Writings, Revelations, and Other Nonsense

Here I post a daily diary entry from my grandmother, Maggie, who lived on Saint Mark’s Place, Manhattan, in 1937, and a blog entry from yours truly, who lives in Brattleboro, Vermont, 2010.

Oh, my, while my grandmother is away, we are getting such unbelievable gramma guest blogs. This one heralds all the way from Rome, Italy where one of my very very best friends in the whole world, Elizabeth Farren, writes fiction and lives with her fabulous husband, Nico. I have actually met Lizzy’s grandma, and she is the picture of grace and beauty and, underneath that very poised exterior, as you will see, an incredible amount of va va voooooom.  I am completely inspired, and when I grow up, I want to be Lizzy’s gramma pretty please. Doesn’t she just give you hope for the future? Absolutely anything can happen, even if your husband is running around with the entire neighborhood:

My Grandmother, the War Bride

No, you cannot go to medical school, her parents said, you’re a woman. We don’t have the money.

My grandmother went into medical technology instead, to study blood and bacteria, hematology, microbiology, lab science. She sat in classes full of men at Temple University in Philadelphia, until the war broke out and her class of two-hundred became seven: Pearl Harbor.

At eighteen, she became a war-bride. She married a young doctor who spent his war years in the service. Soon she was a mother of three, and just as soon, her husband was sleeping with nurses, wives, neighbors.

Divorce is a dirty word.

She asked for a separation, for what dignity was there for a woman with three young children and a philandering husband—louse of a father. She was not a doctor, but she could open her own medical laboratory, she could earn a living. She walked the snowy streets of Philadelphia with one baby in one arm, another in a stroller, the other running in circles around her knees. She only wanted the best for her children.

Why don’t we move to Florida? her husband suggested. We’ll live on the water, we’ll have a boat, a yard, we can sun bathe all year long. There’s this beautiful new area called Golden Isles. It won’t happen again. I promise.

My grandmother raised her children in a large house on a canal near the ocean. There were palm trees in the backyard and a Boston Whaler parked on a dock behind a swimming pool. My grandmother wore fancy button down dresses and held dinner parties for members of South Florida’s society on her glass dining table. She had become a sixties home-maker while her husband was once again sleeping with the whole neighborhood, with dinner guests, with her best friend. One morning, sitting at the kitchen table, staring out the window at the sun on the water, yachts passing, she decided she’d had enough. She didn’t need this.

Divorce is a dirty word.

She left the marriage with nothing in hand, her children grown, and she moved to a small single-story home in Hollywood Hills. Though she had little in the way of material objects, she was sane. She had a mango and banana tree at the back of the house, as well as a put-put brown VW, which was just large enough to fit all of her grocery bags. She was teaching laboratory science to pay the bills. Later, when her son graduated from Business school, the two considered opening their own school. She spent her life savings—nothing to lose—and they enrolled one student.

Within one year they had 40 students.

Within five years they had a couple hundred.

Within fifteen years they had almost a thousand.

Within thirty years they had eighteen thousand students; her school was now called a University.

When her ex-husband died, she didn’t mourn. Rather, as she turned sixty-five, she began travelling the world. She’s stepped on to six continents, has eaten prairie oysters in Beijing, has visited native populations in Vanuatu, has ridden donkeys across the desert in Jordan, has visited Lenin’s tomb in Moscow, has canoed down streams in the Panamian rainforest, has safaried in South Africa, where she saw elephants, lions, hyenas, giraffes.

I’ve never had a neck, she complains. So in my next life I’m coming back as a giraffe.

She is eighty-six. Next year she’s going to Morocco. She just accepted an honorary PhD from Beijing University, which means that she is now officially a doctor.

At 4:30 a.m., she wakes up, she showers and drives herself to work. She is the first to arrive at school, and so she makes coffee and reads her email.

Recently she’s received a slew of speeding tickets.

Last guy to give me a ticket had braces on, she says. Problem is, he’s right. She shakes her head. It’s terrible. There’s never anyone on the road at that hour, so it’s a lot of work for me to keep my foot off the gas pedal.

Elizabeth Farren was born and raised in NYC. She received her BA from Columbia University and her MFA from Bennington College. She has just completed her first novel, and is presently living in Rome, Italy.

Here I post a daily diary entry from my grandmother, Maggie, who lived on Saint Mark’s Place, Manhattan, in 1937, and a blog entry from yours truly, who lives in Brattleboro, Vermont, 2010.

Well, while my grandma is off having her baby, I am still getting to read amazing guest blog posts!!!  My very favorite writing reminds me what it was like to be 16 and wild and free and completely invincible.  Can you imagine my happiness when I got a guest blog post submission that made me feel like that?  Today, Darrelyn Saloom, a kick-ass writer and a very gorgeous lady from Lafayette, Louisiana, writes all about how her grandma’s ghost kept her safe as she hitchhiked hither and yon with her best friend, Susie.  I tried to post her grandma’s picture, but I kept cutting her pretty head off.  My webmaster is at the Olympics, so I don’t have her ethereal photo posted yet, but check back. It’s truly beautiful.  Until then: Enjoy!

Photo of Darrelyn at 14 or 15 before she ran away from home:

Darrelyn Saloom is co-writing a memoir with and about Deirdre Gogarty, the 1997 WIBF Featherweight Champion from Ireland. She also guest blogs for Writer’s Digest editor and publisher Jane Friedman’s There Are No Rules: http://blog.writersdigest.com/norules/. You can follow Darrelyn on twitter: http://twitter.com/ficwriter

The Ghost of my Grandmother

My paternal grandmother is a ghost. I never knew her in life; she died of tuberculosis in her late twenties. I do know she married my grandfather, Julian, and they lived in Paducah, Kentucky. They had three towheaded boys. But from the stories I’ve heard, her dearly beloved was not the best husband. Some say she died in order to leave him. I don’t know if that’s true. But I do know her name is Ara. And that she visits me.

The first time I felt her eyes upon me, I was fifteen years old and hitchhiking to Portland, Oregon from my home in South Louisiana. Standing on the shoulder of Interstate 10, I stretched out my arm, stuck out my thumb, and immediately heard the hiss of air brakes. And just as pregnant storm clouds gave birth to hard rain, I climbed into the cab of an eighteen-wheel truck.

Beside me sat my childhood pal, Susie Frazier. For days we slipped in and out of cars and trucks and met an array of kind and generous strangers. And each time, I’d feel my grandmother’s eyes on me and hear the silent whisper that told me I was safe. So late one night, somewhere in Utah, we thumbed another ride and climbed into another cab of another truck on another interstate.

But something felt different this time. As the large and grisly truck driver with tobacco-stained teeth up-shifted to build speed, I again felt invisible eyes and heard a silent voice. But this time my grandmother did not foretell safety. Instead she said, “Flee!” Uncomfortable, I looked at Susie and she’d felt it too. But what could we do? It was dark outside, we were somewhere in Utah, and this trucker was flying.

An hour later, the eerie driver downshifted and exited onto a highway. Not the way we were supposed to be going. Susie and I threw a fit and told him to drop us off. “Now!” we screamed. So he stopped, and we shoved open the door and jumped out in the middle of nowhere. No town, no lights, no houses, no nothing. Only a cool breeze, countless stars, and a waxing crescent moon.

My companion and I made our way through a stubbly field, cleared a few rocks, and spread out our sleeping bags. We used water from a canteen to brush our teeth. Susie’s dark brown hair was cropped short, so she combed the tangles from my long, blond ponytail. Then we stretched out in our sleeping bags and marveled at the sky. And fell into the deep sleep of youth.

Until the ground started shaking. Roaring and shaking. Awakened, I shimmied out of my bag and pulled Susie from hers. And then I spotted a single clear light racing towards me. The roaring grew louder, the shaking grew harder, and the light grew brighter as it moved closer and closer. And no, it wasn’t my grandmother. It was a train! In the dark, we’d thrown our sleeping bags two feet from the tracks.

Laughing, Susie and I rolled up our belongings and headed back to the highway. We had no idea where we were. But the sun had begun to color the sky. We’d been on the road for three days and three nights. I wore Keds canvas sneakers, my only pair of jeans, and a green t-shirt. I did not have a jacket. But I did have seventy-two dollars in my pocket, a friend by my side. And the ghost of my grandmother who worked overtime.

Here I post a daily diary entry from my grandmother, Maggie, who lived on Saint Mark’s Place, Manhattan, in 1937, and a blog entry from yours truly, who lives in Brattleboro, Vermont, 2010.

Well, Grandma is still off having her baby!!!  Our very first guest blog comes from one of my all time most favoritst people in the world, our very very own Marshall Brewer, a  beautiful California boy who lives here in Brattleboro.  Welcome Marshall, and thank you for your post!!!

Ruth Brownell Lewis was born the grandchild of Quakers from New Hampshire and New York.  Deeply spiritual, she investigated Islam following the events of 9-11-2001.  Intrigued, she spent the next few years learning about Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.  When asked what she had found, she said, “We’re all seeking the same thing, we just use different names for it.  If my beliefs aren’t that much different from so many others, how can I still call myself Christian?” Her first grandchild, Marshall Brewer, married a Quaker from Vermont and now lives between New Hampshire and New York.  An inheritor of Ruth’s curiosity, he travels widely and helps others learn about themselves.  He has two master’s degrees from Brattleboro’s SIT Graduate Institute.

For Christmas in 1996, my grandmother, Ruth Brownell Lewis, gave John and me a copy of her recently completed autobiography.  She was 88 that year.  Filled with stories of growing up in northwest Iowa out on the farm in Clay County and later, in the town of Spencer, she writes vividly about clothes, the weather, and family fun.

Often on a Saturday, Aunt Susie and Uncle Fred with the Green girls, Beatrice, Madelene, Florence, and Alberta would come to town.  My four cousins would stop at our house while the parents were shopping.

I remember having no end of fun, loving every minute.  A ritual was for some of the girls to hide when it was time to leave, hoping the buggy would accidentally leave without missing one or two girls.  This never happened!

One time, Uncle Fred came back early to get all of us, saying the War was about over.  Some soldiers were expected to arrive on the incoming train.  There was to be a parade with the town band and everything!  Everyone would be at the depot to meet them!  We breathed excitement!  The air was full of happy shouts and calls.  I knew I must wear the new cape Mama had made for me from navy blue astrakan.

It was that same day while standing on tip-toe to see the marching soldiers that I first saw a car.  Two proper maiden ladies drove past in a small but high, boxy-looking car.  It looked like a glass box.  In a front corner of the little glass box was a crystal bud vase with a single flower.  Someone mentioned the ladies were both wearing seal-skin coats.  They looked so elegant I was sure they must live on North Main Street.  It was November 1918 and I was 10 years old.

Today, 92 years and 2 months later, I am working on my own car.  Did you know when Saabs blow fuse #20 that the fuel door locks?  Yesterday, with a wind chill at -15 degrees, John tried to change the fuse, but it didn’t unlock the fuel door.  Now, in bright sunlight at a windless +14 degrees, it’s my turn.  While I’m curious about it, I’m not exactly eager to get out there.

This morning, to take the chill out of the kitchen, I made applesauce from Macouns and Cortlands.  It wasn’t enough, so I made a batch of oatmeal cookies with dried cherries.  Now the sun’s blasting strongly through the big windows and it’s quite comfortable indoors.  After I get the car figured out, I have intentions of pruning the climbing hydrangea.  Of course, I’ve had this intention for months.

I’m confident as he went into office a year ago that the president had intentions of ending the war.  Foreign news is reporting encouraging European actions to that end, but there doesn’t seem to be the same public discourse in the US.  Should the commander-in-chief end the war during his term of office, there will be much to celebrate.  Ever hopeful, I wonder where I can get some navy blue astrakan.

Here I post a daily diary entry from my grandmother, Maggie, who lived on Saint Mark’s Place, Manhattan, in 1937, and a blog entry from yours truly, who lives in Brattleboro, Vermont, 2010.

What Was Grandma Maggie Doing On February 2, 1937 on Saint Mark’s Place in Manhattan?????

She was having her baby!!!  Happy happy day!!! Grandma finally had her baby.  On this day, February 2 in 1937, Timothy Duffield was born.

Did you know, then, Grandma who you had in your arms?  My uncle Tee! Curly-haired brown-eyed sailor boy all the girls loved. Mischievous, charismatic (in a quiet way), who seemed to have talent with everything he tried.  Straight A student at Rye High School, graduate of Wesleyan University in Connecticut, bright young star at JC Penney, lived in a first floor apartment with a fireplace in Chelsea, Manhattan, read every book anyone ever put in front of him, seemed to know a little or a lot of each question you asked, and when in doubt, faked it beautifully. Uncle T, a man of few words until he storytold, and then could do so for hours with a touch of the savant, learned to upholster furniture for the hell of it, owned an antique custom wood boat with his best friend Asa. Tee, the father of two girls and a bachelor for years after his divorce, knew every pizza parlor and bar of New York from the meat packing district to the edge of Harlem, but favored best the Cornelia Street Café. Uncle Tee who my mother, Kasha adored, and he back, who came by train to Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas Eve at our house when I was a little girl, and sat like a sentry with an amused smile on his face and ate with relish everything on his plate but the vegetables. Uncle Tee curious and not afraid of the world, hired a limo when my mother and I flew to see him one Christmas.  Uncle Tee the first person I knew to own a computer, who saved all my letters and emails because he said one day I would be a writer, died of a heart attack when I was 28, died owning three apartments in New York, a house in Dallas near the JC Penney headquarters and a time share in Hawaii. At his funeral friends who had known him for 60 years would speak.  My family would huddle in a fierce winter wind and throw his ashes off the rocks of Sachem’s Head, where as a little boy he used to swim and sail and run along the seaweed, calling to his mother, my grandma, so he could show her the shine in the shells he’d found.

But grandma doesn’t know that yet. She knows only that she is a young woman with her very first baby, a little boy, born healthy on February 2d, a few days past his due date. And now she has three long weeks to rest. Which we will let her do, not bothering her at all until she emerges again and tells us what it is like to have a new baby boy on Saint Mark’s Place in Manhattan, 1937.

Until then we are grateful for our guest bloggers. Every single submission coming in is fascinating and fabulous and different from the next. We have novelists and puppeteers and poets and we have grandmas that will absolutely make your headspin they are so magnificent. Stay tuned everyone…  And if you are a guest blogger who would like to tell us about your grandmother, write me and let me know!

Here I post a daily diary entry from my grandmother, Maggie, who lived on Saint Mark’s Place, Manhattan, in 1937, and a blog entry from yours truly, who lives in Brattleboro, Vermont, 2010.

What Was My Grandma Maggie Doing On Saint Mark’s Place, February 1, 1937

Rained all day yesterday; we read— I in Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley, powerful book, full of hate and very interesting.  To *Luchow’s for knackwurst. M. beer and I wine, and home and the Talleys in for bridge, and we had luck for once sufficient to counteract their better playing.  Feel fine and Grace says might as well resign myself for another ten days.  Walk and read and talked to Anne Wolfe, who had been to Harlem Sat. night and horrified because negro at *Savoy Dance Hall asked her to dance.

*Lüchow’s opened when Union Square was New York’s theater and music hall district. It had seven separate dining rooms, a beer garden, a bar, and a men’s grill. One room was lined with animal heads; another displayed a collection of beer steins. When the city’s fortunes turned in the 1970s, the restaurant shut its doors for good after a mysterious 1982 fire. It’s now the site of a New York University dormitory.(from ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com)

*The Savoy was a popular dance venue from the late 1920s to the 1950s and many dances such as Lindy Hop became famous here. It was known downtown as the “Home of Happy Feet” but uptown, in Harlem, as “the Track”. Unlike the ‘whites only’ policy of the Cotton Club, the Savoy Ballroom was integrated where white and black Americans danced together. Virtuosic dancers, however, excluded others from the northeast corner of the dance floor, now referred to as the “Cat’s Corner,” a term not used at the time.(from wikipedia)

And what was her granddaughter doing on February 1st, 2010 in Brattleboro, Vermont?

Well, thank goodness we are still reading Daughter of the Earth, a depressing book true, but a must. Or so Alice Walker says in her intro to the reprint.  But thank goodness times have changed at the Savoy Dance Hall, which I think is called The Savoy Ballroom, but I would never argue with my grandma.

Ten more days? Can we wait that long? And all around us people are popping out babies or full of them.  I was in the produce section Sunday and saw Leah, looking very beautiful and rosy-cheeked with Max, sleeping peacefully on her chest.  He’s a true Brattleboro-ite: happiest at the Co-op. And at the cheese counter I saw Re, one of my dearest  friends, who I haven’t seen in absolutely ages, and when she turned around with her full moon belly, and my eyes popped out of my head, she said,  Twins.  Girls!! With her little Finnegan at home, she’ll have to get a mini-van or at least one of those motorcycles with a sidecar. For three.  I told her she could drop them all off with me when she felt a wee bit insane. Of course, she was born to be a mother and will probably never feel insane.  And then there’s my grandma. We are waiting with baited breath, boy or girl. And more importantly, when.

And while we wait, Evie Lovett and I are busy preparing for the Four Days show at Vermont Center for Photography.  We are doing last minute edits on my text (Evie very good copyeditor not for hire), font-size and mounting and meeting at the gallery to hang and so on and so forth.  Of course, Evie does absolutely everything, she is interminably organized, and I flail along behind her, trying to pick up the pieces that she never drops.  So anyway, don’t forget to come. We might have a  snow storm, in which case we can all just cozy in at the gallery, gazing at Evie’s gorgeous photography and imagining we are all in Montana, at the beginning of July, the hot sun rising over the Blackfeet reservation, and picture book clouds floating over the continental divide, the air smells of cotton candy and sage grass, and we are listening to the drums and watching the fancy dancers, with their bells and beads and feathers, dancing so beautifully.

Come one come all, The Vermont Center for Photography, Flat Street, Brattleboro, Vermont, Opening: Friday, February 5, 2010, 5-8 pm.

And maybe by then, Maggie will have her baby!