Sunday, August 23, 2009

Remembering Hurricane Bill







"Bill's Effects on the Jersey Shore: Lots of Churning, but no disasters." I knew when I picked up the Philadelphia paper that the headline referred to Hurricane Bill, which thankfully did not slam into the coast of New Jersey as vacationers were enjoying the last of summer. This week, fleeing the sticky weather inland, scores of us braved long waits at toll plazas and near accidents in New Jersey's infamous traffic circles, seeking ocean breezes and one last romp in salt spray.

Yes, I knew that menacing wave heights and rip tides under the frothy surface of a seemingly perfect Jersey beach day were evidence of a serious storm out to sea, a storm that has taken lives, a storm that is no laughing matter. Still, as I read news accounts this morning, I couldn't help but chuckle, and I wondered briefly whether my sisters and I had unintentionally stirred up the Atlantic. From four states across the country, my three sisters and I gathered this week. We met up on Long Beach Island, NJ, a place where we spent much of our collective childhood, and we brought a Bill we all knew could certainly make waves when he wanted to. We came to scatter the ashes of our father, Bill, in a place that always brought him joy and a kind of peace he didn't evidence in many other parts of his life. Under a perfect canopy of bright white stars, we four sisters shared memories of our mutual parents and of those always barefoot summers. One recited a prayer, all of us said goodbye, and there was a lot of laughter punctuated liberally by one refrain: "No,no, that's not the way it happened. This is what happened. . ."






As a writer and a teacher, as a person, I've become increasingly fascinated by how fuzzy and indefinable that line can be between memoir and fiction. "Any story told twice," the late poet/writer Grace Paley once said to an interviewer, "is fiction." As soon as we have an experience, we start to frame in our own minds "the story" of what just occurred. We choose, like all good story tellers do, the details to include. We illuminate the feelings we want to convey. I suspect we leave out details and feelings that either didn't register with us, or which don't enhance the tale we've already begun to craft in our minds of the experience. And then we retell the tale and it changes in the retelling. What we remember, where we focus our attention from the first, the details we share, are all colored by our temperment, our age or life stage, our past experience, our moods of the moment.





We stood on soft cool sand on a hot summer night, all of us in our fifties and sixties, and each of us remembered our own Long Beach Island. None of us was sure who was right about what year was the year when-- and who was actually on the beach the year that-- hundreds of starfish washed ashore and we gathered them in buckets and brought them home to a distressed, or delighted, depending on which of us you ask, mother. We all remembered that she made us grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches. We couldn't agree on whether the way our father hauled us past our fears into sometimes churlish waters, how he made sure we all learned to swim, was an act of kindness or harshness, though we were all glad we'd become confident swimmers.





And then we let him go, and the man who taught us all to duck under the biggest breakers and back float over the calm rolling waves became part of the Atlantic Ocean we all knew he'd loved.

Nodding Panda


I confess to liking—perhaps more than I should—doodads, gimcracks, and tchotchkes. I even like the words themselves for being so felicitous. Sometimes, though, I attribute unreasonable powers to these objects of my unreasonable affection, and they become charms.

Consider the case of Nodding Panda. I bought him at Mitsuwa, our local Japanese market, ostensibly because I thought my students would enjoy watching the light-activated toy nod away on my desk. And, indeed, they were amused by him all school year long, at which point I brought him home to spend the summer on the desk in my study.

Now that school is starting again, I have a problem. For two months, Nodding Panda has kept me company while I wrote, mused, emailed, drafted, planned, fumed, doubted, despaired, deleted, and recovered. I often looked to his dependably nodding countenance for the wherewithal to continue when what I was doing seemed pointless. His little mechanical head kept telling me Yes, or Keep going, or That was pretty damn good, wasn’t it? He was quiet, encouraging company, and I no longer want to share him in my public workplace.

But, I will share him with you. When you find yourself doubting the enterprise of writing or your ability to carry on with it, conjure up the image of Nodding Panda. He is telling you to finish that paragraph or page, before you go to the refrigerator. He is saying, Good things come of hard work. He is cheering you on, and any kind of light keeps him going, even fluorescent.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Red Leaf Warning

When I lived in Western Pennsylvania, finding my first red maple leaf in mid-August always sent me into despair. Oh no. Summer was coming to an end. The days were growing shorter and the mornings were growing darker. Soon school would start and I would be beset by routines and schedules and commitments. I would lose the lovely sense of freedom and light-heartedness that was synonymous with summer.

Last week I read that optimistic women live longer, healthier lives than pessimistic ones. Optimistic women are less likely to develop heart disease while women with “cynical hostility” are at a higher risk for heart disease and for dying in general. This worries me. Not that I’m hostile. Or even particularly negative. I could likely scrounge up a handful of witnesses to testify than I am a positive person, someone good about dusting herself off and moving forward. But optimistic?


Optimistic people are morning people, aren’t they? Not someone like me, who when roused, prays oh, please God, don’t let it be morning yet. Someone who despairs over a red leaf. Hardly optimistic. Optimistic women are the ones you see in commercials. The ones smiling over their first cup of coffee, smiling before they’ve taken one single sip. The ones doing yoga on the patio as the sun rises. The ones running with their dogs as mist wisps from the meadows. The ones stretching and sighing and gazing out their bedroom window like . . . Well, like they are in a television commercial. The only time I smile in the morning is when I realize I can stay in bed a while longer.


This weekend, back in Pennsylvania for a family event, little red maple leaves littered our campsite. “Oh, look, fall is coming,” I said as I gathered up a leaf. “What a pretty shade of red.”

Perhaps there is hope for me after all.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Wedding on the Ohio River


Marietta, Ohio, is a town filled with history. Named after Marie Antoinette in 1788, it was the first settlement of the Northwest Territory, and its many historical markers honor early forts, shipbuilders, steamboats, and the first white woman to set foot in the place. It is small town of broad streets, lovely old houses, and expansive lawns. The perfect place for a wedding.

The wedding guests drove hours to get here. The ones from Pennsylvania wove their way south and west through Ohio mill towns and farmland, while we drove west and north over at least three mountain ranges. Blue Ridge. Shenandoah. Allegheny. Deep green forests with mist rising from the treetops into the gray, rainy skies. It was a long, wet journey, but one we all happily make when old friends marry off a child.

Fortunately, the day of the wedding was cloudless and warm, and St. Mary Catholic Church, stunning in its size and Old World grandeur, was air-conditioned. The ceremony was so flawless no one could have guessed the behind-the-scenes drama: the bridesmaid’s dress that landed in Vermont instead of West Virginia and the bee that attacked the bride’s mother. It had turned into a perfect day, and we were proud, because this child, this young, beautiful bride, was the youngest of our collective children, the baby we all watched grow up. We had to be there.