Scary Beyoncé Butt

I stayed up too late watching the Grammys.
My young daughters, ages 8 and 10, joined me for the first forty minutes, before I sent them up to bed. Their father, a musician and  producer, was working late and missed the show. So we filled him in on the highlights at breakfast.

The thing we ranted most about was Beyoncé's butt.
My 8-year-old daughter made many hilarious comments during Beyonce's nearly-naked performance, like "Help! I'm scared of Beyoncé's butt! Make it go away!!" Her older sister just grumbled, saying things like, "Why is she hanging out of her costume like that? Ew!" We agreed that her song was dumb, and her performance was "so inappropriate!!"

We're not huge Beyoncé fans, but we don't dislike her either.
We admire her talent and her obvious beauty. So we have to ask: Why does she choose to do a soft-porn chair dance in a thong/push-up bra/stilettos/fishnets Hookerlady outfit at 8pm on network television? I had to explain to my girls that "that man" who joined her on stage was her husband, Jay-Z, eyes averted  in a disconnected way even though he had a hand on her almost-bare booty. Where was his costume? No thong. No pimp hat. Nothing but a designer tux, while his wife is dressed like a lite bondage bimbo.

I sound old and conservative.
But the image of a gorgeous, almost naked black woman sexing it up for the camera, accompanied by her black husband who seems to hardly notice or care that she's spreading it for an international audience of millions, is a rotten scene from the degrading annals of pop culture and I am SO DISAPPOINTED in Beyoncé and Jay-Z, parents of a two-year-old baby girl. OK, I brought race into it. It's not just a feminist issue. It's a pride and respect issue for all women, including the sexualized black women of the world.

Shame on CBS and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for pushing the "marriage equality" segment into the after-11PM slot, while featuring Beyonce's butt at the top of family-friendly prime time. They got that one backwards.

The real highlight of the show was seventeen-year-old Lorde, in her loose black man-pants and twitchy dance, singing about the weirdness of celebrity. A weirdness she'll have to work with(in), as her two Grammy awards attest. And it was good to see Nile Rogers kicking it live, even in support of a couple of French disco robots.

Hits of 2013

I know I'm a little late for the glut of Year End posts. But I have been putting a lot of good writing energy into my manuscript, like the good girl I promised to be. You haven't heard much from me lately, right?

While it's still January, I'm tossing my two cents into the pool with this short little list of Hits of 2013.

photo: nydailynews.com

Mayor Bill DeBlasio of New York City, my hometown. Finally a lefty activist/democrat running the most radical city on Earth. His mixed-race family, and Afro-centric-hairstyled offspring knock me out. Can't wait to see what the future brings.

photo: hollywoodreporter.com

Key and Peele. Comedy Central's amazing show featuring two (count 'em, two) biracial comedians who dare to say a whole lot of messed up funny stuff that a lot of people wouldn't dream of repeating in mixed (pun intended) company.



12 Years A Slave. The book by Solomon Northup. I am mid-way through it and am blown away by the beautiful language and remarkable story of this 19th Century memoir. Wondering why it took a black Brit to make the film everyone's talking about. Cheers to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and everyone who  helped bring the book into the light.

Mama's Child. A new book by Joan Lester, YA author and journalist. An interesting work of fiction, this story of a modern bi-racial family is told from two perspectives: the white mother's voice alternates with that of her mixed daughter. Ms. Lester is herself a white mother in a mixed race family, bringing her authentic perspective to this unusual tale.

Southern Poverty Law Center. This non-profit organization has made incredible strides in fighting bias-based injustices here in the US. I've been a supporter for years, and thought I'd take this opportunity to send a shout-out. Visit http://www.splcenter.org to explore or donate.

Lastly, I have to mention that my mom survived a harrowing health scare in December. By New Year's Eve she was feeling pretty darn good. So Mom's healthy outlook makes it to my Hit list. Hooray!


Wishing you a peaceful and joy-filled new year.

Cheerios! Fashion! Racism! in brief

Today is my birthday. How old am I? Let's just say I'm turning 35 again. Not feeling the need for specificity. But as a gift to self, I am posting these three little bits. Because I really miss you, blogosphere. As I've mentioned in the recent past, I'm on this kick to work seriously on my manuscript, and it seemed like the only way I could keep the necessary focus was to stop blogging for a while. Concentrate all of my writing juju in one place. Well, it's kind of working. I bought this life-saving writing software called Scrivener, which has enabled me to assemble all 42 chapters, written over the past 16 years, in a meaningful, comprehensive way. It's a whole lot better than the dresser drawers filled with multiple versions of all those chapters, printed on this thing called paper. Thanks to Scrivener, I'm making real progress. Yes.

But it's my birthday, and I get to do whatever I want. And I want to blog, just a little.
So here's what I want to share:

1. The mixed-race family Cheerios commercial is so bloody important. Trust me. If you don't know what I'm referring to, here it is:

I am so thrilled that General Mills went this route, and that a lot of idiotic people said negative things about it. It keeps the conversation alive. And our children can see themselves represented in the media in a quiet, basic way. No Disney required.


2. According to an article in yesterday's NYTimes, racism is alive and well in the fashion industry. Well, duh. This is a fact that many of us have been sensitive to for a looooong time. Who has a cure?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/fashion/fashions-blind-spot.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

3. Back on July 21, in the Letters department, the Times (again) printed several thoughtful notes about The Meaning of Race. A bunch of pedigreed intellectuals agreed that race is an antiquated social construct, devised by an oppressive class in order to maintain hierarchical order and power. The more we mix, the more "racial" distinctions blur, causing that oppressive power to diminish. Hm.


Ok. Back to birthday cake and booze.

I'll try to be less irregular.

Reading List 05/08/13

It's really easy to pretend that you don't write a blog.
The first step is to stop posting. Life pushes on, sleep eludes, the kids get home from school just as the domestic duties quiet for the day. The blog is all but forgotten. Put off and postponed, its value dwindling to a point of, well, pointlessness. Anyone who ever cared has surely lost interest by now, so why go on?

It's not that I've stopped writing. I've made the big commitment to focus my writing energy on my manuscript. Still workshopping at Sarah Lawrence, still developing new bits and revising the old.  I have more chapters than I can use. Which is better than not having enough. Don't ask me how to cope with writer's block, because that is not my affliction. My challenge is double-edged: time management, and file management. It's been very hard to conceptualize the beginning, middle, and end of the manuscript without conquering these two bitches. So I've been clocking time in my office (which I think I'll start calling "my study") charting the path of my story. It's all there; it just needs a sober pilot.

As a complement to my book-writing effort, I'm back to reading books. Other people's books. Published ones. I've come across some excellent selections, which I'm going to mention in brief (below). These books have been inspirational, entertaining, enlightening. If I didn't think you'd like them, I wouldn't bother sharing. Trust the hot links for formal synopses and writerly reviews.


Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon
A multicultural cast of modern-day characters, centered on a used vinyl/record store in Berkeley, CA.
If you've ever lived in the SF Bay Area, you will recognize these folks. Brilliant portraits, long and lurid sentence structure, engrossing and fun. A substantial volume, good summer pick.

Black Jesus, by Simone Felice
Stumbled on this one in an upstate NY indie bookstore. WOW. Tight and graphic and intense like an old wooden roller coaster. It's a short novel about a young veteran home from Iraq, the characters he meets and the ghosts that haunt him. The writing is fresh and strong, a distinctive voice. No one is black, in case you're wondering/assuming (as I did).

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, by Ayana Mathis 
This debut novel received glowing reviews right out of the gate. I couldn't resist diving into this big black family. My own lost connection to my father's "tribe" was cushioned by these rich stories.

Home, by Toni Morrison
Finally got to this one. Gorgeous prose. Fine storytelling, as usual. Another war veteran story, but post-Korean War. Beautiful rendering of an era before my time. Important view into segregated 1950's America.

Half Blood Blues, by Esi Edugyan
I read a review in the NYTimes Book Review and had to have it. Great historical fiction detailing the misadventures and life-threatening dilemmas of a mixed-race band of jazz musicians in 1930's Europe. When race relations and self determination were immediate factors of life and death.

Well, happy reading!
Until a time when I can put the manuscript down, I don't think I'll be blogging with a whole lot of regularity. But this little reading list should keep you busy, if you like. Please feel free to post your own reviews/comments if you get into any of these titles.

Peace

Marissa Mayer v. Shirley Chisolm

(photo courtesy chisolmproject.com)

I wish I could ignore the weird marketing tags that permeate media advertising. Honestly, I try to avoid watching TV, because the prevalence of ads makes me feel so bloody manipulated. Last year, I railed against the overuse of Black History Month. It seemed like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola were its biggest promoters. This February, it didn’t bother me as much. Maybe it wasn’t as ubiquitous this time around. Or maybe the push to heighten black history awareness seems more valid; now that we’ve re-elected our first black American president, I’m sensing a strange complacency in our midst.

com pla cen cy |kəmˈplāsənsē|(also complacence )nouna feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one's achievements: the figures are better, but there are no grounds for complacency.ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from medieval Latin complacentia, from Latin complacere ‘to please.’

(source: The New Oxford American Dictionary)

The “uncritical” part scares me.

It’s March, and we’re well into Women’s History Month. Which doesn’t get the same General Mills cereal box attention that Black History Month does. So far, the best coverage I’ve seen was the 3-hour documentary “The Makers” on PBS. I missed the first hour; the show was well into the 1960’s when I jumped in. The Women’s Lib Movement  was in full swing. College co-eds burning bras, worshipping at the heels of Shirley Chisolm and Bella Abzug. That was an energy I grew up in. My mother was fully committed.

(photo courtesy atlanticwire.com)

The film was loaded with memorable images and sound bites. But what has stayed clearest in my mind is a statement from a young, blonde, confident and clearly ambitious woman of today, a face I’d never seen before. Marissa Mayer is the President and CEO of Yahoo. In a very short segment, in which she appears to be answering an unseen interviewer, she says that she doesn’t have “that chip on the shoulder” that the feminists have.

And my first thought was, You complacent little twit.

I had to google her up. I learned that she was raised by two well-educated, doting parents in what sounded like an upper-middle-class environment. She ranked top of her class, a fierce participant in high-level ballet, debate team, etc. Born in 1975, she thinks feminism is passé.  In the wake of becoming a new mother, she has proposed that Yahoo employees stop working from home. Her remarks have the pundits writhing in their Aeron chairs, calling her bad names, accusing her of hypocrisy as well as self-entitled complacency. Right. That dirty C-word again.

Her attitude reminds me that I have two young daughters, born in this century, whose only exposure to modern-day activism lives in the stories and photographs they see in the newspaper, depicting distant lands they can’t quite pronounce. They associate American struggles for civil rights with a bygone era, their lives too comfortable to foster any real disillusionment. Like Marissa Mayer, who didn’t have to fight for admission into the male dominated computer science department at Stanford. Others had already fought that battle for her. The door was open.

Back to “The Makers”: I was reminded that the famous faces behind the Equal Rights Amendment were my mother’s peers. I grew up knowing their names, marching in their rallies. Now those same heroes are worried for us. They’re worried that, in our complacency, we are failing to appreciate how good we have it. And that if we’re not mindful, all the good that’s been achieved on our behalf will be undone.

Reproductive rights are being challenged again.

Affirmative Action is being degraded.

One of our brightest, young, female business leaders is flaunting her complacency.

We owe it to ourselves to remain critical, and to teach our children well.

New Year, New Promise

This new year feels very young, but it’s loaded with history.
The 150^th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
The 100^th birthday of Rosa Parks.
The second inauguration of our first black president, coinciding with MLK Day.

I can’t help but hope that this last bit of synchronicity holds a certain power. A power I don’t dare name. A power that should act on our nation’s collective subconscious to revive Dr. King’s message of non-violence and universal love. This year, as our elected politicians confront the immediate challenge of gun control reform, I’m hopeful that Dr. King’s legacy will ring strong.

As a reminder to self, I looked up his speeches, in search of his unique poetry: the language that moved mountains. The two excerpts below stuck with me.

“Man was born into barbarism, when killing his fellow man was a normal condition of existence. He became endowed with a conscience. And he has now reached the day when violence toward another human being must become as abhorrent as eating another's flesh.”  - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  “Why We Can't Wait” 1963

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”  - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Strength To Love” 1963

Forty years have passed since these orations, and the message still holds.

In the wake of the Newtown massacre, and the second inauguration of President Barack Obama, and the celebration of the birthday of Martin Luther King, this last week of January is heavy with promise. It’s time we evolve into a gentler nation.

November Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

November was crazy, and so was I.

The whole election thing had a lot to do with it. Everyone around me seemed to believe that Romney was going to steal it. And Super Storm Sandy - that bitch was fierce. All in the throes of Halloween. Halloween is always a bit frantic around our house, since we like to make our own costumes, and we often have a bit of trouble (i.e. anxiety) deciding who/what we're going to be. This year, I was Miss Piggy. Our eldest was a made up character named Miss Kiss, who doled out Hershey's kisses to adoring friends and strangers alike. Our youngest was Animal, from the Muppets. For whom I crocheted a wig worth $47 in fancy yarn. Cos that's how we roll at Halloween time.

As for Super Storm Sandy, everyone in New York was effected. Rich and poor, black, white, yellow and brown. It's been one of those "great equalizer" moments. Everybody living without the services we all take for granted… It put a bit of mind-blowing perspective on things. Lots of things.

As for election day, I felt like I was the only person alive who believed Obama would win. Maybe because Halle Berry was on the cover of the New York Times Sunday Magazine sitting on our kitchen counter. 

Her pretty brown face, so confident and lovely, was like a wink to the rest of us: He's gonna do it again. Don't you worry.

I woke up on election day expecting Obama to win. I just had faith. Which is unusual for me. But there it was. A powerful feeling that enough democrats would get out and vote, to prove the pundits wrong. We did. And we won.

Three days after the big victory, we went to our good friend's out-of-state wedding. At fifty, it was his first time under the huppah. With his lovely bride of forty-something. They're eager to start a family, statistics be damned. So that gave us something fresh to talk about - something outside of Halloween, and hurricanes, and the presidential election, and writing, and blogging, and... and... ourselves.

Before crazy November began, my husband and I took a music-for-hire job. We haven’t worked together since the kids arrived. Now we finally understand the value of regular childcare help. But we have yet to secure any of our own, and our deadline is right before Christmas.  That, my friends, is the icing on the crazy cake.

So I'm looking forward to January... when I plan to get back to the old rant. I'm hoping my kids will have a few full weeks of school, for a change, and I can back to writing on more meaty matters. Motherhood is kicking my ass, and is expected to continue to do so from now thru the holidays. Whoopee!

Have a Happy!

Affirmative Admissions

This morning I caught an article in the New York Times that I just had to read, even though my girls were off from school and they reeeeeally needed my attention and I was having one of those very unattractive mothering moments where I just wanted to scream, "Why the fuck can't I have a minute to read this one article in peace?!" but I didn't say that. I just read as fast as I could. And then decided I had to write a quick post about it.

Apparently there's a move on to undo Affirmative Action. Not new news, really. But there's a young lady from Austin, TX  appearing before the Supreme Court this week, because she wasn't accepted into the UT school of her choice, and she feels it's unfair that her race - which happens to be white - was a factor in her not being accepted. This young lady believes that race should not be a factor in college admissions. That's what she has come to say to the justices of the Supreme Court. Her argument is intended to give weight to the argument to end Affirmative Action.

I've been to Texas several times. Through and around Texas, down endless miles of flat, dry, barren highway. And I've seen some crazy poverty there, as well as some incredibly racist attitudes. I don't mean to defame the entire state of Texas, but much like many parts of our vast country, there's a whole lot going on besides what you see in the big cities. And this young lady from Austin seems to think that we're ready to embrace a new, post-racial set of public policies, so that no one else like her has to suffer the indignity of not getting into the school of their choice. 

Maybe the fact that we have an African-American president levels the playing field. I mean, if blacks are running things, the time to be giving out hand-ups is over, right? And all those Latino families whose kids are citizens but the parents can't legally work, they don't deserve any assistance. And the Asians are taking over the world, so they shouldn't get any preferential treatment...

Yeah, we're really ready to overturn Affirmative Action. 

That will probably fix our economy.

Questions for The Help

I knew I wouldn’t get a lot of writing done this summer. Lack of structure means lack of discipline, and flighty focus. So I got serious about making time for reading. I read several very satisfying books, some of which I’ll “review” here before the year runs out.

For starters: I finally read The Help. I liked it. I'm not going to offer a dense review. Countless more capable journalists have done that already. Instead, I'll share my take-away:

My reading The Help coincided with the death of Sherman Helmsley, the actor most famous for his TV role as George Jefferson. You remember “The Jeffersons”: George and Weezie (a.k.a. Louise) and their son, Lamont, “moving on up” to a de-luxe apartment on the East Side. They were the black family who made it big in the dry cleaning business, leaving behind their white, working class neighbors (Archie and Edith Bunker) back in Jamaica, Queens.  As a child, I was struck by the character Florence, the Jeffersons' (black) maid.  She arrived in the morning, and left around suppertime, donning a maid’s uniform and a sassy attitude. Her irreverent reluctance to do any serious housework caused constant friction between herself and her employers, and triggered big laughs. She puttered around, complaining that she needed to put her feet up, asking Weezie to bring her a cool drink while she was in the kitchen anyway, and it all made me wonder, Why did the Jeffersons have a maid? What did Weezie do all day? She didn’t work… and didn’t she feel uncomfortable having a black lady working as her servant?

Marla Gibbs as Florence Johnston, courtesy Sony TV

When I was about seven, my mother hired a “housekeeper” who came to clean our apartment twice a week, and kept an eye on me until my mother got home. Joyce was her name. I remember Joyce as a somber, middle-aged black woman who dusted, vacuumed and mopped the floors without much comment or kindness. My mother remembers that Joyce broke things, and that she only did a good job the first day she came. Joyce only lasted a few months. After Joyce, we moved on to teenaged babysitters, and the house just stayed dirty.

My husband and I have a “cleaning lady” who comes once a week for three hours. I feel ridiculous having a cleaning lady, since I’m not earning a regular salary these days. But my days are full, and my head is spinning with project ideas that will never be born if I stop to thoroughly clean the house. I tidy up constantly, but real cleaning doesn’t make my daily to-do list. So we have Mita, who is probably ten years my junior, as agreeable as can be, and blonde. And I just think it’s funny (funny weird, not funny ha-ha) that I have a white cleaning lady. Not because I think cleaning ladies should be black! But because my relationship with Mita is a reversal of the ones I saw all around me growing up, and still what I see everywhere in the world of nannies.

I’m back to The Help, with its rich depictions of mid-century Southern women, perpetuating and withstanding a dehumanizing status quo, until they chose to upend it. All of the ill-conceived opinions that the women on both sides of that world held about and against each other... I’m sure so much of it lingers today, even in our “advanced state of coexistence”.  I wonder what goes on in Mita’s head, what she thinks about me and my family, and our arrangement. I wonder what Joyce thought of me and my mom, a divorced white lady with a black child, in that apartment in the Bronx.

Summer Souvenir

Shifting gears, getting back into the structured school year schedule... 
We had a really nice summer. The girls were in day camp part of the summer, and we made a lot of time for family and friends. 

I managed to squeeze in a very fantastic week-long writing workshop at Sarah Lawrence College, where I was turned on to the poet Billy Collins. Our instructor shared the YouTube video below, and in tribute to all mothers everywhere, I've decided to mark the end of summer by posting it here. 

Invest a few minutes of your busy life and check it out. Pass it on! You'll laugh, you'll cry. It's brilliant.

I will get back to posting original material later this month. 

Enjoy~

American Grown

Summer is here. 

Again, I marvel at how impossibly busy our small family can be. We raced through May and June like amusement park revelers, testing the boundaries of sanity and speed, trusting the onset of summer to mark the finish line. I’ve been telling myself I’m too busy to write well right now. So I get my word fix at our neighborhood bookstore, hungrily browsing, imagining that some day a jacket with my very own title will grace the front window display. On a recent dash past said window a strange image caught my eye. Who is that glamorous black woman, laden with her garden’s harvest, smiling out at me? It seems Michelle Obama – busy mother of two! – has published her first book: American Grown. It’s all about the White House kitchen garden. So. Cool. I jumped inside, to make it my own.

The book is full of photographs of Michelle Obama’s journey into gardening. 

It connects the work she's been doing to combat childhood obesity and the symbolic power of home-grown food. She includes a piece about famed urban farmer Will Allen, and the phenomenal influence he's had in cities around the country, and in the local food movement. But the main topic is the White House garden, and the lessons learned while building it.

Back to the front cover. 

The image is slightly startling, rich with saturated colors. Our First Lady looks gorgeous as usual, with her hair in a loose up-do, diamond stud earrings, and a crisp navy blue oxford shirt. She's holding a large, weathered basket at pelvis height, stuffed with eggplants, chard, corn, zucchini and tomatoes of various types. Gorgeous again. But Mrs. Obama is too coiffed and too clean to have been working in the garden. She looks more like she's headed to the yacht club. Throughout the book, even when pictured on her knees in the dirt, her clothes – down to her choice of gloves - are not those of a real laborer. The book reveals her reality: a staff of gardeners and chefs maintains the White House kitchen garden. But our First Lady is garden proud, spreading the kitchen garden gospel to the uninformed masses. And her focus is the children of this country, who desperately need to hear what she's preaching. Praise be.

Maybe the First Lady of the United States of America doesn't want to appear on the cover of a thirty-dollar hardcover book in dirt-smudged overalls. Maybe the Obamas’ publicity machine can’t allow it.  For fear that such an image might reflexively remind us of the countless black women in the fields who, in their time, symbolized poverty, malnutrition and inescapable oppression. Without access to diamond earrings and the yacht club.

Ladybird Johnson, another great White House gardening enthusiast, had far less complicated image issues.

As for me, I’m in a semi-permanent state of dirt-smudged-ness. 

Lately, I've been gardening as much as my lower back can handle. Our new-old house came with a big, blank yard. And this weird, warm Spring has pushed the growing season here in the Northeast about a month ahead of normal schedule. So I’m out back as much as time and strength will allow.

I dig and I weed, and I plant, because it feels so good to put energy into the earth. 

The earth doesn't whine or complain, or refuse to eat the meals I prepare. It doesn't need me to teach it, or scold it. The earth quietly accepts my efforts, offering up magical returns. The dark soil under my fingernails reminds me of my mother's weathered  hands, and the botanist's flare she inherited from her father. I remember my father raking endless leaves, admiring the landscape of his own proud acre,  just like his Massachusetts grandmother did. And the distant history of Lenape Indian earth-worship embedded in my veins. 

We've given our children a large garden in which to learn and play. 

They’re lucky and they know it. A huge THANKS is due to Michelle Obama, and the current wave of earth crusaders, on behalf of all the kids who aren't so fortunate.

Chapter/ The Pickup

My mother’s voice nudges me out of an unreal place and time in dreamland.

“It’s time to wake up, Sweetie.” Before opening my eyes, I remember: Daddy is coming to get me. We’ll be spending the long weekend together at his house in Southampton. It’s been a long time since we’ve spent more than a day together. Not since last summer. I am nine, and have only known my parents as separate beings: our house, and Daddy’s house; our car, and Daddy’s car; her rules, and his. I’ve been careful to contain my excitement about this visit, afraid that he might cancel. Now, I’m bubbling inside. It’s coming true.

From my bed, I check the night sky out my window. It’s just as we planned, the starry black middle of the night. Mom’s faceless shape is a flat silhouette, backlit by the slip of light peeking around my bedroom door. “Wake up,” she repeats gently. “You have about half an hour before Daddy gets here.”

            “What time is it?” I ask, my arms and legs still stuck in a sleepy twist.

            “It’s four.  He said he’d be here right after he got off work.”

            “Did you listen?” I know she has long since broken the habit of monitoring Daddy on the radio, but maybe she’s checked on his timeline tonight.

            “No. I’m sure he’ll be on time,” she says with certainty.

We packed my bag and set my clothes out before going to bed, so getting ready is simple. We move through our usual morning routine, with Mom pushing me along, like she doesn’t trust me to get it all done. We share a quick and quiet breakfast of Rice Krispies, too early for our regular morning news shows. My mother sits in somber detachment, not her usual chatty self. I won’t be seeing her for four days, and she’s already come disconnected. The anticipation of Daddy’s arrival has her on edge.

“He should be here any minute,” she finally says. And on cue, the intercom buzzer rings. “You can get it.” She smiles, knowing how eager I am to see him. I run to the door, stretch on tiptoe to reach the intercom box, and answer.

            Talk button/ “Hello?”

Listen button/ “Hello! It’s your Daddy!”  His words ease across his warm, toothy smile.

Talk button/ “Hi Daddy! I’m ready!” I holler.

Listen button/ “Ok, ok. Buzz me in now,” he coaxes.

So I do. Then I listen for the telltale sounds of the lobby door closing behind him. The click of the latch. The trailing echo of hollow sound in the empty vestibule. Mom comes at me, flustered. “Go get your things. And make sure your toiletries make it into your bag.” I’m wide awake now, and look at her fully. I notice her outfit and am horrified.

“Mom! Your bathrobe! You’re not dressed!”

She glances toward her chest, down to her toes. “So?”

            “Daddy’s on his way up! He must be in the elevator already!” How can you greet him in your pajamas?!

            “He doesn’t care if I’m in my bathrobe,” she explains dryly, as if I should know. She’s not going to discuss it any further. Their relationship – or what’s left of it – is their business. Not mine.  They’ve each told me that. I hope that when I’m older, they’ll trust me with their stories. Because I find it hard to believe that they ever liked each other. They are as different as two adults can be. They have nothing in common. Except me.

I try to forget Mom’s bathrobe and slippers. In the bathroom, I check my own reflection, smooth some stray flyaway hairs, and square my shoulders. Pretty good, I think. Daddy will approve of this shirt, with the alligator logo, like the ones the big kids at school wear. He likes the preppy look. My jeans are crisp and new. Saved, from our last shopping trip, for just such an occasion.

I realize I’m hearing Daddy and Mom already exchanging hellos, so I hover, down the hall, out of sight.

            Hi, Clar. Punctual as always.

            Good morning. Sorry about the ungodly hour.

            Come on in. She’s just getting her bag.

            All right.

            Sweetie! Daddy’s here!

            Coming!

Standing by the door, Daddy’s hands are casually jammed into the front pockets of his blue blazer, unbuttoned over a crisp light yellow oxford shirt. He’s clean-shaven, wearing pleated khaki pants and black loafers with no pennies in the slots. As I run at him, he bends to receive me into his long, loving arms. He smells so good I pull my face into his soft ribcage and breathe him in, locking my hands together behind his back.

            “Hey, Melon Ball! You’re going to crush my lungs! When did you get so strong?” He asks, laughing.

            “She’s doing gymnastics. Her teacher says she has great upper body strength,” Mom answers.

            “I told him about gymnastics, Mom,” I mumble, with my face still pressed against Daddy’s torso. He takes me by the shoulders and forces me out in front of him. He takes a long look at me, the way most relatives do when they haven’t seen you for a while. He smiles his approval.

            “I like that shirt. The color’s very nice on you.”

            “Thanks, Daddy.” I beam. It’s going to be the most perfect visit. Four whole days, and no working in between. Just us, and the beach, and Bobo the dog. McDonald’s for dinner, and Entenmann’s chocolate doughnuts, and bologna sandwiches. And badminton, and Frisbee, and basketball in the driveway. We’ll stay up late watching scary movies, and maybe we’ll even go to the drive-in.

            “What time do you think you’ll be back Sunday?” Mom breaks in.

“Well, I have to be at work by five, so we’ll shoot for between three-thirty and four.”

“Wait. Sunday?” -  I’m stunned - “I don’t have school Monday. Aren’t we coming back Tuesday?”

“Oh, no,” says Mom. “You can’t miss school Tuesday. You’ll have to come back Sunday, and hang out with me on Monday.”

“Can’t I stay with Daddy? At least Monday?” Please don’t make me beg.

He chimes in, “I’m not coming into the city until Wednesday night. You’d have to miss school Tuesday. Mom says you can’t miss school.”

Daddy has let her decide, as usual. I’m scared to look at him. Scared that he’ll see how close I am to tears. I don’t want to look like a crybaby. I can’t make eye contact with Mom either. This is her fault. So I look at the door, and I wish I could become invisible and run straight through it, far away from this.

“Come on, baby. Don’t look so sad. We’ll have a great time,” Daddy says. “I

have a surprise for you in the car. I promise, it’s going to be a great weekend.”

Mom isn’t backing down. “I’m sorry you’re upset. I thought you understood the plan. You know you can’t miss school.”

Our “perfect visit” is already cut short. I don’t care what the surprise is. There won’t be time to do all the things I imagined. And Monday, I’ll have to sit around the apartment with Mom, instead of being out at the beach with Daddy. The school year is almost over, and this holiday weekend is supposed to be the start of something grand. There will be lots of weekends at the beach this summer. It’s going to be great. So I have to be cool, or the invitations won’t come. I have to be sensible and not blow it. Be agreeable, so he doesn’t get upset. He won’t make the effort if I’m a pain.

Daddy picks up my bag, stuffed with two days’ too many clothes, and reaches his free hand toward the door. “Let’s get going. No sense standing around being upset.”

            “I’m ok, Daddy. I’m just really happy you came.” I smile. I want to hug him again but he’s already halfway out the door. He calls over his shoulder at Mom, “We’ll see you Sunday,” just as she’s bending down to kiss me. I give her a quick hug around the neck, then grab Daddy’s arm and follow him out. As the door clanks shut, Mom’s voice calls “Bye,” behind us.

            We ring for the elevator and wait, me still holding onto Daddy’s arm, and him still holding onto my overnight bag. The hum of the elevator approaches, then swallows us down. Nineteen stories is a long descent; over a minute, by my calculations. A long time to stand in uncomfortable silence with your beloved Daddy. I’m grateful when he speaks.

            “Do you remember that I said I have a surprise for you in the car?”

            “Yes,” I answer shyly.

            “Well, it’s Ara. She’s so excited to see you again.” He doesn’t seem to comprehend the burn of this announcement.

I smile, because I know I should. But inside I am crumbling. It’s clear that his girlfriend Ara will be spending the weekend with us. She will come between us, and dance around us, and distract Daddy’s attention and affection as only a girlfriend can. My knees lock as the elevator door opens. Daddy drapes a heavy arm around my shoulder and leads me out into the lobby, and out to his car. To Ara, smiling and waving.

Spring's Holy Days

THE EASTER BUNNY IS COMING TO THE MALL!!

Much like Santa’s December descent, the occasion draws long lines of children smaller and more innocent than mine to be channeled through the velvet ropes, pretty and primed. The Paas dye kits are overflowing the seasonal aisle at the supermarket, while the Manischewitz products stand proud among the ethnic foods. And I am stuck in the semi-annual quagmire known as Commercialized Christian Holiday vs. Solemn Jewish Observances. It happens in April, just like it does in December. And this year, spring’s holy days are right on top of each other. There’s no time to buffer between Easter and Passover, complicating for our kids exactly what it’s all about, and whether or why we do or don’t really celebrate some and not all of it.

I confess there have been times when I wish I had grown up with some religion. Just something to sink my teeth into. Someone, other than my family and teachers, on whom I could rely for supernatural assistance. My mother the scientist came to believe in a higher power at some point in her adult life, but I’m unsure what relation that power has to the Judeo-Christian God. Raised among atheists and anarchists on a commune in upstate New York, she’s not into Jesus. I know that. She’s never belonged to a church or a synagogue, though she enjoyed taking me to friends’ bar and bat mitzvahs, and since she’s become the Jewish grandmother of Jewish children, she looks forward to Passover and Hanukah. She and I are Jewish through the maternal bloodline, as prescribed by Jewish law. But we’ve always celebrated Christmas together. We never owned a menorah.

Not until I married my Jewish husband.

My childhood memories of Easter candy and Christmas trees are not the stuff of his youth. But we’ve managed to weave them into the modern texture of our family. “My Granny Flo is rolling in her grave,” he says, smiling to soften the truth of it, as if I’m forcing our children into shameful practices. We do it all. The seder, the Easter baskets, the menorah and the tree. Our children are accustomed to our light holiday lecture: “Our family is large and diverse. Different people have different beliefs and different traditions, and we’re lucky that we can honor them all.” Our girls, ages eight and six, seem to get it. Unlike most of their friends, they still believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. They seem to believe everything we tell them.

The other day, in the car, my older daughter asked me, “So who came up with all this Easter stuff?”

She meant the eggs, the candy, and the visit from the bunny. I told them the strange and gruesome story of “that man Jesus Christ, from the Bible”: “You know that these stories are very important to a lot of people, right? Well…”   

They didn’t like the part about the crucifixion. Nor did they accept the idea of the immaculate conception. I think the resurrection was more information than they could process. So I guess they’re where I want them to be with regard to religion. But I have to ask myself a whole lot of questions, and wonder if my mother had them too: Will they flounder in the atheist’s quagmire when they get older? What meaning will our mixed bag of holiday customs hold for them as they mature? Will any of it comfort them when we’re gone?  Will nostalgia be enough?