When I retired friends asked what I would do with all my free time. “Oh, just more of the good things.” I said, “Reading, theatre, tennis, travel.” “Try something new, try gardening,” some suggested, “it’s great physical exercise and surprisingly spiritual. Try planting veggies.” “Gardening’s not for me”. I insisted, “ I don’t have a green thumb.” But my son does, in fact he’s worked on an organic farm. “Take a...
Archive - October 2013
“Now you ‘re cooking with gas.”, my grandmother used to say. I thought of her after Hurricane Sandy hit New York on October 29, 2012. Although we live uptown, our proximity to the East River puts our apartment building in the city’s infamous flood zone A. When Sandy made landfall that day, rain and river water surged down a ramp to our basement and the force ripped an oil tank from the wall. It crashed on the cement floor and split, and the toxic mix of...
When our son was young he once asked us if we were at Woodstock. We said no, but we didn’t have an answer when he asked, Why not? He was disappointed, I’m sure we went down a notch or two in his esteem. He never asked if we rode the freedom bus, or went to Washington to hear Dr. King, or if we marched against the Vietnam War, or burned a bra or a draft card. Had he asked, we would have had to say no. And I still don’t have an answer when I ask myself, Why...
Among life’s curve balls has been my sister’s tragic illness. (See MY SISTER LAURIE, Oct 16, 2013) But thankful I am for small mercies like the compassionate staff at her nursing home and the beautiful grounds. Pushing Laurie’s wheelchair yesterday we heard music coming from the gazebo where one of the residents sat playing a melodica. “You play beautifully, sir!”, I called out to him. “My name is Art”, he called back , “tell...
Tragically my sister Laurie has been disabled and in a nursing home for the past six months. Tomorrow my husband and I will drive down to Maryland once again to see her. Ten years my junior, at age 59 she may be the youngest patient there. Laurie was strikingly beautiful and truly a Renaissance woman – a gifted artist and an avid museum-goer, a wonderful cook and a green thumb, a speaker of many languages, a reader of poetry, a teller of jokes, and by training and...