The Wayback Machine

Welcome, all you new subscribers! I am so happy you have joined us. I thought it might be nice to re-introduce myself with a quick trip into Mr. Peabody’s WAYBACK MACHINE. ( If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re too young!)

I walked into the land of Substack a while ago:

February 23, 2023.

I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. StanleyKunitz

You have to remember that the reason that you started initially working was that there was something inside yourself, that you felt that if you could manifest it in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you coexist with the rest of society.  David Bowie

If I knew exactly what this was going to be, I'd tell you. But I don’t, so I won’t. I write short-short stories, paint, write and sing music and everything in between all those cracks. I love music, words and pictures.

I am, and have been, a list of things: a kid, a wife, a mother, grandmother, teacher, singer of songs, player of instruments, writer of plays and poems and stories, painter of pictures, winner of awards, a keeper of history.  My work keeps me alive and on the path of curiosity and self-discovery. I would be lost without it. I suppose, in the end, I am a storyteller. But a story is dead without a listener.

And so, dear listener, reader, I hope you will enjoy what you see and hear.  And I hope my work will awaken something in you.  

I am new to Substack, so stay tuned (and be patient) while I figure it out! I will be posting regularly – thoughts, stories (published and unpublished), videos, paintings from today and yesteryear.

Since then, I have written about everything from Café Beaujolais to Mudlarking. I realized that at this point in my life, it was time to take a moment from new projects, to look back, to tell the stories that surround the many works I’ve created.

In the end, we are our stories; each one of us with unique tales to tell. I’ll complete my introduction with the biographical ABC I posted in Substack in Sept ‘23. I invite you all to write your own!

Back to School

Alphabet Soup

A

is for Astigmatism   I had a lazy eye.  I was supposed to do daily exercises, holding up two pencils, one close to my nose, the other a foot away from my face.  Focus on one, then the other, one,  then the other – this was Training for both eyes to work at the same time.  They never have.  I have somehow adapted. My right eye still drifts out to the side when I’m not using it. Marty Feldman is my hero.

B

is for Bankruptcy (see midlife crisis, zoning)– Well, it was the late 80’s – a heady time for real estate investors.  Interest rates were low, house values were headed up – fast.  I got a job as a Latin teacher, but quit so I could make a million bucks. My first husband and I bought, rehabbed and sold many houses and made lots of money. It was all very heady until the market came to a screeching halt.  We declared bankruptcy in some courthouse somewhere.  We lost everything, including our house. The Sears representative was there to say we could keep our vacuum cleaner. Four children, a vacuum cleaner but no house.  

C

is for the chèvre that my new husband and I made, after tracking down the goats’ milk down a long dirt road.  After asking countless puzzled grocery store clerks for the rennet we were supposed to have, we went to The Cheese Lady’s house in western Mass.  She had everything a know-nothing cheese-maker could ever desire.

D

is for Diabetes.  Our fourth child, Olivia, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 17.  It was a strong reminder of what mattered in life.  Life, in fact, mattered in life.

E

is for Epiphone – my first electric guitar.  I don’t know what possessed me to buy it, but it started me on a long quest to learn jazz.  I set down my classical guitar and went for the twang of electricity.  I eventually went back to the smooth jazzy sound of my classical guitar with an electric pick-up.  I gave the Epiphone to my son Owen.  He was going to trade it in on another guitar.  We would have gotten $400 on the trade-in. The salesman said, “Don’t sell this guitar.  It’s too special.”  Owen still has it.  He’s keeping it just in case either of us want to pick it up again.

F

is for Forgiveness. The older I get, the more I know that we all make mistakes, we all hurt others, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes not.  We all need to forgive and to be forgiven.

G

is for Grapevine.   My second husband and I moved to a little falling-down house on a river. We chased out the water rats, knocked out a lot of walls and built a pergola.  We grew grapes on the pergola and made our own wine.  It was terrible.

H

is for the handwriting analyst who told me I often anticipate resistance to my ideas. I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about.

I

is for Ireland My grandparents were born in Ireland.  When I found out that qualified me for Irish citizenship, I travelled to Ireland to find my Grampa Tim’s birth certificate. I probably could have found it on line. Going to Ireland was more fun.

J

is for the Jujube candies we ate in the dark at The Community Playhouse in Wellesley Hills. Movies cost 25 cents. We only got to go to the movies when it was raining. Ben Hur, The Parent Trap, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. We were all very upset that the cost for The Shaggy Dog increased to 35 cents.

K

is for the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra, which played the piece I entered in their Mozart 250 competition.  A fugue was required.  I wrote a fugue of sorts. At the rehearsal, Maestro Rachlevsky turned to ask me if I approved of their rendition of my piece, I managed to say yes, even though I thought I might faint. For the performance that evening, I sat in the balcony, just to drink it all in.  I didn’t realize that the Maestro would turn after each piece to ask the composer to take a bow. When he came to me, he couldn’t find me.  I sang a loud ‘Yoo-hoo’ from up in the peanut gallery.  And so, I can also say that I sang in Carnegie Hall.

L

is for Latin that I studied for many years.  It is deep in my bones. De gustibus non est disputandum.

M

is for the Midlife Crisis that was triggered by losing all our money. (See B is for Bankruptcy)  Maybe spending your time going after money is a waste of a life.

N

is for Nudity.  See skinny dips

O

is for the outboard motor on the little boat on Lake Sunapee.  My seventeenth summer, I waitressed at a restaurant across the lake.  I took the boat to work.  That same summer, I met my husband, who came in for a sandwich.

P

is for puppet.  I’ve never met a puppet I didn’t like.  Marionettes, hand puppets, shadow puppets.  I spent a week once as the resident composer at a puppetry conference at The Eugene O’Neil Theatre in New London, Ct., where puppeteers from all over came to present their puppets and to develop their shtick .  I ate lunch one day with a women and her daughter who put cooked lobster legs and claws on their fingers and began a lobster dance at the table.  They turned out to be Jim Henson’s widow and daughter. 

Q

is for how my Cape Cod husband pronounces quahog – kwo-hog, not the land-lubbers co-hog.

R

is for regurgitate or throw up.  I will do anything NOT to throw up.

S

is for skinny dip.  There is no greater feeling than slipping through the water with nothing on.

T

is for the tubal ligation I had when the narcissistic boyfriend I happened upon after 25 years of marriage and 4 babies, wanted me to have his baby.

U

is for the ultrasound that showed that my fourth baby was still there after I was afraid I had miscarried.

V

is for my father’s violin and the cherished memory of his pulling it out every Christmas, standing behind me while I played Christmas Carols at the grand piano.  I come from a family of singers.  My father would tap my head with the bow every time I hit a wrong note.  These group sings taught me that no matter what, keep the rhythm going.  I still play a lot of wrong notes, but I will never miss a beat!

W

is for the red wagon, full of picture books and Matthew, my first baby. Every few days, we would head downtown to our little stone library to pick out a new batch of books.

X

is for the occasional X-rays of my foot, just to make sure the needle that I stepped on fifty years ago, is still there, encapsulated in tissue – just as the doctor had said would happen, after he was unable to extract it, even with the help of a large magnet used for war wounds.  The danger was that it would let loose one day, head straight for my heart and kill me instantly. He must have been right. I’m not dead yet.

Y

is for yodeling which seemed to come easily to me.  I always had a low singing voice, but lurking behind the scenes was a mad soprano.  I used to sing both Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza’s parts of ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ 

Z

is not for zebra. It is for zoning (see bankruptcy)- the acre and a half zoning that assured us that we would be able to subdivide the 6 acre seaside mansion into three lots.  It would be our last real estate venture.  We would pay off all our other real estate debt and we’d be set for the rest of our lives.  It was a ‘no-brainer’, as the real estate hot shots used to say.  Well, it turned out to be a private way,  all the WASPY neighbors hired lawyers and that was that.  My tearful call to the head of the zoning board of appeals saying that we would be ruined, we would lose our house, had no effect.  We lost everything.  No wait, that’s not true.  We lost our possessions, but learned something way more valuable.  We are not our possessions.

HOMEWORK THIS WEEKEND: Write your alphabet biography. Turn off your inner critic. Write what jumps into your head. Skip the first trite thought. Go for the oddball thing.