As performers know so well, timing is everything. Yet the final and dark act in Robin Williams’ life performance seems so misplaced. Even as the news of his death spread last night, I expected to see him pop up on maybe, a late-night TV show to assure me he was just pulling my leg. Alas, Letterman and Fallon ran reruns. This was no joke. Besides paying him tribute for the wit and wisdom his performances have gifted me, I am compelled to think about all the talented men and women in my life who have that enviable ability to light up and even take over any room they walk into. Those whose energy often energizes me. And I realize Williams’ last act may actually be more important in getting me and the culture to understand how overpowering depression and addiction can be to those whose energy seems endless. I promise not to forget this.
November 22, 1963. I was in my high school freshman English
class when the principal’s voice came over the intercom – sounding weaker than his
usual bellow, yet ever more serious. When he got to the part about President Kennedy
having been shot in Dallas, my teacher (a very pretty, very self-assured young
woman rumored to be dating a NY Giants football player) literally fell into the
chair behind the teacher’s desk. She didn’t look so pretty or seem as socially
legendary anymore. She slumped and quietly cried. She could not speak. The principal
had said enough, ending with instructions for an early dismissal
– which got me home within minutes of Walter Cronkite’s iconic controlled yet emotional
delivery of the official news that the President was dead. This was the first
time I experienced the world around me shutting down and remaining hauntingly
still – a stillness and shock that would last hours through the news of Officer
Tippit’s death and the return of the Johnsons and Kennedys to D.C. - and continue through the days we watched Ruby shoot Oswald –
in real time -- on a boxy black-and-white TV in my living room, and then the
funeral.
November 22, 1963. That is the Friday in November I have
always associated with the seasonal tag – Black Friday – never the shopping day
after Thanksgiving. This Black Friday actually precipitated the closing of most
stores – through the mournful weekend and funeral – all of which draped their
window displays in black fabric, festooning the official photograph of the President, smiling broadly, contrasted only by the red, white, and blue of an American flag.
Having the entire world stop
and then remain still for some time was different than the way
family and dear friends drop out of the otherwise unaffected flow of the universe for a
few days, grieving the loss of a close relative or friend. Through the fifty years since then I can count
on one hand the other times I’ve felt that extended collective pause: September
11, 2003, January 26,1986 and December 14, 2012. Three too many.
I boarded an Amtrak business car (I was on business after all!)
at 6 AM, a tad nervous about the trip that lay ahead. By 9:30 the train pulled into Penn Station. I've been in and out of Penn Station before, but never wielding wheeled luggage and a stuffed shoulder tote. Still I maneuvered pretty steadily onto the up escalator that brought me out of underground Penn to the city's heavily shadowed daylight I walked ‘bout a half mile up 33rd
Street to Broadway, locating the hotel I‘d booked for the night. Only catch – check-in wasn't until four. With a suitcase mostly filled with books (I’d be attending the New York Book Festival tomorrow – in
the same hotel) and two business-casual-changes folded in the large shoulder
tote, taking a bite out of the Big Apple on arrival day wasn't going to be easy. Crowded New
York street crossings are not suitcase-on-wheels/stuffed-shoulder-totes
friendly. Conventional wisdom told me throngs of city dwellers and workers weren't necessarily friendly on a number of levels, no less on the corners of their
congested streets.
But there I stood at the revolving door of the hotel. The
doormen looked more business-like than polite as they waved guests in and out
of the threshold’s spin-around. Yet, it wouldn't hurt to go in, I thought. I'd ask
if there was a place I could leave my baggage until four (even as I questioned
how secure is secure behind the front desk of a big city hotel). I waited in line for my turn with a desk clerk. A sympathetic desk clerk I hoped.
“I’m booked here for tonight,” I explained. “I was wondering
if you had a place I could –“
“Name,” she interrupted.So much for sympathetic.
I gave my last name. Almost immediately she followed-up with my first. Then
asked for a credit card. Her fingers clicked the keyboard, her eyes glued
to the computer screen
“Your room is ready,” she announced.
“Really?” I said. “And I was just hoping to be able to
leave my bags some –“
“Christmas in June,” she remarked, then cracked a smile. “The first elevator will take you up to 18. It’s
the highest level,“ she said as she handed me my scan key.
“Even better than Christmas in July,” I said. “Thank you
so much.”
I headed for the only elevator that went to the top level, and said a
silent prayer there’d be no fire !
If you read Mommy
of the Bride regularly, it’ll come as no surprise that I enjoy writing and
blogging observations and family stories. The flip side of freelance writing is marketing the material. Not so much my cup of tea.
Fresher analogy: If " writing" were my baby –marketing would
be akin to diapering the kid. Essential,
but not so pleasant. At least not until after the initial step.
Now, almost two years after publishing my memoir Staying Alive: A Love Story, this little
writer is going to market once again. The
endeavor takes great planning, and then getting here and there to (the best
part) readers and professionals in the book industry.
If you are near the here and there I’ll be showing up at, join me for a
chat, a talk, a reading. Through the summer I’ll be in NYC, Connecticut, and
Massachusetts.
Saturday, June 22 I’m honored to have been
invited to participate on a panel on marketing – of all things(!) -- at the New
York Book Festival being held at the Radisson
Martinique on Broadway, 49 West 42nd
Street. It’s an all-day event and it’s
free! Staying Alive: A Love Story just
received an honorable mention in the Festival’s “"annual competition
honoring books that deserve greater attention from the world’s publishing
capital," according to the NY Book Fest website (http://newyorkbookfestival.com/).I'm a tad nervous about the trip and requisite schmoozing! We’ll see what happens.
Monday, June 24 I’ll be at the Agawam (MA)
Public Library (750 Cooper Street) for READLocal,
along with fifteen other area writers for a meet and greet. The event starts at
6 PM.
Saturday, July 13 you’ll find me (and only me) at Bank
Street Books ( 53 West Main St.) in Mystic, CT from noon to one. Great vacation
spot, Mystic is. The bookstore is in the heart of the pretty town.
There are more CT and MA visits coming in
September too.
And while I’m in marketing mode – allow me to
ask a favor. If you've read the memoir, please take a few minutes to leave a short review on the book's Amazon , bn.com, or Goodreads
site.
Thanks to all MOTB and SA:ALS readers. I’ll be back from market with stories and observations soon enough.
I heard it through the grapevine – and you know how those
grapevine sound bites go. You’re never quite sure where the truth ends and the embellishment
starts. Yet, as much as the word-of-mouth nearly knocked me off my feet, it
made all the sense in the world.
The news item involved my son and his high school
buddies. They were – still are – a like-minded crew and even though it’s been
eight years since they graduated together, this crew has stuck together through many stories their mothers have heard as well as ones we haven't, along with the miles that separate most of them today. Between high school and
post-college days some of them have occasionally lived together (a few still do), continued to play in an adult soccer league together, and made a ritual of their
annual summer weekend at Lake Sunapee. Those who have settled in South Hadley
and Boston and even as far away as Pennsylvania and Virginia have simply made
their relocations places for the others to visit. Regularly.
Not terribly unusual – and I’d say it’s a fairly low-risk
bet these ties will continue. But here comes the part that caught me unawares.
That made my mouth drop and gasp, “My son? And yours? Really!”
I heard it from one of the other boy’s mom, the mom who
for years now, has so graciously cooked up a storm and, I understand, steered
the speedboat on Sunapee every summer while the crew took turns water skiing
and tubing their way around the lake.
That is, when the crew was not otherwise
engaged in some clandestine activity - like fashioning a newfangled floatation device from a recycled lawn chair they'd attached
to wooden runners. A contraption that,
when it did stay afloat tethered to the speeding motorboat, caused quite a stir
on the Sunapee shores. Yes, that’s the direction these young adults’ minds tend
to go given some idle time –the
engineers and entrepreneurs’ workshop more or less.
Anyway, an officialletter had gone to the Sunapee-speedboat-driving -mom’s house , since
the former high school of these boys and one girl (as I heard it) had her son’s
home address on record.
“If the letter didn’t come to the house, I probably would
not have known either,“ she admitted. Yet, alas it had - with very specific information about where
each of these friends were to report and at what exact time – for the
presentation, she explained.
“Presentation?” I asked.
“Yes, but they’re not getting anything.” .
I was clearly confused until she said, “They’re giving
a scholarship.” You could have knocked me over with a whistle as she continued, “A scholarship to a
student going on in science -in honor of their high school science teachers. “
Why, those rascals, I thought – eight years out of high
school, all (fortunately) employed and now pooling their resources– as a way to thank
a few Misters and Misses who nurtured their (and I say this in a most complementary way)
nerdy adolescent minds.
That's the way I heard it, anyway.
Texted my son after getting the word on the street.
I need to get back to my favorite garden center–
Meadowview Farms in Southwick , MA. I briefly alluded to this plant emporium as the Nursery of
Eden in last week’s blog. Yet, even then I knew I hadn’t given the garden
center its due. By the time I left the aisles and aisles of vegetables and flowers
and grasses and herbs – there was even a section dedicated to cacti – all I
could think was that the country – no, the world, should run the way this busy
business operates.
I got there before 10 A.M. on a weekday, and the place
was packed. Cars had already parked past the edges of the paved lot onto the
grass. The departing customers pushed carts bursting with splatters of colorful
blooms against multi-shades of greenery. Arriving customers frequently offered
to take an empty cart as strangers finished loading their trunks with their
purchases.
This is my kind of shopping
This air of
cooperation continued in the crowded aisles of the open market. No one seemed
to mind waiting while a patron picked through geraniums or spikes or vines, visions
of a barrelful of blooms dancing in her head. This is a scenario where no one seems
to mind lingering a little longer.
Supermarkets don’t rise to this level of consumer
congeniality.Big Box Stores sometimes even fall short of basic civility. Their customers
weave in and out of aisles more robotically. Even on the cashier line, many glue their eyes to their phone screens or stare at the magazine rack
loaded with sensational headlines about celebrity birth, weight, and
relationships. Some of the people I’ve stood in line with don’t even talk to
the cashier as they check out. They just swipe, punch in a pin number, and go on their way.
Here at the farm, everyone is smiling! At one point I
panned one corner of the vast market to the other to see if I could find a
disgruntled face or two. Not a one came into view. There must be something
soothing about being surrounded by table after table of blooms, a floor full of
larger pots and bushes, and hanging baskets overhead. Soothing and aromatic, especially through the herbs.
I gathered my usual three varieties of tomatoes: an early
bloomer (for its earliness) ,a plum (for
sauce) and a cherry (for snacking mostly right from the vine). I picked out a colorful array of peppers – all
sweet,and dill and fennel to add to my
herbs that came back this spring, after a colder than usual winter. (I wasn’t surprised to
see the hardy chives and oregano come back – but the sage, rosemary, marjoram, and
even a few sprigs of parsley surprised me. Must have something to do with
planting them up against the sunny side of the house.) I decided to try a few Brussels sprouts plants,
for the first time (The sign said “easy to grow", though I’ve come to find out
they take a lot of pinching back. Time will tell.) Couldn’t resist a small white
eggplant either.
In the floral category I decided to go with coral geraniums
for the porch flower boxes. Three in each with a touch of silver duster
between them. Yes, that was me holding
up the works in the geranium aisle earlier,
I need to get
back to Meadowview Farms - for three more coral geraniums. Apparently I
miscounted. Chances are I’ll return home with more than those few plants.
I didn’t
turn the news on when I got up this morning the way I usually do. I didn't want to hear
Tornado history repeats itself in Moore, OK
(photo from weather.com)
more about a
mile-wide tornado that travelled twenty miles in about forty minutes through Moore, Oklahoma. I had followed the breaking news yesterday through the late night TV
news broadcasts.
I had had enough.
I don’t mean
I had had enough in a sated way or in a disgruntled way. I mean I had seen
enough to have the horrible tragedy, like other unfathomable events of the recent past,
now ingrained in my consciousness. Sad to say I’m no longer surprised when bad
events are experienced by undeserving people. Natural disaster and acts of random
violence have nothing to do with whether or not their victims have “it” coming to them. Nothing would have been gained by resettling
myself on the couch, in front of the TV, this morning. Viewing repeated news clips
of the same horrible moments of destruction or cries of despair I had seen last night, over and over, would not have helped anyone in
tornado-torn Moore Oklahoma or (as of this morning) calm Connecticut .
What will help is, once again, a national community effort to support the people most impacted by the tornado.The Town of Moore OK website has already posted the best ways.
Text STORM
to 80888 for Salvation Army.
Text REDCROSS to 90999 for Red Cross.
Text FOOD to 32333 for Oklahoma Regional Food Bank At this
time, PLEASE make financial donations only, until when and if other types of
donations are requested. I hope my readers will join me in abiding this call. Back to this morning, instead of
turning on the news, I took an early ride to my favorite garden
center just over the Massachusetts line. Lush indoor and outdoor displays surrounded me there, and everyone was smiling A good place to be, I thought.
I returned
home with lots of coral geraniums and veggies and herbs. Through the early
afternoon I assembled seven flower boxes for the porch. Then, in
minutes, an ominous cloud cover rolled in and soon the heavens let loose
with heavy. . . heavier . . . and then the heaviest rain I've seen in some
time. So heavy. the dog and I had to leave the porch as the wind sprayed the rain diagonally onto it. Inside, I turned on the TV to learn areas in my own state had been
issued tornado warnings. I sure hope the Connecticut storm will not overtake the news tomorrow. But if it does, I hope the viewers from afar will pull themselves away from excessive media coverage that just replays the same emotional footage 24/7, support the cause with a donation, and make their untainted day worthwhile.
As performers know so well, timing is everything. Yet the final and dark act in Robin Williams’ life performance seems so misplaced. Even as the news of his death spread last night, I expected to see him pop up on maybe, a late-night TV show to assure me he was just pulling my leg. Alas, Letterman and Fallon ran reruns. This was no joke.
