One Voice

I have an old friend who I love dearly. She lives pretty far away, so we do not see each other on a regular basis. But it is one of those friendships where, no matter what happens, no matter how much time and distance separates us, we remain connected in an important and organic way.

Sylvia is a school teacher and the excellent mother of five. Four of these she raised herself, with constant affection and attention. The fifth was conceived over 20 years ago, and given to friends who could not have children of their own. This beautiful daughter has retained constant ties to Sylvia and her four biological siblings over the years.

Sylvia and I were best friends even before we married and had kids. After our oldest sons were born we decided to share a house together so our (then) kids could grow up together like cousins. And we did. Our house in Flushing, Queens became a mecca of activity and toddler fun. My two sons (now 26 and 24) remember that time, and fondly, and recall their Aunt Sylvia with affection. They shared high chairs, changing tables and Raffi videos with Sylvia's kids.

At one point, Sylvia had a raging breast infection. She was nursing her third daughter at the time (a 3-month-old) and could not breastfeed. At the time, I was still nursing my 13-month-old son and had plenty of milk to spare. So, every day, while Syl was sick, I took her baby, and my son and plugged them in together. There is a photo somewhere in the world of this, but (perhaps, thankfully) I do not have it.

So, why am I writing this entry now? Since Sandy Hook, I have been thinking about children, their lives and their needs. I have been thinking about the school system and how those who work within are trying so hard to respond to acts that bely understanding. About vibrant young people, so much like my own kids, who will never get the chance to throw down their own gauntlet to the world.

I am but one voice. The voice of a mother. Of a friend. Of a member of a community.

One voice. Does this help? I do not know.

Saviors in Sleeping Bags

Last night they were everywhere. On the couch, the chairs, the sofa bed, in the upstairs bedrooms, even in the basement.

But this was no heinous infestation. It was was 20 California college students (my daughter included) who had traveled east to spend the first week of their winter break cleaning out houses in Atlantic City which were severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy. When they arrived late in the night exhausted from their labors, piling suitcases and shoes wherever, they pretty quickly found their spots, curled up in sleeping bags and went to sleep.

They had spent the past few days pulling up ruined flooring and rotted wallboard, stacking mountains of rubbish at curbs and going back for more, while grateful homeowners and supervising AmeriCorp people directed the action.

This morning, when I came downstairs, most of them were just rising, sweetly sleepy and tousled. A bagel run was made and a large pot of coffee brewed. My two dogs were in heaven for all the attention and petting they got! I listened to their stories -- from their remarkable week in New Jersey, to more familiar renderings of family, pets and passions.

None of them had ever been to New York and they were excited to spend their last day -- today -- sightseeing in Manhattan, guided by their savvy native guide (my daughter).

Then, just as quickly as they had come, they were gone. Off to explore the Big Apple. Off to home and hearth and holiday.

Off to save the world.

The Migration of the Wild Parrots

Each year around the beginning of school several separate flocks of wild parrots fly into my neighborhood, perch on the tall ancient Tulip trees which ring the adjacent cul-de-sac and make a musical racket for a week. Then, as suddenly as they arrive, they are gone, wending their way south to the rainforests of South America where they will vacation for the winter.

This annual event is something of an appreciated local mystery. As September rolled around, bringing with it the faintest wisps of autumn air, I and my (then) young kids would walk to the school bus stop. They were scrubbed and shiny in their new sneakers with bright monagrammed L.L. Bean backpacks hanging heavy on their tiny frames while I arrived tousled and flanneled with a second coffee in my hand.

The parrots had already come and we could hear them before turning the corner. “Squawk! Shriek! Chatter! Coo,” were sung in canon. There must have been fifty of them. As do most birds, these colorful carolers especially liked singing in the early morning. “They’re baaaack,” my first-grader son said, smiling, showing the gap where just the previous night a baby tooth had come out traveling along with the summer’s last corn-on-the-cob. His kindergarten brother skipped happily while their baby sister, strapped securely to the carrier on my back drummed my shoulders enthusiastically. We looked up at the trees as we rounded the bend and saw them high up, their wildly bright colors in delightfully sharp contrast to the solid swath of green. Greeting the other kids and moms who were doing some nice chattering of their own, we caught up, compared summers, remarked on how all the kids had gotten so tall and turned to listen to the concert in the trees.

Fast forward nineteen years. Those kids are grown and have made their own migrations. A new flock takes their place each September. That baby on my back is in her third year of college on the west coast. And still the parrots come. They are an even larger group now, it seems. The conventional speculation has always been that this musical migration began as a couple of escaped pets who went feral and multiplied rapidly. Since parrots can have an equal life span to humans, it is likely that some of the shriekers heard this year are the very same birds of years past.

During the recent hurricane, one of those towering Tulip trees came crashing down. There, where the line of green had been for so long unbroken, is now a gap, like the smile of a first-grader missing a tooth. Growing up here on Long Island I have weathered hurricanes before, but I cannot remember a more devastating one than Sandy. How scary it was to hunker down as light flickered and died, hearing the crack and crash of trees in the distance, winds howling, sirens screaming. We woke to havoc and wreckage all around us. That next morning, I took a walk in the eerie morning light to survey the local damage. The downed Tulip lay across the bus stop street like the giant in Jack-and-the-Beanstalk. In the lower trees I could hear the peeps of cardinals and the coos of the mourning doves.


I walked to what had been the very top of the Tulip. “This is where the parrots roosted,” I thought, imagining what it might be like to perch so high up in the sky. I worried that, come next September their ever-growing clan would find overcrowded conditions on the tops of the remaining trees. Or, even more upsetting, might they find better accommodations elsewhere, leaving us entirely? We shall see. For now we clean up, repair and rebuild, move ahead and await their return.

Be Well

I am the middle child. I have one older brother and one younger brother. I am the only girl. My older brother is an architect, working for the New York/New Jersey Port Authority. He has designed subway stations and tunnel air vents. I'm not sure what else. He also wrote a book about breaking into field of architecture. He is a very good writer. But this entry is not about him. It is about my other, younger brother. Seven years my junior, he also is an excellent writer and appropriately so, since he is an English professor by trade. A confirmed bachelor, he is dedicated to his work and married to his beloved house. Eight years ago, this younger brother was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. That previous Christmas, I noticed his hands shaking and his gait unsure. "What is wrong?," I asked him, hoping he would disclose job stress and general winter malaise. But he didn't. "I don't know," he said. Even his voice was tremulous, although that could have been attributed to being confronted with his private mounting fears. "Please," I implored, "go to the doctor and get checked out." Fast forward. Since that notable Christmas, both our parent have died. I was divorced from my husband of 27 years (because I finally came out as gay, but that is a story for a different day) and four-out-of-five of my kids have moved on to college and beyond. I am, thankfully, still healthy, strong and active. My brother, long since diagnosed, soldiers on as best he can. He goes to his neurologist regularly (the same doctor who followed our mother through her progressive Altzheimer's Disease and subsequent death) and consumes a continuous cocktail of powerful drugs to calm, prompt, enhance and regulate his ailing body. He must be careful not to fall in the shower, and must allot extra time in the morning for the simple (to most of us!) task of getting dressed and eating breakfast. Shaking hands and compromised swallowing are ever-present worries. By all accounts, he is doing well. He continues to teach, drive, and go about his life with an impressive amount of grace, energy and courage. We talk on the phone and meet for lunch on a regular basis. And I have come to look forward to his regular parting salutation. "Be well," he always says at the end of a phone call or visit. I am humbled by this. I know it is a habitual response like "see ya," or "take care," but his careful choice of words moves me nevertheless. I am well. He, not so much. Yet his consistent hope is for MY well-being. It is not a small thing and it is not lost on me. "Be well. Be well.."

Right back atcha, bro.

This Is My Town

Sandy blew through here last week on my birthday. All her hellfire and fury were unleashed on us up and down the northeastern coastline. Her equal-opportunity wrath scourged poor and rich alike, and, especially for the poor, continues to inflict pain in her cold and devastating aftermath. This is my town. It is a sweet Main Street community tucked into a neat little neck of land on the northwestern shores of Long Island. There are massive trees lying on the ground or leaning precariously on power cables, their exposed roots ripped violently from the earth. Lines for gas fill-ups wind down and around the main thoroughfare. Homes without electricity sit dark and dismal in the night. But, as is often the case in storm aftermaths, neighbors come out to greet neighbor, and offers of a hot shower, or a spot by a warm fireplace with a hot bowl of soup abound. In my town, the local high school - itself without power except for the gasoline fueled generators powering a bit of the sprawling cafeteria - became a community mecca where townsfolk could come, re-charge their cell-phones, have a snack, and share war-stories with their neighbors. After power was restored to the town library and the community center, they too became oases of subdued activity. Despite the havoc wreaked with our lives here, one would be hard-pressed to find any loud complainers. As the power gradually returns, and, along with it, a semblance of normal life, the talk one hears is often of a grateful nature. "What we have been is inconvenienced," is the common thought. "While others on the south shore and Staten Island and New Jersey and other places have experienced real tragedy." Today is election day. I drove early to my assigned polling place, which also happens to be my church. The power is still down there, and, for the first time, I voted using a paper ballot. The volunteers, some of whom also have no power at home and were hoping for a bit of warm respite today, were cheerful and helpful nonetheless. Many of them will sit in that cold cavernous room all day without any percolating urns of hot coffee to keep them going. This is my town.

BMOC. (Badass Mom On Campus)

I am a freshman at my local community college. By the looks of it, I am also the oldest student on campus. Not the oldest PERSON, mind you. There are many professors who trudge about in their khaki and corduroy, pulling their overflowing briefcases along on little wheelie carts and using all the elevators they can find. But I am not like them. I am a freshman and I have a freshman's backpack loaded with a hundred pounds and several hundred dollars-worth of textbooks, notebooks, pens, pencils and a calculator. I park in the far-off student parking lot (teachers get the best spots) and always take the stairs, my cast-iron pack lashed tight to my shoulders. I wear faded jeans and a hoodie and flip flops. I come into class and greet my fellow freshmen - large, often dangerous-looking boys with multiple tattoos and baggy jeans worn so low, they often miss their intended backsides altogether. Girls in skinny jeans and Uggs who flip their long hair around like a vigorous game of tetherball. Always prepared, I share with them pencils, Advil and the answers to last night's math homework. It is an enviable position - like Switzerland. The professors like me because I do my work and participate enthusiastically in class. The kids are amused at having mom (or, in some cases, grandma!) in their class. I am the bridge between two warring factions - the kids, some of whom are only there because they could not get into any other school - and the teachers who are often fed up with such students and make no pretense at hiding their frustration. Now, I have not been in a classroom since 1973. But what I lack in geometry recall, I all but make up for in U.S. History, since I have been alive for much of it. I have a great great aunt who, as a child saw Abraham Lincoln. I remember where I was when President Kennedy was shot. I recall seeing Marilyn Monroe's picture on the front page the day after she died. I am learning a lot and enjoying the journey. In their animated debate at Hofstra University (right next door to here) President Obama mentioned my school by name. The topic was, I believe, gun control, but it somehow veered off into talk about 'educational-opportunities-for-all-Americans' and my college was the chosen reference point. I was excited that the president picked it and proud by association. Later I remember thinking about it and realizing that the 18 and 19-year-olds in my history class were just now joining the ranks of witnesses to the history their children would be studying not so many years from now.

History in hoodies. Yep. That's us.

Hair of the Dog

My dog Charlie was rescued a few years ago from my local animal shelter. He is a redheaded, freckled Australian Cattle Dog, a being who needs to herd, corral and dominate. Charlie and I get along famously. There are a few problems with this relationship, however. One: Charlie thinks HE is in charge. Two: He thinks all food is HIS food. Three: His shedding fur is taking over my universe.

Now Charlie has his charming attributes. He is very friendly and has adapted well to this household of "other dogs/cat/teenagers/noise/unpredictability." According to the report from the animal shelter, he was previously owned by an old man who died. I was a volunteer dog trainer at the shelter at the time and I remember Charlie as a severely overweight dog who walked slow and breathed heavily. When the man died, his family (not interested in taking Charlie on themselves) placed him in the care of the shelter. His friendly disposition endeared him to the staff, and he quickly became a favorite among the volunteers. Because of his back story and his weight, he was initially thought to be an old dog. But put on a strict diet and exercise regime by the staff, Charlie quickly lost about 15 pounds. The dog who was at first judged to be an old codger, was rapidly growing younger by the day. The vet pronounced him only about 5 or 6 years old.

This volunteer, who had recently lost her old, beloved Keeshond (also rescued from said shelter) loved Charlie and began to think about adopting him. The other volunteer trainers (an opinionated lot to be sure!) urged me on, knowing I had a soft spot for the older, less cute, unpopular dogs. Charlie has been with me more that three years now. He tests me daily, trying to convince me that it is HE who is in charge of the household. I resist, walking him, correcting him, telling him otherwise.

But in the telling, he has come to know that he is home. He sleeps next to me, waits for me in the bathroom as I shower before work, greets me at the door, and wags and sits on a dime when I give the slightest indication that a walk is being thought of.

Charlie leaves his fur EVERYWHERE. He is not a "no-shedding dog" by any stretch of the imagination. He deposits clumps of his curly red and white fur whenever he decides to lie down, scratch or move about. I brush him. I really do! But the fur keeps coming, in a non-stop surge. I brushed Charlie tonight, a ritual he is fine with (thankfully) and I collected enough fur to make another Charlie.

So tonight we sat together on the deck, me brushing him and him sitting patiently. The fur I took away could stuff a pillow. The torches kept the bugs away and the Christmas lights strung along the eastern fence gave off a festive glow. Fine simple moments on a routine weekday. Charlie doesn't know or care what day it is. He doesn't mind the weather and is happy to have the same dinner over and over(stolen food discounted). He is my friend and my companion, hopefully for many years to come.