Wedding at the Koi Pond

Twelve white plastic chairs were lined up in a single row along the border of the koi pond in the Japanese Garden next to the tea house built in honor of the sister city.  A concert cellist named Diego, son of Argentinian emigres who arrived in L.A. just in time before the disappeareds, played baroque accompaniment to the breeze and babbling waterfall.  The solos were at once serene and mournful.  This was a spare wedding, thinly populated.  The mother of the bride, tightly corseted, wore a long deep blue gown. A gem matching and uncertain quality hung prominently from a white gold chain on her ample breast.   On her arm was a man to whom she had been married twice, though not currently.  He called her his wife.  The bride called him her mother’s boyfriend.  He said they were separated.  It was not a consistent story, though he was a MENSA and very entertaining.  The groom’s mother wore a handwoven dress from Mexico adorned with Mexican amethyst and silver jewelry she had inherited from the mother-in-law she never met who had acquired same on New York’s Fifth Avenue.  A hand woven shawl from a highland village draped her shoulders.  The MENSA man exclaimed she was more Mexican than the mother of the bride whose family had migrated from Guerrero in the last generation.  Assimilation can be everything to some.  Accompanying the mother of the groom was her husband number two.  The father of the groom who had never remarried was also in attendance.   The best man flew in from the mile high city to be with his best friend from infancy.  Three young women in stiletto sandals adorned with sequins that exposed French manicured toes attended the bride who emerged from the Japanese tea house alone to the accompaniment of the mournful cello, her heels sinking into the grass as she tip-toed to the area where the officiant, the groom and the single bride’s maid awaited her.  Many who loved these two were missing from the scene.

There had been a long debate about who could or would be in attendance.  The bride, tall, lanky, and quixotic, went back and forth about who to include or not, and the groom to be was compliant.

Land of Ageless Beauty

Stephen wakes up wondering why he is in a malaise.  After traveling from east coast to west, we have landed in Old Town Pasadena to begin a long weekend of wedding festivities for my son.   This boy, errr, young man, is tall, lanky and fit.  His wife to be is a just-graduated dietician, tall, lanky and fit.  They appear to be a good match.  We are also a good match, short, squat, aging gracefully (or so we believe), trying to suck in tummies that have enjoyed a bit of too much good living in our lives.

We sit in the sparsely decorated room of our discount hotel (trying to save money to sleep in order to splurge on the great food and wine in this town) going through the list of why we are feeling a little blurry and disconnected.  The easy answer would be jet lag, since we were awake at 3 a.m. eastern daylight time in order to be on a 6:15 a.m. flight to arrive at LAX at 11 a.m. and being another day anew.  But I think it is more than that.

I grew up out here.  This is the land of Hollywood, the culture defining aura of “you are what you drive, how you look, where you dine.”  The women are beautiful, slender, manicured, muscular (but not too muscular, lest the definition of muscle overpower the softness of unblemished skin).  The men are buff, robust, solid.  Youth extends to infinity through the magic hands of plastic surgeons and personal trainers.  It is difficult to tell substance from image.  There are loads of Mercedes and BMWs on the streets connoting a sense of wealth and well-being, and I always wonder about the back-story.  Are they living in shared apartments on the western fringes of downtown (not quite West L.A.) in order to give the appearances that have come to define California culture and maintain a car payment that is more than the rent?  And why not, people spend a lot of time in their cars out here — probably more than they spend at home!

Over dinner, we talk about the State being bankrupt, issuing vouchers for future payments of goods and services.  Yet, the sky is blue and there is barely a layer of smog over the city today.  This is a “there will be a better day” atmosphere.  The cafes along Colorado Boulevard are filled with diners sipping good wine and nibbling at calamari appetizers before ordering the blackened grouper or rare steak.  The four hundred thousand dollar weddings are still being booked at the Huntington Gardens (though not the wedding I will attend which will be in the public park).

There is a thirty minute wait at 21 Flavors of Frozen Yogurt.  The queue along the sidewalk and around the corner is about thirty people long.  They are all young, ageless, eager, a melange of Asian and Latino and European and African mix of couples or representing the blending of a prior generation of intermarriage, all beautiful and ageless.  After our dinner of a delicious Japanese dinner on the sidewalk cafe at Kabuki, I glance longingly across the street for a frozen yogurt.  Stephen pats my rear and says honey, we don’t need it.  I know he is right, and I feel out of place, out of touch with the land of my beginnings.  I am no longer part of this.  I meander with a camera around my neck, silver hair prominent among those with copper highlights, flat and serviceable shoes juxtaposed against the click of stilettos on the sidewalk.  I am a tourist now and with this realization, some shame overcomes me.  I no longer belong in the land of my youth, the land of ageless beauty, and then realize that this may not be a bad thing.

Scrambled Eggs

There is a mystery to the aging process. Deterioration happens when you least expect it. It arrives suddenly like a boulder dislodged from the cliff, falling on the road and blocking traffic for miles. It takes hours and a large crew to handle the clean-up. Last night, while eating scrambled eggs, the most soft and delicate of all food substances, I suddenly feel something solid, rock-like in the midst of the warm mass in my mouth, and realize that a tooth had broken off. Why am I crying? There is a gaping hole in the front of my smile. I face a day or more in the dentist’s chair. But that is not it. I am continuing to deteriorate. The parts are wearing out and need replacement. They do not grow back but will be fashioned from artificial material. This is a reckoning. I am coming up to my 63rd birthday and I cry because I am mourning this loss — of my smile, my tooth, my beauty, my health, my life.

Mc vs. Mac — The New Social Technology Interface

The Apple Store phenom is a sensory experience of the highest order. Social Technology. Real life Facebook. The experience of sitting at the Genius Bar and just elbowing up to the bar tender, engaged in the repartee, tete-a-tete of Mac life. The Small Set is assembled around a low table playing computer games, challenge matches, sitting in front of huge screens, easily navigating and manipulating the cursors, punching out villains and magnifying heroes. They sit on little round rubber balls (like exercise balls) clad in a rainbow of Crocs, ecstatic. This is the way to build brand, I say to myself. Get them to be users before the age of 5. Brilliant. Just like when my children were young and they were only happy at the McDonald’s Playground. Here is the new generation playground, equally if not more so enticing, compelling, addictive. We are creating children who are totally technology facile, while next to me the 40 and 50-somethings are struggling to learn and keep up. I am navigating my way around Facebook, upgraded to my new MacBook with 3-D screen, and playing in the online communication leagues with people greater than half my age. It’s fun, challenging, and I can see that the Mc generation is creating the Mac generation.

I Voted Early

My original intention was to join the throngs on November 4, wait in line in celebratory anticipation of the long season finally coming to a close, cast my ballot, and hope.  What changed?  Change itself.  The admonitions, pleas, encouragement, and voices imploring me to exercise my civic duty to help my candidate and vote early.  Perhaps I could savor election day in a different way this year.  So, this morning I drove in search of the local board of elections office — a place I had never been before.  En route, I listened to a national NPR story about the NC Senate race, where age was noted as a factor in Elizabeth Dole’s effectiveness, the commentator asking the guest if people knew that she was as old (age 72) as John McCain, and a listener e-mailing that her 92 year old mother was sharp enough to be president or senator.  The commentator chimed, “I’m 72 and I’m not ready to be put out to pasture.”  I spoke silently  to myself, this isn’t about age.  It’s about competency.  My 92 year old mother could be president, too.  She beats me in Scrabble every time.

The parking lot of the election board offices was packed.  A van from the local Christian retirement community pulled in ahead of me, taking up two of the handicapped spaces.  Eight elderly folks cued up in line just before I could get there first.  They rested on canes and the arms of compatriots.  Yes, there was a line, and it took much longer to get through it than I normally would have spent during any other national election on election day at my regular polling place.

In the state where I live, we have the option of voting a straight party ticket, but we must also separately vote for president and any non-partisan offices.  I considered and then tossed out the idea of taking the easy way out.  I wanted to savor filling in this ballot, taking the black pen and filling in all the little oval circles.  One of the little ladies said, don’t you have a machine that punches holes.  The election worker said, no, we don’t have any hanging chads here.  I smiled and kept marking my ovals.  It was delicious.  And when I left, I felt satisfied and filled with a pride I had never felt before.  I voted early.

Did You Fire the Cleaning Lady? or How To Save A Few $$

We are working professionals who feel poor.  Mostly because our retirement fund has tanked, the financial picture is gloomy, and it looks like we’re going to have to work another 10 years just to catch up to what we lost a month ago.  I’ve been taking my lunch to work, saving $5-$7 per day.  He’s been shopping the food sales at the grocery store. We’re bundling car trips. Trimmed eating out.  Last week we managed to have a meal at the local diner for $20 (plus tip).  He’s at the stove now preparing to cook burgers, and the electronic ignition for the gas burner is flickering but not igniting.  This is what it always does after the cleaning lady comes.  The rings don’t always get replaced to the exact position.  He looks up.  “Did you fire the cleaning lady?” he asks.  No, I nod, saying, “There wasn’t anybody else here who was going to clean the toilets and wash the floor.”  “Oh,” he says.  “I thought we agreed to fire her.”  “Well,” I say, “we’re feeling poor, but in reality we’re still making the same income, we’re at no risk for our jobs, and we’re helping out a Latino family who could use the work.”  “Yeah,” he says, “I can see that.  Well, okay.”

True, I’ve been penny-inching.  Three weeks ago I opened my first savings account in more than 20 years.  I’ve managed to squirrel away a few dollars, paying attention to depositing checks that come in from the sale of my art that I normally would have put into my checking account and spent.  It’s an interesting feeling being so aware of debt, credit, savings, and what constitutes poverty.  Bob Herbert wrote in the NY Times this morning that people are losing their homes and more will be destitute and homeless than ever before.  Our president to be will have one of the greatest leadership challenges in 75 years. The banks who have been given the bailout (oh, excuse me, rescue) on the backs of U.S. taxpayers are not releasing any of these funds to provide credit to homeowners who need to refinance mortgages.  I am sleepless worrying about who the next leader of my country will be.  I cry at the prospect of McCain beating Obama and worry about election fraud.  I feel helpless and at the same time both hopeless and hopeful.  I have not felt so much energy in an election since I was a youth and John Kennedy moved into the Oval Office.  Yet, I also feel despair at what we have wrought as a nation.  There is no trickle down for me.

So, as my hair grays and my bottom sags, and I yearn for retirement when I can play at doing the things I love best, I despair and lament my own financial recklessness as a baby-boomer with her head in the sand, and the frivolity of my expenditures.  Who is to blame?  Certainly not the cleaning lady.  Perhaps I will have a yard sale or sell another pair of shoes on e-Bay instead.

My NYT Addiction

True confessions!  I’m addicted to reading the New York Times.  Fascinated with the Sarah Palin Effect.  The indignity of designer clothing persona au courant vs. the frumpy pre-candidate as governatrix image is visual eye candy.  I just love that photo of Sarah sauntering across the tarmac in go-go boots and tight red skirt.  Vogue-ing.  I also confess that I’m a little jealous as I turn out of bed in the morning with more than an ache in my lower back.  The age of arthritis onset is upon me.  Perhaps it is from staying up too late reading every kernel of news and op-ed published by the New York Times in this frenzy election year.

Some years back I bumped into Tipper Gore as she was exiting and I was entering a dressing room at Needless Mark-ups (Nieman Marcus) in Tysons Corner.  I was a svelte Washington, DC gal then.  I would sometimes cruise the Last Call rack in hopes of discovering something special on the 75 percent mark-down rack before it got shipped out to Marshalls or TJ Maxx.  This dream rarely converted.  I remember Tipper as warm, cozy and somewhat out of character at N-M, just like me.

Now, I’m living a more practical and rural life.  As my hair turns to it’s natural color and my hips spread and my eyes lose sharp focus and my retirement fund is laid waste at the altar of consumer spending, I can’t wait for this election to be over so I can get some rest.  If I skip back and forth between the Times and the Huffington Post and Politico.com then perhaps the cybergods of election day will hear my mantra and Barack will win.  There is energy out there on the Internet.  On-line giving is an endorsement of that.

As a 60-something, I am astounded by my own behavior.  I probably spend more time online than my 30-something son.  I am connected to Facebook, Linked-In, and am writing several blogs.  I’ve published Google ads and am continually updating my web site.  My life is online.  I live an online life.  I wonder why I don’t see my friends who live down the road, but can carry on constant virtual conversations.  I have teased my husband that he brings his BlackBerry to bed, but I’m much more imbedded in e-culture than he is.  At this very moment, there are seven tabs open on my computer.

Yesterday, while reading an op-ed piece in the NYTimes, I came across the name of a friend who had written a comment (among the 165 I head read that morning).  The friend is now living in Germany and I hadn’t been in touch for at least five years.  Perhaps this was the best serendipity for being a NYT Addict — we are now Linked-In and have a plan to meet up in Mexico next year.  It’s time for the eye drops.

This just in from folks in the know:

The public radio fund drive folks seem to have it right.  Perhaps we could offer this script suggestion to the McCain phone volunteers?

“Hi, I’m ___________, your neighbor, calling to ask your support for the McCain campaign.  Today, at the $50 level, you can contribute to Sarah Palin’s Marc Jacobs satchel in blue-violet ostrich with kiss-lock closure and padded chain shoulder strap.At the $100 level, you may contribute to her belted Oscar de la Renta handknit cashmere cardigan with horn buttons in either ice or sapphire. And at the $150 level, with a matching contribution from Neiman Marcus, you may contribute to Ms. Palin’s cropped swing jacket and draped bias shift dress by Vera Wang.
What can we count on you for?”

http://www.newsobserver.com/nation_world/story/1265379.html

Gray Expectations

Perhaps there is something Dickensian about aging. There are no illusions. About six weeks ago I had an epiphany. I was no longer going to color my hair. Considering that I have been blonde since age 38 and it has been some years — more than I am willing to state publicly — since I have seen the actual real color of my hair, this was going to be an adventure in self-discovery.  The operative word for me here is REAL.  I decided to become REAL.  I also came to the conclusion, rightly or not, that the thinning of my hair at the top of my forehead was the cause of chemical dyes.  This was something I could believe in, true or false.  I had done enough research on the health risks of breathing chemical dyes to convince myself that I was playing roulette with the BIG C if I continued to douse my scalp with every six week treatments of L’Oreal Lightest Natural Blonde.  I paid attention to who dyed their hair and who didn’t, who’s roots were beyond their time, who were spending hundreds of dollars in the salons of my town to streak and paint strands and tendrils of keratin filaments.

One haircut later and I’d say I’m about half-and-half.  I now sport this kinda dirty blonde sexy look that is more than a bit out of character for someone my age. (I try to pretend I’m not a dowager but I could easily be a grandmother several times over.  Something tugs at my ambivalence — yearning for my progeny to deliver and wanting to relive The Last Waltz.)  Underneath the two inches of blonde there is an equal amount of an unidentified color that I can’t put my finger on.  It’s still too soon to tell.  It is questionable as to whether I will like it or not — although I stay open to the possibilities.  Do I detect a hint of stunning silver or dingy drab brown?  It fascinates me.

This is transition time.  The presidential candidates have assembled their teams to take over the White House and the reigns of government.  The American south is turning light blue.  My neighbors are planting winter vegetable gardens to cut down on trips to the supermarket.  I’m putting little dribs and drabs of cash into my savings account since my retirement fund has tanked. And, think of how much I’ll save as we enter this economic crisis by refusing to continue to dye my hair.

There is a feeling of empowerment as I watch my hair grow.  Soon I will be converted. The blonde brassy sassy me will be toned down by the shades of gray underneath.  There is nothing left that I have to prove to the world.  I do not have to pretend I am younger than I am.  I have reached my career trajectory — perhaps not as high or as far as I would have liked, but I am satisfied.  I now mentor the young and ambitious ones and support them in their professional and personal goals.  So, my hair can now be a reflection of this place in my life where I can say, here I am, I have earned it, and I’m not afraid to let you see me for who I really am.  My expectations have been fulfilled.

The Meltdown

It finally hit him. The Big C, cancer, and when I reached over to touch him the other night, he barked and growled at me like an animal who had been wounded and was in excruciating pain. As if I was the one who had inflicted the blow. What do you want? he said, what do you want. I just want to touch you. C’mon, he said, everyone knows what they want, as if he was prodding me to challenge him to have sex just one more time. It was not a good night. He had done, during the last few days since the test results were revealed, what men are acculturated to do, to suppress the anger, think lightly of it, be cavalier, pretend it isn’t serious, hold it in and be strong. I even began to think, aw, it’s nothing. We talked about who takes out the garbage or unloads the dishwasher, what’s for dinner, how the day went. Life as usual. Then, blam. Crisis. This is REAL. I confess, I was hurt by his outburst of anger, accused him of pulling away from me and disconnecting, and went to the couch to sleep … or at least make an attempt at it. It was a long, not good night.

He’d gotten a phone call from a nurse who delivered the news rather matter-of-factly as she asked to schedule the biopsy appointment for mid-June. Wait a minute, he said to me the next morning, after pouring out tears of fear and sincere apology, I had this test done in March. He sobbed. His body shook. I held him. I listened, stroked his back and kissed his neck. Why was it they were calling me at the end of May when the test was done in March, he said. What happened? What’s going on here? We both know. We work for major medical centers. Patients fall through the cracks. And he wasn’t paying attention. My husband is scared, anxious, wondering how long he will live, what his quality of life will be, whether surgery will be necessary and if it is, knowing that he will be incontinent and lose sexual function. I think this scares him more than it scares me because while sex has always been important to both of us, this diagnosis is more than that. It is about mortality and how much time is really left, how many days, months, years. Is this slow growing or virulent? The anxiety of waiting until July to hear the biopsy result (sorry, we have a practice of not giving that information out over the phone) after we return from vacation. I say, call the doctor and tell him about the time lapse, ask to be seen sooner, take a stand. He does. The doctors says, no worries, take your vacation, your PSA is low and the test is 75% accurate. There’s time to see what’s going on. One has to be a believer in something to live in this world.

So, for both of us, this is really taking a step back and asking, what are the priorities? reflecting on our lives, what we want, how we want to be together as we go through this. I want to say, this isn’t happening to us, it’s some kind of dream. I always was a conflict avoider. But, now I am conscious, more conscious of this relationship, and how much it means to me.

The Phone Call

I’ve been joking around, poking around the edges of waning sex, imagining the passion of my youth and the not so long ago time of yearning and desire, before vaginal fluids evaporated and the frustration of lost erections. This week, I wondered if I would need to start using the term “sex” with the same Bill Clinton definition. Oh, and by the way, I didn’t inhale, either. I was talking to myself, that inner dialog that goes on when the questions are too startling to ask aloud for fear of hearing the truth or expressing blame: Will he ever enter my body again? Was that time last month the last time in my life? Do we need to honor or mark the last time as a moment of profundity in our lives? I am mourning my aging and my self as a sexual being.

Every day husband and I have phone chat time, catch up time, how’s your day going time. It’s never predictable about when we’ll talk. Yesterday, he called just before noon and after the usual updates — me reporting how my phone interview went with the prospective job, he telling me about who said what at his office and the routine transactions of life, he announces rather quietly and nonchalantly that the doctor’s office just called with the elevated PSA test results. It’s showing cancer, he tells me, so I’m going to need to go in for a biopsy.

Since this news, the hours of the last day have been a blur. I am stunned. I have a physical explanation now for why we have had to work so hard to sustain an erection. I am feeling sad, disconnected, wanting to support him and feeling this sense of impending loss and fear. Not knowing for several more weeks whether this is an aggressive or slow growing version of prostate cancer, or maybe, it’s a misdiagnosis. Hah. And, I think, this is not about me. This is about supporting him and us, and being in life together living full out for whatever time we have here. Unpredictable as life is.

It is time for me to challenge the traditional definitions of sex, love, intimacy, and find new ways of expression through physical touch and tenderness that will keep us close. That’s all we have together — reinventing our future, mourning our past and letting go.

Today will be life as usual. We will meet at the end of the day for our usual Friday night date. It will be at the Art Museum, and we’ll see what happens next.