Category: Stories

Bill Cunningham and the Nature of Happiness

bcny_gallery1[1]I saw a great documentary yesterday, which happens to be nominated for an Academy Award.  Bill Cunningham New York , about the photojournalist, photographer and artist Bill Cunningham.

For those of you who aren’t avid readers of The New York Times Style section, Bill Cunningham has been chronicling the uppper crust social scene with his camera for decades.  At the same time, he has been devoted to street fashion, looking for trends as he scours New York City on his bicycle.

He is now 82 years old, and still photographing the New York scene, and still riding a bike (his 29th, when the movie was filmed, because the preceding 28 had all been stolen.)  At the time the documentary was shot, he was being forced to move out of the artists’ studios over Carnegie Hall.  His could hardly be called a studio–it was more like a closet.  No kitchen, shared bathroom in the hallway.  He slept on a pallet on a board, propped up on plastic milk crates.  The tiny room was lined with filing cabinets filled with his film.  He eats cheap meals at delis ($2.50 for egg on a roll and coffee.)

After viewing the documentary at the Hastings-on-Hudson Library there was a long discussion.  I came to the conclusion (probably premature) that most Hastings residents were artistic, shrinks, or artistic people who had been to shrinks.  There was a lot of discussion of projection, repression, denial, etc.

This came about because Bill lives an ascetic life.  He has almost no possessions.  He has never had a romantic relationship.  He would not discuss his sexuality.  He has never married or had children.  He goes to Mass every Sunday.  The only moment in the documentary when he choked up was when he was asked how he felt about his religion.

He is utterly consumed by photographing the scene in New York.  He seemed to me a supremely happy person–he loves his work, and he is immersed in it, albeit to the expense of all else.  But he is happy, or at least he seemed that way to me.

So we sat on our fat middle-class asses and discussed the nature of his happiness, and some felt he was secretly sad and could not admit it.  And it seemed to me we were all wrong.  The mystery of his life is his.  And he laughs and loves what he is doing.  And he is free to do what he wants, thanks to the New York Times.  The world will be a smaller, darker place when he is gone.

Pet Foster Parents

DSCN0281 lo resI never meant to keep this stupid cat.  Who wants a 17 lb. black tomcat?  I agreed to foster him because he’d been abandoned in an apartment.  The neighbors said his owner went to jail, and the people who cleaned out the apartment left the cat, with food and water for a few days.  One of the neighbors called Forgotten Felines.  I was looking for a young, sweet female cat.  Instead I agreed to foster this thug, because the Forgotten Felines person didn’t have room for him.  And because I am a sap.

And you know what?  After he was neutered, he was still a thug, but less aggressive, which was a plus.  And over time, he learned to vocalize a lot of different things, and purr a lot, and play like a kitten.  And when I was sick, he licked my face.  And when it was cold, he slept on my feet.

So now, he’s my thug.  I admit, he’s up to 22 lbs. now, and on a diet, which he doesn’t seem to mind too much.  If he were a person, he’d have tattoos up his arm.  But I think he’d be like Jason on “My Cat From Hell”–looks fearsome, and is actually a pussycat.

1980 Flashback

Argo on IMDb

I just saw the movie “Argo” this afternoon, and it took me right back in time to 1980. It’s a great movie, no question, a tightly-plotted, suspenseful thriller with a lot of good lines and really funny characaters as well. It’s also a time machine!

I hadn’t realized how long ago that was. It seemed like the Iran hostage crisis would never end, much less end with them getting out safely. I didn’t recall about the six who were “rescued by the Canadians,” which is the subject of “Argo.”

What really took me back was the footage they used of actual TV news broadcasts–Uncle Walter! (That’s how I thought of Walter Cronkite.) And the clothes! Those awful huge glasses, especially the aviators! And the mustaches. The look was really end-of-the-seventies. So much denim!

It’s also painful to think that the Iranian people went straight from one kind of repression (the Shah) to another kind of repression (the Ayatollah.) And they are not free to this day, especially the women.

I did enjoy the movie a lot. But I did feel a little sad, too. Has it really been 30 years since I was getting out of Wharton, going to interviews with a bad perm (think When Harry Met Sally) and wearing a pair of those glasses?

Christmas at the MCL

I800px-Christmas_tree_bauble[1]t’s December 23rd. Tonight I had dinner with my sister and brother-in-law at the MCL cafeteria. It’s known locally for having lots of vegetables and plain but palatable food. It’s also known as the Medicare Cafe.

The cafeteria line has salads in portions, five or six different entrees in addition to fried chicken, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, and several desserts. You slide your tray along to the cashier. Then an attendant comes and carries your tray to a table if you aren’t able to yourself. They are younger women in white waitress uniforms.

Most of the clientele is north of 65. Tonight several were elderly, some in pairs, many alone. Buzzing from table to table were the table waitresses, mostly older women, who refill coffee and clear the tables. The one who waited on us tonight moved slowly, bent at an angle slightly toward the floor. But she never stopped moving, pouring coffee, and talking to the regulars.

“She knows so many of them,” my sister said. “See that man? He’s here every time we come. He’s always by himself and reading a book.” The grey-haired man sat in a small booth alone, eating slowly.

Then the waitress shuffled over, refilled his coffee and gave him a Christmas present. He smiled.

I hope he had somewhere to go for Christmas. But someone did care. So he wasn’t alone.

The Return of the Light

800px-Christmas_tree_bauble[1]A lot of us find the holiday season difficult.  As the days get shorter and darker, some folks get more and more depressed.  In ancient times people sought for explanations of the seasonal changes.  Why did the days get shorter?  Why did they then begin to lengthen again?  What is the pattern of all this?

Astronomy evolved from the search for answers and from observation of the natural world.  Many of the world’s religions celebrate the winter solstice, when the shortest day of the year leads to lengthening again.  Many religions and cultures have a festival of lights, whether it’s Hanukkah or Diwali, the winter solstice or Christmas.

Why do we long for the light and fear the darkness?  Is it because we as humans don’t see well at night, so darkness became a source of fear?

This year seems particularly dark, especially with the horrible massacre of children in Newtown, Connecticut.  And there have been several other mass shootings this year.

Next Friday, Dec. 21, is the solstice.  Let’s hope that this holiday season will help us turn to the light, as the days begin to lengthen and we celebrate Christmas.

And I am calling us all to action.  Enough darkness.  Enough killing.  There is no legitimate reason for any private citizen to have an assault rifle or a semi-automatic pistol.  Let’s work to outlaw these weapons of massive death!

A Need for Quiet and Repose

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERADon’t get me wrong–I love Christmas, and New Year’s, and the whole holiday season.  I love being with friends and family.  I always travel to be with a part of my family at Christmas.  I have given a “holiday party” for anywhere from 12 to 28 people for the last 15 years.

But I also find this season exhausting, and sometimes melancholy.  I think of my parents who have died, the many aunts and uncles who are gone, and others I have loved and lost.  Holiday grief is not unusual.  Here’s a useful blog post (which I wrote) for my former employer, Regional Hospice and Home Care of Western Connecticut, on the topic.

Sometimes it’s not even that.  It’s just exhaustion!  And sometimes, it’s just good to be at home.  Nights like tonight, when I am tired and still coughing from this blasted upper respiratory infection (2 weeks later!), it’s a wonderful thing to have the Christmas tree lit, and a comfy bed, and a good book.  I’ll even turn off Sunday Night Football and go to bed early with a book, the cat, and quiet.  I don’t need snow or carols.  I just need home.

So, as Tiny Tim said, God bless us every one!  Here’s to being snug and warm and loved.  And for those who aren’t, may God give you those graces in the new year.  And may the rest of us step up to make it happen, too.

Fever Dreams

I’m finally feeling better after being sick for a week.  I never get the flu–always get that flu shot!  I rarely get a cold.  But this really laid me low.

The worst of it was the fever.  I ran a fever of 101 degrees or more for three days.  And I had the same dream all three nights, just picking up at a different place each night.

I dreamed I was designing a website for someone (which is not at all in my skill set, but in the dreams I could.)  The site was vividly colorful.  At some point I realized that whatever File:Leptotyphlops humilis - head.jpgI did to the website was being echoed in the real world.  I remember thinking this was pretty cool, watching colors and images cascade out from the screen into reality.

Then  on the third night of this dream I made a terrible mistake, and everyone in the world suddenly had reptilian scales instead of skin, in a sort of purple-and-black python pattern.  And people turned and looked at me with snake faces and black, snake eyes.  I freaked out and woke up.

Someone at work said this was a responsibility dream.  Apparently I’m afraid of screwing up in a really big way and having it affect other people.  I am getting ready to start a new job, and I am both excited and worried about starting a new endeavor.

I guess the good news is, whatever I do will spill out into the real world, but it’s unlikely I will turn people into purple-and-black snakeskin monsters!  Thank goodness my powers are limited 🙂

Raise a Song of Harvest Home

Does anybody remember singing Thanksgiving hymns in church?  “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come”?  I’m missing the emphasis on something besides Black Thursday/Friday and shopping.  Thanksgiving seems to disappear between Halloween and Christmas, more glamorous holidays.

One of my friends who has invited me to share Thanksgiving with her family for many years has a great custom.  Her partner offers a blessing over the groaning board and the “hands that prepared it,” and then they go around the table.  Each person has to name something they are grateful for.

Oprah calls it “an attitude of gratitude.”  In a time of irony, entitlement and downright ennui, it’s nice to remember we are, often, lucky in so many ways.  There is plenty of tragedy after Hurricane Sandy and the nor’easter–and there is tragedy every single day, sadness and hurt and hunger and despair.

My late boyfriend used to say, with irony, “Well, I didn’t get malaria today.”  Yes, there are people who are richer or happier or more beautiful than we all are.  But there are people who are much worse off.  Let’s try to help someone else this holiday.  And if nothing else, let’s be grateful for the family and friends we overeat with!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

The Sessions

I saw a really great movie this afternoon–“The Sessions.”  If it comes to your town, it will be at the local arty movie theater.  It’s not a blockbuster by any stretch.  But the emotions it raises are both quiet and profound.  Here’s a link to the Rotten Tomatoes review:  http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_sessions/

It’s based on the real story of Mark O’Brien, a man who was stricken with polio as a six-year-old child, and had to spend the majority of each day in an iron lung, since his muscles were paralyzed.  His parents refused to give up on him and cared for him at home.  He went to college and became a poet and journalist, moving into an apartment of his own.  In the movie he knew he was approaching his “use-by” date, and he wanted to lose his virginity, and experience what that meant.  So he consulted with his priest (he was a devout Catholic) and hired a sexual surrogate.

The amazing thing is, the movie is not really about sex.  It’s about intimacy, and pleasure, and caring.  And, ultimately, it’s about the need for love, much more than the need for sex.

Helen Hunt as the sexual surrogate plays her as a complete professional who just wants to help him as far as her role permits, no more.  But even for a professional, emotions have a way of coming in.

It was the most human and humane movie I’ve seen in a long time–caring, nonjudgmental, and, ultimately, loving.  In a time when sex seems to have been downgraded to reality TV and stupid, uncaring behavior, it’s reassuring to see two adults who aren’t beautiful (although Helen Hunt is still lovely), or vampires, or drunk on the Jersey Shore, being intimate and kind.

 

Riding Out the Storm With a Friend

My experience of Hurricane Sandy was very different than it would have been because I had a guest.  My friend Caroline came from the Netherlands on the Saturday before the storm came in,  a trip long planned and unable to be changed.  So we rode out the storm together.

We were lucky in that I live on a ridge high above the Hudson River, so flooding was not an issue.  But we could see the lower ground by the river from the glass doors onto my balcony.  On Monday night, Caroline said to me, “I think the river is flooding!”  It was getting dark, and hard to see.  I peered as hard as I could, and said, “I think you’re right!”  The swell rose over 11 feet and washed the boat you see in the photo into the park.  The boat’s name was “Here, There and Everywhere.”

Caroline’s trip was very different from what she had planned.  But she was intrepid.  When bus and limited subway service was restored, she took the bus to the Bronx (1 hour 20 minutes) and then took the subway into the city.  Then after some hours she took the Harlem line train back to White Plains, and I picked her up.  The Hudson line train, which you can see from my window, was not fully back in service until today.

But the nice thing for me was having sympathetic company while the winds raged, the river rose and the rain poured.  We never lost power, there was no flooding on my ridge, and the tall trees did not fall down.  We were very fortunate compared to many.  My heart goes out to those on Staten Island and in New Jersey who lost their lives and their homes.

Things were approaching normal here last night, although there have been long lines to buy gasoline, and many people still do not have power.  I am very grateful that my experience was so easy, and I am glad that Caroline was a calm and patient presence while this amazing event went on.  We ended her trip with a rescheduled trip to the Great Jack-o-Lantern Blaze at Cortlandt Manor.  So she didn’t miss Halloween entirely, after all.