I love you

Visited the folks today.  As I've said before, these visits are endlessly enlightening.  My 88 year-old dad and I are trying to convince my 87 year-old mom to put their house on the market and move closer to me (they're an hour and a half away), preferably to an assisted living facility where they can get more help.

My mother has been characteristically uncooperative about all this, when, of course, she is the person who needs the care, attention, and move to this type of facility the most.

Today I decided that I would try a different approach with her.  Le me explain.  My mother has a reputation for being ornery, cantakerous and downright narcissistic and mean.  My father has been giving in to this behavior for years for what reason none of us seems to really understand.  He will say, "after 65 years together, I love her so much and I don't want her to be upset."  Who can argue with that?  I mean, two marriages later, I never even made it past 14 years.

Back to Betty (my mom).  Betty is difficult.  And my poor Mom is losing her grip on her world with every passing day.  So on this visit, I decided that I would only approach her with love.  Each time she disagreed or said she didn't want to move, or didn't want to cooperate in any way, I simply held her hands and looked her in the eyes and said, "Mommy, I love you so much and I'm just trying to help."  Even when she tried to move away, avert her eyes, or ignore me, I persisted with my assertion that I and all the rest of the family are just trying to help because we love her so much.

While I had her attention, I asked for her trust.  Trust is not a concept that my mother understands.  She never learned to trust anyone.  From day one, her environment was simply untrustworthy - unprepared parents, too many siblings, the depression and then her marriage to my father.  Instead of the storybook escape from her family and its limitations that she conjured in her imagination, she landed in what she interpreted as the hostile environment of an Italian family in Brooklyn that had absolutely no language for communicating with a little white anglo saxon protestant girl from Rhode Island.  And she had no emotional language to communicate with them.  I don't remember my parents being really happy, and as I got older, they seemed unhappier.  But I digress.

So today, as the window of opportunity to really communicate with my mother is closing quickly, I reached out my hands and tried to touch her.  I believe that my mommy is in there, behind that well defended and bitter woman.  I've seen her softer side when the two little great granddaughters are around.

After we went out for dinner at a slightly more upscale restaurant than they usually frequent, and which she seemed to really enjoy, I was taking my leave to come home.  As I helped her out of the car, she grabbed my arm as if to ask me to wait for a moment.  "I'm sorry,"  she said.  "I don't mean to seem ungrateful.  It meant so much to me to hear you say that you love me.  I love you too.  It's just that it's hard for me to give up my independence.  I don't mean to be a pain in the ass."

I was so touched that I barely could breathe.  I'm struggling with my own aging process and can't even imagine what it will be like for me when I'm in her 87 year-old shoes.  I just took her hand and gave her a hug and said, "Don't worry about it Mom.  I'm sure I'll be just as much of a pain in the ass when I get there."  She smiled and I wasn't really sure that she heard what I said, but the essence of the exchange was more positive than anything I've had with my mom in years. 

Revelation . . . really?

Visited the folks today.  It's always an adventure, a stop on my journey of self-discovery.  I feel like Ulysses at this point in my sixty third year trying to navigate parental waters.

Some months ago, and it might even be a year ago, my cat Thomas died.  As cats go, he was okay.  We adopted him when he was already a year old because he seemed to be beckoning to us.  My girls actually wanted a kitten, but the older and wiser daughter decided that we should review the older cats at the pound.  Of course, we were goners.  He was big and fat and handsome.

But . . . from the gitgo, he was not the kind of cat we were used to.  He was not friendly (and that's an understatement), though he became slightly more social as he aged.  He was known to be unexpectedly mercurial, terrifying children and sending my partner to the hospital with an infected bite.

So, it was very interesting to hear my mother, who is no lover of animals, proclaim that she misses Thomas.  And, she further denounced Ernie, the adorable beagle in my household, as a pest.

The revelation.  When my mother visited, Thomas would emerge from his hiding place, as cats will.  He would then give her a sniff or two and wander away, as cats will.  On the other hand, Ernie the beagle would insist on sitting next to her, behind her, trailing her for crumbs, under her feet.  Ernie is a needy child.  Thomas was independent and sometimes minimally attentive.

My mom has never been able to deal with any neediness.  To some degree, she has passed this somewhat difficult characteristic along to me and I am in a state of constant self-examination about my responsiveness to those who need and love me.

Who knew?  If I'd seen this awhile back, I'd have just named her a cat person and understood it all.

Girls

I am a girl.  I am a daughter and a mother of girls.  I am also the grandmother of girls. I think I've been around girls enough to understand them.  On the other hand -

Watching  HBO's new series, "Girls," last night made me wonder if there's anything I can understand about the young ladies depicted in this highly acclaimed new series.  Are my advancing years also advancing me away from understanding what young women are facing in today's world? 

On a very basic level, I recognize these girls.  They are like my 24 year-old daughter's friends in many ways - the employment anxiety, the male-female anxiety, the social awkwardness.  But what I find difficult is the great soup of our society into which they must become an ingredient and, hopefully, a successful ingredient. 

Let's start with the social soup.  It looks like any convention about male-female relationships has deteriorated to the point that there is no convention.  You're either getting it or you're not, and the long term strategy or thinking around the coupling is not there or is distinctly troubled.  For example, Hannah's tryst just seems like sexual calisthenics she's enduring for what purpose?  pass the time?  They could just as easily be playing a board (bored) game.  Both these young people mistake what they're doing for a kind of intimacy, but the sad fact is that it is a cold and awkward exchange. 

One young woman is pregnant and there's no discussion about the father and he doesn't even figure into the dialogue.  She is so troubled and confused about this pregnancy that she misses her abortion appointment, leaving her three friends there to "celebrate" her abortion, waiting as she has another tryst only to discover that she has gotten her period and is therefore, not pregnant after all.

The only character I recognize is the young woman who is unhappily in a long term relationship with the wrong guy and beats him up about it regularly.  I saw this behavior in myself and see it in others who just don't have the maturity or experience to recognize the key flash points of good/bad relationships.

So, the show has me perplexed.  Is this the way it is now for young women?  Has it always been this way and the show's raw depiction has touched some reserve within me that doesn't want to see what a troubled environment my own daughter has to navigate?  I guess I can think of so many characters throughout history that probably have been endlessly dependent on parents, sexually active with all the attendant side effects (pregnancy, disease etc.), confused about life path, rudderless, seeking . . . seeking . . . seeking.  I know it's not just this generation of young people.

But, today's world where everything seems easier and harder is damned confusing to me, so how must it seem to young people at the beginning of their adult lives?  One of the characters on the show, a gynecologist examining Hannah for STDs, summed it up nicely for me after listening to Hannah's litany of fears about the possible results of her trysts - "You couldn't pay me enough to be 24 again."

Another Day Older

I've been sick as a dog for the past week, the week leading up to my birthday.  I don't believe my dog has ever been this sick.

So, I've had lot of time to contemplate everything from relationships to family to the past fifty years of film to the state of current television and finally, with some trepidation, to my future.  This upcoming year will be a big one for me.  I will be selling my house, living in a new place, living alone with Ernie.  Ernie's my almost 9 year-old beagle, who has known no other home and no other family in his life.  We are growing old together, I told him yesterday as he looked at me with his deep soulful brown eyes set in a face growing white with age.

So, a few reflections, if I may.  I am having a very quiet birthday this year by choice.  It may seem obvious that if one is ill, one doesn't party hardy.  However, I have been known to push my personal envelope at times when it's not always been the best thing for me, especially where my family is concerned.  I am a sucker for my daughters, my granddaughters and my dear parents.  That may be a pretty strong characterization, but I remind you that I am an only child so I have always assumed that I am responsible for family celebrations.  And I do love to see them happy.  But this birthday is not happening in any celebratory way this year because I just can't physically handle it.  And that's just the fact as plain as the nose on my face.  I have to go to work on Monday, so I lay in bed now to make that possible.  I will be taken for lunch by my younger daughter today and I will have dinner with friends tomorrow.  That's it. 

There are deeper issues that this brings up for me - my younger daughter's impending independence, my parents' path to greater dependence, and my continued life without my partner.  I don't think that life gets more complicated as we age.  We just have a different prism through which to view all the issues that we didn't have as young people. 

I will say that this week has renewed by total respect and gratitude for great talent and art.  It breaks my heart that I had to miss Audra MacDonald at NJPAC last night 'cause it was just too much of a stretch for me.  But, I did get to watch two Fred Zinneman films back to back, "The Day of the Jackal" (1971) and "A Man For All Seasons" (1966).  Both these films have themes which resonate today and are brilliantly shot, acted and directed.  I also watched "Game Change" and rewatched "Capote."  That story will haunt me forever - from the pure evil of the predatory killers to the pure evil of the writer obsessed with his own need to get every last final detail about the story to complete his opus.  I think it is interesting to note, in the current year of celebrating the publication of "To Kill A Mockingbird" that the close relationship between Harper Lee and Capote (young Truman Capote was young Harper Lee's neighbor and inspired the character of "Dill") was inevitably damaged by their collaboration on "In Cold Blood."

I also watched so much good television.  My favorites: "Nurse Jackie" - Acting doesn't get much better than what Edie Falco is doing in this well-written show;  "The Big C" - I have huge admiration for this show's creators.  It holds a mirror to all human frailty and stupidity, and, by the way, also to bloggers (!) in this week's episode when Oliver Platt's character, recently recovered from a "near death" experience, remakes his life through a blog that reveals all personal details of his life and more pointedly, his wife's (the luminous Laura Linney), never taking into account the impact these revelations in public will have on his son.  Finally, "Modern Family" is good for whatever ails ya, my daughter says and I can't say it better than that.

So, as I experience this year's birthday, I will have a lot of time to think about what I need, how I need to move ahead in my life and who will join me.  I know that Ernie will hang in as long as his canine life expectancy and all the love we can give him will allow.

I recently took a life expectancy survey on a life insurance site.  It predicted that I will live another 24 years or so, providing no one kills me or my life doesn't end in some unpredictable way  . . .  So, as I lie here recuperating, I'm thinking about everything I want to do, see and mostly - be - during that time.  That's a way to celebrate, I think.

A Dream with Brad Pitt

 I was alone in my kitchen.   I was a younger girl still living with my parents, but they weren’t home.  As I worked over the sink, everything seemed to shift and then fall apart.  Then, suddenly the dishwasher fell through the floor into the basement. 

Suddenly, I was outside, looking and feeling wretched, when Brad Pitt and a friend (who was also a cute/handsome blond fellow) ambled over and began to hang out with me.  I showed them the destruction and they didn’t offer to help, but rather wanted to have fun.

My parents came home.  My father had had some kind of surgery, but he was nonetheless full of energy.  I showed him the mess and he immediately began to “fix up” the basement.  Outside of this dream, my father is someone who can never live with the ways things are, always rearranging rooms and furniture to make them better.

Brad and the blond fellow found him amusing.  He made a large tableau out of the junk and placed it in the yard facing the neighbors house.  “Hey (some name I can’t remember), how do you like this?"  The neighbor and his family were in their yard celebrating their son’s bar mitzvah.  All were in clown like, bright costumes. 

I showed my father how their basement was arranged since the door was open and we could see inside.  In a secretive manner, my father said that it was arranged as a bedroom since someone was living down there, seeming to indicate that there was divorce or some family problem.

I cavorted with Pitt and his friend, but Brad and I were falling in love.  I remarked at how amazing it was to me that he should find me.  I said that I’d always loved him but I’d never, in my wildest dreams (how ironic) thought I’d meet him, much less be in love with him.  We caressed and kissed.  I also made a point of saying that I thought his friend was very attractive and that I’d be attracted to him if Brad were not around.

Brad told me that in order to meet him, one had only to give him a business card.  So, as joke, I gave him my business card.  We laughed. 

There was some disturbance with people yelling at us and telling us to be quiet.  He yelled back, “Hey, don’t you know who I am?  I’m Brad Pitt.”  Then, I yelled, “and don’t you know that I’m Paula Maliandi, Executive Director of Marketing?”  (That’s what I said, though that never was and is not my current title.)

We all seemed to be bored and looking for something to do.   Brad and his friend were used to a much higher level of amenities than I could provide – my TV was old fashioned etc.  Suddenly I realized that my father had reorganized all my CDs in what seemed to be the frame of the old dishwasher.  This was no surprise to me since my father has always been obsessed with adaptive reuse, even when the reuse is illogical.  So the CDS were stacked horizontally going deep into the back of the dishwasher where the titles could not be seen.  I remarked at how typical that was of my father.

After that, the dream fades.  I wake up.  Brad goes away.  I am no longer a young girl living with my parents.

Alive

I have experienced the death of a close friend, the change of my job, the possible change of my residence along with other transitions within the past few months.  I honestly thought I'd forgotten how to feel.

Last week, out of the blue, I got a call from a friend/colleague, an artist who's been integrally involved in the success and survival of the Aljira Gallery in Newark - Cicely Cottingham.  Cicely is a role model in so many ways.  She's an artist who is perhaps just beginning to get the recognition she deserves for her gift.  But, with Victor Davson, she has been instrumental in keep Aljira alive through the crash and recession - no small feat.

She called me to ask, so gingerly, if I might be interested in attending a luncheon to brainstorm about the upcoming Aljira Gallery auction, an event that last year netted $100,000 to keep the gallery afloat.  My kneejerk reaction was immediately to say yes.

At the lunch today, with Cicely and two other ladies whose devotion to art, Newark and Aljira were clearly evident, I poured out my ideas and suggestions about how to attract attendees and buyers to the auction.

It felt great!   There I was.  That was me!  The person who's been struggling with so many issues over the past few months was back!  I'm back!

Driving back from Newark I felt alive again with enthusiasm about art, about attracting young people to support young artists, about keeping a small gallery in Newark alive because it's been part of the Newark renaissance and brings such great talent and energy to that downtown area.  Yes!

The auction is March 17.  The work that is available for purchase is the best.  Artists who have donated their work for auction have become recognized and celebrated for their gifts.  Cicely told a story today about a young artist whose work was not initially appreciated when first offered for auction, but when offered a few years later, was scooped by savvy collectors.

Why support art?  Why devote time to such an endeavor when there are perhaps more compelling causes?

Art will never be at the top of anyone's list.  Health care . . . even animal rights (a cause very near to my heart) will always tug more at the heart strings.

But, I believe that young artists and the passion and perspective they bring to the world present a voice that we must respect and support.  They represent our humanity in the most profound way, no matter which art form they represent.

So, today I felt alive because art is in my heart.

For more information about the Aljira Auction and Gallery, visit http://aljirafineartauction.org.

Visiting the Folks or The Power of Parents

I visited my elderly parents yesterday.  It is always a fraught experience for me and one that I know has been brought about, for better or worse, by the miracle of modern medicine.  I love my parents and it is amazing that at almost ages 87 and 88, they continue (with some modification) to move about, drive (you got that right), eat out, be with friends, be with family and function.

They also continue to be who they are with age's inevitable deepening of opinions and beliefs.  And they express themselves with greater certainty and with a desperation that, I believe, comes from their knowledge that they are entitled to say anything they like and better say it quickly while they can.

So, yesterday at lunch my father once again asked me how much I weigh.  He has made allusions recently to my weight which is his "subtle" way of telling me that he thinks I'm fat.  At this same lunch, my mother looked at me and said, "Your hair, it's . . . . (long pause as she studies my hair and I'm wondering - do I need color, does she notice I'm going bald - what, what, what????)  . . . . messy."  My hair is messy.  I am 62 years old and my mother is telling me my hair is messy.  What's worse is that on some level it upset me.

Having kids myself, and being the age that I am, I completely understand the drive to be honest and forthright.  After all, if you can't be honest with your children and your family, there is no authenticity in the world.  On the other hand, the power of the parent, no matter how old you are, is stunning.

I have spent many a conversation with peers who recount tales of their current relationships with parents and the effect words and actions continue to have on them.  Similarly, I observe the profound effect my words can have on my girls.  Sometimes I think the best course is only to offer opinion when asked, but that's tough for someone like me who's full of  . . . opinion.

The obvious conclusion is that I ought to have processed all of this stuff by my age, but I don't think the power of that first seering glance, that first "no" when a baby moves toward a harmful object, that first moment you realize you've disappointed or pleased a parent, ever goes away and becomes part of the fabric of all our relationships going forward.

Pauline Angelina’s Deliziose Polpette

 When my Nana made meatballs, she would always give me a couple before she put them in the gravy – polpette. To this day, when I make meatballs, I always treat myself!

2 lbs. ground beef (some folks use 1/3 veal, 1/3 pork – I don’t)
4 eggs beaten lightly ½ cup of flat leaf parsley – chopped fine
½ - ¾ cup of bread crumbs (I use flavored)
¼ cup grated locatelli romano cheese salt and freshly ground pepper Add milk to consistency.

1. Mix eggs, parsley, bread crumbs, cheese, salt and pepper.
2. Add to meat and work through with hands. Consistency should be slightly firm, yet moist. If too moist, add a little more breadcrumbs, but not too much because meatballs will be too hard.
3. Shape into balls 2” in diameter. ( I rinse my hands after each two or three balls and it makes the rolling easier.)
4. Brown on all sides on non-stick fry surface. 5. Once browned, continue cooking in gravy.