IN THE MOOD, IN THE CITY

Tags

Arts, Brian Newberry, city, courage, growing up, Hollywood, Martina Reisz Newberry, palm springs, place, poetry, Writing

Wow!  It’s been ages since I blogged.  I’m not sure what I’m doing here now except making my fingers move on the keys, hoping something creative will come out of it. Whether pen and paper or computer or brushes and paint, it’s all we ever hope for, right?  Something creative please happen!

Since my last blog, we moved from Palm Springs back to our hometown, Hollywood, CA. I’m so happy, I’m grinning like an idiot all the time. It’s good. We moved in December, our beloved Gato, our cat of 19 years died after a week or two after our move. We grieved, were absolutely overcome with grief, couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t write anything.  Brian didn’t take pictures.  We just grieved. We got a new friend–Charlie the cat. A huge, warm, sweet black and white friend who chose us when we met him at a shelter. Then, we got the flu and stayed in bed and coughing out “Unfair!  We got our flu shot.”  Finally over it.   And still the joy of being here, back home, is the underlying feeling. Our apartment is smaller and it is the same apartment we lived in prior to moving to Palm Springs (a fabulous thing for us as we LOVE this apartment and neighborhood), our internet connection in this building is really slow–who cares.  We’ll learn patience. This city, it’s wonderfully noisy and crazy and there is no other way to describe it, but ALIVE and kicking and it makes me alive and kicking.

I’ll be 69 this week. I feel 29. The minute I got back here, I was born again, started over–a reinvention only this city affords me. We’ve lived a few places, but this is the only place I am completely myself, the only place I’m unafraid, outrageous, beautiful, bouncy, brazen. I wake up liking me.  This is the only place that happens.  Weird, huh?  I never realized until we moved away how vital, how important ”place” was to me.  I always believed that, if you gave me a pen and a notebook, books to read, some media, some music, I could be fine anywhere. WRONG. I’m not fine anywhere.  I’m fine–better than fine–here, in Los Angeles.  Come and get me, birthday.  I’m ready for you.

 

THINKING OF FRIENDS…

Tags

Carolinas, Deerbrook Editions, friendship, growing up, loneliness, Martina Reisz Newberry, parenthood

The social networks have put an entirely new meaning to the word “friend.”  I’ve been thinking about that concept and so, today’s story is about liking people, about trying to be friends sans FaceBook et al.

I had a friend once whom we’ll call “Dorothy”. Dorothy and I met at a beautiful college back east about 25 years ago.  I was a poverty-level young woman, in a terribly abusive marriage.  I had managed to get away for a month to attend a writing program. ( I got there through the charity of a wonderful poet, mentor and friend, Larry Kramer.) It was like being in heaven.  Dorothy was quite well-to-do and a good writer.  We became very good friends in a short time. She was sweet, dramatic, fun, wanting to get out of her marriage, too. She eventually left her husband and realized that it was women she loved, not men.  She lived in a state halfway across the country from me, but we were close pals. After my divorce, she came out for a visit .  We had a lovely time, long talks, shopping, lunches and cocktails before dinner–a great visit.  After that, we continued to write letters, call frequently, and we met up at another friend’s house once in the Carolinas for another great visit..  And then, all of sudden, she just disappeared.  No letters, no phone calls, no Dorothy. When I’d call her, she’d answer, hear my voice, and hang up.  Then she stopped answering.  I’d leave a message on her phone and she’d never call back.  I finally gave up…until the advent of FaceBook.  When so many old friends and acquaintances were turning up on FaceBook, I looked her up and there she was!  I was thrilled and excited. I wrote and said all the usual things:  Hi-I’ve missed you-how are you–what’s going on in your life, etcetcetc and I sent her a “friend request.”  I never got a reply.  One day, I was on FaceBook Chat.  I looked at the chat list and saw her there.  I immediately clicked on her name, said, “Dorothy! It’s me, Martina.  I’m so glad to see you.  How are you?”  She wrote back with a terse, “I’ll talk to you some other time,” and got off fast.  I never saw her on FB again. I guess she blocked me.  I didn’t try again.

I’ve continued to feel bad about this until this morning when I remembered something that happened to me at about 15 years old.  When I was in high school (God did I hate high school!),  I came home one day really upset. A couple of girls who I thought were my friends were not speaking to me and wouldn’t say why–just that infamous teenage cruelty, I guess.  I felt awful.  I was a shy, withdrawn girl anyway–homely, thick glasses, hooked nose, clumsy, bookish, scared of my own shadow.  I didn’t have many friends, so this rejection was a killer to me.  I hid in my room and cried all afternoon until my father got home.

My dad came in from work in his steel-toed boots, smelling of the open hearth and cigarettes.  He came into my room and sat down on the bed.  He said that Mother told him I was feeling pretty low.
“So what’s wrong?” he said.
I told him. “They just wouldn’t talk to me all day or walk to class with me.  When I asked why, they just walked away.  They were talking about me and looking at me, then laughing.  They wouldn’t even say what I did wrong.  I passed a note to them in History, and they tore it up and threw it at me in the hall.”  I began to sob again.
“You like these girls?”
I said “No, not really, but…”
“They’re your only friends?”
I started to cry again.  ”Yes,” I said.
He patted my back and said, “I’m sorry you feel so bad, Mugsie.  The world is just not a very good place sometimes. You’ll find new freinds.”
“It’s easy for you,” I said.  ”EVERYONE loves you.”
“Nope,” he said, “they do not.”
“Well, it looks like it to me,” I said.  My father was the world’s Pied Piper–loved by everyone, I thought.
“It LOOKS that way because I don’t pay much attention to people who dislike me for no reason.  I’m an ok person, and, if they don’t like me, it’s too bad.for them.
I sniffed, “Well I’ve never see anyone who didn’t like you.”
“Honey, what you see is not everyone liking me.  What you see is ME liking me and sometimes that is all we’ve got.”
“But that’s being conceited,” I said.
He stood up.  ”Yep, a little,” he said.  ”A little conceit feels better than a lot of crying.”
“What do I have to be conceited about?”  I said, sniffing.
“I don’t know,” he said.  ”We’ll have to see. You’re too young to have done anything yet. We’ll find something when you’re older.  Time for dinner. You coming?”

He was right, of course.  I’m still too young to have done anything, but I’m sure I’ll find that thing that I can be conceited about sometime in the future.  Until then, it’s time for more coffee and I am on it!

Hey Readers!  Tell me your stories about lost friendships.

My Mother, Mary Reisz

Tags

Child, childhood, growing up, maternal instinct, memories, Mother, mother's day, motherhood, mothers, sacrifice, Sewing

My mother passed away in 1991.

She was beautiful, graceful, sweet, complicated, patient and, though
she never finished high school, she was an artist in more areas than I can count.  I think she would have liked to spend her life off somewhere in a studio, painting, sculpting, building furniture, sewing.  Instead, she took care of me and my father.  I was not an easy child: homely, gawky,clumsy, horribly nearsighted, painfully shy, stuttering, allergic to everything, nervous, crybaby, unsocial, bookish.  I was unable to paint, build, sew ANYTHING without disastrous results.  But, she worked with what she had and what she had was me.

When I grew up, married and had children, she became the quintessential
grandmother.  ”Nana”  to my children was the giver of all things good (even
if they were declared “off limits” by me), all things fun, all things loving and
and caring.  She sewed beautiful things for them–fashionable, wonderful
clothes for school, for special events, Halloween costumes and Easter outfits
and when arthritis wouldn’t let her sew much, she bought beautiful things. My
kids adored her.

She told me once that I must be careful not to spoil my children–a thing she
and my father did to those same children with glee and forethought.  When
she saw that I had married a mean and abusive man, she invited the kids
to spend countless weekends, vacations, evenings with her and my father
to get them out of the house.  She knew I wouldn’t leave my husband, but
she, once again, worked with what she had and what she had was beautiful
grandchildren whom she protected the best way she knew how.

When I confessed to her that I didn’t know how to be a parent, that I was worried that I was failing my kids, she said,  ”Oh Honey, EVERYONE fails their kids.  You aren’t as bad as I was and I’ve been better than my mom was.  She failed me, I KNOW I failed you, but here we are and we’re mostly ok.”  And, for the most part, we were mostly  ”OK.”

As I grew older, divorced, and learned to meet the world on my own, I was not
the daughter to my mother that I ought to have been.  I did not give her the pleasure of my company as often as I should have.  I did not gift her with lovely things as she did me and my children.  I wish so much I could go back and change that.  I miss her terribly now and love her more than I did when she was alive.  That happens, you know.  You think you care for someone as much as you could and find, when they are gone, that, you love them even more.  I talk to her every night and ask her forgiveness.

I am crying while I write this.  Regret is an awful thing.  If your mother is still alive, be certain that you are making memories, not regrets.  Hug her, flatter her a bit, gift her with anything you can manage–especially your time, call her/visit her and fill her in on your thoughts and your comings and goings.

I wish I had done so.  I love you, Mom.  Happy Mother’s Day.