Monthly Archives: October 2005

Rock Star Sister Update

Occasionally some fun or interesting news about my sister and her burgeoning career as a musician floats my way, and I feel compelled to share it. The big news today is that she was asked to open for Johnny A. at the Aladdin in Portland, OR. The Aladdin is a 500 seat theatre that is generally known as one of the best places to see live music in Portland.

The timing of this gig couldn’t be better, because Raina is hitting the road in a couple of weeks, embarking on her first tour.

Some of the upcoming dates are:
8:00pm Tue, Oct 25th, 2005
EUGENE!

8:00pm Wed, Oct 26th, 2005
Arcata, CA

8:00pm Fri, Oct 28th, 2005
Cafe Bazaar-SAN FRANCISCO!

2:00pm Sat, Oct 29th, 2005
Far-west Folk alliance!

8:00pm Tue, Nov 1st, 2005
Grove House Claremont College!

8:00pm Wed, Nov 2nd, 2005
Ghengis Cohen, LA!

Milky Tea

The first time my mom and I watched the movie “Babette’s Feast,” I was around 12 years old. It was a rainy Saturday night in Portland and we were curled up on the bed in the guest room/second tv room in our house on Crestdale Dr. My sister was in the living room engrossed by the Disney channel and a pile of legos and left us alone. I can’t remember where my dad was, he may have been upstairs watching the third tv (it makes me think of that line in “Back to the Future” when Marty mentions that their family has two tvs when he has traveled back in time, and one of Lorraine’s brothers comments with awe in his voice, “Two television sets, you must be rich!” Tvs were just about the only thing my family was rich in).

“Babette’s Feast” is a lovely movie that starts out simply and then embarks on a journey of joy. But that’s not why it stands out in my mind. I remember it as a movie where they drank a lot of tea. So much so, that about half way through, my mom and I paused the movie and headed for the kitchen to brew our own mugs of the stuff.

I’m thinking about tea these days, because I’ve recently switched from coffee in the morning to vast quantities of Earl Grey. My family has always been one of coffee drinkers (except for the period of time when my mother gave up coffee for chamomile tea, those were not pretty days), so I don’t have specific associations with coffee the way I do with tea. When the tall, plastic travel mug is sitting in from of me, lid off, steam wrapping it’s ribbons towards my nose and eyes, I am taken back to that night, sitting on the bed with my mom, watching the movie and drinking tea.

Sundry Mumbles

I just walked across campus to pick up the mail, and as I walked, paragraphs of blog entries and book chapters fell fully formed into my consciousness. Of course I had nothing to write with and no time to sit and write anyway. And now that I’m back at my desk, with notebook splayed open and pen in hand, they have vanished, like someone blew out the candle that was lending them a little illumination, and I have no matches, no lighter, no gas stove or sticks to rub together with which to relight it.

I’m finding it relatively impossible to keep my brain functioning for the 8+ hours I spend sitting at my desk. How do other people do it? Or is everyone else slumping in their adjustable desk chairs, staring glassy-eyed at their computer monitors, trying to figure out where their creativity went?

I cut my fingernails this morning, and have spent the day unable to scratch an itches. And I picked today to wear wool. It took me a full two minutes to remove the sticker from the apple I ate at 2:30 pm.

Tonight I’m going with a group of 10 women to see Eve Ensler’s new show, The Good Body. I hoping to be inspired.

Aunt Flora's Shoes

Friday afternoon I got an email from my friend Ellen, saying “Wearing a pair of Aunt Flora’s shoes today, and already 3 people have made comments about how snazzy they are! Thought you would get a kick out of that…”

About a year ago, my cousin Betsy was forced to move her mother, my aunt Flora, out her apartment in my building and into a nursing home closer to Betsy’s home in Brooklyn. Flora lived 11 floors below me and my proximity gave me multiple opportunities to help Betsy pack, clean, give away, take pictures and generally reduce 89 years of active living into boxes, bags and crates.

Flora, under the tutelage of my fashion-plate grandmother, came into her own as a consumer of designer goods in her sixties, and spent a good part of the 70’s and 80’s buying very nice things. When we cleaned out her apartment last fall, she had over 100 pairs of designer shoes, all in an impossible size 5 1/2. The only person I knew at the time who feet came anywhere near that was my friend Ellen. One memorable November day, Ellen came over and while her boyfriend and my roommate watched the Eagles game, we played with shoes. Every single pair fit, and Ellen increased her shoe collection by a factor of ten.

Flora had her 90th birthday last April, and no longer recognizes most people who go to visit her. But I imagine that a little piece of the elegant, brilliant woman I once knew rejoices every time Ellen takes her shoes out on a walk.

My Great Aunt Anne

My paternal grandfather (who left my grandmother and their three sons when my dad was an infant) died seven years before I was born, when the controls of the plane he was flying locked and he was unable to steer out of the way of a mountain. My family spent many hours with my grandmother and the members of her extended family while I was growing up, but the people who my grandfather had called his family were rarely part of my life. Except for my Great Aunt Anne, my grandfather’s younger sister. She lived outside of Philadelphia with her mother (until her death in the mid 80’s) and then with her younger brother until his death several years ago. Aunt Anne sent birthday and Christmas cards to my sister and me throughout our childhoods that would always include checks for $10 or $15, drawn on the Bryn Mawr Trust.

Yesterday I drove out to her house in New Town Square with a new tv in the back of my car and a tuna sandwich on wheat from Wawa. The sandwich is my regular offering, the tv an 86th birthday surprise from the members of my family. She was equally excited about both.

Aunt Anne never married, but she fell in love twice in her life, both times with men she couldn’t have. Her first lover was her dentist, and years later, after their affair had ended, he apologized for the state of her teeth. He never drilled or filled her cavities, because he couldn’t bear to cause her pain. Her second lover was a man who worked with her at the newspaper. She tells me he would have left his wife for her, but she didn’t realize how much she loved him until after he died.

Aunt Anne hates President Bush passionately, and says she would like to die. All her friends are gone, with the exception of her best friend Doris, who lives in the city with her daughter and relies on a walker for mobility. She tells me that she’s thought about killing herself, but that she doesn’t want to suffer. And what would become of her cat?

I spent an hour and a half with her yesterday afternoon, singing happy birthday, setting up the new tv and talking about what happens to you after you die. She said I was a nut (but that it’s okay to be a nut, as long as you aren’t a walnut or a pecan) for getting a tattoo and that I should get married.

When I left, I made sure to tell her to call me if she couldn’t remember how to use the remote. I give her what I can in terms of time and energy, and I always leave knowing that it isn’t nearly enough.

Untethered

Ever since I got back from the west coast, I’ve felt a little untethered, a little detached and uncertain. I was standing in Trader Joe’s the other day, picking out some oven roasted turkey, when I felt like I was outside my body, watching this mostly blonde girl do something to which my consciousness had absolutely no relation.

Being back in Walla Walla stirred up a whole mess of emotions that I wasn’t prepared to deal with and have been throwing to the rear of the psychic closet for some time. But with any trip to the past, it made me switch on the light and dig to the back. The visit made me think about the place I live and where I want to live eventually. How there will come a time when Philadelphia is no longer the best place for me to be. The unsatisfying nature of the work I do here in Philly, and how deeply I want to be putting my energy into something of my own creation. How I would really like to find a partner who is ready and willing to build something (a life, a business, a child) with me.

The fears I had about the reunion were basically unfounded. I was worried that my classmates would see me, judge me and conclude that somehow I was lacking. That didn’t happen. But in preparation for the onslaught of judgement that I thought would be coming, I did some evaluation of my own, which was the trigger for a lot of these feelings.

I don’t know much right now, but what I do know is that change is coming, and it is going to be big and right and scary and more wonderful than I ever thought possible.

This Life She's Chosen

About a week ago I learned that a friend from my freshman year of college recently published a book of short stories. I looked it up on Amazon, and made a plan to run to the bookstore to pick up a copy of “This Life She’s Chosen” (I can’t bring myself to pay shipping and handling when I live two blocks from Barnes and Noble). I didn’t get to it before my trip, but they had copies on display at the Whitman Bookstore this weekend, so I grabbed a copy Saturday morning while making my obligatory college paraphernalia purchase.

I packed the book in my carry-on, finished it with two hours left in the flight and sat until we landed in a state of awe at the piece of art that a girl I ate dinner with every night eight years ago has produced. The ten stories that make up the book are awash with glimpses of longing, joy, discomfort, compromise and love. These moments are so true, so perfect that I had a hard time remembering that their creator was the one with whom I got drunk for the first time in my life, before Winter Break in 1997.

I am floored by the depths of Kirsten’s gift, that precious ability to get the story out of her head and into ours.

Still reuniting after the reunion

At the party/reception Saturday night, after having circled the room about seven times, chatting with everyone I knew and some who I never had known during college, I turned to Andrea and said, “There are a couple people I really wish were here. One is Aerlyn, I wonder where she is these days.” After having that thought I was quickly distracted again by the parade of familiar yet foreign faces that was the weekend and moved on to another topic.

I got to spend some time Saturday night reconnecting with Brendan, a guy who had lived in my freshman hall, and had been in my core class that same year. He is living in Portland these days, working hard to create a successful musical career (while delivering cookie baskets in order to pay his bills). His band, The Bee Sighed, was scheduled to play a show Sunday night at Mississippi Pizza, a venue my sister has played at many times, and when he told me, I knew I needed to make a point of going. When Andrea and I got back to Portland Sunday night, we grabbed my sister and my dad and headed over there for pizza and music. We struggled a bit finding a place to sit, but eventually were situated with pizza and beverages, just before the guys started their first set. I was standing, talking to a friend of my sister’s that we had run into when I heard Andrea calling my name and saying in an excited voice, “look who’s here!” Turning around, Aerlyn was standing right in front of me. The universe heard me say I’d like to see her and delivered her to our table. Saying it was good to see her doesn’t really convey what a delight it was to have her appear there in that moment. It was the perfect ending to an intense, slightly trippy, joyful, sometimes awkward, but truly worthwhile weekend.

Airport Encounter

My dad dropped me off at the airport this morning at 10:15 am. Walking away from his car was harder this time than I remember from other recent leave-takings. The terminal was surprisingly deserted and I was checked in and through security in less than ten minutes. I needed a sandwich to take with me, meals on airplanes being a thing of the past.

I went to Marsee Baking, a chain of bakery/sandwich/coffee shops that dot Portland. There was a location two blocks from the house my family lived in during my high school years, and many mornings I would stop in for coffee and a bagel on my way to catch the bus. As I walked up to the counter of the outlet in the airport, turkey on wheat in my hand, I was thrown back in time. The man working the counter was Luis, the same guy who sold me my breakfast each morning when I was a teenager. He remains vivid in my memory because he was the only “adult” who worked behind the counter, the rest of the morning employees at the 23rd Ave. store were closer to my age.

As I handed him the $6.25 for the sandwich I asked, “Didn’t you used to work at the 23rd Ave. Marsee?’’ He look stunned for a moment and then started to laugh and smile, and answered, “I was there for 13 years!” He was surprised and delighted that I remembered him, and said that I also looked familiar. There was extra warmth in his tone as he handed me my bagged sandwich and wished me a safe flight.

Only in Portland.

Coming home, via Phoenix

It’s funny to me that America West believes that a stopover in Phoenix is on the way to Philly, but the ticket was cheap, so I don’t argue.

I’ve had an amazing weekend, I still have much to write and share, but right now I have to get in the shower so I can run to Safeway to buy a sandwich so I have something to eat on the plane today.

Last night I went to latihan at the Subud house, after which there was a little memorial for Hamid Hamilton Camp. A long time Subud member and folkie from way back who played in a group called Gibson and Camp as well as the Skymonters. He was an actor and frequently pops up in late night tv reruns. It was a touching evening to have witnessed. Hamid, you will be missed.