Memories of Greener Days

When I was in the third grade, I had a green, short thermos. Wide-mouthed and plastic in that 70s avocado green that was so en vogue. The thermos was just large enough to accommodate one of the small cans of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup, and for some reason, I was very aware that this thermos was lined with glass. I remember carrying it gingerly and worrying about it often. That I would drop the thermos and the glass would break. I remember that being a big concern of mine, although I was glad to have the soup for lunch. One day, at lunch on the blacktop, a boy grabbed my thermos. To my amazement, he threw it as far as he could across the playground. I remember being frozen, stunned. Shocked. It seemed that he had thrown that thermos incredibly far, and then he ran away. When I retrieved my short, wide-mouthed avocado green thermos from across the playground, it was leaking soup from its threaded matching cap and when I picked it up, I could sense the broken glass moving around inside the liquid. In my little 8-year old mind, it felt like a huge violation and a random, unexplicable act that frightened me.

Last year, reluctantly, I signed up for Facebook. To this day, I'm still not quite sure why I did. My sister, almost five years younger than me and more of a socially inclined person, encouraged me by saying things like, "You'll have so much fun finding your old school friends."

Which always made me laugh because we both knew darned well that I barely remembered anyone from any year of school, K through 12. And probably college, for that matter. With whom and why would I reconnect? Even my mom would ask me periodically, after some mother of a former classmate said, "Tell Julie so-and-so said hello!" and I would draw a total blank. My mom would say, "Do you remember going to school at all?" And we would laugh but it was pretty strange. I can remember my teachers, what we learned, what the classrooms looked like, but I'm hard-pressed to remember any given child besides their name. What I also discovered was how much I didn't remember about myself, which was a little more disconcerting.

***

A few weeks ago, I looked at the people on Facebook who were in my high school. There were a couple of girlfriends there, girls I remember hanging out with after school, getting pizza and sodas with. They're married, they have kids now. They politely said hello when I sent messages to them. I complimented them on their families.

There was the usual assortment of pretty girls I never spoke to, cheerleaders that annoyed me, and the boys especially that made me draw my accustomed mental blank slate. A few of the dorky ones seemed vaguely familiar.

And then I saw that boy. The Thermos Boy. I sent him a funny note, something like:

Hey, you probably don't remember me but in third grade, you broke my soup thermos and I thought I should let you know. Happy Holidays!

I didn't expect a reply. I guess I didn't expect him to remember me. Expecting that most people wouldn't remember me just like I didn't really remember them. I was just happy to have something to recall. I don't know what I would have written to anyone else (Hey, we went to school together but I don't remember shit about you isn't worth writing.)

But I was wrong. This person did remember me, with much kindness. In fact, he remembered me quite well and throughout our most of our school years. He recounted teachers and kids that were lingering in the back of my mind, dusted off and dimly seen again for the first time in years. It was charming, a sweet novelty. He also apologized about the Thermos.

It was so intriguing seeing myself through someone else's eyes, someone who I barely knew but who seemed to know the-me-that-was quite well.

***

He lives in another state now, has a little boy himself. He mentioned that he would be visiting the Bay Area for Christmas, and I suggested that they come up for a visit, and I would take their photos together as a present. I was curious to see what we would talk about. I wanted more of my memories.

We had a lovely visit. His son is a warmly engaging and friendly boy, who walks up to everyone he sees and says Hi! and grabs your index finger in a tiny handshake. The child also walks around saying Hey, you! Look at this! and points to all kinds of things he finds of interest.

And all through that, like dictation, came little snippets of my life, not from me, but from this man who was somehow still a boy, too. We walked around the Conservatory of Flowers, a fin-de-siecle confection of a building, humid like the tropics and full of mist and broad green leaves. In this greenhouse, the pale winter light was colored as it passed through the old stained glass, shining brightly blues, reds, greens, violets on us as we looked at the fecundity of the jungle.

I felt like I had been given a gift. The gift of myself as a girl remembered, green and vibrant like a little precious terrarium and I could peer inside of it, and see the tiny girl's world that lived inside. The green, new and tender world of life before sex: before the body is changed, broken, before the heart has expectations too big to realize, before the mind grows up and thinks it knows everything.

And no more of the memory of the broken thermos, with those sharp shards floating inside.

дочерний

"Can a man who's warm understand one who's freezing?" ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Yesterday I took a detour. In order to avoid waiting 22 minutes for the 44 bus, I took a walk that brought me back to age 25.

Instead of waiting near Green Apple Books for the bus to take me home, I decided to start walking, not home, but just walking so I wouldn't be standing in the bus shelter for nothing. I headed down Geary, towards the ocean. For some reason, I'm never on Geary, but it was a sunny day, fine for strolling and it seemed a lot better than waiting for the bus anyway, especially since I had no particular place to go but home.

The farther I headed down Geary, the closer I got to Russia. Ever since I can remember as an adult, random Russians (and probably Ukranians, too) have come up to me to ask me something, maybe the time, directions. But in Russian, not English. It used to make me laugh and was always a little surprising. How did they know? I grew up in San Jose. Sometimes I would ask, after explaining I didn't understand the question, and if they spoke English, they said they could tell I was one of them from my nose, my lips. My facial features gave me away.

I was so surprised. It felt odd, and oddly comforting, to be recognized by an ethnic group that obviously I am tied to by ancestry but not much else.

Today I did not get the questions, but some knowing, but very faint, smiles. I returned the tight-lipped smiles. As I walked, I walked further back into my past, into my twenties. I thought of my ex-husband and his family. They had left the Soviet Union, their home in Moscow, back in the mid-Seventies, during the diaspora that sent many Russians (mostly Jews) to the US or to Israel. My husband's father was Jewish by birth but had never been raised in a religious family. But his paperwork branded him Semite and that was enough to make his life difficult. My husband's mother was a Russian Orthodox. But that didn't stop the antisemitism from ruining their lives and his mother was an outcast from her own family for marrying a Jew, and his father was eventually fired from his job as an engineer for being born into the wrong race. In Soviet Russia, Jewishness was a race, not a religion. They had no way to survive or make a home for their two small boys, so they emigrated to the US. To San Francisco.

Little bits and pieces of that past life started to come back to me. I didn't meet my husband until we were in college, although I remembered him from high school. Very shy, with a very heavy accent, he got better grades in Honors American History than the rest of his American-born classmates (including me) and never talked to anyone, at least that I could tell. He had learned to speak English by watching television and had learned to read it by devouring comic books, his only boyish vice. All I wanted to do was save him. And then when I met his family, I wanted to save them too. I wanted to make them happy to be in America. Even though they could not go home, they never seemed anything but dispossessed.

The Russian people —not to stereotype, but nationalities do have their own distinctive character and I came to know the Russian one quite well— and not to be confused with the Ukranian Jewish background of my grandma Annette (and her tales of escaping the Cossack raids and her crossing to America in steerage), but the more modern, pre-Berlin Wall falling Muscovites that survived Stalin and his successors. That dark humor, developed from standing in endless lines to buy black bread, watermelons, cooking oil. The wry understanding that came from bribing officials with black market books and ballpoint pens. The plain white walls and the fake wood paneling. The meager furniture and dull, flat carpets covered in red and blue Persian rugs. The memories of the lazy summers at the dacha. The boiled chicken. The red beets. The pickles. The tea with jam.

They wanted for nothing. They didn't want anything. They only left the house when it was necessary: to go to the store, to run errands. The rest of life was spent at home, reading books in Russian, listening to the radio. I was their connection to the world: the entertainment, the storyteller, the birthday rememberer. God it was hard. It was more than I could handle in the end.

When I left, I didn't look back. Sometimes I regret that ending, but I don't know if I could have done it any other way without crumbling. I think that is why I hadn't been down Geary in a long time. I can go to Chinatown, the Mission, anywhere else in the city without having to deal with my memories. But when these random people smile at me, I feel a twinge, and I miss a little bit of that world.

I stood for a while in front of the Russian Orthodox Church and watched two men talking outside the front doors. One of the men was doing repairs. The golden onion domes sparkled so brightly under the blue sky. In the past, those domes had seemed so huge to me, like St. Basil's in Red Square. But this day, those domes finally felt small, or at least in perspective.

Always a view.

E. on the steps near one of her past residences.
Near Union, in North Beach

***

I've been wanting to share this story with you for a few days now, but other things kept interrupting me and I wasn't able to get into my writing mind long enough to tell this story. Today, it's rainy, the first rain of the season which, in the Bay Area, is enough to drive every other story off the front page because... well, because it's raining.

But because it's raining, I've had to cancel other plans and now it's that quiet, wet afternoon with the windows speckled with water and the cars swooshing by, that I can write about E.

***

E. was the first person to contact me after the article in the Chronicle came out. She briefly explained that she'd lived in San Francisco for over 40 years and had a project she wanted to talk to me about. We played a little phone and email tag over the next day.

When we finally got to talk on the phone, I heard an intelligent conversationalist on the other end of the line. Her voice was strong and a little commanding. She sounded a chipper 60 years old, not the age of 81 that she'd given me. She told me that she wanted to go around the city, and take photos of all of the places she's lived and worked for over 40 years here. We compared notes on buildings and places throughout San Francisco that we loved. We compared favorite San Francisco movie scenes. "I've lived in almost every neighborhood in the city," she explained. "And I've always had a view. The only room in my place now that doesn't have a view is the bathroom." She laughed.

I told her how excited I was to meet her and help her with her quest. She said that normally she would have taken the pictures herself, but given her health lately that would be hard to do. She wanted to make a book of photos of these homes and offices as gifts for family and friends, who have helped her so much in recent times.

"I don't want you to feel sorry for me," she said. "But I'm recovering from a brain tumor. You know, like what Ted Kennedy died of."

We made a date to meet a few days later, and start her trip down Memory Lane together.

***

E.'s apartment is lovely, with a picture perfect view of the Marina, Palace of Fine Arts and the Golden Gate Bridge. It looks exactly like a postcard view that was blown up to window size and then pasted to the wall, that's how pretty it is.

Her apartment is filled with books, art and photographs. Antiques and more books. I spied several books that I wanted to borrow, and even more that I had read. She took me around, showing me photos of her children and her grandchildren, herself as a young woman, her parents in their beautiful wedding attire and framed in gilded wooden frames that hung in her bedroom, near her bed.

Instantly I had this fantasy that E., with her lovely manicure and silver jewelry and stylish fall ensemble, was the worldly, educated grandmother that I never had. She spun tales of North Beach, and working in the cocktail bars in North Beach where she knew Miles Davis and Mort Sahl. Her brother had met Alfred Hitchcock while he was in town, filming Vertigo. Imogen Cunningham and Ruth Asawa had been neighbors. Cunningham had taken her portrait years ago, but she hadn't liked it, and had ripped it up. (I shuddered at the thought.) She pulled out books for me, books she knew I'd like, that were written about San Francisco's history. She seemed to know each of the authors. I was smitten.

We started our walking tour in Russian Hill and then North Beach, where she'd lived in several apartments and homes. We climbed hills and I took her arm to steady her. Amazed that she was able to climb these hills, albeit slowly, that winded us both. We stopped to admire the views. I took photos of the places she'd lived and she told me when she lived there, if she was married at the time, how old her children were. She told me what buildings had been torn down, what used to be where and her memory for the way the city used to be was amazing to me. At one point we encountered an 87 year old neighbor that she hadn't seen since the early 1970s. We were invited inside for a glass of water as the Blue Angels tore up the sky, practicing for Fleet Week.

The photo above is the last place we took pictures that day. A studio apartment that was only $95 a month, and the light from Alcatraz's lighthouse routinely made her bedroom glow at night. She described the sound of the foghorns and how they made her feel cozy at night. For anyone, myself included, who's lucky enough to hear the foghorns off the coast regularly, you know what it means to hear them at 3am. You don't mind it at all.

Anyway, I hope there will be more to tell about E. and that we'll be out in other places of the city soon, her health permitting. I hope she'll be a part of i live here:SF, but either way, just taking E.'s tour of San Francisco is a pleasure I won't soon forget.

what would have happened.

I found this photo today. I wish I could call her and tell her I'm going to be in the newspaper on Thursday. She would have loved to have a clipping to show her friends.

***

I am supposed to be in the newspaper on Thursday. October 1, in the San Francisco Chronicle. (When I say I, I mean me and the i live here:SF project.)

I say supposed to just because, well, you know how things are. I guess the Chron could still change their minds and not run the story but I should be more confident about it and say Yes, I'm going to be in the paper on Thursday. You should pick up a copy. And get an extra for a friend.

I'm still going to be excited about the whole newspaper story in a little while, but that sharp sticking poke of loss from finding Little Helen in my photo software is taking a few minutes to shake off. Keeping busy does wonders in the intentional forgetting and moving on department but it still does catch up with you.

I can picture her sitting in that blue recliner, next to her metal TV tray with a collection of PARADE magazines and clipped coupons and cough drops, with her collection of small, perfectly sharpened ends of pencils (she liked to save the tiniest bits of pencils and rubberband them in bunches), and this newly printed newspaper article about her first granddaughter, who has a photography project that got into the San Francisco newspaper. Can you believe it? Little Julie Michelle! In the newspapers!

She would call me and tell me how proud of me she was.

I know she would.

14,325 days ago, 4 days ago, today

14,325 days ago (39 years ago), a young man came back to the United States after his tour of duty, serving his country in Vietnam. He came through San Francisco on his way home. I don't know this man or know the details of the story, but I do understand that he was treated poorly, with disrespect and hate. It was wrong. It was undeserved.

14,325 days ago (39 years ago), I was learning to walk without the metal braces I'd had on my legs since I was a baby. No longer would people openly stare at me and ask my mother if I was a cripple, breaking her heart. I lived just outside of Washington DC when this young soldier came home to the United States, via San Francisco.

14,325 days ago is 20,628,000 minutes is 39 years.

At that time, one person became whole and one became hurt.

One stopped being stared at and discriminated against and one started to be, and neither one was to blame.

Luckily, I am the one who does not remember what that was like.

***

4 days ago this man wrote a comment on my post about my new San Francisco project, and it was an angry but sincere comment, so I published it even though sometimes I feel that when people say they read my blog, they really don't, based on the comments I get. They assume they know everything about you because you write a blog, or they know all about you based on where you live or what the color of your skin is or how much money you make.

Sometimes, including 4 days ago, people write to leave a comment so that they can be HEARD from the rooftops, my rooftops, even though those rooftops are small and not many people are listening because they're all too busy thinking about something else.

In truth, I'd rather have comments that stay on topic to the post, because then I feel like someone actually took the time to read what I took the time to write. But I'd also rather publish a comment that had some feeling in it, rather than the millisecond comment "nice blog."

***

Today, I would like to thank that man who, 14,325 days ago, served our country proudly and with his heart and sweat and tears, and also say I'm sorry that he was treated shabbily and without honor, by a nation of which some people in some places were arrogant, ignorant and insensitive. I can't apologize for those particular people, or even for San Francisco, where this hurt occurred, because I wasn't one of the ones who participated in such behaviour, and I didn't even live here.

14,325 days ago, I was learning to walk and be a little girl.

***

14,325 days down Memory Lane is a long time. I know we all wander down Memory Lane, and lots of what we remember during our travels back there end up on our blogs and sometimes those memories end up making us smile, or may end up hurting us in painful ways we thought we had forgotten.

Or else we never left Memory Lane at all, and to me that is very sad and quite a waste of a life.

I would like to think that in 14,325 days, 20,628,000 minutes, or 39 years, people or places would shift and change and that my impression of them at some time in the past would be subject to improvement.

I would also like to think that for the next 14,325 days that this man has before him, if he is to be so lucky, and all of the days that possibly lie before all of us, that we spend more time looking forward than we do looking back, if it does not serve to make our lives more joyous.

We may not have 14,325 days ahead. We may only have a few.

***

First photo taken in the Haight, where all of the sidewalks have something to say.

Second photo taken in the sweet and haunting pet cemetery in the Presidio, where beloved pets sleep forever under the freeway overpass.

Charles Darwin: Birthday Guy

"The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID [intelligent design] is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory." ~ from Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al., Case No. 04cv2688

***

Doubtless the blogosphere will be full of Darwin-related posts today, so rather than recreate the wheel, I'll tell you a little story... from whence the Science Dweeb evolved.

When I was very young, up until the age of three, I wore leg braces to correct a congenital hip defect, and was unable to walk very much. My mom, in her young and infinite wisdom, used to take me often in my stroller to the Smithsonian Institution, to see the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History.

The museum was free (which was ideal for our tiny family's meager budget) and I happened to love dinosaurs, even as a very little girl. I didn't go to preschool. I went to the museums with my mother. I knew my Monets from my Manets, too.

Apparently, I could identify most of the dinosaurs and animals in the main exhibits, and could pronounce their convoluted names with perfect clarity (not that I could repeat such a feat now-- the ravages of aging on the memory apply here) . The most oft-repeated story is about a class of older children, maybe sixth graders, who were visiting the museum with their teacher on a field trip.

My mother and I were in amongst the crowd, but I was totally concealed, being much shorter than everyone else (seated in my low-rider stroller). The teacher, taking her class past every dinosaur, would ask them: Now what is the name of this dinosaur? To which the entire class would not answer, but I did. I kept offering up the names to the questions, unseen by all, in my biggest little girl voice.

Finally, the teacher, wondering where the tiny voice was emanating from that kept saying things like "Brontosaurus!" "Triceratops!" and "Stegosaurus!", discovered me, hidden in the forest of taller children's legs, sitting in my stroller. The teacher asked my mother if I was a midget. I guess that was the only thing she could come up with, as to how a two-year-old could possibly know her dinosaurs so well.

Thanks, Mommy, for starting me out right in a lifetime of wanting to know stuff. I don't think I'll ever stop.

xoxo

***

Now when I'm outside and see a blue jay hopping about, being so fierce and territorial in his little birdlike way, I look at him and smile and remember that some of the dinosaurs I loved so much are still around. They're just a lot smaller than they used to be.

***

Today is Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. I don't have the energy or patience to discuss why Ben Stein and his moronic documentary is garnering any attention at all, and why Intelligent Design is even an issue that is still getting discussed, and why sometimes it seems like we haven't gotten very far at all since the Scopes Trial. I'm just going to wish Mr. Darwin a very happy birthday and celebrate that his discovery is still a candle burning brightly against the darkness of misguided and wishful thinking. (Note: I'm unapologetically not posting any pro-ID/anti-evolution comments here, so don't send them.)

An article that gives a nice overview to Darwin and his legacy is here. You can read more about International Darwin Day here. And for every single Darwin-related event in the SF Bay Area, check out evolve2009.org. And last, but not least, the young, bright legal mind at Thaumaturgic Ramblings was smart enough yesterday to post his Darwin Day Eve post, so catch his thoughts here. Survival of the fastest.

One particular event that caught my eye: there's going to be a very interesting lecture at the California Academy of Sciences, given by Dr. Kevin Padian, Professor at the Dept. of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley, on March 24. Dr. Padian will be discussing his experience as an expert witness in the 2005 Pennsylvania trial, Kitzmiller vs. Dover, that ruled against the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. You can find out more about this event here. I've got my ticket.

And watch out for dinosaurs around you. They didn't really all become extinct... some of them evolved. Ain't that a kick in the head? I love it.

An Excerpt

LIPS

They call it "chemo skin." It's fragile, so soft, almost translucent looking. It has a beautiful but disturbing glow.

The woman perched on the chair before her, wearing an autumnal looking sweater, all cabled and tweedy in shades of oranges and golds, was wearing a matching turban on her head.

The makeup counter at the Stanford store is very close to Stanford Hospital. The woman told her that she was finishing her round of chemotherapy before going back to her hometown. She was staying in a nearby hotel, with her husband.

The thing you learn when being a makeup artist is how to find a commonality with whomever is sitting before you. Aside from the regular or irregular features, the wishes and desires are also what you learn to tune into. Most people will share the same themes with you (I don't know what I'm doing with my makeup, I need a change). But you always can suss out the deeper desires. Some people will break down and tell you after a few minutes, and some might simply break down, crying. It happens. That's why you always have a box of tissues handy. Not just for wiping brushes but for dabbing tears.

The woman in the chair with the heavy sweater and the turban, dressed for autumn in the heat of summer. Her hands were thin and chilled. The skin so fragile, so thin, that barrier between blood and the atmosphere.

She assembles her clean brushes, some q-tips, some cotton, on a clean tissue. The woman before her is tired and quiet, so she starts working without any direction.

The first thing she must do for this sweet, aging face is to give it some hair. The woman has no eyebrows, no eyelashes. They were victims of the cruel chemicals that are trying to kill the cancer cells but with their loss, her face is fading away.

She has learned to master the art of the eyebrow. Shaping its geometry is not easy and takes practice. There is an actual science to it, but this will be the first time she's created something from absolutely nothing. First, to locate the spot where the brow would naturally sit. Then, to skillfully sketch in tiny hairs to create those delicate arches. The trick is to make the sketch marks look like they have dimension. A waxy brow pencil is the first step, but then adding layers of different powders gives the illusion of depth.

Then the lashline. How to make it natural, yet defined, not too overwhelming so that it's apparent there are no lashes there? The thinnest flat brush, wetted and dark with waterproof cake liner in brown, not black. Applied to the inside of the lashline where the hairs would grow. Deft flicks of the brush bring the eye into shape. Then a smudge of shadow, above, blended. The effect is soft. It works.

All this time, the woman is quiet. She seems to be resting, napping. Enjoying. When the woman finally sees herself in the mirror, finished, she sighs. She cannot stop talking about how wonderful she feels with this face on. Both of them look at each other with glistening, teary eyes. The woman adores the lipstick, a glossy sheer warm red with a golden tinge. Simply is crazy for it, she's so thrilled. All her life, she says, she's been searching for the perfect color of lipstick (like so many women) and finally she's found it. An $18 tube of color and shine that's made her feel complete.

The two hug, rejoice for the simple happiness of finding the perfect lipstick. They part with kisses.

The next day, the woman comes back with her receipt and the lipstick in the bag and a stoic attitude. "My husband didn't like the color."

She is floored. All of the happy thoughts of yesterday evaporate instantly. "Then tell him not to wear it." She says it in a joking way but actually she's dead serious. What else can she say? Who gives a flying fuck about what the husband thinks? His wife is dying before his eyes.

Amazing. She's never forgotten that woman, to this day. Her greatest hope is that the woman recovered fully from her cancer, and has left that man in the dust. Perhaps she has a lover now, and eyebrows and eyelashes and a beautiful, perfect shade of lipstick.

***

The above is part of the writing project I mentioned. I'm relieved to know that as I'm getting older, the moments in my life that I thought were disappearing from my memory are still there. They might take a little more digging, but once I start, the scenes are lining up in my mind, one after the other, impatiently waiting to be dusted off and told to someone, to you.

That photo is one I took when I first got the camera, and it makes me happy to realize that I can also reach back into my own cache and find my images that help support what I'm writing now.

It's a good feeling to know that everything you need is right there for you. And thanks to all of you who are already infusing my project with the encouragement and support I need to keep going.

Okay, time to get ready for work.

xoxo

Let's Face the Music and Dance

“A good dancer is one who listens to the music... We dance the music, not the steps. Anyone who aspires to dance never thinks about what he is going to do. What he cares about is that he follows the music. You see, we are painters. We paint the music with our feet..." ~ Carlos Gavito



Gosh, I haven't watched this video in ages. This video feels positively prehistoric to me.

It's the only video I have of me dancing tango.

I have to try to love this video more than feel terribly uncomfortable watching it (i.e., cringing) because I was having such a wonderful time dancing, with a leader that I love to dance with. But I also have that inner critic watching me, looking at my form, tsk-tsk-ing at all of the mistakes I made. And then that brings up all of my other tango-related issues.

But then I look again, take my imaginary hands away from my eyes and remember the warm summer night, the music, my new shoes (that dance was a test drive for a new pair of shoes from Argentina), the pleasure of dancing to a song I love with someone who likes dancing with me. The impromptu creativity of the dance where you never know what the next step will be but you just feel the music and follow what you are led. Painting the music with our feet.

And at the end. How we laughed.

I have to send an email to that guy and say hello. It's been forever and a day. I need to get my dancing shoes out. For reals.

***

ps.: The story of the video is here.

pss.: "Let's Face the Music and Dance" is one of my favorite Astaire/Rogers numbers, from Follow the Fleet. I know the film is not as well known as some of their others, but I really like it.

psss.: A nod o' the head to Gabby and Lala, who both in their own little ways inspired this post even though they might not realize it. And to my sweet friend Red Shoes, who was brave first and who will get me back on the dance floor sooner than later.

Tell Me What I Want to Hear

"The best of seers is he who guesses well." ~ Euripides

***

"You're one of those artistic photographers, aren't you?" the young street artist asked me today as he was leaning his painted canvases against a cement wall. He was dressed in baggy jeans, a flannel shirt and his hair was sticking out around his head like a faint afro halo.

He had a friendly smile, and his question sounded more of a statement.

"I guess you can say that," I answered, feeling shy. I have gone through various incarnations since getting my hands on this camera in April. It's still wierd to think I might be considered to be a photographer in any way. I have been taking photos for less than a year. I don't have a fancy camera. I haven't taken a photography class. I don't know what I am doing.

Not really qualifications for someone to be called a photographer, let alone an artistic one.

But his question made me stop in my tracks. I tried to own my answer: I guess you can say that.

It also made me wonder, what is it about receiving information from a strange or unexpected place that can hold sway over the person who receives it? I mean, how did this guy know to say that to me? I was not taking photos. I was just walking down the street. He went on to explain himself without my asking, perhaps hearing the hesitation in my voice: "You walk like you're looking for something. You walk like a photographer."

Wow. Thank you, mystery street artist. I really needed to hear that.

***

Several years ago, I was going through a really really tough time, and I needed some cosmic answers STAT. I went to a psychic who came highly recommended, a little Italian woman who wore velour sweatsuits and had dark, short curly hair and wore bifocals. She was bubbly and at the same time, very matter of fact. At the end of the hour, I was both soothed and amazed.

She read her Tarot cards like she was reading the Sunday paper to me, and told me all I needed to know. I listened to the tape she gave me over and over again, when I needed to boost my resolve and feel brave. Her information helped me when I thought I couldn't get help anywhere else. I was amazed by her perceptive powers.

Years later, I went to see the psychic again. This time, I was more curious, and much more skeptical. I had some questions, but they were not so burning that I didn't feel they were unanswerable. I think I just wanted to compare her advice to my inner voice.

This time, the reading was different. It was boring. I didn't think it did much for me at all, except to take $100 out of my checking account and put it in hers. When I got home, I listened to both of my tapes, the old one and the new one. Some of her advice was identical, verbatim stock phrases, delivered in vague terms. In the first tape, I heard myself giving her information, which then became the wisdom she offered me.

I had never noticed that before. That I had been the one talking. All this time I thought she was just offering unsolicited wisdom. But I had been supplying the clues, with my tears, the whole time. No wonder she knew what to say.

I didn't feel taken advantage of. It just made me realize that next time I could give myself an injection of my own wisdom and save myself a Benjamin.

***

I really enjoyed my little gift of unanticipated street wisdom today from that random fellow, partly because I did not say a word to him first, and because it was unsolicited. But it still gave me something I needed to hear today.

It made me hope that I give out little bits of random, helpful wisdom to others in need once in a while.

Like I'm a hidden angel hanging out somewhere unexpected, like over the doorway of a bar. Like this little guy.

Or that I'm a friend, even if you can't see me.

Or that somehow, some day, you might paint this on the sidewalk (even if it's just a sidewalk in your mind).

Or that I might paint this on my own sidewalk.

***

All photos taken today in the Mission.
Thanks, street artist angel.

Tradition

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” ~ Buddha

“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.” ~ Stuart Chase

***

I wanted to thank all of you who so sweetly wished me a happy Chanukkah/ Hanukkah (however you like to spell it... I could never get the spelling right) from the last post.

I kind of feel like a heel. Part of me wants to just to revel in your lovely wishes because I know it made you happy to wish that for me. And it made me happy to receive your wishes, your blessings. You are all so very very kind. But the other part of me has to come clean and say I don't celebrate Hanukkah (or any other holidays) anymore. I fell off the wagon quite a while ago.

I think I first started to fall off it around the age of eight or ten. It had to do with me reading the story of Abraham and the Sacrifice of Issac, in a book I used to really love called The Children's Story of Israel. It was a really interesting book. I remember loving to read it, not only for the vivid stories, but for the smell and feel of the paper, and the stark black and white illustrations. I think they were engravings. The paper was incredibly silky and smooth. I remember just running my fingers over the pages because they felt beautiful. It was odd. I've never had another book quite like it. I have no idea where that book went to, but it was old.

Anyway, I used to read that book a lot. And then one day it dawned on me what was really going on in that story of Abraham and Isaac. I understood that it meant that Abraham might actually kill his own son because God told him to. And what would that say about any father who might get a message from God. That scared the piss out of me, to be quite frank. I never read that book again. I remember feeling betrayed. And it made me wonder exactly where these stories were coming from and why I read them.

This post isn't to rain on anyone's parade (I don't mean to do that in the least) or to expound what I believe or don't believe. But what this holiday wishing made made me think about is Tradition. Why we believe what we believe.

Like the Buddha says in that quote above: How much of our beliefs are our own? And how often do we question ourselves and our own minds? What is the relationship between our individual identity and what is forged by the traditions and beliefs handed down to us?

***

In thinking about my Hanukkahs of the past, I think about my grandmothers. My grandma Helen (aka Little Helen) and my grandma Annette. For Grandma Helen, I remember the potato latkes and how I've never had any that taste better than hers did. Every year she would come to my mother's house, with an old metal food grinder in an ancient cardboard box. The grinder part was held on by rubber bands. My mom and I would peel potatoes, keeping them in a bowl of water to keep them from turning pink, until Grandma Helen could grind them up into a big bowl filled with eggs, onions and flecks of black pepper. I remember her forehead getting damp. It was hard work grinding all of those potatoes.

But she said that's what made them taste so good and she was right about that. I've just come to realize that I'll never have that particular taste in my mouth again.

And then there was my Grandma Annette. In her being absent for most of my life now, I think she's come to make a greater impression on me because I didn't know her well. But she represented Tradition to me in a way I craved. She came from the "Old Country" (the Ukraine) as she called it in her heavy accented English, and I still vaguely remember her stories of village life and her brothers and sisters and escaping the Cossack raids.

She knew all of the Sabbath blessings and kept kosher. She was tiny and also very formidable in a quiet, fragile way. I used to watch Fiddler on the Roof a lot as a kid, because I imagined that her vanished village with no name was just like the one in the movie. In a way, I was probably right.

***

Looking back at grandma Annette and her lost world of the Old Country, I realized for many years that what I wanted, or perhaps envied most, was her tradition. The surety of a world where your place was known, where everyone knew what was expected of themselves and they were surrounded by a community that might have been confining but was also there as a protection. I had this fantasy of how life might just be so much easier if I knew exactly what I was supposed to be when I got older.

Unfortunately or fortunately, life in the 'burbs just isn't the same thing as life in the shtetl. Of course now I'm grateful that I ended up where I am, but for many years, I really felt I was missing out on something very subtle and very important. But my world is a lot bigger now. And I'm not so scared of it anymore. I'm not scared of not being what I thought I was going to be when I grew up, either.

***

Several years ago, I went on a business trip to Houston. On the flight home, my fellow passenger was an Orthodox rabbi. He had the peyes, the prayer shawl, the black hat. He was my age, rotund and jolly. He had five beautiful children (in his words, I'm sure they were) and he and his wife ran an Orthodox community in Dallas. He was flying to Palo Alto to perform a wedding.

Now all these years later, I felt like I finally had my chance. I had to ask him what was up with the Abraham and Isaac story. I told him what it did to my kid psyche and I could see on his face that I wasn't the only one who had a problem with the tale. He looked pained as I poured my heart out to him. He explained it to me, in what the metaphor of the story really meant, and apologized that no one was there to tell me that when I was young. I tried not to cry. But I did and he gave me his beverage napkin so I could blow my nose. His explanation was calming in its way, but still did not erase the savagery of the act that almost was.

I don't know why it affected me so, to have some closure on that story so many years after the fact. I mean, I could have gone to any temple around and just asked someone. But that was the right time for me. It was the right time, and at the same time, it was too late.

The rabbi and I kept in touch for a little while via email but whatever tradition I felt I should have had just wasn't inside me. I think some things you have to be exposed to at a very young age for them to take hold in your heart, otherwise the roots are just too shallow.

But I don't feel too badly, because I also realize that there was a little eight or ten year old girl who read something and then had an opinion about it and took a position. Above all else, I appreciate that little Julie who reads and thinks about what she reads. And wherever that tradition came from, I'm most grateful for that of all.

***

More and more, I'm fine with where I'm at. It's a journey though, and I'm still working on it. But I'm not as worried so much about not having all the answers.

“Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.” ~ George Carlin

***

Paintings by Marc Chagall: 1. Solitude (1933). 2. The Birthday (1915). 3. Title unknown (if you know, please tell me).

"One fine day... as my mother was putting the bread in the oven, I went up to her, and taking her by her flour-smeared elbow I said to her, 'Mama ... I want to be a painter.' " ~ Marc Chagall

All or Nothing/Starting Small

Words of wisdom: As you advance in age, falling asleep on the sofa is not a good thing for your back.

It is either very early in the morning or very late at night as I write this. If I was dancing tango, it would be very late at night. As things stand now, it's just very early in the morning.

A year ago today I wrote this post.

I still have that dress, that perfume, that bracelet and those shoes. I still can conjure up the feelings I had that evening just by reading my words again and listening to the music in the clip. The tango is still in me; it's like riding a bike or having sex. Even if you don't do it for a while, at your core you still know how to. For the scant remaining tango dancers that might still read my blog once in a while, you know exactly what I mean. For you new readers that came later and have never danced tango, you can use your imagination about that feeling and you'd probably be right.

I often think about why I haven't danced in months. I could say it is my personal finances that prevent it, or I could paint sweeping generalizations about the drama of participating in tango society or I could point fingers at specific people disguised in anonymity. Part of the reason is that tango, for some, requires a kind of immersion that is not copacetic with "real" life. To experience tango, for some, it's an all-or-nothing scene. Compromise is hard.

And I tend to be an all-or-nothing person.

Some people come to tango and it's like enjoying an apertif: they drink their cocktail, enjoy it, and then move on to dinner. And then there's the other people: they start with one drink and then stay until the bar closes. For them, tango cannot be practiced in moderation.

I think about going back to dance, but in the limited way I could manage, that would put me in the perceived lower echelon of random occasional dancer and that doesn't seem to be worth the effort. The retirement home of Tango.

So now I'm in this space where not dancing is like coming out of a bad romance: I don't want that guy in my life anymore, but I still think about him. Perhaps if I was younger, I would have made the sacrifice.

***

Speaking of being younger, last night I went to see something that was pretty awesome. In the inspiring, look what kids are doing today kind of way.

About five blocks away from my house is a circus school. I kid you not. The whole works: acrobatics, juggling, contortion, aerial silk and ropes. Of course they have adult classes, but I wonder how many adults could stick with such an education, even if they had comprehensive health coverage.

But those bendy and talented kids--they put on quite a show for us, a crowd of friends, family and a few random neighbors like me. It was a cross between an Andy Hardy movie (hey kids, let's put on a show in the barn!) and a seedling class of Cirque de Soleil future talent.

As much as I was enthused by the young performers and how capable they are (and slightly cringing at times in a protective reflex that someone was going to get hurt), I mostly felt so glad that these kids had the opportunity to discover something they loved from a very young age, practice it so they were advanced and talented enough to perform, and still have many years ahead to make their talents deepen. The little Julie inside me was more than slightly jealous of them having that chance. The older Julie knows not having found that creative niche as a kid has driven me to explore many kinds of outlets, tango included, but that creates the bedrock of my personal dilettantism, too.

Sometimes I feel like I'm too old to be good at anything at the deepest level. And the other part of me thinks I just haven't found that thing yet. And a tiny voice says that all of these thoughts surface in the wee hours because I should be sleeping right now.

But you'll be relieved to know for my own personal safety that I did not sign up for circus school.

Yet. They have an open house where you can try the flying trapeze and more on December 20. Hmmm.

Image: Tight-Rope Walker by Jean-Louis Forain, 1885.

What About Change?

Don't you know
They're talkin' bout a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Don't you know
They're talkin' about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper

While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion

Poor people gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
And take what's theirs

Don't you know
You better run, run, run...
Oh I said you better Run, run, run...
Finally the tables are starting to turn
Talkin' bout a revolution

***

First, a tip of the hat to Johanna and A Cuban in London for providing the elements that made this idea for a post finally come together.

***
I remember years ago, my sister and I waiting for hours to see Tracy Chapman perform at the Shoreline Ampitheatre, sitting on the lawn on a warm summer night, our backs hurting from hours on the ground, trying to find a comfortable way to sit. Finally, when Tracy came out and sang, it was so worth it.

Looking back, what a thrill it was to see her perform and sing along with the crowd to songs that were very moving and beloved by all of us. But now this song seems like its time has finally come. Even this version of the song, sung years later (and how has her voice changed) only adds more power to the words.

***

In a way, the election seems like it was ages ago.

I just got an email from David Plouffe yesterday (you may have gotten one, too), about taking a survey about the campaign and offering ideas about the new presidency to come in a short time. I was glad to see his name in my inbox again. Seemed like old times. ;-)

It made me think, along with Johanna's post, about what we're prepared to do now that change could truly be coming to us. I know there's a lot of speculation about Obama's cabinet, and people are already griping about this historic presidency being Clinton's Third Term and the far right is already planning its attacks and the man hasn't even taken office yet.

Aside from those distractions (which I'm trying really hard to avoid because I feel like this election has taken an emotional toll on me--you might feel the same way--and it's almost like I'm recovering from an ailment that has alternately made me incredibly depressed and also crazily elated), I know that a shift has come over me. I can't not care anymore about the future of our political system and the impact it has on us and our children's futures. Holding my baby niece and watching Little Curly Girl play made me realize how much we owe our future citizens. This morning, the first news item on the radio I hear as I'm getting dressed for work is how the auto companies are asking Congress for money to avoid bankruptcy. I can't help thinking about those families, those children, the workers who will truly suffer.

I'm not sure exactly how it's going to all come together, but I know that somehow I'll be inspired to act and contribute, not just to do my best to support my new president, but to be more involved locally. Do you feel the same way? And if so, what thoughts do you have about how you'll do it?

I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on the matter later, but I'm wondering how this election has affected you to be more aware and involved for the future.

For Gillian: At the National Gallery of Art

Hi Gillian. Yes, you were right.

From The Voyage of Life, by Thomas Cole.
This is The Voyage of Life Manhood, c. 1840.

I remember how gorgeous this series of paintings were. So large and vivid and dreamlike.

But this is the painting I went to see three times on three separate days of a very short Washington DC visit:

Woman Holding a Balance, by Johannes Vermeer
c. 1664

Seeing art like these paintings is an experience you never forget.

***

So, Gillian... Art before the crabcakes? Or eat first and get it out of the way?
Also, Legal Seafood has killer crab chowder. Yummm.

;-)

Dia de los Muertos

"There's a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out." ~ Lou Reed, "Magic and Loss"

Tonight my little friend Chipmonkey and her Mr. Chipmonkey and I went to the Mission for the Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead Procession.

Me and my friend Flora.

From the website: Over 15,000 people gather to honor our ancestors, celebrating the vitality and richness of today's community. While the ceremony remains true to its Latino roots, the San Francisco procession actively encourages participation by people of all origins.

Bring candles, photos, food, or something that reminds you of a person that has passed away. The altars are community art installations that are intended to change as each person adds something to the hearth.

The Day of the Dead is a unique festival that is the result of 16th century contact between Mesoamerica and Europe. Conceptually, it is a hybrid, owing its origins to both prehispanic Aztec philosophy and religion and medieval European ritual practice.

***

The air was filled with the most incredible scent: a mixture of candles, burning sage, and the ever-present marijuana. We followed the sound of drumbeats through the streets. The night air was cool and the crowd joyous.

It was lovely to see people holding candles, flowers and photos of their beloved friends and family for all to appreciate and remember.

Wearing your heart on your back.

She was handing out "spirit food" (little colorful cards).

Beautiful glowing glass children inside a simple gallery. Also the silver milagros in the first photo, too.

Soul light.
Good night, San Francisco.

Full-Blown Eighties Mode Tonight

Boy, you listen to a couple of Hall and Oates songs and then all of a sudden you're in full-blown Eighties mode.

I guess I might end up watching After Hours tonight. I think this is one of the films that warped my sense of humor as a youngster.

Full-on awesome Teri Garr:



I think Catherine O'Hara was my favorite though:



And then I'll relive some first boyfriend kisses. Looking back, Berlin isn't really good makeout music but it worked at the time.



Now all I need are some shoulder pads and some stirrup leggings and I'm all set. But first I have to empty the dryer.

One Year Ago Today

"I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand; I saw from out the wave of her structure's rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying Glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged Lion's marble pines, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles." ~ Lord Byron

***

One year ago today, when I woke up in the morning, when I opened my eyes... I was in Venice.
Nowhere near the Bridge of Sighs, but that was okay. I loved my little apartment in the Dorsoduro.


Oh, to have had the camera or the eye that I have now, what photos I would have captured!
(I guess I'll just have to go back.)

big big big big BIG *sigh*

***

And now I'm going to have my crazy wanderlust all day.

This song makes it better and worse at the same time.



Or at least I should get a copy of The Darjeeling Limited. I can't believe I don't own this movie yet.

I'm More of a Fortune Cookie Person Myself

But years before the fortune cookies, I was really a Bazooka Joe person.

Do you remember Bazooka bubble gum? The powdery dust on that hard-as-a-rock gum, how good it smelled, how you almost broke your jaw trying to chew it before you got enough spit into it to make it soft?

And the little cartoon folded up inside the wrapper, on that waxy paper? My sister and I used to collect them. You got a cartoon and a fortune. Remember? (And then Bubblicious got invented and that semi-disgusting Freshen-Up gum with the goo in the middle and we stopped chewing Bazooka.)

***

Anyway, I was just pondering my inspirations for wisdom since I did not ever notice that you can get it from Starbuck's cups, too. But Sarah Palin does:



I know it's nitpicky, but if you want to see what those words of wisdom really were on her cup, look here. But if she had used those words instead, the story wouldn't have been as cute.

I don't know why she's so down on us in California!

"Okay, now, thank you so much for receiving that well. I didn't know how that was gonna go over. And now, California, let's see what a comment like I just made, how that is turned into whatever it'll be turned into tomorrow with the newspaper."

***

And now I'm going to hell because I wouldn't vote for her because she's a woman? I thought I was going to hell because I was born Jewish. Or at least that's what some Born Again Christians have politely told me in the past. (Someone is going to have to explain the Rapture again to me because it is so confusing. Why is Israel so loved but we're still going to hell? Ah well, if there is a hell, I think I'll see a lot of people I enjoy there, so maybe it won't be that bad.)

I just learned that the real reason I don't like Sarah Palin has nothing to do with the fact that I am not impressed with her record and experience in the PTA, as a mayor or governor, her education and mostly, her positions on things that are important to me, especially when put into context of holding the second highest office in the country (or the first, if you consider Dick Cheney).

No! I've been undermining Palin because I'm jealous! Wow! Who knew?! Apparently Brenda Luscombe knows my motives better than I know myself. Which would explain why I posted that Barbie Doll head photo recently.

I'm such a bitch!

Does this mean Letterman won't be burning in Hell because he's a man? It's so not fair. Here it is... I'm allowed to think and vote and be a woman, but I'm still wrong.

***

ps. I don't know if you noticed, but the fortune on this particular Bazooka Joe comic says "Don't take a detour on the path to greatness." I should send that in to the RNC and see if a speechwriter picks up on it. heh heh.

pss. And if I am such a bitch like that article says I am, then I'm going to have to say that Sarah needs to apply her blush/bronzer differently. Applying that bronzer in a line back to her ears like that...it's sooooo Eighties. And she needs to blend.

psss. And do I have a crush on Joe Biden now? Yeah, I think I do. And it looks like I'm not the only one. Well, I've had non-traditional crushes before-- I've had the hots for Carl Sagan since I was twelve.

***

UPDATE 10/5: Looks like Madame Albright isn't okay at all with Palin misquoting her.
Her reply:

Albright responded to Palin's remarks in a statement to the Huffington Post on Sunday. "Though I am flattered that Governor Palin has chosen to cite me as a source of wisdom, what I said had nothing to do with politics. This is yet another example of McCain and Palin distorting the truth, and all the more reason to remember that this campaign is not about gender, it is about which candidate has an agenda that will improve the lives of all Americans, including women. The truth is, if you care about the status of women in our society and in our troubled economy, the best choice by far is Obama-Biden."

Zing!