HAPPY BIRTH DAY, MOM

Today is my 58th birthday. Hard to believe I’ ve been on this earth all those years, and yet, through the magic of memory, I can instantly be back to my eight year-old self, sitting with my mother at the kitchen table in our house on Gettysburg Street. Mom was telling me about how I was born.

It was a cinematic story. I can picture it all in my mind’s eye, even if I don’ t actually remember the event itself.

I was born in the evening, I assume, since when my mother went into labor, it was afternoon. How do I know that? I know that because when I was ready to be born, my mother’ s ob-gyn, Dr. Cohen, was on the golf course. Mom had been taken to the Magee Hospital for Women, and apparently, it was going to be a very short labor. Literally, the nurse had to keep pushing me back to keep me from being born before the good doctor got there. “Wow, Mom!” I heard myself exclaim, “Why did they do that? Couldn’t someone else have delivered me?” Mom’ s reply shocked me: “No, honey. I had signed an agreement stating that only Dr. Cohen could deliver you, and he was off on the golf course somewhere and couldn’ t be found”. For years, I ruminated on this story, thinking I must have imagined it. I must have dreamt that Mom told me that. It’s too unbelievable.

So when I was already quite grown up, I asked my mother once again, “Mom? Did you really tell me that?” and she said, “I sure did!”. And still not believing it, thinking Mom must have been hallucinating, I asked my own ob-gyn, “Could this be true?” and he immediately said, “Sure. It happens all the time.” So, apart from thinking to myself, “How barbaric!” and “No wonder I’m such a neurotic woman”, I also thought, “Poor Mom!”. Imagine going through all the travails of labor, and then having the nurse keep literally pushing the baby back, over and over, until the doctor arrives! I think of the pain, the fear, the frustration - especially since my mother’s comment was, “Really, all anyone had to do was ‘catch’! You should have been a very easy birth! You were practically here when they admitted me to the hospital”.

So, this is the first birthday of my life when Mom is no longer with me, at least, physically. Every year on my birthday it has been my tradition to call her and to thank her from the bottom of my heart for giving birth to me, and then, for putting up with me - especially during my teenage years - and beyond. For raising me to be a decent human being, For her wisdom, For her humor. For her love. I woke up this morning wishing she were still here. But then I remembered her “visiting” me in a dream about a month after she passed away. She looked beautiful, strong, and whole. When I said, “Mom! You’re alive”, she threw her head back and laughed heartily, “Of course, I am, baby. I’m alive every time you think of me!”.

Well, I am certainly thinking of you today, Mom. And you’re as alive as I am! And thank you, for all of it.

Dick Dale, surf guitar and me

Check out the this video.

Yep that’s me in the center, goofy smile and all. An exciting group to watch huh? Still wish I had that Strat for the price they are going for today!

I was in the Marine Corps stationed at the Air Facility in Santa Ana CA. Being from Connecticut I soon discovered the beaches, Balboa Island and the Balboa peninsula. I used to watch Dick playing at the Rinky Dink ice cream parlor and then later at the Rendezvous Ballroom on the peninsula. [Read more]

Home

A few days ago a reporter asked John McCain an odd question. He asked, “Mr. McCain, how many homes do you own?”. It sounds like a very simple question. McCain stammered and replied, “I’ll have to have my staff get back to you on that”. Huh? How can anyone be confused about how many homes they have? But I might have answered the question the same way as Mr. McCain. For a different reason.

For the record, Art and I don’t own any homes at the moment. We sold our home in 2005 and have been renting since, biding our time, waiting to decide whether and when we might buy a home again.
(A subject for another day). But you could argue that *we belong to* several homes. Let me explain.

We’ re back in Morris, Connecticut visiting with Art’ s mom, Marge. Now that I’ve been a part of this family for over twenty years (I considered us family to each other even before we were married nineteen years ago) - I feel that this has become another home. This is Art’ s ancestral home. And even though I am a relative new-comer, a second-generation American with roots in Eastern Europe, I feel accepted and part of the clan. This is home. And, oh, yes. Southern California is home. I’ve lived there for about 30 years, and my sisters and their families live there, too. My mom lived there for 30 years before she passed away in April, so - of course, I am now officially an Angeleno. (Is the feminine of “Angeleno” “Angelena”?). We are part of the culture of Southern California. We are health-conscious vegetarians. We practice yoga. We are musicians. We drink cappuccinos and lattes. We shop at Trader Joe’s and (occasionally) Whole Foods. You get the picture. In other words, we fit right in to what my father used to describe as “the land of the fruits and the nuts”. (Daddy was never one to be constrained by political correctness!). This is home.

And that brings me to my third home: Pittsburgh. I know I have described Pittsburgh to you before. The word “Pittsburgh” evokes such strong emotions in me that I am hard-pressed to describe it in a few words. Pittsburgh is paradoxically the place that resonates in the deepest reaches of my soul, and yet also repels me with equal force. I love it. I don’ t think I could live there - at least, easily - anymore. I ran as fast and as far as I could from Pittsburgh at seventeen and have never lived there since. And yet, whenever I hear of someone living in Pittsburgh or even visiting, I have a sense of bittersweet nostalgia. I miss the corner of Forbes and Murray, the easy back-and-forth style of conversation, Isaly’s sandwich shop, the earthy good nature of the people, my father’s family, whose ranks are diminishing, my grandmother’s cooking, the crisp autumn days. That’ s home.

Have there been other homes? Yes, to varying degrees. I lived in New York City for a year in my twenties. I loved the energy, the utter “city-ness” of it, the sense of possibility hanging in the air. That’s home.

But I also lived in New Mexico for a year and I loved it, too. I immediately felt a sense of home when I touched down for the first time in Albuquerque. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains sang to me. I loved the arroyos and the bright red chiles hanging on the porch. I loved the adobe and the cactus and the farrolitos at Christmas. I loved the wide open spaces. That’s home.

And then, too. I have a moveable home. That is my home with Art. If we lived in an RV with no permanent address, on a barge on the Mississippi, in a cabin on Lake George, in an igloo at the North Pole, that would be home, so long as we are together. That is my heart. That is my home.

California Dreamin’

Everyone has one song that seems to embody the essence of their high school days. Mine is California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and the Papas. The big, fat harmonies, the sweet, plaintive melody, the freedom that the song implies lives somewhere in the future and of course, the images of a dreary, Eastern winter contrasted with the warm, sunny, care-free atmosphere of California in the ‘60s – at least, the idealized California I longed to experience. I finally did get to go to California for the first time at 17, and it did not disappoint. I was mesmerized by the gorgeous Pacific Ocean, the beaches, the trip to Disneyland, the big, blue skies, and the feeling that anything was possible. I returned to live in California some ten years later, and as the Mamas and Papas sang in another song, “California Dreamin’ was becoming a reality!”.