tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12054793728681943852024-03-05T01:47:37.152-08:00Real Live WriterMiddle-age mother/writer/girlfriend/beachcomber/complainer/observer with special interest in adult children, books, relationships, beach life, encroaching physical decrepitude, and the pleasures of really good gluten-free pasta.Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.comBlogger129125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-26271312390752475322015-07-27T16:56:00.002-07:002015-07-27T19:57:47.875-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">At My Mother's Deathbed</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The leaves
of the plum tree outside the window are<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Liquid-like
blood spatters when the sun plays<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Behind them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I can’t
remember about photosynthesis, how it works<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When the
leaves aren’t green.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
pillowcase under her head is a stiff, bleached field of white <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sprayed with
tiny pink flowers, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not the one
from yesterday, which was, as I recall,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Blue with yellow
stripes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Memory: she
took me out of school—fourth grade? fifth?—and
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We rode an
AC Transit bus to the city to buy clothes at<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">J. Magnin,
and she told me<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Red wasn’t
my color.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sitting on
the window sill are <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Two
mismatched plastic water glasses—<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One a quarter
full of Ensure, the other of water—<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Each with a maroon-handled
metal spoon<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Leaning against
its rim. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the
dresser, a photograph of her and my one-year-old son, who wore<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A blue shirt
and red Oshkosh overalls, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Very much
the fashion in 1986.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Her moaning
is terrible until <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I ask Kathleen to give her the morphine <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Half an hour
early.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Her watch,
which she keeps checking, is<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Large-faced,
with a stretchy red band.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Twenty-five
dollars at CVS,” she often told me,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Even when
she could no longer remember<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My son’s
name.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Another
memory: she taught me to play mahjong<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When I was
nine, then waited for me to come home<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So we could
set up tiles on the table in front of <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">French doors
that opened onto the fern garden. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Winds,
dragons, flowers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bam, crack,
dot.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Real
players play it faster,” she<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Liked to let
me know.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">She was born
when Woodrow Wilson was president.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Her fingers
look just like mine.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The moaning
is terrible. She is pulling at the
sheet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’ll call
the nurse,” Kathleen says.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The painting
on the wall is one she<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Painted of
our house in 1964.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In it, the
green leaves of trees—<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whose
conversion of light into chemical energy I<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Understand—shimmer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Through the
window of my father’s study,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Pens and
pencils bloom<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In a squat,
red pot.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">She took a
class through Adult Ed. One class.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The red doesn’t
mean anything. It is just<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What was,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The truth
around us on<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Those days. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I thought
writing it down would<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Safeguard
the details of grief,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The minutia
of loss,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Would remind
me how I felt, watching<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The empty
gaze,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
caving-in of skin over bone,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The arms
vainly flailing,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The rattle-y
slowing-down.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But it is
already fading, all that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And what I
mainly remember is hopefully modeling the plaid dress </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the tiny, mirrored room, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And then my heart shriveling in my chest as she told me, authoritatively, that<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">I should try on something blue instead.</span></div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-2807452976110431942015-07-16T16:24:00.005-07:002015-07-17T14:45:40.071-07:00First Thoughts on the Death of My Mother<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She died. My mother
died.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It still feels weird to say.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She died Sunday, June twenty-first, at about 1:30 in the
afternoon. I wasn’t there, although I’d
been with her every day for the past three weeks, but when I got the call, I
went up and sat with her at the Board and Care before she was taken away. I was
afraid, kind of: I’d never seen a dead person before. And she looked really dead. Not herself.
Her mouth was open. Her hand,
when I held it, was icy, just as I thought and couldn’t quite believe it would
be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I sat with her again the next day, at the mortuary, with my
ex-husband, who wanted to see her. She
looked better than the day before.
Actually, she looked quite beautiful.
My ex-husband and I had a lovely conversation for about twenty minutes,
and afterward we both said we almost expected her to sit up and participate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Everything around the death of someone close to you is
surreal and odd. Some of it is horrible
and some of it isn’t. Some of it makes
you want to laugh, and then you feel ghoulish and heartless. But, you know, feelings. We get to have them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I made all the arrangements on Monday. On Thursday, I was driving to my
early-morning spin class when I got a phone call from Marty, the
mortician. (Seriously.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m calling to let you know that cremation is about to
begin,” he intoned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh,” I said. “Okay.” Inside, I was like, What the fuck? Now I
have to think about this during hill surges?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Marty laughed. “There’s
no going back now!” he said, in a surreally gleeful way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I think morticians don’t hear themselves, sometimes.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The service was nice.
Oddly nice. My closest friends
showed up even though most of them didn’t know my mother. I saw
some cousins I haven’t seen in a while.
I spoke and the rabbi said, “You done good” afterward, which was
comforting, if purposely ungrammatical.
My daughter said she was proud of me.
Robert cried. And then we had
hors d’oeuvres in an oddly, surreally elegant room at a local hotel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have been sick since the night of the twenty-first:
nothing too serious, just the sorts of things requiring doctor visits and
medications that (I found out too late) interact adversely. I
Googled it and found a scientific explanation of how grief mucks around with
the immune system. It’s why people often
die after their spouses of long standing have passed away. They succumb to infections, their bacteria-killing
neutrophils incapacitated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t feel as though I’m grieving. I feel as though I’m getting on with
things. But my neutrophils know better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">People say that sitting with the dying can be
beautiful. I never understood that
before, but I do now. My mother and I
had some moments—during her last hospital visit and in the Board and Care
during that last week—that I will treasure for the rest of my life. It was almost as though she was finally able
take a machete to the plaques and tangles that had been gumming up her neurons for
years. I am grateful to have been there, to have seen
what I saw and heard what I heard. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m going to write about this more, but I think I’ve written
all I can for the moment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Writing helps.
Eventually, writing always helps. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-47786996720151047372015-05-28T14:24:00.000-07:002015-05-28T14:43:07.943-07:00Chaos<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">My mother--ninety-five and sinking ever more steadily into the abyss of dementia--is now living in a board-and-care facility, attended by caregivers whose native language is Hungarian (as is hers). These people are devoted to their charges, kind beyond all expectation, gentle in the face of imminent death. I am so relieved that our paths crossed, and that my mother can live out her life in such a lovely home.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I am learning that her decline precipitates a lot of chaos. Yesterday, I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Comcast, trying to cancel her account. This should have been simple, but as any inhabitant of the modern era knows, it wasn't. I had to fax proof of my power of attorney, and the company's fax machine was out of ink. Hours. Plus, I had to talk to a Comcast employee, which is just the sort of thing writers hate doing. I mean, everyone hates doing it, but writers hate doing it more, because it involves 1) talking to someone who isn't very interesting and 2) not writing. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Today I am supposed to cancel my mother's subscription to MagicJack, which has something to do with phones, and which she evidently signed herself up for and never used. I figure this will take at least a month.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the last few weeks, there have been three trips to the emergency room, two hospital admissions, and phone consultations with a variety of doctors. There has been the misery of learning that my mother's apartment is unlivable--black mold in the kitchen, not her fault--and trying to coordinate repairs. (Again, more phone conversations, more dolts.) There is the matter of an insurance-policy premium payment. In the next week, I have to close out a bank account. Everything is urgently needed, deadline-dependent, required ASAP. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Chaos.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, the non-chaotic parts of life go on, and these are wonderful, or at the very least, a welcome respite: pedaling to exhaustion in spin class, getting trounced by an old high-school buddy in Words with Friends, baking gluten-free beignets while listening to Frank Sinatra, texting someone far away, grabbing quick dinners with adult children. Reading (most recently, <i>The Gold Finch</i>, <i>All the Light We Cannot See</i>, and <i>The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time</i>: all excellent). Fulfilling orders at my online store (</span>http://carecartons.com/).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Best of all, I've started working on a new YA novel. Because, as Flannery O'Connor said, "Not-writing is a good deal worse than writing." And also, because it beats talking to Heather at Comcast (who was perfectly nice and who I hope doesn't read this).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Back to chaos, which, in this case, is really another word for distraction. It is a way of focusing on small, meaningless tasks so that when you finally accomplish something--close an account, pay a bill--you feel a tiny, empowering surge of control, a sense that You Are Handling Things. This is important. It is nice to be reminded that some aspects of life are manageable, and that you are not always a dithering crazy person who was so addled talking to the palliative-care nurse outside the ER that you accidentally lost your purse and had to spend the entire weekend cancelling credit cards and now have no money and have to ask Robert to pay for gas. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And it is nice to forget, if only momentarily, the big thing that is happening, that will make you ache with sadness for a long, long time, that will change everything. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-62237168392161616862014-12-07T17:46:00.002-08:002014-12-07T18:07:57.047-08:00A Conversation with My Mother<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I drove up to see my mother today. She was happy to see me, demonstrative, affectionate. She hugged me at the door and then again after she put on her shoes. Her feet are almost inhuman: misshapen, crooked, all knobs and wayward bones. She will be 95 next month.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I held her hand in the elevator, and then on the short walk to the car. She was tippy, as though she was log-rolling. When she lowered herself into the car, she was out of breath. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I spend so much time examining her failing cognition that I forget to account for her body's slow decline. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the car, my mother seemed less interested in looking at pretty houses than usual. She wanted me to tell her stories about her life. She was especially anxious to hear about her marriage. "Did we love each other?" she asked. "Were we happy?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(I have to manage my habitual honesty. Long ago, I realized I would rather be authentic and true to myself than happy [although the older I get, the more I question this, because what the hell is so bad about being happy?]. But people with dementia don't need or appreciate truthfulness. So I am learning to talk less and gloss over the undeniable. I feel it as a slowing down, a gentling. And also a kind of editing. I look for what is true and can be said, leaving out what is true and hurtful.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"Yes," I said. "You were good friends."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"Was he happy here?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"Here" is Piedmont, a beautiful town east of San Francisco. I realize I don't know the answer. My father was preoccupied with his surgery practice and his life away from home. He died when I was 19, before I had any interest in finding out whether he considered himself happy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"I think so," I said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"I can barely remember him," Mom said. "It's the strangest thing."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"He died a long time ago, Mom. And you are pretty damn old."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She laughed. "It's something, isn't it?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sometimes, it is like we are just talking. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then she asked "Did we live together?" and I felt the familiar presence of her illness--another passenger in the car, sitting in the back seat, noisily demanding that I turn up the radio or open a window--encroaching.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"Who? You and Dad?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"No. You and me."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"Did we live together? You and me?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She nodded yes. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">My brain--which still works, which works almost without my awareness--began to assemble my answer, slow my tongue. The way you tell your four-year-old about sex: just the facts, deliberately stated in a pleasant tone of voice. Mildly. Nothing that will cause shame or outrage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"I lived with you from the time I was born until I was 18. I'm your daughter. We lived together for 18 years."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"Oh!" she said, and then a moment later, "Oh! Of course!" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then she said, haltingly, "I thought you and I were the same, in position to him."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I took a second. Then I said, "No. I was Dad's daughter. You were his wife."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She nodded as if she understood. But I'm not sure she did. I'm not sure she ever did. I think her husband's uncomplicated, total love for his daughter was a source of hurt and anger for her for nearly all of my life. I think it colored everything that happened in our family. It was in the air we breathed. Unstated, but there. Undeniable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"I am your daughter," I said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She smiled. "Oh, yes. And I love you. And you are wonderful. A wonderful girl, to come and see me."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And then I stopped talking, because that seemed to be a pretty good time to end the conversation.</span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-42960613958369376922014-07-24T07:35:00.004-07:002014-07-24T07:37:13.719-07:00Why I Haven't Been Writing (Until Today)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">I haven’t
written in forever. It’s a horrible,
horrible feeling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">My
94-year-old mother’s ongoing battle with dementia continues. My brother (with whom I am newly and happily
reconciled) and I are trying desperately to allow her to live out her life in
her own home, with 24-hour care. It’s
expensive as hell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">For the
first time in my adult life, I have to worry about money. If I don’t proceed carefully, my brother and
I will have to move my mother to some sort of facility.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">This would
make her so unhappy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">So writing—which
is what I love, what I believe I was put on this earth to do—has had to take a
backseat while I give all my attention to an e-commerce site I’ve started. (More about that below.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">I know how
lucky I am. I have been able to write
and publish middle-grade fiction for many years without worrying too much about
money. And the fact that even in a
worst-case scenario, my mother will still be able to get good care in a nursing
home makes me very fortunate indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Lucky. Very lucky.
I know.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">But I’m
angry anyway. Maybe it’s not a
reasonable thing to feel. I’m not living
in a hut or worrying about missiles obliterating the restaurant where I’m
eating. I’m not a kid sitting at the
border of some country, begging to be let in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Before
starting CareCartons.com—an online site that allows you to customize care
packages for young adults living away from home—I was working on a short story
about a little girl living in Cleveland in the 1920s. The little girl was based on my mother, until
I realized I wanted something to happen to her that didn’t actually happen to
my mother. (Note to aspiring writers:
this is why you don’t use real people as characters in your books.) I haven’t looked at the story in six months.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">So today I’m
doing what real writers do. I’m getting
up at 6:30 (two hours before spin class), tiptoeing through the house so I won’t
wake Robert up, squinting in the early
golden light, shivering in my unheated office.
Writing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you are
interested in buying unique, fun, interesting gifts for college kids, please
visit my site: http://carecartons.com/</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-50268593571121644722014-05-12T15:57:00.000-07:002014-05-12T16:03:59.387-07:00On Beloved TV Shows and Endings and Memory<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A funny
thing happened recently. In the space of
two weeks, I realized that my certainty about the final episodes of two
well-known TV series was in error.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Robert and I
were talking about finales. I maintained
that in “The Wonder Years,” Kevin’s voice-over (Daniel Stern’s, actually) let
us know that after high school, he and Winnie Cooper never saw each other
again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In fact,
Kevin relates that he and Winnie wrote each other a letter a week for the next
eight years. And that when Winnie
returns from Paris, where she has been studying art, Kevin meets her at the
airport with his wife and eight-month-old son.
(This is all from Wikipedia, by the way.
It kind of rang a bell when I read it.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Similarly, I
was positive that Ross and Rachel didn’t end up together in the final episode
of “Friends.” Absolutely positive.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">All this has
me thinking about memory, which is much on my mind anyway, as my 94-year-old
mother is succumbing to dementia. And
about stories, and about endings.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As writers,
we pay a lot of attention to endings.
Some of us even start there. (I
don’t, but some of us do.) If we are
serious about our work, we go to great pains to craft an ending that makes
logical sense and offers a satisfying conclusion to the story line without
veering into sentimentality or “over-neatness.”
At the same time, we try to <i>end</i>
things. No leaving it up to the readers’
imaginations, a non-solution that in all but the rarest of instances smacks of
creative cowardice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m sure the
writers of “The Wonder Years” and “Friends” spent a lot of time writing those
endings. But I made up my own anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So what does
this mean? Are the endings over which
writers pore unimportant?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course
not. Endings matter enormously. But I look at my inclination to rewrite mentally
the endings of beloved TV shows as indicative of 1) the fact that I tend toward
the gloomy (notice that in both instances, I assumed the worst) and 2) the
splendid “spells” the shows’ writers cast over the duration of both series’
runs. Kevin and Winnie and Ross and Rachel
lived in fully realized fictive worlds, so real to me that I felt I knew them
as actual people.* Re-imagining their
stories’ conclusions speaks to the verisimilitude the writers created, itself
the result of masterful writing (among other things).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(*Do other
people talk about TV characters as though they are real people? My best friend and I do it all the time. Sometimes we will sheepishly acknowledge what
we’re doing, just to reassure ourselves that we haven’t lost all touch with
reality. But then we keep on talking.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My mother’s
memory fades from week to week. She no
longer reliably remembers that she grew up in Cleveland, that she had a beloved
brother who died young, that I was married to Brian, that I have a son and a
daughter. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When she was
first diagnosed, I kept trying to remind her of things she forgot or swore she
never knew at all. Gradually, I have
learned not to do this unless she asks me to.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In
forgetting almost everything, she is rewriting her own ending.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At this
point, I think it is more painful for me than it is for her.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">I think I
need to stop forcing her to stick to the script.</span></div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-73241270084975584632014-04-28T16:21:00.001-07:002014-04-28T16:21:43.200-07:00Running and Writing: The Way of the World<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have been
training for an upcoming race. Just
writing this sentence is surreal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is safe
to say that for the first part of my life, I disdained sport and
athletics. I was a happy bookworm and
had no interest in sweating or breathing hard.
I dreaded P.E. in high school and routinely irritated gym teachers by my
refusal to participate in any meaningful way.
In college, I passed the mandatory swimming test and fulfilled my gym
requirement by taking Modern Dance, which I very much enjoyed but which just
barely qualified as exertion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In my
thirties, after I had children, I realized Something Had to Be Done, so I began
working out regularly in a gym. For the
first time, I fell a little bit in love with exercise. I learned how to lift weights, how to do
proper crunches, how to lunge and squat.
I saw results. I liked feeling
fit and strong.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But still I
avoided doing much cardio.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, some
twenty years later, I have embraced it.
The reasons are health-related, unimportant to anyone but me. It has taken me several years to realize that
running and spin classes are some of the happiest hours of my day. I sweat buckets. I heave and pant. And it feels great.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I decided to
run San Francisco’s Bay to Breakers several months ago and have been running
regularly, upping my distances, improving my splits. I’ve got a sore tendon in my foot that may
cause some problems, but I’m still hopeful that I will make the race. I will report on it if I do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This
afternoon, I was thinking about how all of this relates to writing. I imagined crafting some clever sentences
about how the two efforts demand similar discipline and a similar approach to
setbacks and disappointments. But in
thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that this is pretty self-evident.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here’s the
bottom line: serious exercise demands that you get off your ass and do it. Every day.
Even when it’s raining. Even when
you would rather be watching <i>Shahs of
Sunset</i> or having lunch at Gayle’s with a friend or buying new
sunglasses. Even when you are sad. Even when dinner needs to get shopped for and
made. Even when there is no time in the
day, not a second, that isn’t already accounted for.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Serious
writing demands exactly the same thing, except you have to sit your ass down to
do it. And I would add that it must be
done even when no one is paying you to do it, which is what you always assumed
someone would do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I wish there
were another way. I wish it were
easy. But there isn’t, and it’s not. </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-61937374667524128152014-04-09T16:22:00.001-07:002014-04-09T16:23:25.721-07:00Writing through the Worry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">I am a
chronic worrier. Worry is a part of who
I am, as ineluctable as height. I have learned to live with it. It is, to me, the most irksome of my
unattractive traits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Here are
some of the things I worry about:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">--my adult
children’s health, safety, and general happiness;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">--whether
the rats that infiltrated our house two years ago (necessitating a new roof) will
ever return;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">--my
94-year-old mother’s diminished cognition;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">--her
sadness;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">--the
unhappy state of the publishing industry, resulting in people like Snooki
getting book deals;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">--getting
punched on the street for no reason (note: this is now a thing);<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">--whether
the dark brown item on the seat of my car is a rat dropping or (more likely) a
crumb of gluten-free Oreo cookie;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">--if I am
drinking enough water;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">--why I have
no thirst mechanism;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">--if it is
worse to drink so much that I have to pee several times during the night (and
get less sleep) or drink less and sleep for seven hours straight;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">--if the egg
recently hatched by these barn owls (<a href="http://cams.allaboutbirds.org/channel/42/Barn_Owls/">http://cams.allaboutbirds.org/channel/42/Barn_Owls/</a>)
will hatch;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">--how long
people are going to be stupid about guns;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">--if I will
look silly wearing boyfriend jeans and oxfords.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">And the list
goes on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">When I was
younger, I found it difficult to worry and write at the same time. Writing demands a certain immersion—an
intentional letting go—that worry works against. Writing takes you away. Worry holds you down by the throat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">As I age, I
try to write through the worry.
Sometimes I am successful; sometimes, not so much. I wish I were the kind of writer who finds
solace in writing. Instead, I find that
the effort exposes my subconscious in painful ways. Somewhat counter-intuitively, worry functions
as a weird kind of anesthetic, numbing me to my own self, denying me access to
the mental space where good work can happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">I keep
trying to find a way to manage all this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ll tell
you one thing: that better be an Oreo crumb.
Because if I am going to have to deal with rats in my car, then I may
just have to check myself into some sort of facility.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-250768516713479022014-03-31T16:19:00.002-07:002014-03-31T16:19:14.543-07:00On Someone I Used to Know, and a Writer's Debts and Promises <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">I knew
someone quite a few years ago, about whom I have never written. In a certain way, this is odd, because This Person
(to whom I will refer as TP) ended up being quite important to me. I don’t write about him because I promised
him I never would. He is intensely
private—secretive—and hates being the subject of other people’s scrutiny.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">TP had some
wonderful qualities, among them resilience, humor, empathy, an astounding work
ethic, and an uncanny ability to understand the way other people thought and
felt. TP was spiritually inclined, which
was not something one would have assumed after knowing him casually. He grew
up in a home riven by sexual and physical violence, and this fact dominated his
emotional life long after he made his escape.
The extent to which he was able to manifest any sort of decency is a
testament to his soul’s enduring sweetness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">Today I was
thinking about the debt writers owe the people in their lives. Without them, we wouldn’t know how the world
works, which is to say, how other people—those with regular jobs who are able
to socialize freely, without distancing themselves and mentally taking notes—function. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">But when
writers create characters, we have to be careful. We can use aspects of our friends and
relations and acquaintances; we can even create a character largely based on
someone we actually know. (And even if
we make someone up out of whole cloth, a lot of our friends will sidle up to us
at parties—or coffee shops, if we don’t go to parties—and say, “That was me,
right?”) But some people have to be off
limits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">I never use
my kids in my books. Never. They are adults now, but still. Never.
It means I interact with them in a normal way, which is to say, as their
mother. (Is that normal? You know what I mean.) I never listened to what they said and wrote
it down, hoping to “use it” somewhere. (Okay, in all honesty, I did that once. My son wondered what would happen if you cut someone's head off and then held it up in front of a mirror. "Would he see anything, just being a head?" he asked. It was too funny to ignore. I put it in something.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">Same with my
life partner. He will never be a character in anything I write.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">And the same
with TP. Which is a shame, in a way,
because he would be fascinating to write about.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">But it would
be cruel, and so I won’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">And also, I
promised.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21.46666717529297px;">Maybe this makes me less of a writer. I'm not sure what other writers do, how they approach this. But I don't know any other way to be.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-56640321453476075352014-02-25T15:51:00.000-08:002014-02-25T15:52:39.978-08:00Happy Birthday to Harriet<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Last week
marked the 50<sup>th</sup> year since the release of <i>Harriet the Spy</i>, the groundbreaking novel by Louise Fitzhugh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Here’s an
article about it in <i>Publisher’s Weekly</i>:
http://publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/61119-harriet-the-spy-celebrates-50-years-of-sleuthing.html<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">When I first
read <i>Harriet the Spy</i>, I was about
nine. For the first time, I recognized
myself in print. I didn’t look like
Harriet (although I appreciated that she chose to wear glasses, a condition foisted
on me by virtue of bad eyes), and I lived not in Manhattan but in Berkeley,
California, which struck me at the time as woefully pedestrian. I
went to a rather large public school, my father was a surgeon, and no one in my
neck of the woods had either nannies or cooks.
I did not have a Sport or a Janie in my life: my best friend was Susan,
who I think wanted to be a cartoonist. (Now
I see this as admirable, but at the time, I desperately wanted a friend who
planned on blowing up the world.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Nothing
about me looked like Harriet. And yet, I
saw myself in her. What I saw was a girl
who understood what writing was, what it meant, why it mattered. A girl who valued her interior life more than
her social life and had to struggle to make room for the friends she loved a
lot. Someone who thought she didn’t care what other
people thought about her but, in fact, did.
Someone who genuinely liked herself, even as she was able to take meticulous note of
her flaws.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Of course, I
tried to spy. I couldn’t. Houses in Berkeley were too exposed, and
there were no dumbwaiters. Also, I was
shy and terrified of being caught. In
that, I was not like Harriet. It was a
source of profound disappointment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">I tried to
like tomato sandwiches. Ultimately, I
had to admit that I liked pizza more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">But I did
write everything down. I looked at
people wherever I was, and I wrote about them.
And that was how I found myself, how I finally realized who I was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I strongly
urge everyone who hasn’t already done so to read the book. It is still wonderful, and you will be a
better person for having met Harriet.
She remains a treasure.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-16529914896577507592014-01-26T18:52:00.001-08:002014-01-26T18:52:40.291-08:00Sometimes the Lamp Breaks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yesterday
was my mother’s 94<sup>th</sup> birthday.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Robert and I
drove up to see her. Because she has
dementia, it is difficult to go to a restaurant with her, so we brought flowers
and took her for a drive, which she very much enjoys.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the car,
she said, “I thought you were coming around dinner time.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh, I’m
sorry, Mom,” I said. “I told you to
write down that we were coming at twelve.
And you said J [her caregiver] was writing it down as we spoke.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I don’t
remember,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Well, I’m
sorry you were surprised,” I said. “J
must have written it down wrong.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh, J is
wonderful,” she said. “I don’t blame
her. I blame you. It’s easier.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">She said
this without a trace of humor or sarcasm or irony.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I know that
dementia is a terrible, insidious illness that wreaks havoc on one’s essential
self. But what she said—“I blame
you. It’s easier”— is my mother at her
most truthful and least inhibited. This
is the way it has always been between us. (“I had the most beautiful legs when I was
young. I weighed 125 pounds all my life
until I had you,” she told me when I was a teenager.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My father,
who has been dead 36 years and whom I adored, had a thing about ownership. “It broke,” I said once over the shattered
remains of a lamp I had unintentionally knocked from a table. “It didn’t break! You broke it!” he thundered. I can still hear him saying it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My parents
really did a number on me. I am
responsible. Always, I am the one to
blame.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oy, that
word. Blame. For many years, I seemed unconsciously drawn
to people who liked to affix blame. Years
of therapy later, I’ve learned that the people who want to blame you for
everything are usually the people who are afraid they are responsible for
whatever is wrong in the world. You are
their scapegoat. They are hiding behind
you, terrified of their own flawed selves.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve learned
this, but I have to keep reminding myself that it’s true. My subconscious self is very used to taking
the hit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Over the
years, I’ve become defensive. It’s not a
quality of which I’m terribly proud. I
think I became defensive when I was learning, in therapy, to refuse blame, to
stand up for myself. Now, it’s just a
bad habit, a behavior I no longer need.
I am trying to learn to squelch the impulse to defend myself against all
complaints and grievances. Because, you
know, sometimes I really screw up. And
then I have to own it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh, here’s
another thing I’ve learned. Sometimes,
the lamp breaks. (Not that one that I
knocked off the table when I was six. I
broke that one.) Sometimes, the washing
machine overflows or the cell phone won’t pick up a signal or the car won’t
start, and it’s not your—or anyone’s—fault.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That’s a
really freeing thing to learn.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When my
mother said, “I blame you,” I didn’t say a word. Two years ago, I would have read her the riot
act. I would have felt righteously
indignant. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yesterday,
it was easy to stay silent. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Later this week, I'll write about my mother's thing about men.</span></span></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-45414192871722154532014-01-19T14:20:00.001-08:002014-01-19T14:46:42.506-08:00Running for Meg<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yesterday I
ran four miles to honor a woman I never met.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On January
13, Meg Cross Menzies was out for a morning run when she was struck and killed
by a drunk driver. According to her
obituary in the Richmond (Virginia) Times Dispatch, she was 34. She is survived by her husband, her three
young children, her parents, and other relatives. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Her friends
designated Saturday, January 18<sup>th</sup>, as Meg’s Miles Day. (They note that with a careful rearrangement
of spacing and punctuation, the day can be known as Meg Smiles Day.) They asked runners worldwide to run in honor
of Meg, to take off their headphones and be conscious of their surroundings, to
feel grateful for good health and strong bodies. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In photos on
her Facebook page, Meg looks beautiful, healthy, athletic, and happy. In other photos, her children (whom I would
guess to be about eight, seven, and five) pose with Santa. In October, the whole family went to Disney
World. (I think it's Disney World. I've never been there. That's what it looks like.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s an odd
thing to be stalking someone I never knew.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As I was
running, I couldn’t shake the heavy sadness I felt. I knew I was supposed to be concentrating on gratitude
for my own good fortune and the beauty around me, but I just couldn’t. (And besides, I try to do that anyway.) I knew that in order to honor Meg, I would
have to write something down.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To anyone
who even thinks about driving drunk, or texting while driving, or being otherwise criminally irresponsible,
I would say that the harm and horror you might leave in your wake is
unimaginable, and really, is that what you want to inflict on this world? Is that what you want to leave behind? Isn’t the <i>slimmest
possibility</i> that this might actually be your legacy enough to get you to
man up, sober up, look up, pay attention?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Also: it is
very easy to look at photos of Meg’s beautiful children and feel a crushing
sadness, a sense of devastation wrought, of innocence randomly shattered. But those children will know pure,
unadulterated happiness again: not now, and maybe not for a while, but someday. Yes, they will.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Meg’s
parents won’t. I’m willing to bet they
thought the hard part was over: they’d gotten their daughter through driver
training and first boyfriends and living-away-from-home homesickness and
whatever else befalls young adults when they’re out on their own, learning to
navigate in the world.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m willing
to bet they weren’t banking on this.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So yesterday,
I ran four miles for Meg. I know it didn’t do anything for all those people who are trying so hard to cope with
such a grievous and unacceptable loss. But I did it anyway, because when there's nothing you can do, you still have to do something. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I send all
my sympathy to Meg’s family and friends and pray for their comfort and peace.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-53364341622011226522014-01-14T11:54:00.001-08:002014-01-14T15:45:36.487-08:00On Lena Dunham Walking around Naked<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> have a lot
of writers on my mind today. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For
Christmas, Robert snuck into my office, took note of every Philip Roth novel I
own, and then bought me all the ones I didn’t.
That pretty much takes care of my reading for the year.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Before the
holidays, I read Alice McDermott’s <i>Someone</i>. It’s one of those books you read slowly, so
you don’t finish it too fast. Beautiful.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Another
holiday present: my friend Jim sent me Tom Barbash’s <i>Stay Up with Me</i>, a terrific collection of short stories.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But the
writer I’m thinking about the most these days is Lena Dunham. For those of you who don’t know, she is the twenty-seven-year-old
creator of the HBO show “Girls.” She
writes and directs and stars in the show.
She has also made two movies (<i>Creative
Nonfiction</i> and <i>Tiny Furniture</i>). In her spare time, she writes for <i>The New Yorker</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Twenty-seven.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When I was
twenty-seven, I was married, pregnant, and working (unhappily) for Bank of America. The closest I got to writing was drafting
incentive compensation plans. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lena Dunham
gets a lot of flak for her appearance.
She is a perfectly lovely looking young woman who has a lot of tattoos
and does not appear to be a super- model.
But people are outraged—<i>outraged</i>—that
she dares to appear naked in “Girls.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(By the way,
the people who are outraged by this are the same people who watch “Game of
Thrones” and tell their friends it’s quality television. Which it may be. But there are a lot of naked women in
it. Who look like super-models.) <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lena Dunham
is quick to talk about the people who vilify her. I follow her on Twitter. She seems mildly amused and incredulous about
the vitriol she inspires. She does not
appear detached; neither does she seem overly concerned or wounded.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Twenty-seven. Twenty-seven.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When Lena
Dunham is naked on “Girls,” it is often without reason. Like, she’s just walking around without a
shirt on. This leads people to complain
that there is unnecessary nudity on her show.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I
disagree. I believe that nowhere is
nudity more necessary than it is on “Girls.”
Here’s why: because Lena Dunham knows—<i>at age twenty-seven</i>—that her nudity inspires outrage and vitriol
and maliciousness and panic and senseless hatred. (Really. Check out the tweets at @LenaDunhamTroll if you want to be disgusted.) And she does it anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Why panic? Because she is a real woman who is
comfortable with her nakedness. (Or
maybe she’s not, but she’s doing a fantastic job of acting as though she
is.) And this is just terrifying to men
AND women. I don’t have proof, but I’m
willing to assume that a lot of these outraged people aren’t really outraged by
Lena Dunham walking around naked. They’re
outraged by Lena Dunham walking around comfortably naked.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(By the way,
outraged people. If you think you look
better naked than Lena Dunham, think again.
I bet you don’t. Nobody
does. Unless you are Bar Refaeli, and
even then.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I wish Lena
Dunham had been around when I was twenty-seven.
As it is, I’m glad she’s around for my twenty-four-year-old daughter and
her friends. I’m glad she’s out there
writing and speaking and cavorting naked and leaning in. And tweeting things like “Feminism is never a
matter of convenience, not for me and I hope not for anyone I admire.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">And whoever is behind @LenaDunhamTroll? Go fuck yourself.</span></div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-77140827812354540142014-01-02T15:47:00.000-08:002014-01-02T16:01:51.709-08:00Thoughts about Jewelry and Memories in the New Year<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My father
(who died 36 years ago) was a very smart man.
He studied hard to become a surgeon, and he read voraciously all his (too-short)
life. To me, he passed on a love of
English literature and a respect for knowledge and fact.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yesterday, I
felt oddly compelled to go through my jewelry box. Ostensibly, this was because last weekend, my
mother asked me to return her wedding ring.
I told her I didn’t have it, and she asked me to check.</span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But I felt
as though something else was urging me to take the box from the shelf where I
keep it and pore over the tangled chains, lone earrings, and broken-latched
bracelets I barely remember I own but can’t seem to throw away.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m funny
about jewelry. I have pierced ears but a lot of hair, so I never wear
earrings. And I tend to wear the same
pieces over and over: two cuff bracelets (one given to me by my son, another by
my friend Jim), a ring with a silver horse on it that I bought in London,
another with a dolphin, a gift from my daughter. Plus a diamond watch and a couple of things
Robert has given me. I have lots of beautiful
jewelry made by my friend Tracy, and I wear it often. It makes me feel cooler than I am, because
Tracy is one of the coolest people on the planet, and I know if she’s made
something, it is unarguably fantastic.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In general,
I wear jewelry that means something to me.
I’m not very good at buying a piece because I like the look of it or
think it will go well with something else (which is what I love about shopping
for clothes). I like wearing jewelry
that people important in my life have given me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I never did
find my mother’s wedding ring.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But I found
something my father gave me a few years before he died: his Phi Beta Kappa key,
inscribed with his name, his college (UC Berkeley), and the year he was
graduated (1944, when he was 20).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Immediately
on finding it, I dug around for a silver chain (with a working latch) and hung
the key around my neck. I have decided I
will wear it for a while. It makes me
feel close to him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today is the
second day of 2014—happy new year!!—and I find myself thinking about someone who
has been dead more than a quarter of a century.
Someone I only knew for nineteen years, who never knew me as an adult, a
writer, or a mother. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My mother—soon
to be ninety-four, with ever-worsening dementia—is losing her past. It is slipping away, like the foam that
washes up the beach and then ebbs, swallowed by the depths behind it. Each moment disappears into a vast abyss of
moments, all the same, un-remembered.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today,
moving forward, I am so grateful to have
that key—that link to an old time—and to remember why it was important to my
dad and why he gave it to me.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-74032847387576065752013-12-18T16:36:00.002-08:002013-12-18T16:36:58.572-08:00On Victorian Clothes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is what
I looked like a couple of months ago:<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi_6twWYtPZ-gmbciZ6BMCg4FSE1Ijg7eqIFXPXpCgeiMUus25q51tl4BVNc6oAGKjHOQy33MkZ8MZTSjfF26S_BTXbHch7c8Rjc__A9ekO8PmNiXRr7l__-V8QTUlsf44YUX9JQIG5aI/s1600/20131110_150015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi_6twWYtPZ-gmbciZ6BMCg4FSE1Ijg7eqIFXPXpCgeiMUus25q51tl4BVNc6oAGKjHOQy33MkZ8MZTSjfF26S_BTXbHch7c8Rjc__A9ekO8PmNiXRr7l__-V8QTUlsf44YUX9JQIG5aI/s320/20131110_150015.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is what
I looked like last week (note: I hadn't had time to take off my sunglasses yet):<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbRY-ltaNcI3RIKsFwu5SZo3GqJbYjvKxgbzxaMmbEII6dZkRUutyKU0pML4ZXBPfytyu17BaJb20X1Txjnf1RQpy53yl9ym60WdX-ZRLjFgIPhO45VD8M1BxLieVcpc9dF8Ky7oAWCvE/s1600/20131208_111009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbRY-ltaNcI3RIKsFwu5SZo3GqJbYjvKxgbzxaMmbEII6dZkRUutyKU0pML4ZXBPfytyu17BaJb20X1Txjnf1RQpy53yl9ym60WdX-ZRLjFgIPhO45VD8M1BxLieVcpc9dF8Ky7oAWCvE/s320/20131208_111009.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The reason
for the transformation is that I accompanied my daughter and her
boyfriend to the San Francisco Dickens Christmas Fair, held at the
un-Victorian-sounding Cow Palace south of the city. A warehouse-sized venue, it was made to
resemble bustling London streets as they might have looked at</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Christmas in the
mid-19<sup>th</sup> century. This
involves sets designed to look like alehouses and shops, open areas set aside
for readings, period dances, and puppet shows, craftspeople making candles and
drawing caricatures, and a cadre of Cockney-accented actors wandering the
premises in period dress enacting small dramas and interacting with those of us
who had dropped in from the future.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a fun
few hours, although I, personally, do not enjoy actors who want to interact
with me when I’m window shopping and munching on candied cinnamon almonds
steaming in a paper cone. (The violation
of personal space is unpleasantly reminiscent of the tactics employed by
clowns.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Wearing that
dress was very odd. Your legs disappear
beneath billows of skirt and petticoat, but you are keenly aware of them as
they move freely, invisibly. You might
think the sensation would be pleasant, and it is, sort of, but you also have to
maneuver all that stiff fabric around crowded rooms, turning almost sideways to
squeeze through crowds, tripping on your own hems if you momentarily forget to
hold them off the ground. And when you’re
holding your skirts, you can’t hold anything else, which is annoying. It’s all more complicated than it seems.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And more
restrictive, bare legs notwithstanding. I’ve
been thinking about those Victorian women—encased in wire and fabric—and how
difficult it must have been to get anything done as they went through life
hauling all that architecture around with them.
They were prisoners of their hoop skirts, muffled by their muffs,
sheathed and contained and effectively immobilized by finery. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When it
comes to clothes, I’m a big fan of modesty. Most women (and men) look sad and ridiculous
when they try to flaunt their bodies the way the clothing industry leads them
to believe they can. (Note from me: you
can’t. You really can’t.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But last
weekend I experienced the significant difference between modesty and concealment. The one is about respectability and
appropriateness; the other about pretending (or being told to pretend) that one’s
body doesn’t exist, or that its imperatives can be cheerfully ignored. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Let’s face
it: if wearing floor-length dresses and corsets and metal hoops made for ease
of being in the world, men would have commandeered them long ago.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Making my
way through the throngs of Dickensian revelers, I couldn’t help thinking about
those 19th-century writers I love so much: Emily Dickinson, the Brontes, George Eliot (aka
Mary Anne Evans), Elizabeth Gaskell.
They wrote while wearing all that stuff.
They must have been so uncomfortable. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But they wrote.</span></span></span></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-2405200366198006502013-11-30T15:43:00.003-08:002013-11-30T15:59:40.663-08:00Shame on Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I woke up
this morning feeling bad about something.
At first I couldn’t tell what it was.
But I couldn’t shake that potent cocktail of embarrassment and shame I
seemed to have drunk in my dreams.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What could I
have done? I thought as I drove the familiar tangle of freeways to visit my
mother and take her for a drive. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I took me a
while to figure it out. And really, it’s
not so bad. Except it is.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am ashamed
of the blog entry I posted yesterday.
The one about what I did on Thanksgiving. The one in which I whine and feel sorry for
myself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am one of
the luckiest people I know. And a day
doesn’t pass when I don’t remember to feel grateful for all that I have. So much; so many things.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m not
speaking materially.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am the
recipient of miracles.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Which makes
me yet more ashamed.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My
Thanksgiving was a day for which to be especially grateful: for Robert, for
food, for my children who are out in the world, productive and happy and more
adventurous than I have ever been. For
my friends. For good work to do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For
health. Oh, my God, for health.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Shame on me
for not remembering that when I blogged yesterday.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-54886568053341245912013-11-29T14:40:00.004-08:002013-11-29T14:43:41.471-08:00Eating Out on Thanksgiving<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I hope
everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mine was
okay. My adult kids had other
obligations (son and his girlfriend were at her mother’s house in L.A.;
daughter and her best friend were camping in Utah), and the friends we usually
share the holiday with couldn’t make the drive, so Robert and I were on our
own. We had a small, traditional feast
with my kids on Sunday and weren’t up to cooking another one for just the two
of us. So we went out to dinner instead.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was a
little apprehensive about doing this. I
imagined that the restaurant—a well-known seafood house offering a traditional
Thanksgiving meal in addition to the regular fare—would be nearly empty, the
waiters either overzealously solicitous (because they felt sorry for the
patrons who had nowhere else to go) or grudging and resentful (because they had
to work).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In fact,
nothing could be further from the truth.
The restaurant was full of happy, garrulous people being served
delicious food by a warm and appreciative wait staff. Robert ordered fish, not minding in the least
that he was missing out on the day’s culinary rituals. I (who could eat poultry every day of the
year) had turkey.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here are
some of the things I thought about at dinner:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> A lot of the patrons seemed to be
people about my age escorting aging mothers;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Many people did not dress up; a few
did. (The ones who didn’t got on my
nerves. Dressing up is part of how one
acknowledges that one is not in one’s own house. I wore a form-fitting Nicole Miller dress, so
that I would be reminded to stop eating when I was full. It worked.);<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> There were several children on the
premises. All behaved beautifully;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> I sat near an older woman who wore
heavy makeup and penciled-in eyebrows;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Also, two gentlemen in navy blue
blazers and bow ties;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> The elderly mothers who accompanied
their families seemed extremely happy to be included in the festivities. As far as I could tell, they did not send
anything back to the kitchen or tell the waiter there was a draft;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> I thought about my mother but didn’t
regret my decision not to spend the day with her;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Sparkling wine gives me a headache;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> It is remarkably easy to give up
eating a favorite food—stuffing, in my case—when you are gluten-intolerant and
know that eating it will make you wheeze;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Waiters who do not tease you about
eating everything on your plate are better than waiters who do;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Tea lights strategically placed make
people look better, even when they have over-plucked their eyebrows;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Professional chefs will occasionally
put too much cinnamon in the yams;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> On the other hand, the sweet potato
bisque was scrumptious;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> If I had had nothing else to eat
except the cranberry-Mandarin orange relish, I would have been very, very
content;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> On the drive home, I saw strip malls with full
parking lots. What is wrong with people?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">All in all,
I had a nice evening, because Robert and I love to eat out and the food was
great. But that’s not really what
Thanksgiving is all about, at least not to me.
I missed my kids. I missed being
teased about the Cranberry Waldorf Salad Mold.
I missed 40s big-band music on the CD player and drinking in the kitchen
and the frantic rush to make gravy. And
everybody lying like overstuffed whales in front of the fire after dinner.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">It was,
however, marvelous not to have to clean up.</span></div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-61970766656221132732013-11-26T14:13:00.002-08:002013-11-26T14:13:49.351-08:00On Parents Who Brag<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have
conflicted feelings about parents who brag about their kids.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the one
hand, there’s a kind of bragging I hate.
Like, when it’s happening, you’re looking at the parent who’s doing it
and thinking, Do you not hear yourself?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the other
hand, my mother didn’t brag about me At All.
Even I, at the age of eight, knew she was different from the other
moms. When I asked her why, she said, I
hate bragging. I believed her (as I do
to this day), but I admit to feeling a little crushed when she said it. At the time, it felt as though my mother
couldn’t think of anything nice to say about me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because here’s
the thing. It’s a good thing for parents
to be proud of their kids. Right? So when does bragging cross the line?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I know three
mothers whose bragging sets my teeth on edge.
Here’s why:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">--There's a sort of urgency to their bragging, as though they are transmitting Information You Really Must Hear. As though your own ordinary, skipping-impaired little girl will benefit hugely from the knowledge that their three-year-old daughter's gymnastics coach thinks she may have a shot at the 2024 Olympics.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">--They brag
about their kids as though no one else has ever had children who were as smart
and accomplished. It’s not enough for them
to say how well their children did on their SATs; they tell you their scores
AND make you read their essays. And
throw in their IQ scores for good measure (but casually, as though they think everyone's kids get this score and it's no big deal, or with feigned embarrassment, as if they told you by mistake).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">--They are
brazen in their willingness to take other people’s children down a peg. Here’s a good rule to live by: if you want to
brag about your children, you are, in effect, signing a contract that requires
you to smile politely when other people brag about <i>theirs</i>. Tit for tat, bitches.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">--Even when they
tell you about problems their kids are having, they find ways to let you know
that doctors/teachers/rehab counselors/Relevant Professionals with Scholarly
Credentials <i>went out of their way</i> to
tell them that they are excellent parents, that they have done everything
right, that none of whatever it is that is going on is their fault. It’s quite astounding, really.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here are a
couple of additional notes about bragging:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">--My mother—the
one who hated bragging?—used to carry pictures of my children in her
purse. She would whip them out anywhere—at
the grocery store, in the Emergency Room—and use them as an excuse to go on and
on. (This, it was pointed out to me
later, was an indication that she was in the early stages of dementia.) Once, before leaving on a cruise, she was
showing me a couple of outdated photos of the kids that she was going to spring
on unsuspecting fellow passengers. “Why
don’t you go to one of those meetings?
You know, the ones where grandparents show each other pictures of their
grandkids?” I asked her. Without a trace
of irony, she said, “Why would I do that?
I don’t want to look at other people’s pictures. I want them to look at mine!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">--When my
ex-husband was ten, his beloved grandfather died. As I remember the story, B was sitting next
to his hospital bed when a nurse entered
the room. “Have you met my grandson?”
his grandfather said, and then went on at some length about what a great kid B
was. Much later, B realized that this
was his grandfather’s way of telling him how much he loved him. (It’s a family that doesn’t talk easily about
feelings.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve come to
realize that there’s bragging and then there’s bragging. Sometimes it’s just a way of telling your
friends how much you adore your children.
And that can’t be a bad thing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Just don’t start telling me about how your damn
cat can pee in the toilet.</span></span></div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-60553324035930857312013-11-17T16:16:00.000-08:002013-11-17T16:16:06.374-08:00Birds and Trees<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Last week,
we drove to the Sacramento Wildlife Refuge in the town of Willows. We do this almost every year, with
friends. Always, we drive through the
sanctuary to see the huge numbers of birds that nest and feed while migrating
along the Pacific Flyway.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This year,
the weather was unseasonably warm. The
sun bathed the wetlands in yellow light.
We saw hawks, Northern harriers, coots, mallards, Canadian geese, and
pheasants. The reeds and grasses along
the roadside had been trimmed back, so we had excellent views of the
waterways.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiII9Z0oEkiyGLZ9yYD4z2DJseRXcvFyvvmXap4kmdMGvmvd7UreGk5FqALaNbeppaDryRZqhJ3peJqWPkTdWkB4Rip89zvSW4rCp5IKpkXgb7BOmTT9gcnoWHgE8bdzy2L8DQPW6peJ4Q/s1600/20131114_162535.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiII9Z0oEkiyGLZ9yYD4z2DJseRXcvFyvvmXap4kmdMGvmvd7UreGk5FqALaNbeppaDryRZqhJ3peJqWPkTdWkB4Rip89zvSW4rCp5IKpkXgb7BOmTT9gcnoWHgE8bdzy2L8DQPW6peJ4Q/s320/20131114_162535.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Note: I know
nothing about birds. Robert and Roy and
Josine opine heatedly about the differences between buffleheads and
grebes. I can tell that the ones with
green heads are ducks, and that’s about it.
Still, I love the Refuge. I love
that people have made a place for birds to congregate and rest. My favorite thing is the way that vast hordes
of birds, compelled by something invisible and therefore mystical, will
suddenly surge out of the water, swarming into the sky, calling and honking
madly. The racket is unlike anything I
have ever heard before: raucous and insistent and both ugly and beautiful at
once. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The next
morning, I woke early and went for a four-mile walk in the area surrounding our
hotel. The neighborhood is quiet and
flat, the homes well-kept. It was breezy,
a surprise since the day before had been still.
The trees shivered in the wind, their leaves rattling against each
other, an ever-present static. Whenever
a gust blew in, I found my eyes drawn to them, as though their noisy
shimmying was a show they were putting on just for me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8mpTlY5-_aLLrCdNcCIR3_3xxlQIvtv4kXPYexKmqsbl6MpusAvjulnNgFTrLCRxBeO6yVwCKP0-0AdobN5U-H4V7vGxP7QBZftpc7TA7tls1vHglopEVZpxQklxxg_CFVtVHImQQ_EM/s1600/20131115_082856.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8mpTlY5-_aLLrCdNcCIR3_3xxlQIvtv4kXPYexKmqsbl6MpusAvjulnNgFTrLCRxBeO6yVwCKP0-0AdobN5U-H4V7vGxP7QBZftpc7TA7tls1vHglopEVZpxQklxxg_CFVtVHImQQ_EM/s320/20131115_082856.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There are
birds where I live, and trees. But sometimes
you see them better when you’re away from home.
That’s where you realize that the clamorous caws and hoots, the rustling
overhead that is like an urgent whisper, are really Nature’s way of calling
out, of telling you to pay attention.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-61788481977796578762013-11-10T14:04:00.002-08:002013-11-10T14:09:08.877-08:00Stupid Questions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">“Beware,” I
told my daughter, “of the question-and-answer session.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">We were
sitting in the audience, waiting for the Billy Collins reading to start. And I knew from experience that a lot of
people in the packed auditorium had questions.
Burning Questions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Also, I knew
that not all of these questions would be Smart Questions. In fact, not all of the Questions would be
questions at all. Some of them would be
Ways to Show the Writer that the Question-Asker Is Really Smart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">(Okay, so as
an adult, I know I’m supposed to say that there’s no such thing as a stupid question. But at a writer’s talk, that’s
not really true.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">During his
marvelous reading, Mr. Collins addressed some of my concerns. “I think the worst question I’m ever asked
is, ‘What is your favorite letter?’” he said.
The crowd groaned collectively.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">When he
finished reading and took several courtly bows, my daughter whispered, “Oh, my
God. I’m so nervous about the questions.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">“Calm down,”
I said. “It’s not as though he doesn’t know
they’re coming.” But I knew what she
meant. Sometimes you cringe, just
knowing that other people are going to make fools of themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Some of the
first questions were okay. I think “Which
of your own poems is your favorite?” was in there, as well as “Who were your
literary influences?” (Coleridge). All seemed to be well until a woman on whom
Mr. Collins called cleared her throat. I
knew we were doomed.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">“Sometimes,”
she began, “I tell people you are my imaginary boyfriend.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">The audience
laughed. Collins looked
embarrassed. My daughter was looking
into her lap. “Oh, my God,” she
whispered. “Oh, my God.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">The woman
went on to say that she had told her son she was going to a poetry reading and
he had said, “Oh, well, then it won’t take very long. You’ll be back in half an hour.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">More
laughter. More all-body wincing in the
seat next to mine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">The woman
went on again. She was trying to say
that what she loved about Collins’ poetry was the way it was conversational,
accessible. What she actually said was, “Other
poetry seems, like, really deep and complicated. Yours is just, like, on the surface. Why is that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">I’ll bet
Billy Collins loves having to explain that he does, in fact, have a Ph.D in
English over and over and over again.
And that “accessible” doesn’t mean “on the surface.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Clearly,
though, he’s an old hand at keeping the question session to a minimum. Which was a relief to everyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">I should
have tried to ask my question—“Can you speak to the difference between free
verse and prose?”—but I was too shy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Ultimately, even
after what Collins said during his talk, someone raised his hand and asked, “What<i> is</i> your favorite letter?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">“Oh, ‘L,’ I
guess,” he answered, sounding weary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">I think he said ‘L.” I was too busy squinching my eyes closed and
whispering “Oh, my God, oh, my God” to be entirely sure.</span></div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-33185068535187704792013-11-06T13:31:00.000-08:002013-11-07T12:51:41.694-08:00Writers Talking<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tonight my
daughter and I are going to see Billy Collins speak. I am very excited.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The first
writer I ever heard speak in person was John Updike. He was marvelous. He said that when he came to California in
the summer, he was always struck by how brown the hills are, so unlike New
England’s verdant lushness. But, he said,
Californians needed to relish their state’s own particular beauty and not wish for
it to be anything other than what it was.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I think
about that every year. Truly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the early
80s, I saw John Irving speak at the College of Marin. He read from an as-yet-unpublished novel that
would become <i>The Cider House Rules</i>. He seemed a little taken aback by the rousing
welcome he was given by the crowd, which included many women, one of whom
raised her hand and asked, “Do you drive a Volvo?” At this, he recoiled visibly. I was embarrassed for the woman, who thought
she was being funny.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lorrie Moore
was shy and self-protective. I heard her
speak just as <i>Birds of America</i> was
published. She said only one of the
stories was based on actual events in her life, but she wouldn’t tell us which
story it was. At the time, I was pretty
sure I knew: I had read “People Like That Are the Only People Here” in <i>The New Yorker</i> and thought that no one—not
even Lorrie Moore—could imagine something so harrowing out of thin air.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve seen
Annie Lamott speak several times. She is
known as the sort of writer women flock to hear. She’s the best friend we all wish we
had. (Actually, my best friend is the
best best friend there is. We went to
see Annie Lamott together once or twice.
Afterwards, we always said we wished we could invite her out for hot
chocolate. The way everyone else in the
audience wanted to.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Patricia
Polacco writes children’s picture books.
She speaks at over 300 schools a year, a feat I find almost
unimaginable. I was mesmerized by
her. She has a rare gift: the ability to
speak to children and adults at once.
She personifies the distinction between a writer who gives talks and a true storyteller.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The funniest
writer I’ve ever heard speak is Elinor Lipman.
She makes her own writing sound screamingly funny when she reads
it. For years after I heard her the
first time, I imagined her reading whatever I was writing. If it sounded funny, I left it alone; if it
didn’t, I revised.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">David Sedaris is a marvel in the meet-and-greet department. My daughter and I saw him at a small indie bookstore that was jammed to the rafters with fans. After his wonderful reading, he stayed to sign books, and I think he engaged personally with every single person in the room. He had a sweet conversation with my daughter about Australia (where she was headed in a couple of weeks), and then asked me my name. When I told him, he went on for a bit about how he likes to sign books with some reference to the person's name, but mine reminded him too much of "vagina." We had a good laugh. He ended up drawing me an owl that is thinking "I love black people!" </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There have
been other writers over the years—too many to mention—but these are the ones
who stand out. Always, I remind myself
how difficult it is for someone to stand in front of an audience and read what
she has created, what she has thought important. It is first and foremost an act of
bravery. I know from experience.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">If Billy
Collins reads “The Lanyard,” I will bawl like a baby.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">*</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Addendum: He did read "The Lanyard." I didn't cry (but only because my daughter would have been annoyed). </span></div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-40385206322697016832013-10-24T16:08:00.000-07:002013-10-24T16:09:26.090-07:00Facebook: Middle School for Grownups<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Most of my
friends on Facebook share my feelings about politics.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Several of
them don’t. Among these, two stand out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One is a man
I have known for over twenty years. He
was one of my first writing teachers. I
think he’s pretty brilliant. I do not
get his politics At All.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Once, years
ago, at a writing retreat, I jokingly made reference to a political issue about
which I knew we disagreed. He looked at
me imploringly and said, “Please let’s not talk about it.” I understood that he did not want to fight
with me. I didn’t joke about it anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Recently,
this man posted something about President Obama as a response to something I
had written. I posted back, “Love
you. We’ll just have to agree to
disagree.” And he respected me and said
nothing further.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The other
person I want to write about is someone I’ve never met. It’s funny that we’re even Facebook friends,
since our lives are about as different as two Americans’ lives can be. But we became online friends after his
daughter starred in the trailer for my book PRETTIEST DOLL (Clarion 2012) <o:p></o:p></span></span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Prettiest-Doll-Gina-Willner-Pardo/dp/0547681704">http://www.amazon.com/Prettiest-Doll-Gina-Willner-Pardo/dp/0547681704</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This man
disagrees with just about every political opinion I hold. But what I love—what I find meaningful about
our virtual friendship—is that we’ve actually had extended conversations (via
Facebook) about things that are hot buttons for both of us. These conversations have been civil, even
friendly. That’s a rarity in today’s
world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The reason I’m
writing about all this on a blog supposedly devoted to writing, books, and my
life as a middle-aged woman is that I am working on a manuscript that takes
place in a middle school. Middle school,
as we adults know, is a dreadful, dreadful place, and I was trying to catalog the reasons for this.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The usual
things came immediately to mind: kids have one foot in the adult world and the
other in a child’s, their voices are changing, they’re getting their periods,
their skin is bad, their hormones are misfiring. Everyone’s basically a hot mess, and there’s
a lot of homework. Just thinking about
it makes me sick.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But the
really bad thing—the <i>worst</i> thing—about
middle school is that you only talk to your friends (which, this being middle
school, you’re lucky to have). There isn’t
a whole lot of inter-clique mingling.
The athletic boys hang out with each other at lunch; they don’t have
much to say to the Theater kids or the smart boys or the boys who go their own
way or haven’t figured out just who they are yet. Or the boys who want desperately to belong somewhere and, whatever the reason, don’t.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That is what
is so dreadful about middle school. That
is what tears at my heart when I think about it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This morning
it occurred to me that many of us adults have re-created our own grownup
version of middle school for ourselves.
We hang out with people who share our beliefs. We whisper about the people who don’t, or
make fun of them, or tell other people how stupid they are for believing what
they believe. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s kind of
crummy, actually.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m not
going to stop posting memes about how dangerous “the other side” is, or how
they make up facts, or are delusional, or misinformed, or just plain wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But my two Facebook
friendships have made me realize a couple of things. One is that I have to keep in mind that “the
other side” is made up of people I like and respect. Would I say nasty things to their faces, in
person? Nope. I would not.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The other
thing I’m going to remember is that having a substantive conversation with
someone who sees the world differently from the way I see it is far more
satisfying, and ultimately more fun, that sharing funny memes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Even the one about the idiots who think Girl Scout
Cookies promote lesbianism.</span></span></div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-30311234634947863102013-10-14T21:27:00.000-07:002013-10-15T09:22:44.331-07:00On Being Eighty<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A few days ago, my daughter and I were browsing in a
used-book store. She pulled a book off
the shelves, thumbed through it, and then handed it to me. “This is something you would like,” she
said. “It looks sad.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The book was a novel, EMILY, ALONE, by Stewart O’Nan
(Viking, 2011), and it wasn’t sad, or at least, it wasn’t to me. It is a lovely character study, a meditation
on growing old with grace. I found
myself riveted.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The book is told entirely from the point of view of Emily,
an eighty-year-old woman, recently widowed, who lives alone in Pittsburgh. Emily’s days are quiet, occupied with
reading, puzzles, classical music, the care of her dog, and occasional outings
with her sister-in-law Arlene. She waits
expectantly for calls from her adult children, for warmer months, so she can
indulge her passion for gardening, for family reunions held every year. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The book is interesting for several reasons. I was amazed that a man had written it. I did not for one moment doubt Emily’s voice,
her way of looking at the world. It is one thing for a male dramatist or a
short-story writer to craft a well-drawn heroine, but it is quite another for a male novelist to inhabit a female character so artfully and so completely. The fact that she is eighty makes the
accomplishment yet more notable. O’Nan
(who is younger than I) captures beautifully the rhythms of aging—life slowing
and shrinking—as well as Emily’s dignified submission to them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The story dwells less on death than one might expect, even
though death is all around. Emily thinks often of those she has lost. Still, there is
forward motion, however slow. But it is
a story without the devices we have come to expect in modern novels. There are no car crashes (of any
significance), no brutal crimes, no life-shattering revelations, no epiphanies
to speak of. Ultimately, we are told the story of a woman
who, even within the constraints of a life winding down, manages to change and
grow.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I read the book expecting to see my mother in Emily, but,
surprisingly, I didn’t. Before dementia
began ravaging her mind, my mother was not as introspective as Emily. She was more adventurous and less preoccupied
with the past (at least as far as I know).
She had little use for friends, no patience for crosswords. She did
not care for the neediness of dogs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Instead, I saw myself in Emily: a woman who takes comfort in
books and music and the company of friends and family. I hope I do not end up as alone as Emily
feels herself to be. But maybe I can
muster some of her grace. That would be
something.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When you’re my daughter’s age, you can’t imagine being
eighty. I can’t really imagine it,
either, but I know it’s coming. (At
least, I hope it’s coming.) I don’t know
what my life will look like then, but EMILY, ALONE underscores that the things
I value—good health for me and those I love, a well-functioning brain, books
and music and a friend or two—are reasonable things to hope for. Can you take spin classes when you’re
eighty? That would be nice, too.</span></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-4969753233796693232013-10-02T16:15:00.001-07:002013-10-02T16:15:05.593-07:00Update on My Mother, and Some Sad News<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
My mother—93 years old and suffering from dementia—is being
much nicer to me these days. I think
that’s because she has finally forgotten that I took her car away two years ago
this month. She looks forward to my weekly
visit, and to our drives through neighborhoods in which she used to live and
which she no longer remembers. She
enjoys the stories I tell her about her own life. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here are some other things I noticed last Friday:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
--When I escort my mother from her apartment to my car and
back, we hold hands. I always extend my
hand to her and say, “Can we hold hands?” (I know, I know, “<i>May</i> we hold hands?”, but who says that?),
and she always takes it and tells me how she holds hands with my ex-husband
when he visits her. I do it because she
is very unsteady on her feet—last week she fell in her apartment—but I don’t
think she knows that. I don’t ever
remember holding hands with her, not even when I was a child. Her hands are slim, with long fingers and
beautifully manicured nails. (The
caregivers take her to the salon, where someone named Henry does them for
her. “I love that Henry,” Mom always
says.) She does not have arthritic
knuckles, a fact that amazes me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
--She is almost unable to articulate a complete
sentence. When we drive past houses she
likes, she whispers, “Lordy” or “Vey iz mir.”
“Vey iz mir” is one of my mother’s traditional expressions; she said it
all the time when I was growing up. “Lordy”
is something new. I have no idea why she
says it. I’ve asked her caregivers, and
it’s not something either of them says. Every
time she says it, I have the same thought: that the woman I am driving around
isn’t really my mother but someone who is simulating her and doing a bad job of
it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
--She loves trees.
She can be brought to near-ecstatic exclamations at the sight of a tall
redwood or a robust, spreading oak. Sometimes
she calls them her “friends,” which is weird and lovely and sad all at the same
time. “They must be so <i>old</i>!” she says
in wonder. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
--When we look at nice houses, she often says, “So much <i>money</i>!”
Since she married my father in 1950, she has enjoyed a comfortable
lifestyle, but her Depression-era roots (daughter of non-English-speaking
Hungarian immigrants who died when she was five, a childhood spent in a [wonderful]
Jewish orphanage) are in there somewhere.
Her tone when she talks about people with money is admiring and derisive
at the same time. She is not aware of
how much money it is costing to keep her in her home with ‘round-the-clock
care. She is also not aware that her
credit card can’t be used anymore. “Can
I fill up your tank?” she always asks, and I always smile and say, “No. But thank you.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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--Another thing about looking at houses: At least five or six times on any given
drive, she will say about a particular house, “That one’s empty. No one lives there.” I always laugh and say, “Yes, they do, Mom.” But she is adamant. “Why do you think no one lives there?” I ask
sometimes. She peers out the
window. “No one’s in there,” she says,
certain.<o:p></o:p></div>
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--Twice, she said, “I love my grandsons.” And I (who seemingly cannot-CANNOT-stop
trying to make her see the world as it really is) said, “One grandson and one
granddaughter, Mom.” “No,” she said
stubbornly. “Two grandsons.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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--For the first time in two years, my mother said "I love you" without my having to say it first. Also: she seems to know who I am, but she can't bring my name to mind. A year ago, I would have wondered if she was saying "I love you" reflexively, without really knowing--<i>knowing</i>--who I am. Now I don't wonder. I just accept her statement with love and gratitude. </div>
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*<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have more to write, but I just received a phone call from
my daughter: her grandfather—my ex-father-in-law—just passed away, after a few
months of illness. He and my mother were
great friends, despite her insistence on calling him “Fonzie.” (His real name was Gonzalo, but he went by
Gonzy, a name my mother just could not remember, even before she became ill.) His illness was abrupt and immediately devastating,
as opposed to my mother’s, which is incremental and slow. I wonder, Which way would I prefer to
go? And honestly, I do not know.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What I do know is that he went with supreme grace and
dignity. And that I will have to tell my
mother tonight, and the news will make her sad. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1205479372868194385.post-52978925370558659912013-09-24T14:41:00.000-07:002013-09-24T14:43:39.048-07:00Change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This
morning, driving home from spin class, I heard “Beauty and the Beast” on the
radio and I didn’t cry.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here’s why
this is noteworthy to me:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When my son
was in the fourth grade, he played the Beast in a school production. He got the part mainly because he was tall
and also because the director loved him.
He did not get the part because of his voice. (The director told me, “He sings in the key
of H.”) Still, when it came time to sing
the big song, he pulled it off. And for
years, every time I heard that song on the radio, I burst into tears. Not because it’s THAT kind of song—even though
it is—but because it reminded me of the boy he was:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKfPlBnv9czlcis5g5mftm-6Ys1VqEnm29yTC_TPp6bGgx4QtWUkYNe3vOYkQndshUGvskeJxeWsSj5noJrFCyCCkVSNsVU4_NuJUoW7MTHxdwLW2J88kXB5_W0x0nKjkKfbmTuFnwQWU/s1600/20130924_134229.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKfPlBnv9czlcis5g5mftm-6Ys1VqEnm29yTC_TPp6bGgx4QtWUkYNe3vOYkQndshUGvskeJxeWsSj5noJrFCyCCkVSNsVU4_NuJUoW7MTHxdwLW2J88kXB5_W0x0nKjkKfbmTuFnwQWU/s320/20130924_134229.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here we are
at about that time: me rockin' the Howard Stern look, him being his wonderful
self.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Last night I
talked to my son on the phone. He is
crazy-busy with a new job and with helping his girlfriend start her business. We talked about his nana, who has dementia
and didn’t recognize him at dinner a few nights ago. And about his grandpa, who is dying with
supreme dignity in New York. He has
become a person whose advice I seek, a man I look up to. I carry the little boy he was in my heart,
but it’s not who takes my call once every two weeks. And somehow, after many years, this has
become okay with me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Next week,
my daughter and her boyfriend are going to Ireland, and I’m almost completely
okay with it.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They are
going to be hiking through tiny towns without phone access. It will be raining. They won’t have much access to the
Internet. I’m fine, except at three o’clock
in the morning, when I’m not fine about anything.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When my kids
were young, I couldn’t imagine that they would ever be able to cross the street
by themselves, or drive a car, or drink alcohol, or talk to strangers. And now, they live independent lives and I go
to sleep every night not knowing where they are or what they’re doing. And somehow, we’re all getting by.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I know this
doesn’t sound like a big deal to a lot of people. But maybe a few parents will appreciate
knowing what I wish I’d known ten years ago: that one day, the hurt of their
leaving will fade; that you will always miss them, but not as desperately as before;
that gradually, your life will take on new contours, shift to a different
shape, and you will be able to rejoice in it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You won’t
forget the way it used to be. But
remembering won’t make you cry as much.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ9k92OOi8UrdfHvUocUNCtd59hiZIfT-VTWr8R1nNRAXefDYhKJPVmcvQNb4BThwoTr5HJTHWSlR5OazcPrT_0RzMySywtz4bAnp8l7t4xkknLwQnQdYgz3E1IMxKnY5DcxD7FoDK0cE/s1600/20130924_134328.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ9k92OOi8UrdfHvUocUNCtd59hiZIfT-VTWr8R1nNRAXefDYhKJPVmcvQNb4BThwoTr5HJTHWSlR5OazcPrT_0RzMySywtz4bAnp8l7t4xkknLwQnQdYgz3E1IMxKnY5DcxD7FoDK0cE/s320/20130924_134328.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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Gina Willner-Pardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125917121476657335noreply@blogger.com0