was in the audience, in particular four girls in front of us who drank and talked (occasionally danced, or was it weaving?) through the show as if they were in a 1970s bar. One of them swung her arm in a moment of inebriated and joyful reflex and she it the woman next to her in the nose. But not too hard. The woman behind her flashed a little light in her face in an effort to get her to quiet down. She talked even louder in response. Oddly, none of these goings on detracted from the experience.

Admission:  Haven't watched one minute of the Democratic Convention. Further admission. I won't watch the Republicans either. I would watch an Independent Convention, if there were one. Maybe not. Is it possible for there to be a McCain-Clinton ticket? I might go for that, who'd a thunk it? I apparently am not the only one.

If you don't have an Ipod, buy one. They're really cool. It's great when every song is one that you like. No channel changes necessary.

A friend sent me some pictures of her trip to Nantucket. I wished I could be sucked into the photos. Poof. What happened to the Djinn from the Bronx? Shouldn't a Djinn be able to do that, appear and disappear places? I got cheated. Or maybe I just have to cultivate the power of the Djinn.

The new Star Trek movie was supposed to come out in December 2008. I have the poster. But the date was moved to May 2009. I wonder if the poster is worth anything, not that I'd give it up. Just want to know. Yup, I'm a Trekker. That's Trekker, not Trekkie. And I have never been to a convention so I'm not really obsessed, right?

At work I got an automated call about some warranty on a car. Well my car is liketen years old, so that can't be, and I was annoyed that I was getting telemarket type calls in my office, yet. So they said "if you want to speak to a customer representative, press 1". I did. He asked for the make and model and year of my car. I said, "I have a question, first, who are you?" Click.

This was fun. I may meander again. But no more tonight!

 

 

 

 

Remnants

First week-end back to regular life, after Honolulu. Errands. And some needed follow up at my father's apartment. My uncle has laid down new linoleum in the kitchen. The refrigerator which nearly burned down the place was removed. Today, I finished shredding years old bills of my father's, and thought how a life's manifestations fade. About three or four weeks ago, an old friend, reading my blog, opined that I was suffering from major depression and needed a psychiatrist. I appreciated his concern, however abrupt, but I have been in major depression  in the past thirty years, and despite my melancholy entries, this is not what I was experiencing. Grief, certainly. Loss, absolutely. When I was away, I kept thinking to call my father and let him know what was happening. I worried a little about his reaction to our mission of mercy. But it seems, given our long and close and sometimes conflicted, relationship, these feelings are not unusual.

Today, also, I made another quick visit to the cemetery. A beautiful day as seems usual there. A bird flew in the block, sitting, nearby on a flower holder, high up on someone else's niche, and spoke to me. It seemed to be a connection to Dad, one of many possible messages. The breeze caressed me as I walked about in the sun seeing who was new in the "neighborhood".

Time passes apace.

 

 

Shaka Brudda and Aloha

 

When I told people in the very beginning of August that I was going to Hawaii, their first reaction was to that I surely was going on vacation, and lucky me. I certainly took the time off, as in vacation, and I was certainly going to a paradise on earth known as Waikiki Beach

 and its even more beautiful environs,

which sure as sand sounds vacation-y. But, the purpose had nothing whatsoever to do with vacation.

My mother's eldest sister retired in Honolulu some 27 years ago, when she wasn't much older than I am today. Then she was able to get around without needing anything more than a nice location and some newly made friends and a little bit of money she inherited back east from someone, who knows who. And time on the beautiful Island passed. The Island stayed as it was. She did not. She got old. And being without any family became an issue. She never said it was, but calls to her youngest, still living sister, and my cousin and I, her only direct relatives at this point (lots of  other cousins of hers but no longer really in the picture so many years hence), revealed a subtext of health issues, and money problems, although with a small pension and social security, she should have enough to sustain her reasonably comfortably.

I was there two years ago for business and visited her. She had aged, but she still seemed all right in her senior residence, going to sing-a-longs on Fridays, and puttering around her cluttered apartment. I knew then that there was the beginning of a hoarding issue, but it seemed harmless enough at that point.

Then a neighbor of my aunt, called my aunt's sister in New York. You know it's got to be trouble when the intervenor is older than the person she is calling about. My aunt is 86. The neighbor is 92 and though unable to walk without a chair is still keeping up her apartment and dresses like Donna Reed of the great grandmother set. She doesn't go very many places, but she sure looks like she could go out and paint the town. Anyway, this lovely lady, a caring friend of my aunt's, let us know that things were deteriorating, both in her health and financial circumstances. Mostly, it was the financial she was pointing out because my dear aunt has been asking for loans. She tries to pay them back but the requests have come more frequently, and the reason for the problem, although having many explanations from my aunt, all seem to be outrightly bogus. They are old themselves, and there is a limit to their help.

So, I made the reservations (thank you Expedia) and got a pretty good deal given the locale to which I would going to resolve as best as I could the family crisis and its unnatural cost in these gas high and hotel high days for August 5 to 12, taking a red eye back, to preserve that very last day for any emergency appointments. My cousin in New York decided that it was as much her responsibility as mine, although frankly, the extra miles and extra cost really made it less hers than mine, in my view. I was closer, just 3,000 miles across the Pacific. But she insisted (God Bless her, for it was good to have her with me) and came to meet me a day before my trip and joined me bound for the land of the hula and a cold call upon our dear Aunt. We did not want her to try to shove anything under the carpet.

So off Hawaiian Airlines we came and dropped our stuff at the Aloha Surf and Spa,

 

 off the main beach (less expensive) but with a nice view of the Ala Wai Canal and the cloud moody mountains beyond it from the lanai.

 

 

 And made a b-line for our ailing aunt's place.

In truth she couldn't begin to hide her situation, even if she had a day or two of preparation. It was that bad. She and her apartment had decayed in the two years since I had seen her and her apartment. . .well, it was not just cluttered any longer, it was unbearable in heat and smell. No longer could she easily take care of herself and clearly she wasn't getting any help from anyone and clearly, even more, though she told us she was seeingdoctors, she hadn't seen one (as I confirmed with one) in three years, a year before I last saw her. She received us happily, but as if we had just taken a cross town bus rather than a hefty flight. She hadn't seen my cousin in ten years. We had our work cut out for us.

The next day we talked to a lawyer. The same day we called the Public Guardian and Adult Protective Services to consider our options. We also called a couple of those privately run social service entities that are there to help folks just like ourselves, the family of elders who don't live nearby. By Thursday, we had someone set to meet with her on Saturday afternoon. By Saturday afternoon, we had paid for an assessment and arranged that she be taken to a doctor about her edemic legs and feet--for my aunt seemed cooperative in her liking for the woman. We also had a state social worker involved, a nice but bulldozing lady, who also met with my aunt the Tuesday just before we left. Things almost fell apart again by the time we got back on Wednesday after the red eye, with the state social worker trying to subsume the efforts of the paid social worker by interposing a less well paid former nurse (in the Phillipines), that neither my cousin or I or my aunt had met. It wasn't that we were necessarily against her, but we had no prior visual of her and who was she? As my cousin wended her way back on the nightmare flight to New York (thunder showers meant that her plane circled for nearly two hours over JFK), I had to prevent the paid social worker from bowing out and keep the state one from mucking things up. I think I succeeded, but I won't really know till next week, if my aunt gets to the doctor in fact and in truth, rather than in theory.

In between trying to set these things into motion, we went to a sing a long and were the center of attention for the lovely residents who meet regularly on the fourth floor recreation area. One made leis for us, one material, one out of kukui nuts. We made sure we wore them when we visited again. We brought food for our aunt for lunch and dinner every day, and she seemed to revel in the attention, in her quiet implicit way that I remembered from my childhood.

And in between, yes, I guess, we vacationed a bit. And spent a great deal of that bit in the ubiquitous ABC Stores buying this or that my aunt or we needed, as well as at the Ala Moana Mall, which has EVERY store known to commercial man and woman. And we saw the naturethat makes these tropical islands so enticing, visiting Waimea Bay and the still raw and dangerous Sunset Beach,

 

where no one in his or her right mind would actually swim, given the currents, and Kailua, where Obama was also treading water. We bought pineapple at the Dole Plantation and had the requisite pineapple ice cream cone, a lovely but sticky little sweet. We learned what red dirt really is, the result of volcano ash and iron that makes the ground this incredible deep bright red, not unlike the color of the taut bodies of the surfer natives. We loved the little showers that come at a moment and then dissipate as quickly, the perfeft and timely spritz for our short clad selves. We noticed the chasm between the beautiful hotels on the beach and the run down apartments just blocks away. We decided it was a nice place to visit, but we wouldn't want to live there. Although we'll miss Spotz and Harvey, our temporary pigeon pets, eating muffin bits on the lanai every morning with the red headed sparrows. We always shared our continental breakfast with others.

We tried to hang loose in a small family crisis. I guess Hawaii isn't a bad place to have one.

I have been watching a DVD of Hawaii Five-O, since I got back, to see if I recognize anything. Ok, brudda, aloha. 

Lady Luck, Providence and Constantine, An Addendum

My uncle yesterday reminded me of something that warrants an addition to the last entry. One of the things I knew. The other related item, I did not.

Just after WWII, in 1945, my father's family, including my uncle, lived in a Bronx apartment on Davidson Avenue. My father was living there at the time, presumably while he sorted out his post-infantry life.  One night, as my father returned home from a late evening of galavanting (my uncle said that he did quite a lot of galvanting in those days) he came home to a well in progress fire at their apartment. He somehow was able to alert the fire department AND get his family to waken and out the winter's icy fire escape, all the more fortunate, given just how white hot the fire was, leaving nothing but the stones. His new wardrobe. Gone. His then fiance's (my mother's) engagement ring. Gone. All mementos from his time as one of the administrators of a prisoner of war camp in Florence Italy, including a portrait of him, in copper, by a German artist. Gone.

But all lives saved!

That part of the story I have long known, although I had not thought of it in conjunction with the events of the other night, specifically the part where my father's alert saved his family.

The other part, which I did not know, makes what happened the other night even more a case of cosmic synchronicity.

I am told by my uncle that refrigerator electrical fires are exceedingly rare for a variety of reasons.

The fire on Davidson Avenue all those years ago was caused by a refrigerator.

Food for thought.

 

The Two Faces of Lady Luck

At nearly four months since my father's passing, the hold I had put on decisions about his condo has begun to lift. Initially, my uncle, my friends and I did a purge of personal items, but until I could decide, rent, live there (too small at 725 feet, even smaller than my current locale), or sell, I did not want to do anything with larger items. And anyway, I felt a certain level of comfort at going there and feeling as if he will be back any minute.

But I have made a decision now. And that decision requires me to deal with the furniture. A few things I will keep, in whatever of my own space I can find. Other things I wanted to give to charity. Therein lies a part of this tale. Charities want you to donate large items, but you better have an elevator. I wonder if any of the things I had were antiques (they are not) there would be less reluctance. Anyway, I called two charities, St. Vincent de Paul and Out of the Closet, and both, hearing that it was an old, non-elevator building said, "Oh, you'll have to get the stuff downstairs." I am very strong. But not that strong. And somehow it seemed rather beside the point to hire third parties to take furniture downstairs to donate (assuming it wouldn't be stolen before the charity arrived). I called a third, the Salvation Army. They asked me when I wanted the items picked up and I said, "Wait, first, I need to know whether you'll pick the items" and I said what they were "in a building with stairs and no elevator." "Yes", they said. "Yes!" I said to myself. Appointment made for today between the narrow window of 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. My friends know I am not a morning person. One of the perks of my job in a manager's position is that I can flex, coming in later and leaving later. Early for me is 9:30. So I decided to sleep over at my father's house last night to assure that I would be there and available, if not awake, when the representatives came. The feeling of his presence was strong. Trying to sleep on the couch (no mattress any longer on his bed), where I had stayed the night before his procedure and the day of and the night until he was rushed to the hospital, I found myself sporadically replaying his sleepless night before and his child-like reluctance to be taken out by the paramedics in his altered fevered state. I was not depressed, just sad, and surprised at just how much time has already passed since these events which remain fresh in my mind. I couldn't sleep. I turned on the airconditioner thinking if I cooled down, that might somehow induce it. I went to the lounger. I went to the floor. As I got up to re-situate myself yet again, I noticed a strong smell of smoke. About two weeks before my father died, a downstairs neighbor had left a pot on the stove and this caused a near catastrophe. I thought maybe it had happened again. But outside, no smell. I sniffed around trying to locate the source of the burn, reminding myself of one of my cats. I had just located the intensifying smell, seeing no flame, behind the refrigerator, when there was a loud and bright pop from the outlet behind the nearly hidden outlet. The refrigerator is big, but when I began to pull it out I could tell it had wheels, that though heavy, I could move it. There was water on the floor and Ihoped that my rubber souled slippers would ground me as I yanked the cord. I pushed the hardware back and retired to the couch having opened the sliding doors to the terrace, deciding to risk intrusion in favor of clean air. 

I don't know when I fell asleep, but I awoke at 8:30, of my own accord. Coffee. AARP Magazine with an article about how doctors don't listen to their patients. Flashback on what happened to dad and my still easily generated anger at his two main "care" givers. Not. About 11 the Salvation Army arrives. I'll have one more thing out of the way. Delightful. Two tall and brawny fellows greeted me a the curb. I had a bad feeling as I watched them watching me go up the outside steps, then the inside steps to the second floor. I did not want to hear it. "It's our policy that we don't take furniture if there's no elevator. Do you have some bags of clothes or something?" But, though it can be my wont, I did not yell. I calmly recounted my initial conversation with the Salvation Army "desk" if that is what one would call it, and noted, with controlled irritation, that I had wasted a half a day. They left the list of items uncollected with a "Sorry ma'am" and they were gone. I went home. I showered. I went to work.

The moral of this admittedly tedious story? Lady Luck gives even as she takes, and what she gave in this case probably was lot more than she took away. She took away my opportunity to have the Salvation Army "take away" my dad's stuff. But she made sure I was in that apartment all last night, a stay I have not repeated since the night I followed the ambulance to Cedars and down dad's final road in life. Had I not been there, I I believe the evidence is to a reasonable certainty (in legal terms) that dad's apartment and perhaps lives would have been lost in that condo building. Had I been able to sleep, one of those lives might have been mine since I had initially closed all the windows and several doors so the air conditioner would keep the room cool. I don't know of course. Lady Luck. Providence. A mustached little angel named Constantine perhaps?

 

Get On Do-wn the-e (Nostalgic) Road

 Yes, that is one of the tunes Lady Supreme sang last night at the Bowl, Get On Down the Road, from a movie I never saw, (I could not take the idea of any form of remake of the Wizard of Oz; resister of change that I am) but a song that was everywhere at the time of the movie and soaked into my psyche. And she wore the very dress pictured and four or five after that one. She carried it off at however close to or over 70 she must be at this point. She looked good, my binoculars can attest.

The last two visits to the Bowl have been a nostalgic travelog. Last week, it was Julie Andrews, with a deep voiced Do-Re-Me  (the loss of range apparently courtesy of a botched surgery some 12 years ago), joined by a soprano and tenor supporting cast, that nonetheless brought me back to the Rivoli Theatre in New York watching her do it on screen. I got to be one of Von Trapp kids last week, 'cause yes, we were all singing along! Who'd a thunk it, certainly not me, that one day I'd be across the country, and connect with part of my American childhood so definitively? I wasn't running in the Vienna streets, but pretty close, running in place at the Hollywood Bowl. La, Te, Da!

And then Ms. Ain't No Mountain High Enough Ross asking "Do You Know Where You're Going To?" in her still full bodied voice, among other musical questions and statements. I know. Don't I know, Ms. Ross, my head nodding, "You Can't Hurry Love!" I just gotta wait. Thanks for reminding me.

I have noticed in my last several concert attendances of the comeback, or never left, acts, from days gone by, that they seem to corral a wide age group, from what appear to be those old enough to be my mother (and that is getting harder :) to those young enough to be my grand (gulp) kids. Len Speaks spied a number of gyrating elders and opined that there would be few aching hips in the morning. More than a few.

I like the variety of the crowd. I like the bridge across the River Generations.

We were higher up in that crowd last night, for it was a sell out, as we could tell from the wildly strewn cars in the overstacked lot. It took a lot longer to get out than usual. But that was ok, the people watching was good. I particularly liked the white and straggly long haired old guy with a soft crushed pork pie like hat and several strings of pearls. Not sure what time period exactly he was harking back to, but can't deny his quiet joy as he strolled toward wherever his car was trapped. Somebody in the arthritis section asked if anyone had "weed".

I love it every week, as I have said, ad nauseum, in this blog. A couple of weeks will be passing before the next foray to the benches in the mountain Bowl. Can't wait. Donna Summer, here we come!

 

 

The Near Occasion of Sin

 

 

I think a great deal about sin. I think a great deal about my sins. Not that I sin any less because I think about it. Nope. Nope. Nope. You know the St. Paul lament, something like, as I promise that I will not sin anymore, I find myself sinning. That's my summary of St. Paul, and far less poetic.

I also go to Confession. Oops. I forget. We call it the Sacrament of Reconciliation now. I am Old School Catholic so I still tend to use the old titles and concepts. Well, actually the concept hasn't changed, the idea that by confessing our sins through the mediator, in the line of St. Peter, to whom the power to bind and loose was given by Christ, and in true contrition, we receive absolution and the Grace to sin no more. But I guess the emphasis is different. Kids used to fear being yelled at by the priest. Adults too for that matter. It had the feeling of "OK, what did you do now?" coming straight from the Lord but that isn't what was intended. That was a human misinterpretation passed down from the Middle Ages maybe and then right into my Church and girls' school in the middle of the Bronx. Really, Confession is the first part only. It's the Reconciliation that makes it worthwhile to humble oneself before God with an admission of frequent frailty. Reconciliation with who? With God, by acknowledging our need for His Help and seeking His Friendship. Yeah, I know, if you're not Catholic you figure that this seems largely unnecessary. You can talk right to God. Anytime. No intermediary necessary. True, and I am not here to proselytize. Just to offer my sense of it. Because, as I said, I think about sin all the time. I guess I also think about restoration of friendship with God all the time and it just seems that the Catholic process, the sacrament, which means a visible sign of God's Presence, really brings home what you are doing, what I am doing. I am laying myself, wide open. This is serious. This you don't do lightly as I might when I am just chatting with God. It requires a real preparation. A real examination, and a real action, to go to a specific place, at a specific time and say, yes, I did this, and I know it was wrong, and I pray for the Grace, Lord, Your Most Amazing Grace, not to do that again. It darkens me. It sullies. It turns my face from You.

Something like that. Today I am thinking about it again, sin, and Reconciliation, because I just went last weekend, to a Church down the block and gave one of my usual litanies. Before I go, I am a little despairing that it makes any difference. But every time, thereafter, I sense a lightness of soul and yes, even possibility that this time I can truly avoid the near occasion of sin to which I so readily succumb the moment I step out my apartment door. Sometimes before I get out of the door, when I think about it. But it is always there, the room, the reconciliation, the Grace, Him. A cleansed feeling within and without. Big stuff.

 

An Absence Still Felt Here

 

 

It has been over three months since my father's death.

The world goes on inexorably after someone dies. We have all heard  this saw of truth. No one is indispensable. We are dust in the wind. Remember man, thou art dust. But, someone we love should be necessary to the world, no matter the mantras we have learned unto cliche. We want it to be otherwise than as it is.

And today, as I sat in the area of the altar, in my role as lector at the Church which my father, a late in life Catholic, attended with me for over five years, I was relieved to see that he had not been replaced here yet, in his small ministry.

When first he came to our little parish (in full communion-he had been a fixture for years as my non-Catholic but well liked father), he was a substitute usher, when Paco or Peter were not around on a Sunday. When Paco died, too young, my father simply eased into the role regularly. I watched him every week come down the aisle with Peter, basket in hand, making a partial, but fairly distinct for a man of his age in his mid 80s, genuflection to begin his walk of collection down the pew line. His confident walk provided evidence of the soundness of his health at a time when so many others of his age depended on canes and walkers. Sometimes he'd forget to go around the side aisles to make his pick up, then realizing, caught up to Peter. I'd smile and he'd ask me later if I noticed his mistake. Of course, from my perch I could see every parishioner, snoozing, or reading or paying spiritually intense attention, so yes, I had to admit to dad that I saw his mistake, while assuring him no one else did. He was very serious about his job as usher. He worried about being there to help Peter, and he rarely, if ever missed a 12:15 in all five years.

And he has been gone for over three months. And I have to say that it has made me somewhat content to see he has not been replaced. Every week they seem to struggle to find someone to join Peter in his stroll down the aisle. Worse, if there is going to be a second collection to find three or four to cover. The women of the congregation seem more responsive to the request du Sunday jour than the men. It has always amazed me, and I wonder if it is a problem at other parishes, how people, in a Church no less, refuse to help. But no regular has filled the place. I may be a little ashamed at the lack of Christian volunteers for this ordinary task, but I am also glad to see that my father has not been so readily replaceable. It makes it easier for me somehow to still imagine him moving down the aisles and carefully stepping up to pour the money into the collection basket and back down again with the second partial genuflection to close out the task. Today it brought tears to think of it. Happy-ish tears. Because he is still there, still somehow performing the role when no one has taken it over officially.

 

 

 

Trying to Capture Something Not Capturable?

Today, a colleague, with whom I hadn't spoken in a long while, called me at work. Her nearly first question was, "How's your father?" There are a fairly substantial number of people among friends and colleagues who knew him, met him, often at social gatherings at which he joined me. He charmed anyone he met, particularly the ladies, for whom he always had an appreciation, right to the very end. Perhaps it was one, perhaps it was the thing that gave him longevity, a passion for the female mind and form.

She hadn't heard and I told her that he died some few months ago. Her question and my response had the effect of making it seem as if he were still here. He couldn't be gone if someone is asking after him. And on the way home, as I passed his favorite restaurant, Chao Krung, on Fairfax, I remembered how much he enjoyed our dishes with a glass of wine brought by one of the pretty waitresses in traditional Thai garb. He'd always compliment them with a smile of approval. What I can't quite capture is that moment of his tasting the wine, I see it, but now, the hand that put the glass to his lips is ash in a container in a wall, but for the moment of seeing it, he is as present as he ever was, still enjoying that moment. Always enjoying that moment. And now, in the present thinking of that moment, I enjoy watching him, more in a way than I did when it happened.

Because it can never happen again it has a preciousness more than in its original playing out. In that moment, he had no sense of not being here. When he trusted the doctors he had no sense of not being here. Just as I have no sense of not being here.

I am trying to express something I can't quite grasp, not for him, not for me. I am not sad. I think it's a searching. I think it's a reaction to watching the movie Frequency, one I really enjoy for the connection of two lives in a way that could never happen in reality. Funny I just realized that I came home and had to watch it after these thoughts about my father, as if somehow there could be some re-connection for us, despite the reality of where things stand now. A kind of mutual, "I know", "I understand" that could never have happened in linear time.

One person's fantasy of quantum mechanics in passing. The multiple paths that can happen, might happen, do happen. And for a moment, Dad and I are at Chao Krung in the present and he is asking for another glass of wine after asking me if I am in a hurry. I am not.     

 

Tags: memory, time, what if

Summertime! and the Living is Easy

The loss of my father has had me considering things that I could heretofore ignore because, among the other things a parent is for a child, she or he is a barrier to mortality. As long as a parent is there, in the wings, assuming of course a reasonably good relationship, the sense of safety, of a tad of immortality persists, however illogical the feeling.

Experiencing the intimations of mortality (rather than the poet's immortality), I have been taking care of various personal business matters. Today involved one such matter, in addition to the dry cleaner, getting gas (ouch!), picking up necessaries at Target.

There was peculiar sense of unreality in my task, generated by talking about myself, after my death, in relationship to others still alive. It oddly wasn't morbid. There was a relief in the process, a release in a way from fear. Whether that will be permanent or not I cannot tell. I was well away from home for my task, and on my way back, I decided to stop at Claire's On the Beach in the Long Beach Museum of Art. I know I have mentioned this cafe eatery along the ocean in at least one or two entries. Like the Hollywood Bowl (and another performance tonight there) it is a favorite place.

I got my table overlooking the bike path and the water's shimmer and the length of sand. Above is Claire's, you would see where I sat if I had a pointer. The picture doesn't do justice. Usually I bring something to read when I am alone, but I noticed that my senses were heightened and I needed rather to listen and look and see and feel rather than to read. The waiters were moving at a relaxed pace. That was fine. I was in no rush. I closed my eyes. Breeze. The smell of sun, sand and water. Music, not usual in my prior trips here, coming from speakers, kind of a Euro Jazz at first, then a traditional but particularly tactile jazz. Voices of the diners. Breakfast was eggs, over medium, bacon, fruit and an English muffin, which I ate with deliberation to extend my stay in a space suspending fear, care,and mortality itself. A man in a peculiar, white large, Cat in the Hat head covering was repeatedly careening down the bike path hill, going down smoothly, and walking up to do it again. The modern art fountain's water tinkling complemened theocean whoosh. I heard the singer's languid, "Summertime. . . .and the living is easy. . ."   Deep cleansing breath. And I return to the world. Until tonight and the caress of the hills at the Bowl. Life is hard, but in between, glorious moments.

July 4th at the Bowl

Music! Food! Baseball! Fireworks!

It was July 4th at the Hollywood Bowl, our first, my friends and I, and with the "Gibby at the Bat" version of "Casey at the Bat" by a pre recorded Vin Scully, we were in Los Angeles' version of heaven.

Larry brought 2 bottles of a lovely grapefruit infused wine. and bite sized Babybells. I brought some goodies and a bottle of Mumm California sparkling. Len Speaks brought the butt comforting seating pads. Anonymous of the Barbara Judith Apartments kvelled over his Patina packaged dinner. The heat of the day abated as the light faded and the mountains became shadows againt the soon to be night sky. Randy Newman reminded us all how much we, transplants all, loved LA.

Tommy LaSorda told an old joke I never heard before, and exhorted us to our patriotism, too often hidden beneath our media induced cynicism.

Yup, I love summer in LA. I particularly love summer at the Hollywood Bowl in LA. Thank you Len Speaks for my seasonal birthday gift. Couldn't be better.

Ladies in Lavender

I was in the supermarket and the moment I saw the DVD, I had to have it. I don't know why exactly. I remember when it was in theatres a couple of years ago, and I had merely a passing interest, which was forgotten until I saw it. I am not given to buying my movies at the supermarket. I don't think it even got great reviews when it was in its original release. Another in that series of movies for which the review is less than sterling, but for me, it becomes a treasure.

 

The story is somewhat implausible. A young man from Poland washes up, with no explanation, onto an English seaside village's rock strewn shore, where two older women, Ursula (Judi Dench) and Janet (Maggie Smith), sisters, reside in a cottage. It is just pre-World War II. Janet once had, and knew, a love, who perished in WWI. Ursula, it appears, is an untouched spinster. She has no past memory. And of a certain age, there is no future hope of the romantic life missed. The young man recuperates in their home. The doctor who provides his care (David Warner) distrusts him--he speaks German, though he learns halting English with the help of his hostesses. Seeking to entertain him in his rehabilitation, they bring in a village violinist. The man is earnest but not good. The young man, Andrea, takes the violin. The sound of his strokes of the strings is sublime. His impromptu performance is heard by a woman, a vacation visitor and al fresco painter, staying in a nearby cottage who shows immediate interest in the young man. She is the sister of a well known conductor. She writes the sisters a note telling them of her relationship to this conductor, and of her thought that Andrea is an extraordinary talent. But Janet hides the note from him, to protect her sister, who has developed an impassioned, though chaste, attachment to the young man, to keep him there, for as much time as is possible. There can be no real life happy ending, the chasm is simply too much and the young man doesn't even know about Ursula's feeling. But Andrea and the visitor meet again at a social gathering, and she asks to paint him with his violin. The doctor's suspicions are enhanced when he sees the young man leave her home. He thinks of conspiracy, not art, or even love. And one cannot blame him, I suppose, given the times. Andrea for his part is angry to find out that the sisters have not told him of the conductor, Daniloff. In his anger he snaps at Ursula. Janet explains her sister's tender state. Andrea finds Ursula on the beach and apologizes in fragmented English. Ursula regrets her elderly foolishness. Andrea is only to be with them for a short while longer. On a last afternoon in the garden Janet cuts Andrea's hair. As they return to the cottage, Ursula picks up a lock of his hair that has fallen to the grass and keeps it. She will never have more than this piece of a young man, a relationship with whom she can only imagine.

Andrea arrives at Ms. Daniloff's cottage and she spirits him, without prior notice, to London to meet her brother. Andrea is loath to leave without a word to the sisters, but there is truly no time, as probably Ms. Daniloff has planned it. The window of opportunity for the young man has opened to the career of a violinist.

The sisters wait for him to return for dinner that evening. He does not come. Worried, they call about and hear that the woman and Andrea took the train to London. Ursula is devastated. She cries against Janet from the depths. She consoles herself by sleeping on the bedspread of the bed on which Andrea recuperated and slept as their lodger.

A package comes from London, some non-specific time thereafter. And a note with it, both from Andrea. He apologizes for the sudden leaving, but explains its purpose and asks them to listen to the radio for a performance, his first as a soloist.

The villagers arrive at the cottage herded in by the housekeeper of Janet and Ursula. The performance begins. We see the faces of the villagers, of Ursula and Janet. We see Andrea doing that for which he is meant with full orchestra behind him.

We see a moment, before or after this concert, when Ursula stands outside near the cliff by her home, letting the lock of hair fly away. And with it, her last dream.

Then we realize that Ursula and Janet have gone to the performance in London. They surprise Andrea at the reception. In moments, he is intercepted to meet someone important. Ursula and Janet leave.

When we see them last, they are, as they were in the beginning of the movie, two maiden sisters walking the rocky beach together, but each alone, Ladies in Lavender.

It might be too personal for me to detail why this movie touched me so. I can say only that once, not so terribly long ago, I ran across someone that made me feel the possibility of love not yet had, of love avoided. I had no illusions about its prospects. It too was chaste, but intense, and as with Ursula, only for me. But for me (I was then in my 40s) there was still time. I was not yet a lady in lavender. I felt that I might finally take emotional flight and take the lessons learned from the not possible and find the possible. But I didn't and I haven't. And the time is passing quickly. I felt for Ursula because I may well be her in quick time, as the years that have passed and are passing remind me. But maybe it isn't all over for me, not yet. I hear a familiar voice in my head, asking me, "So what are you going to do?" Ultimately, it is all up to me, whether I think so or not. I am choosing the road and I am, in large part, responsible for where it has taken me so far, and where it will take me. Much of it has been good. Very good. That which has been less so, well, there is no one to whom to look but myself.

 

 

 

Father's Day Without My Father

I should probably add "the first" Father's Day without my father. It is just after two months since my father died, and exactly two months after his funeral. Father's Day was a bit of a battle between us, from my perspective, because I'd always want to take him out, spend money. He, the depression era child awaiting another, would actually get angry at me for the profligacy. So I tended toward avoiding deciding anything about what we'd do until a day or so before, and there'd be a little tension between us, he preferring to cook at home, meaning he'd do the cooking, because that is something I have never been, a cook, and me preferring to go out, both of us missing the point of the day.

Looking back, and it is always easy to look back, I should have simply let him be. But that isn't the way with parents and children, no matter how old the child is. And in this, perhaps, I acted too much the child in my resistance. I'd like to say that if he were here, this Father's Day would have been different, that I would have acquiesced to his wishes without any resentment, but I suspect otherwise,given my prior history. But he isn't here. And so, I slept in, as I always have done on Sundays, went to Church, which he used to do with me. But today I lunched with friends at the same restaurant at which I celebrated my father's 90th (he allowed this spending spree as a love of his New York life was with us), and then went to the cemetery.

I have been talking to him since he died in the free way I wish I could have done in life. I have told folks that it seems to me that since he has pierced the Cloud of Unknowing, he has seen God and in that he knows His plan in a way that none of us can in this life, I have felt his hand in protection of me, now without the fear and anxiety that used to accompany his guidance. I don't know that I had to go to the cemetery to "see him". But that is where what remains of his earthly self is, and it seems that on this day, a close visit, an in person visit, was compelling. My mother is buried at Gate of Heaven cemetery in NY. I have been out here, in California, half my life. I have thus only visited her about three time all tolled. Even when I lived there, I was not driving and a trek to where she was, relatively upstate, was difficult. But this cemetery is an easy drive, close to home. There would be no excuse for me not to visit. Today was my second visit since the interment. The place was packed with families sitting on blankets next to bunches of flowers they had placed on the ground plots. And at the niches, where my father is, flowers were in the little holders on space after space. I have decided now for certain I will get a holder. My father did not have any great interest in flowers, but it is the only way I can leave anything tangible of my presence and sentiment, so I will end up getting one of these.  And a portable chair so I can sit rather than stand or lean against the columbarium. At another niche, daughters of a parent chanted prayer. It echoed in the mausoleum as did the chirping of the birds. Another family chatted by a niche as if they were at a party, and their dad was the guest of honor. I said a prayer or two, perfunctorily. I have never been very good at praying, except maybe in Church. I cried a bit, still feeling a level of disbelief that he isn't here but sure that he is safe and sound in God's hands. I walked about and took in the paradoxical beauty of the place. I find I like cemeteries very much. I came back to dad and said my goodbyes. It wasn't long. I remembered how I'd be impatient in his house to go do something else on a Sunday, prepare for the next day of work, hang in the back yard, doing my own "thing". He'd note that I couldn't sit still. Here I was still doing that too. I came, but then was in a rush to go. But perhaps it only is that this visiting the dead may take some practice. I haven't done a lot of it, when I think about it, counting my mother, three times, a friend, two or three times, and my dad, now two. I am a novice at this visiting and praying at the grave. I am pretty sure I'll be a fair regular seeing my dad. It's an effort I probably should have made more of when he was alive. Although people would say, I would say in my own defense, I saw him quite often, my internal conflicts sometimes kept me at an emotional distance. Now all that seems quite silly and unnecessary.  And yet, in a peculiarly good way, our relationship, at least from my side of it, is stronger, easier. I wonder if that makes sense?