Sunday Memories: Thanks Winning

The doorbell rang.

This was before intercoms and videos. Lobby doors were open, directories were very clear.

So Florence answered the door. There stood a delivery man holding a huge box.

My father had won in some office lottery a 25 pound turkey for Thanksgiving.

That's how I knew it was Thanksgiving.

I remember sitting down to the first and I suspect only Thanksgiving meal we ever had as a family. But, I have no memory of the meal itself.

I also suspect, poor memory and all, that it was the only thing my father ever won.

Oh Happy Day

On day in 1965, during one of the many tussles I had with my sister, Louise, I struck a rare blow and, shortly after that, she landed in Beth Israel Hospital (our hospital of choice where my broken arm got set and where my mother, Florence visited frequently until the night she died).

Years later, in fact two weeks ago, I found this drawing I had made commemorating both the Thanksgiving holiday and my sister's recovery from spinal meningitis. Perhaps I was genuinely thankful. Perhaps I was greatly relieved I hadn't killed her and was now reprieved from a life burdened with a horrible secret and crushing guilt. Either way, I was clearly glad to give thanks.

Florence's mother, Sophie told me one day to always say 'I'm sorry' first. I did for years until it became detrimental to my health to believe I was always wrong and beholden to make things right, regardless of the circumstance.

I always thought 'I love you' was the most important sentence in the world, probably because I heard so little of it. I did many things to say that sentence and I did more things hoping it would be said. Those words, important as they may be, were at times just words without action.

It was, when forced to heal from too many 'I'm sorry' and 'I love you' that shouldn't have been said, that I learned how to say 'thank you' to everything. With every statement of gratitude I grew back my sense of self. 'Thank you' became my fountain of youth, richness, and joy.

The night Florence died at Beth Israel the words I said most were "thank you". Perhaps if I had drawn a picture of that night it would look exactly like the one I drew for my sister so many years before, only with more machinery around the hospital bed and without my dad.

Thanksgiving 2011 - November 24th would have been Florence's 87th or 88th birthday. I was privileged to join her on her journey to her end and somehow along the way I got to love her and be loved by her in ways I could have never imagined.

Since then, I have survived these past years because of the varied gifts she had bestowed upon me, both tangible and intangible, least of all this blog of stories about the City she and I love with all our hearts and souls, and every bit of our passion and our art. For that and for everything I am truly thankful.

So Florence Deutsch Moed, Happy Birthday and Happy Thanksgiving.

The Halls To Peace...

... are often unadorned.

One just hopes they are well lit, not just with strong bulbs, but with good intentions to seek common ground and the heart and soul of the other.

Sunday Memories: When A Picture Is Like A Song

We were talking about how songs were haven for memories, sometimes so painful they couldn't be listened to for years. And smell, like when I walked into Florence's building and smelled the rice and beans of the apartment right by the elevator and, if it was shabbas, the competing chickens cooking from floor to floor.

Once a wind flooded me with memory. I had missed Autumn in New York one year and didn't realize until the following October when a wind embraced me and I remembered how much I had needed it around me. It was a memory of every Autumn I had ever lived in my hometown.

But pictures were less memories and more like stickies or little notes left to remind me of facts - a painting of childhood fairy tales, a photo by Weegee, a postcard sent by a friend reminding there was no excuse not to write.

And then opening this picture, I remembered not the facts that some guys were working on the roof across the street, but that the day was warm and the time was open and the air still hurt to breathe and I forced myself to move a defeated arm and, just like I had been taught, seek expression.

Peace Be With You

The United Nations

And Peace Be With You.

**
The longer road begins with a word, a word that opens the possibility of everyone being welcomed to the table. And one hopes the word and words that follow build that welcome. Sometimes it is called the law. And sometimes that law welcomes justice to the table.

There is this programme available all around the world that teaches the teachers the word and the many that follow.

Programme of Assistance in the Teaching, Study, Dissemination and Wider Appreciation of International Law

Winter on 14th Street

Sunday Memories: When We Could Still Cry In The Middle Of A Fist Fight

This was first grade.

Second grade you couldn't cry when punching the boy you liked who punched you first because you were teasing him too much in front of the other boys because you liked him so he had to take care of business and let you know he didn't like you even though you knew he did.

No, this was first grade. Where liking a boy wasn't on the table but teasing still was.

And when Mrs. F., the teacher chided you for being mean to one of the sweetest boys* in the class her words still held the blow of disappointment and shame for not being the best you could be. Hearts still sang with surprise and delight and tears still burst out and the squabbles of fists and words were easily healed with quiet words from teacher and a hug or a handshake between classmates.

*Mark S. where ever you are, I'm really, really sorry. I know I apologized in first grade and again many years later at the Avenue A bus stop on 14th Street, but I just wanted to let you know I meant it that second time. And I mean it now.

Guest Artist: Rob - Once I Was

**

Robert Pappagallo is a native New Yorker who goes around shooting his city.

This photo may not be used without permission from Robert Pappagallo

Midnight At The Oasis

Staten Island Ferry

Sunday Memories: "Candy, Candy, Candy For A Penny" - Another Installment

These were the revealed holy grail of my youth, a mountain of them at the Essex Street Market, where, as Florence got fresh fish or fruit, I stared wishing for the prerequisite penny that might release the treasures within.

Needless to say, that never happened. Candy, a verboten item, rarely crossed our palms except for brief moments during Halloween and perhaps a birthday party or a successful begging from a friend's lode.

Now, it is utterly impossible for me to pass one without putting in the prerequisite quarter.

First post: Candy, Candy, Candy For A Penny - August 10, 2008

GUEST ARTIST: DANA - Encore - "One Day I Wrote A Sentence"

A series of Dana's writing.




How Dana, Guest Writer, started writing.

Ghost Longing (excerpt)

“His homecoming every night was thrill enough for me because his physical presence was sexually provocative. I loved the intimate challenge of living with a stranger. Present, but not completely knowable.”

GUEST ARTIST: DANA - Encore - The Sad Little Crone

A series of Dana's writing.



Another one of Dana's short New York stories.

I seem to have trouble visualizing accurately how my face betrays my age. Especially when I hit a patch of exhaustion and my color drains completely. On my birthday I went to Trinity Church to hear a concert by a group called Alhambra. They specialize in Sephardic songs accompanied by very exotic instruments. Sensuous and rhythmic 14th and 15th century melodies. When they ended, I was caught in their spell. But hunger and fatigue had to be remedied. I crossed the street to a dingy pizza joint and ordered a large orange juice. Then I plopped down at a corner table to simply rest. I closed my eyes for a moment and awoke suddenly when a young Asian woman poked her nose in my face and asked tenderly “Are you all right?” followed by, “May I buy you some lunch?”

My first thought was “I really must buy a new winter coat. My God, I must look dowdy."

“No lunch, please.” I told her I was enjoying my birthday but just needed a little rest. Then I stood up and left the place. She followed me asking where I lived and how I was planning to travel home. I kept reassuring her that I would take the subway, as usual. She offered to escort me down the steps. I refused her kind help Then she put something in my right hand and ran into the crowd. I opened my hand to find a neatly folded $5 bill. I was truly shocked but also touched and somewhat ashamed at her judgment of me. Her compassion brought tears to my eyes. So that’s how I appear to her!

When I got home I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. There she was – the dear little old lady or perhaps the sad little crone needing a good meal. I swore I’d save that $5 bill forever. But I broke my vow 4 days later.

SUNDAY MEMORIES: GUEST ARTIST: DANA - Encore-"If I Bring Forth What Is Inside Me, What I Bring Forth Will Save Me"

A series of Dana's writing.



This is Dana.

Her husband, before he was smart enough to marry her, had, as a teenager, a crush on Florence. When they all grew up, Dana and Florence and their husbands and children lived across the hall from one another on Lewis Street.

I knew Dana was the most beautiful woman I knew. And I knew this before I knew how to tie my shoe. I also knew she knew something about the world that would be essential to my survival. Perhaps it was the beautiful stones from Brazil she gave me after her trip there with her husband to help establish socialist co-op housing. Or maybe it was the tiny little Bolivian dolls given after another trip to continue developing affordable housing in South America. Or maybe it was the story book with real art as illustrations that told me there were more worlds beyond the wall of sound I heard every day from Florence's Steinway.

Whatever it was, what beamed from her heart and soul was a living example of utter enjoyment of every second of every moment to love, eat, laugh, talk, touch, live.

Today, at least 45 years after learning to tie my shoe, Dana is still the most beautiful woman I know. Or at least Number One of a very short list. And today she brought forth a story she had poured into devastating poetry. She said that when she wrote that story it saved her life. Once again, so many decades later, I learned of a world beyond the horizon of my own fear, my own pain, my own disbelief.

*The fortune cookie fortune Dana reads every morning as she fixes her hazelnut coffee.

GUEST ARTIST: DANA - Encore - Bus Drivers and Me

A series of Dana's writing.



Another one of Dana's short pieces. This really happened.

Note to Readers: You gotta know a little bit about the Village, the streets and the buses. If you have any questions, just drop a comment...

"Standing in a downpour on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street, I boarded a limited bus that would at least take me to a few blocks near my destination. My hope was to end up on Sixth Avenue and Third Street by dismounting at Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street. Not great. But doable.

It was 5pm and I needed to be at the movie theater by 5:20. The driver understood my anxiety and simply said, "Sit Down."


When the bus turned left on Eighth Street to Broadway, I was shocked. It had actually taken me even farther from my destination.

"Last stop!" he announced to all the passengers.

I was about to get off when again he said, "Sit Down."

Then he drove south on Broadway and turned right on Houston and right again on Sixth avenue heading north. I expected him to sail right past my movie. I stood up and again he ordered me to "Sit Down."

I gave up, wondering if maybe he was kidnapping me.

Then to my utter disbelief, he stopped illegally at Third and Sixth. He had taken me to a spot across the street from the movie theater!

"Bless you!" I said.

"Bless YOU! he replied. It was the one time he didn't say "Sit Down."

GUEST ARTIST: DANA - Encore -Wisdom of the Ages

A series of Dana's writing.



Another one of Dana's short pieces. The instructor of her writing class asked them to write about their wisdom.

Wisdom, if that applies to me, comes from my mother who insisted that I always stand up for myself and never contribute to my own problems by being too compromising. From my father, I learned to be compassionate, and caring empathetically. She imposed self-discipline. He welcomed social interactions and humor.

But life (marriage, motherhood and widowhood) together with many health calamities, taught me to trust in my eventual survival at any cost. This is what I hope my children will have picked up from me.

My personal philosophy includes all of the above PLUS the notion that to defer nothing is a wise attitude. There seems to be no reality in thinking "one day I will..." Probably you will not.

****

Dana's profile and other short pieces are:

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
"If I Bring Forth What Is Inside Me, What I Bring Forth Will Save Me"

Tuesday, May 19, 2009
"One Day I Wrote A Sentence"

Thursday, June 25, 2009
GUEST ARTIST: DANA - The Sad Little Crone

SUNDAY MEMORIES: GUEST ARTIST: DANA - Encore: The Gift That Kept On Giving

A series of Dana's writing.





PLEASE NOTE: A dress cost $25 in 1949.

***

An old friend sent my husband a holiday gift of two somber neckties from Sulka, the prestigious menswear store on Park Avenue. George wouldn’t wear either of them, even to a funeral, for fear of looking like the chief pall bearer.

So I decided to return them and cash them in. But Sulka, gracious to accept the return, would not give me cash. “We do not handle cash, Madame, just credit cards,” they explained. Instead, they gave me a gift certificate for $60.

I gave George the gift certificate and suggested he visit Sulka himself and choose something else.

“You choose,” he said. So I tried.

But polo shirts were $80 each and other items were equally above the value of the certificate. Then we decided to give the gift certificate to my father on his 55th birthday. He was flattered, but he in turn gave it to my brother on his 35th birthday.

When George’s birthday came around, the next September – lo and behold – my brother sent him the Sulka certificate, by now a bit ragged from age. One certificate had solved everyone’s gift problem.

So once again, I went back to Sulka’s and only had to add $20 to the certificate to buy my husband two pairs of woollen socks from Scotland. They were by far the most beautiful luxurious and warm socks he would ever own.

That is, until the moths got into them. The moths had good taste.

***

Other short works by Dana:

Wisdom of the Ages

GUEST ARTIST: DANA - Encore - The Pot Of Gold

A series of Dana's writing.



Marian and I had high expectations. We were about to go to see a one-woman theatre piece calls “the Amish Project”. It referred to the tragic murder of thirteen school kids whose Amish classroom was invaded by an armed lunatic.

At first I refused to join Marian in reliving such a terror. But word came from several critics of its unique value. Travel plans were finalized, and I was nearly dressed when Marian called at the last moment to tell me that there was a long, steep flight of steps from the street entrance up to the theater.

I am too disabled to manage those damn steps.

Marian decided to go alone. This was another time I had been rebuffed by architecture. Suddenly my missed evening struck me harder than the play’s tragic subject. I moped regretfully the remainder of the afternoon.

Stepping outside on my terrace to relieve the blues, I was thrilled to see a dazzling rainbow its enormous arc embracing the sky from mid-Manhattan to north Brooklyn, I began shouting to the strollers eleven stories below to “look up, look up, a rainbow!” But no one heard me. I was the sole beneficiary of the splendor. I was Finian himself.

GUEST ARTIST: DANA - Encore: Time Flies When...

A series of Dana's writing.



It was supposed to be a brief meal.

Four hours later, I was still laughing too hard to write down everything Dana said.

But she had been warned. When one encounters a better writer than oneself one can only rip off said writer in self defense.

On certain attempts of style:

"He combs his hair with a washcloth."

On the insults of aging and limited mobility:

"I could fool anything but a flight of stairs."

On the fact her doctor is moving her office right across the street from her apartment:

"I won't be late if there's no red light."

And last, but not least, on our favorite actor:

"He's a walking sex experience."

SUNDAY MEMORIES: GUEST ARTIST: DANA - My England

A series of Dana's writing.

Dana (photo by T. Krever)

The massive doors of the Frick Collection on East 70th Street were my entry into viewing centuries of breathtaking paintings. This jewel-box like museum, once the home of Henry Clay Frick, opened my eyes to English landscapes and portraits of the past. One could almost breathe the country air in the 18th Century paintings of John Constable, born in Suffolk, England in 1776.

One of this great works depicted the immense Salisbury Cathedral settled like a huge, centuries-old edifice on the even larger Salisbury Plain. I was wondering how its interior would feel if I were ever fortunate enough to visit England one day. In my dreams!

Around that time, I played hostess to a delightful English couple, John and Patti, who came to New York City hoping to publish one of John's manuscripts. My contribution became bed and board, no charge. Sadly, they returned home empty handed. Some time later they invited us to stay with them while we vacationed in London. Perhaps my dream of walking into Constable's 1826 painting would come true.

And then it did. But not as any one would have hoped or expected. We were invited to a funeral.

The bereaved family were old friends of our hosts. And to signify the loss of all losses - that of their 12-year-old son - they invited hundreds of friends to Salisbury's national treasure. Showing incomparable strength, they embraced and led their 17-year-old son to the speaker's lectern where he told of the accidental death of his brother whom he had been driving to school Unable to avert a tragic collision, he expressed his tortuous grief, consoled and loved by his parents as he spoke.

I began remembering the loss of my only daughter years ago. She had died two minutes after her birth. I had never seen her face. Yet for years, I had mourned her.

During the Bishop's service I heard the hum of a bagpipe's drone. It seemed miles away in the echoing of the huge cathedral's interior. A hush fell over all the attendees as the dirge of a single piper emerged slowly and penetratingly from the near of the cathedral. He was attired in his clan's tartan and soon passed my seat. His pipes chilled my bones, and I wept.

Then the piper marched onward to the entry of the cathedral and his sad sound eventually trailed off into silence

We all were asked to proceed outside to a large tent where service staff had set out tea and plain cake.

Through the quiet murmur of conversation and little sighs, I stood apart from the others while a light rain fell. No one seemed to notice as they sipped their tea.

The magnificence of the painting had come to life and I had finally stepped within its mysterious interior. But not as any one would have hoped or expected.

GUEST ARTIST: DANA - Ghost Longings

A series of Dana's writing.




There he stood.

In the doorway.

I gasped. At age 40, he was ruggedly attractive with faintly almond-shaped eyes, pea-green, and accented with dark brown eyebrows.

After rocking back and forth on his heels, he stepped forward and said, "So!" This was his way of saying "Here I am. What's happening here?"

The subliminal message was "I've been gone all day. Surely you've had time to redecorate the living room and buy a new gadget for the kitchen. Maybe you've gone gallery-hopping and put a deposit on a small watercolor. We'll take a look at it together this weekend and decide whether or not to buy it."

Of course, I had not done any of the above, but he had an appetite for constant change. He loved to make endless travel plans. This aspect of pleasing him was perfect for me. It generated enough activity in the planning stages alone to placate him. And I loved seeing new places.

Otherwise, daily routines were not kick enough to challenge him. So it was my role to be the entertainer and provider of amusement.

His homecoming every night was thrill enough for me because his physical presence was sexually provocative. I loved the intimate challenge of living with a stranger. Present, but not completely knowable.

So.

Here he was in the doorway again.

Only two weeks after his premature death.

**

Previous post in the series:

Tickets