The Julie Nixon Chronicles, Part One: Meeting Richard Nixon, or Plumbing on the Brain

It was summer, 1967. I was eighteen years old and about to begin my freshman year at Smith College. I lived in Rockville Centre, a suburb of New York City, with my solidly Democratic parents and two younger sisters. Richard Nixon lived not far away, on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, with his wife, Pat, and daughters, Julie and Tricia. He practiced law at his firm, Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander, and he bided his time. He intended to run again for President of the United States.

Though I lived geographically close to the Nixons, we were worlds apart. Nixon had served as Vice President for two terms under Eisenhower and his daughters had grown up virtually in the shadow of the White House. My father was a German refugee and my mother the daughter of poor Russian immigrants. I was about to become the first in the family to attend college, a Seven Sisters school, no less. I'd navigated high school well, but I had no idea how I'd fare among the daughters of the elite. Then a letter arrived. It was from Julie Nixon.

Julie wrote that she would be my "big sister" at Smith. She was entering her sophomore year and lived in the dorm to which I'd been assigned, Baldwin House. I later learned that big sisters were chosen according to geographic proximity, in the hope that incoming students would have a chance to meet their new mentors before school began. Her job, Julie said, was to help ease my transition to college life.

Her letter brimmed with advice--about New England weather, appropriate attire (she favored skirts)--and she encouraged me to ask her any and all questions I might have. The letter ended with an invitation to join her for dinner at her family's New York apartment.

Talk about an offer I couldn't refuse. Here was a chance to get an inside glimpse of the life of someone powerful and famous. Nixon wasn't a man I admired, far from it, but even then famosity had its hold on me and I was excited by the prospect of seeing how he and his family lived. At the same time, I was terrified. I wondered what to wear, how to behave, what to say. I imagined myself committing some dreadful faux pas that would haunt me forever after. But not for a minute did I consider turning down the invitation.

Both my mother and I considered a new outfit de rigeur for the upcoming occasion. But what should it be? After much shopping, we settled on a wool suit from B. Altman, with a short jacket and A-line skirt in a rust, gold, and black plaid pattern. We completed the ensemble with a black long-sleeved Danskin top.

On the appointed day in early September, I made the thirty-five minute trip from Rockville Centre to Penn Station on the Long Island Railroad. From there, I took a taxi to the Nixons' apartment at 810 Fifth Avenue. Just taking a cab by myself was a new and heady experience. I'd been tutored by my dad on how to tip. I felt very grown-up and incredibly young at the same time.

The doorman directed me to the elevator. I'd been in a doorman apartment before, when I'd visited my cousin on the Upper East Side. But I'd never had an elevator experience like the one that awaited me. When the elevator doors opened on the fifth floor, they opened directly into the Nixon's apartment. It seemed the height of luxury.

When I stepped out of the elevator, Julie, her sister, Tricia, and their mother were waiting to greet me. They ushered me into a darkly-furnished foyer and were very gracious in making me feel welcome. Mrs. Nixon wanted to know if I'd had any trouble finding the place and Julie told me how glad she was to meet me. Mrs. Nixon said she wished her husband could join us for dinner, but he had to give a speech at the Harvard Club that evening. Just then, the Vice President himself strode into the foyer.

With an enthusiasm I would come to know and appreciate, Julie introduced me to her father.

"Daddy, I'd like you to meet Barbara. She'll be a freshman this year at Smith and she'll be living in Baldwin House. She's my little sister!"

Nixon shook my hand. "Has Julie warned you about the plumbing in Baldwin House?" he asked. "They've had a lot of problems with leaks in the bathrooms there."

I kid you not. These are the words with which Dick Nixon greeted a shy and impressionable eighteen-year-old. Not "Smith is a wonderful school. You must be looking forward to studying there," or "Julie's had a great experience at Smith so far. I hope you will, too." No. Richard Nixon focused on the plumbing.

At the time, I thought it a very odd comment and decided it must be indicative of Nixon's world view. He was, I concluded, a man mostly concerned with form and not substance, with the mechanics of things rather than their meaning. In light of subsequent events, his casual remark took on a far more ominous quality and seemed frighteningly predictive of Nixon's paranoia about leaks during his Presidency.

As many will recall, the Plumbers was a White House Special Investigations Unit established in July, 1971, whose mandate was to stop leaks of confidential information to the media. The Plumbers was formed in response to the leaking of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg. Its members went on to commit many clandestine and illegal acts, including the Watergate break-in.

Back in September, 1967, Richard Nixon's presidential aspirations were barely a blip on the public radar. But even though I felt awed at the time to meet such a famous personage, I was struck by the weirdness of the man. History has confirmed my reaction, and then some.

Next installment: Dinner Chez Nixon

Foam Flecks and Bobbing Coconuts

The other day, I stood on a sea wall gazing out at Biscayne Bay, mesmerized by the soothing chop of the water. My eyes were drawn to two broken white lines on the water's surface, between the pilings that guide boats into the nearby marina. I assumed at first that the lines were foam, probably from the wake of a boat that had recently passed. But I hadn't noticed a boat. Surely I wasn't in so much of a trance that one could have passed right by me without my seeing it.

As I watched and wondered, the white patches seemed to undulate on the water's surface with something more than the lightness of foam. I thought I could also see patches of gray. If this were merely the wake of a boat, wouldn't it have dissipated more quickly? Not having binoculars, I was forced to rely on my own vision in the brilliant mid-afternoon sun--my own vision coupled with a wishful imagination.

Soon I felt sure there was something alive in the water and I believed I knew what it was--manatees. Not one, but a small group of them, grazing on the abundant plant life in the shallow harbor. I came to that conclusion logically, since this part of the bay is known as a favored feeding ground for the gentle sea cows. In fact, boats are required to travel slowly as they make their way out to the open bay, lest they injure the endangered creatures with their propellers.

I recently read that manatees sometimes congregate in groups, so the idea that four or five of them might be just offshore didn't seem too farfetched, even though the total number of manatees in Florida's waters is probably under four thousand. And the fact that their coloration is normally a uniform gray didn't give me pause. It seemed likely that time (manatees can live for up to 60 years) and run-ins with boats and other obstacles could produce the mottled skin that appeared to be just under the water's surface.

I'd also read that from the shore manatees look like bobbing coconuts, an effect created when they break the surface with their rounded snouts to take in air. (Like whales, dolphins, seals, and sea lions, manatees are mammals.) I had to admit that amid the roiling, mottled water I didn't see anything that reminded me of a bobbing coconut. Still I watched, riveted, as the manatees seemed to migrate slowly toward the opposite shore. I didn't want to believe that what I was seeing was merely flecks of foam being pulled by the current. I wanted to believe that manatees were out there. The idea that I might briefly be witnessing their lives in the wild thrilled me to the core.

The following evening, at sunset, as I walked by the same spot on the sea wall, I saw a long double white line leading through the channel directly to the marina. This time there was no doubt--these lines were made by the wake of a boat. They were too regular to be anything else and they led directly to one of the boat slips. Apparently, even though the boat had passed sometime earlier, the foam left in its wake lingered. So the mystery of my supposed manatee sighting was solved. The forms I'd imagined in the water had merely been a wake's foam after all. In the wake of that realization, I was left with a feeling of sadness. A momentary connection with the wider universe seemed to have been lost.

But I haven't given up. I'm on the lookout for bobbing coconuts that aren't actually coconuts.

Get Me to My Flight on Time

When it comes to arriving at airports, there are two types of people: those who relish cutting it close and those who like to arrive nice and early. I'm emphatically the latter, married to the former.

One could say that airport arrival strategy reflects one's entire philosophy of life. Since I'm a worrier (as anyone who reads my blog regularly will know), I always plan for the worst. So, naturally, a trip to the airport must take into account the possibility of a dire traffic jam, long check-in lines, and still-longer security lines, followed by random selection for a special search (resulting in complete pat-down and removal of every last item in my meticulously-packed carry-on bag).

My husband, Eric, suffers from none of these concerns. Though he devotes considerable energy to worrying about the likelihood of catastrophic events (asteroids, pandemics, earthquakes), he never sweats the small stuff. He assumes traffic will be moderate and we'll breeze through check-in. Should security lines be long, he reasons, they'll move us to the head of the line if our flight is about to depart.

Eric wouldn't necessarily agree with my characterization of him as a risk-preferring, last-minute arriver. Instead, he sees himself as an eminently sane traveler, able to rationally gauge how long it will take to get to the airport and make his way through security. As he sees it, he leaves enough time, but not too much. To him, more than half an hour at the gate is way too much.

I, on the other hand, regard myself as the sane one. Airports are pretty pleasant places these days--no smoking, more places to eat and shop once you get past security, even wi-fi. How delightful to arrive and make it through security with an hour to spare and plenty of seats available at the gate, where I can settle down with a Starbucks decaf mocha and a good book. Even our dog, Cosmo, a frequent traveler, seems to like the airport ambiance and is content to sit on my lap and take in the scene.

Eric had hoped that the new automated check-in systems would speed things up so he could convince me we didn't need to arrive quite so early. But Cosmo put the kibosh on that pipe dream. Automated check-in isn't permitted when you bring a pet along. This means we have to wait in the regular check-in line, the one that's always the longest. No more curbside check-in for us, let alone the automated kind.

Recently, Eric made a valiant gesture, a peace offering in our ongoing airport-arrival struggle. For my birthday, he presented me with a certificate (laminated and indestructible) declaring that he'll leave for the airport as early as I want. Fabulous, as far as it goes. The certificate guarantees acquiesence, but doesn't promise the acquiesence will be entirely gracious. Eric still can't quite hide his disbelief when I suggest a good time to leave for the airport, generally an hour before he'd like to leave. Still, he's lived up to his end of the bargain and my travel bliss is almost complete. Now, if only I could get him not to go off in search of a magazine just as the plane is about to board.

A Very Small Circle of Friends

I was working on the Monday New York Times Crossword Puzzle and the clue was "Indian city of 13 million." I had the first letter, "D", so it took no time to fill in the blank spaces with "elhi"--Delhi. Just when I was feeling smug because, with that word, I'd managed to finish the easiest puzzle of the week, it hit me--thirteen million people, and I don't know a single one of them. In fact, take all one billion or so people on the subcontinent--I'm not acquainted with even one human being. Add China, Indonesia, Russia--don't know anyone who lives there, either. In France, I have one friend and a few relatives I've never met; in England, a lovely couple we met on a recent visit. And that's about it. If the world is a global village, I must live on the moon.

The extreme narrowness of my acquaintance first struck me forcefully during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Like most Americans, I was horrified and riveted by the unfolding scenes of chaos in New Orleans. I have neighbors who were concerned about friends and relatives made homeless by the storm. But I realized that I myself don't know a single person who lives in the entire state of Louisiana, let alone New Orleans, unless you count a friend's daughter who attends Toulane and an old college friend who, last time I checked, teaches there. I can't even claim an old college friend for Mississippi, Alabama, New Mexico, or Utah. And the list goes on.

I've lived in places that can justly lay claim to being cosmopolitan--Manhattan, Boston, Palo Alto, Chicago, Miami--and I've regarded myself as someone with friends from many different backgrounds. On reflection, though, that's not quite true. My friends may have different religions, different professions, different ethnic origins, but most of them, like me, grew up in intact middle-class families, went to good colleges, moved to suburban locales to raise their kids, and currently live in or around Boston.

I love my friends. I just wish I had a few from more far-flung places. All these years I've thought of myself as worldly and sophisticated. Turns out I'm just a small-town girl with a very small circle of friends.

Remembering Wendy Wasserstein

Famosity got hold of me when it came to Wendy Wasserstein--I felt an inflated sense of self-importance just because I knew her. By all accounts, Wendy herself never succumbed to famosity, never let her fame get to her head. In fact, it was her ability to transform her self-deprecating nature into the funny, poignant characters of her plays that made her famous and gave her importance in the eyes of the world.

I met Wendy when we were both part of an experiment at Amherst College during the academic year 1969-70. We were two among the first twenty-three women ever to attend the college. Wendy was a junior from Mt. Holyoke, I a junior from Smith. All of us had been accepted for one semester but we soon petitioned and were invited to stay for the full year. The members of our small band of women were viewed on campus as representing the "woman's point of view" in an era when women's liberation had made our views interesting, even to men. We all felt the heady sense of being larger than life, of performing before a rapt audience of our male classmates. Given that extraordinary environment, it's no wonder so many of Wendy's plays concerned feminism and college life.

It was during second semester that I really got to know Wendy. After Christmas vacation, I moved into the one of the Social Dorms, which had suites consisting of a common room and four single bedrooms. My suite was connected by an interior door to a second suite of four singles plus common room. I returned early from vacation so I could settle into my new room. Most students hadn't arrived yet. That first evening back, I heard voices coming from the adjoining suite and ventured through the interior door. Like Alice going through the looking glass, I entered the world of Wendy Wasserstein. Her friend, Mary Jane, also from Mt. Holyoke, was there as well, doing her Theda Bara imitation. Wendy greeted me with friendliness and a blizzard of jokes aimed mostly at herself.

She and Mary Jane made an odd but arresting pair of friends: Mary Jane--slim, self-contained, darkly beautiful, taciturn; Wendy--plump, messy, exuberant, with wildly curly hair and a freckled face. Mary Jane intimidated me. She seemed the essence of cool, her cigarette dangling between her fingers and her lips a pouty red. Wendy, on the other hand, made me feel instantly comfortable. But dazzled. She was just so brilliantly funny.

That first evening, I learned about her father (like Holly's father in Uncommon Women and Others, he invented velveteen) and her ditsy, dance-obsessed mother. She told the story of the beautiful suede jacket given to her by her father. Wendy, incurably clutzy, was afraid to wear it for fear she would ruin it, so it stayed in her closet during most of first semester. Finally, she cast fate to the wind, wore the jacket to a fraternity party, and promptly spilled beer all over it. Now that the jacket was "ruined," she said, she could finally wear it and not worry about it.

We became friends. Wendy thought I was smart and could see I was thin, two qualities she admired. I hid my insecurities better than Wendy, who used hers to make us laugh, but I felt a bond with her because of them. With Wendy, it was more than okay not to be perfect.

While at Amherst, I attached myself to an amazing group of upperclassmen, who achieved a creative alchemy that resulted in exciting theatre, art, and music, both at Amherst and beyond. Naturally, Wendy was also drawn to this group. Some of its members later became characters in her plays.

The following year, when Wendy and I were back at our respective women's colleges, one of our Amherst friends, David Rimmer, directed an edgy production of the musical Peter Pan, with a classmate, Artie Wilkins, as a black Peter Pan. I was cast as Wendy's mother and the real Wendy (Wasserstein) was the choreographer for the production. David brought together a talented bunch of people: he himself went on to write Album, a Pulitzer Prize finalist play; his musical director, Barry Keating, earned several Tony nominations for his musical, Starmites; Artie went on to a career in dance; and then, of course, there was Wendy.

Wendy's choreography talents weren't needed for my non-dance role, but she devoted her efforts to building up my acting and singing confidence and supporting me when Barry tried to get me to sing Tender Shepherd in a higher key. Barry prevailed, after which Wendy managed to convince me that I really could reach the high notes. The whole experience was a marvelous lark for me, the high point of a senior year spent unhappily back at Smith College.

After graduation, Wendy and I both moved to Manhattan, where we got together occasionally for coffee. In January of 1972, Wendy asked if I had any interest in travelling with her to Amherst, where a friend of hers, then a senior, would be performing on his French horn. I had recently renewed an interest in my old boyfriend, Eric, who was living in Hadley at the time, so I jumped at the chance to invite myself to stay with him under the guise of attending a French horn concert. 

Wendy and I took the Greyhound Bus up to Amherst, where we were dropped off in front of the Alpha Delta fraternity house on Pleasant Street. Wendy went off to see her friend and I waited for Eric to pick me up. Five months later, Eric and I were married. I've been forever grateful to Wendy for suggesting that jaunt to Amherst. Without it, Eric and I might never have rekindled our relationship.

After that winter, my contact with Wendy was sporadic: a note dropped in my law school mailbox in 1978, when Wendy was in Chicago for the opening of Uncommon Women; occasional letters back and forth; in the early 1990s, a dinner at Wellesley College, where Wendy had been invited to attend a performance of Uncommon Women. By then, she had achieved widespread fame with The Heidi Chronicles. Later, when The Sisters Rosensweig opened, I wondered whether the fact that one of the sisters, Gorgeous, lived in the same Boston suburb as me was coincidence or not. Sadly, Wendy and I had lost touch by then and I never had the chance to ask her.

A few years ago, though, I crossed paths with Wendy's old friend, Mary Jane. Still glamorous, but no longer so intimidating, she updated me on Wendy--the difficult birth of her child, Lucy Jane, the challenge of meeting the high expectations created by so much early success.

By that time, my younger son, Alex, had become passionately interested in writing and the theatre. He went on to study dramatic writing at NYU's Tisch School and immersed himself in the New York theatre world. I thought about contacting Wendy. I knew Alex would enjoy meeting her and I was sure she would like him. I imagined she'd be gracious, even delighted. But still, I put it off, not wishing to impose. Now it's too late. I'll always regret that.

But at least I have Wendy's plays. I can introduce Alex to her through them. And I can hope that she remembered me as fondly as I remember her.

Too Much Stuff

I'm back from California, where we celebrated my mother-in-law's eightieth birthday. Lots of fun, good food, great company, walks in the woods and on the beach. In between, of course, I checked email, got phone messages, kept my cell phone charged and ready. And there's the rub. I've gotten so dependent on all this technology that it's hard to live without it. Hard also to live without my king size Select Comfort mattress, my hairdryer, my magnifying mirror, and without my Stark Sisters Maple Almond Granola. In short, I'm surrounded by stuff and it's running my life, especially when things go wrong. Which they always do, particularly if technology's involved. Here's my corollary to Murphy's Law--the more stuff you have, the more likely something will go wrong with all or part of it.

Lately, Eric and I have been splitting our time between Miami and Boston, so our stuff has just about doubled. Somehow, though, the number of things that have gone wrong has at least quadrupled (there must be another corollary there).

Take our disposal woes. The six-year-old model at our Boston house suddenly died. We had it replaced, but in so doing, the plumber inadvertently reversed the sink faucet's hot and cold settings, necessitating a return visit. Less than a week later, in our Miami apartment, the sink became stopped up and our brand new Insinkerator failed. We replaced it with another Insinkerator, only to have it suddenly stop working two days later--apparently defective. Insinkerator number three is currently doing okay. Of course, we're afraid to put anything down the disposal to test it out.

A disclaimer: I'm not exactly complaining. I feel incredibly lucky to have a nice house and now a nice apartment. But I am questioning the price I pay in time, money, and mental health to maintain such a material-laden lifestyle. Like many Americans, I sometimes buy things just because I can, not because of real need or because they add meaning to my life. In fact, what I fear is that all the stuff obscures what really matters--love, ideas, humor, connectedness to people, animals, and the environment.

In one of our recent technological failures, we had no Internet in our Miami apartment for a month, due to Hurricane Wilma. My initial reaction was nothing short of withdrawal symptoms--I really didn't know what to do with myself without email, online newspapers and other information sources at my fingertips. I was able to check email daily at a nearby hotel, so I was never even completely cut off. But what surprised me was that after the first few days, I missed the Internet less and less. I stopped craving the latest news. I read more books, took more walks, paid more attention to the dog, sat on my terrace instead of inside at my computer. Maybe next time I lose the Internet, I'll take things a step further--unplug my tv, turn off my cell phone, and go birdwatching.

Slow People

I'm a slow person. No, I don't mean mentally retarded, though some might argue that point. I also don't mean slow-moving, sluggish, or drowsy. By a slow person, I mean someone who takes life one thing at a time, someone for whom multi-tasking is as challenging as rappeling off the Empire State Building, and equally unlikely. A slow person leaves plenty of unstructured time between commitments, likes to hang out with the dog in the backyard, and even considers that a bonafide activity. Being a slow person doesn't mean not feeling guilty about leading a slow life, but it does mean persisting in it despite all guilty feelings.

I was introduced to the term by a friend. She used the phrase to describe herself and meant it in a modest and self-deprecating sense, by way of explaining her daily schedule, which includes power yoga and volunteer work with the blind. Like me, she doesn't over-program herself. Yoga isn't something she does before work, or after. It's her morning's activity.

As she explained her slow nature, I immediately saw in myself a kindred spirit. Putting a label on my modus operandi appealed to me, made it seem somehow more acceptable. Because mostly, I feel as if I'm out of sync with the world around me, a world of fast track, productive personalities. And thank goodness all you type-A's are out there. You're the ones who make the trains run on time (oops! bad example). But, while you're pulling out of the station, I'm probably still at home, tying on my sneakers and taking Cosmo for a walk.

I'm not suggesting here that everyone take time to smell the roses. Rather, I'm asking your understanding, even sympathy, for those of us who can't do anything but smell the roses. And please don't stop multi-tasking. Without you fast people, who would grow, ship, plant, fertilize, and water the roses for us slow people to smell?

Update - Waiting for a Sign

After my appointment at the Wellness Community was postponed by the director last Monday, I spent several days waiting and wishing for a sign to tell me whether I should keep the appointment we'd rescheduled for today.

I checked out the Wellness Community's online newsletter, which included photos of many staff and board members as well as clients, hoping something would click. It looked like a nice group of people and the programs and events sounded excellent, even inspiring. But I couldn't quite see myself in the picture.

I gazed out my window across Biscayne Bay toward the high rises of Kendall, where the Wellness Community is located, hoping a single ray of sunlight would break through the clouds above Kendall, signaling a divine intention that I volunteer for this organization. But nothing out of the ordinary appeared.

Eventually, despairing that a Deus ex machina would materialize to solve my dilemma, I took a long walk with Eric, during which I tried to get him to tell me what I should do. Actually, I hoped he would tell me what I wanted to do, since I couldn't figure it out for myself. After all, we've been married for over thirty years. Shouldn't he know my wishes better than I do? He didn't fall for that one, though, and wouldn't even reveal his own view about whether I should pursue the position. In fact, he claimed he didn't have an opinion.

So I was on my own. And just when I had stopped expecting it, a sign of sorts came along to help me decipher my mixed-up feelings. I received an email from a writer friend who wanted to hear more about an idea I'd mentioned to her casually over dinner a few weeks earlier--starting a small press. During dinner we'd also talked about an anthology she was working on and I'd secretly envisioned publishing it as my first book.

As I read her email, I felt calm, centered, happy. Here was a woman who, like me, understood the joy (and pain) of sitting alone in a room in front of a blank page. This was how I wanted to spend my time, involved in the writing life. No matter that I haven't published much other than some poetry and a local newspaper column. I'm still a writer. It's how I define myself. Before committing to volunteer work which would take me away from writing, I wanted to explore the possibilities of a small press, maybe look into putting together my own anthology, keep writing this blog.

Not that writing and volunteering need be mutually exclusive. But for a one-track perfectionist like myself, it seemed best to pick a single focus for the time being. Armed with my new self-understanding, I called the Wellness Community and cancelled my appointment.

Social Inaction

On paper, I'm the ideal candidate for a volunteer position. I'm an empty nester, my husband manages to support the family with no help from me, and I have skills that many organizations could probably use--typing, editing, filing, answering phones, designing web pages. Hey, I even speak Spanish! But guilty though it makes me feel, I've never been able to get on board the social action wagon.

Not that I haven't tried. Way back in the seventies, I worked at one of the first wholistic health centers in the nation--the San Andreas Health Center in Palo Alto. I acted as a receptionist several days a week, answering phones, greeting clients, fielding questions. I enjoyed the people and was very interested in the work the center was doing. In fact, my motives for volunteering weren't pure at all. I wanted to try out the various services and my volunteer status entitled me to discounts for such exotic fare as rolfing, biofeedback, and encounter groups. I was more like an indentured consumer, working off my various therapies by manning the front desk.

Later, after I had my first child, I was grateful to Warmlines, a networking organization for parents, so I worked for a while manning their phones. Being new to town when Aaron was born, I'd felt isolated and lonely. Through Warmlines, I connected with other first-time mothers who became some of my closest friends. I wanted to return the favor. But even with such altruistic motives, I didn't last long at the job. I've never been great at phone tasks--my answers to questions are always more complicated than necessary. And I began to resent licking envelopes and doing other grunt work. Before long, I bowed out.

Onward and upward to "meaningful" volunteer work. I decided I'd offer my help to Greater Boston Legal Services. After all, I had my J.D. and was a member of the Massachusetts Bar. Why not do something challenging and at the same time help indigent people? Plus, there would be something in it for me--I'd use my legal skills and that way keep them from deteriorating until I was ready to enter the real job market. GBLS greeted me with open arms, apparently thrilled to have me. I was assigned to work with an attorney who promised me lots of interesting work. So I eagerly signed on. No matter that I'd have to pay a sitter while I worked and also pay for parking in Boston. But each time I arrived at the office, my attorney never seemed ready for me, never had any work set out, never utilized my expertise. She'd scurry around looking for something to keep me busy after I'd arrived. More make-work. So I was paying for a sitter and parking in order to spend several boring hours a week in downtown Boston. No thanks.

After that, I stuck to more child-centered volunteer options, performing a variety of services at my kids' schools as they made their way through the grades. Again, my aims weren't exactly unselfish. Volunteering at school enabled me to form good relationships with teachers and staff while getting a firsthand glimpse of what went on in the classrooms.

My most recent attempt at social action occurred not long ago, when I was invited to help start a Restorative Justice project. It seemed like a great idea--working together, lawyers, social workers, and the local police would design an innovative approach to juvenile justice. Offenders and victims would meet in a supportive setting with other community members and the aim would be to find ways offenders could make meaningful restitution to their victims. We had a number of meetings, launched several pilot projects, and I even wrote a grant proposal to fund the effort. But the group seemed more interested in process than results, with meeting after meeting yielding little progress. Frustrated, I finally severed my ties. As far as I know, the project still hasn't gotten off the ground.

Fast forward to January, 2006. I called the Wellness Community in Miami, where Eric and I plan to spend a good part of the winter. The Wellness Community helps cancer survivors cope with post-diagnosis issues. The director seemed delighted at my offer of help, though she warned me it would be mostly "administrative" (code for answering phones and licking envelopes). Still, I've heard that it's a terrific organization. And I've been feeling guilty. I should be giving something back to the community, here and up north. I made an appointment to meet the director.

In the days leading up to the appointment, I found myself thinking about the notion of volunteerism. In all my previous efforts, I never felt as if I were making much of a difference. I might feel virtuous, but I wasn't changing the world in any meaningful way. Maybe I didn't stick with it long enough. Maybe my expectations were too high. But sometimes it seems as if social action does more for the psyches of volunteers than for its recipients.

So when the Wellness Community director called me on the morning of our appointment to say she couldn't meet with me that day after all, I wasn't exactly disappointed. More like relieved. She hadn't realized it was MLK day, she said, and besides, the computers were down and she needed to attend to that. She sounded somewhat discombobulated. Shades of my GBLS experience?

We rescheduled for next week, which will give me plenty of opportunity to rethink the whole idea. At the moment, making a financial donation as opposed to volunteering my time is looking pretty attractive. I'll keep you posted.

A Common Language

Hablo espanol. Not fluently, but well enough to carry on a conversation with almost anyone. It's one of my proudest accomplishments. Sometimes, it helps me make a connection that would otherwise be impossible, an I-Thou moment between myself and another human being. I experienced such a moment the other day.

I had stopped at a supermarket in a wealthy suburb, a market I'd never been to before. At the checkout, I was told the bagger would accompany me to my car and load the groceries into my trunk. I always feel awkward about this type of arrangement and that day was no exception. I walked through an icy rain toward my car, feeling like an entitled matron with a servant in tow. He was a youngish man, painfully thin. I had heard him speak Spanish while in the store. I was tempted to say something, but I thought that might be presumptuous, so I walked rapidly toward the car.

When I lifted the lid of the trunk, I noticed that my ice scraper, which I would need to clean the windshield, had slid all the way to the back of the trunk. I thought I might strain an already inflamed shoulder if I reached for it myself, but this was just an excuse. Really, I wanted to say something to the bagger, to show him my good will.

"Me puede hacer un favor?" (Can you do me a favor?) I asked. "Puede alcanzar esta cosa que se usa para hielo?" (Can you reach the thing that is used for ice?) Not a perfect Spanish sentence, to be sure, but adequate, I hoped.

His reaction was all out of proportion to my hope. He bestowed on me an absolutely radiant smile.

"Habla espanol!" he exclaimed and praised my use of the word "alcanzar". He seemed amazed and delighted. I smiled back. I imagined that I might have been the first customer ever to address him in his own language.

We chatted a bit longer. I commented that it must be difficult not to be able to "platicar" (chat) with customers. He agreed. He wanted to know where I had learned Spanish. He seemed reluctant to leave, utterly oblivious to the rain and cold. We stood for a moment, suspended, having transcended the formidable barrier of language. For one beautiful instant, we were real to one another, linked souls. Finally, I thanked him for his help.

"Feliz ano nuevo!" (Happy New Year!) he said, waving as he headed back toward the foodstore's bright lights. "A usted tambien," (To you, too) I called out, filled with good will toward men, or at least toward this one unexpectedly kind and friendly man.

Snow Tonight, or Does a Mother Ever Stop Worrying?

A light snow is falling as I write this. The snows of early December have finally melted and the ground is bare, but that will soon change. Before dark, just as the snow began, I took Cosmo out to the backyard and let him romp around on the grass. An eight-pound poodle, he can (literally) run circles around me. He seemed joyously oblivious of the flurries around him and blissfully unaware that this would be his last daylight sniff of 2005.

The problem with New Year's Eve is that it occurs in winter. So snow and ice are always possible, even probable, here in New England. And the problem with snow and ice on New Year's Eve is obvious--driving, drinking, sliding, skidding.

I thought I had things worked out pretty well this year, though. Eric and I will be close to home, just a few blocks away. (I would feel better if Eric had put the snow tires on his rear-wheel-drive car, but hey, if we get stuck at the bottom of our hill, we can always hike up.) As for older son Aaron, he's in New York City and will be ringing in the New Year on the Upper East Side, where it probably won't be cold enough to snow, and anyway, he doesn't have a car.

Then there's Alex, the younger. I thought he was under control, too. Control? you might well ask. Whose control? At twenty, he's not amenable to mine. But his plan was okay with me--he'd head to a party at his friend Max's house in Cambridge and, since he would be drinking, it was understood that he wouldn't be driving. Instead, he'd spend the night at Max's and come home in the morning.

But the best laid plans, etc. etc. I wandered into Alex's room after walking Cosmo and couldn't miss the pile of used tissues on his desk.

"Got the sniffles?" I asked, hoping it was an allergic reaction to the Mexican food he'd had for lunch. But no, it was as I feared. Alex said he wasn't feeling so great--sore throat, stuffy nose, your basic cold.

"I think I might come home early tonight," he said. I glanced out the window. Snowflakes danced in the fading light. Visions of slippery roads glistened in my mind's eye.

So, what's a mother to do? Well, being the kind of mother who has a hard time separating unless she's made sure her children are aware of all possible impending dangers, I stated the obvious. I reminded Alex that my car, which he'd be borrowing, wasn't as snow-worthy as his old Toyota. I warned him that the roads would be slick, that drunk drivers would abound, that he should "DRIVE CAREFULLY." I almost ended with my standard apologia--It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that it makes me feel better to know I've warned you. But, remembering the pained expression on his face the last time I tried to explain myself that way, I left the words unsaid.

I know the ice sculptures at First Night in Boston will be gorgeous on this frigid, snowy night. And inside, at parties across the Commonwealth, warm fires and plenty of champagne will bring a rosy glow to the faces of revelers. And I believe Alex is a careful driver who won't drink if he's going to drive. Still, I'll be praying it all turns to rain.

Johnny Damon, Samson Redux?

Everyone (in New England, at least) is pondering this burning question: Why did Johnny Damon leave the Red Sox? Sure, the Yankees coughed up the big bucks, but why did the Sox let it happen?

Sportscasters and fans alike are racing to assign blame. It's all Larry Lucchino's fault--clueless Larry, had to be told by the media that a deal with the Yankees had been reached. No, it's those hapless co-managers, Jed Hoyer and Ben Cherington, galloping around like headless horsemen, ineffectual without the wise counsel of Theo Epstein. Or why not blame Theo himself? If he'd sucked it up and accepted the Red Sox offer, all would have been smooth sailing. Johnny's hair would still be waving in the Fenway breeze and the Sox could still laugh in the face of the Yankees vaunted lineup.

Sure, it's fun (in a masochistic Red-Sox-fan kind of way) to figure out who's at fault in our latest off-season fiasco. But maybe we're asking the wrong question. Face it, Johnny's gone. It's a done deal. We need to look to the future. We need to look to Johnny Damon's hair. It's all coming off! And his unshaven face will soon be baby smooth. This is the price the Philistine Steinbrenner exacts from those who would be Yankees. This is the price Johnny will so casually pay. Here's the real question we need to ask: Will Johnny be the same without his hair? Or, like the biblical Samson, will our formerly wild and crazy center fielder lose his power when he loses his locks? I'm counting on it.

This story has all the elements of a biblical tragedy. Our team's great savior, the rock star of Red Sox nation, lusts after the fame and fortune to be found in Yankee pinstripes. He betrays his team, crosses over to the dark side, sure that he'll equal in greatness those who graced Yankee center field before him--DiMaggio, Mantle, Williams. He loves his long hair, but he's willing to sacrifice it, not realizing that along with his silken tresses will go his charisma, his attitude, his baseball persona. And maybe, his talent. Imagine Damon leading off at bat, whiffing, distracted by the lack of hair under his helmet. Picture him making a sliding catch in the outfield, his unprotected cheek abraded as he slams into the ground. These things could happen and there's no telling their effect on Johnny.

Okay, so I'm just another heartbroken Red Sox fan, once again forced to watch a beloved team member join the hated Yankees. I'm reduced to grasping at straws, hoping for a miracle of biblical proportions, praying that Johnny Damon won't lead the Yankees to yet another World Series victory.

One final note: Johnny Damon is an excellent exemplar of famosity. He's a guy whose fame as an athlete has filled him with a sense of self-importance. Behold his words to sports reporter Dan Roche of CBS4 Boston: "A good leadoff hitter is tough to find, and I think that New York just found the best leadoff hitter in the game." Still, such hubris might be forgiven and even considered endearing, if only Johnny were still playing for the hometown team.

Gathering of the Crows

Late afternoon, the day before winter's solstice. Sky bluish-pink, snow whitish-blue. From the window of my study, high on a hill, I watch the crows swoop down, settle like black leaves on bare tree limbs. Hundreds dot the cold, dusky air, inhabit the landscape. It's a noisy conclave, resounding with caws and strange crow clicks. Then eerie silence as they seem to wait, poised for some signal, mysterious to me.

Crows no longer come here in summer. Since the invasion of West Nile, mockingbirds and blue jays have usurped their realm. But today the crows have mustered their forces and gathered in vast numbers, as if to assert their dominion over the coming winter.

The light fades, the wind shifts, one among them makes a decision, and they all lift off into the twilight, pervading the world with their triumphant cries.

Cyber Relationships, or the Art of Intimate Anonymity

What I love most about the Internet is that I can get things done without having to interact with another human being in person or on the phone.

I’ve always been an anxious phone caller. As a kid, I’d beg my mother to call the doctor, dentist, or teacher for me. And I dreaded having to do errands at the corner candy store. Buying cigarettes for my mom (legal at the time) embarrassed me no end. These days, although I can log hours talking to friends on the phone, I retain a residue of my early anxiety when I have to make a business call. And I still hesitate before entering a store with a request.

It’s so much neater and cleaner to handle things on the web. Literally. No newsprint all over my fingers when I read newspapers online, plus I can access news from around the world. With my son Alex in London this past semester, I regularly read the London Times, the Guardian, even the Financial Times. When riots started in France, I read Le Monde in (weird but entertaining) translation. And no more crossed-out, illegible crossword puzzles for me. Doing them online is so much more satisfying.

A couple of years ago, while looking for a writing workshop to join, I discovered the world of online classes. I found a terrific memoir-writing class, with lectures and discussions directly on the web, plus email access to all the class members. The best part—it was 24/7. I could check in any time I felt like it. The class also featured a weekly live chat online, which turned out to be its weakest aspect—with the opportunity to enter into discussion any time, meeting in real time wasn’t especially appealing to the group. After the first week, live chats were poorly attended. Another great feature of the class—members were from all over the world, from London, Malta, and Hong Kong, as well as various states.

After that first class, I “attended” several more online workshops. I relished the anonymity. I could let people “see” as much of me as I wanted, but not necessarily all of me. And when participating in discussions, I could edit my comments until they expressed exactly what I wanted to say before submitting them to the group. No more wishing I could take back some stupid observation. Now I just edited it out. I’d never felt so articulate in a class before.

As in any live class, in my online classes I gravitated toward particular individuals and found some real kindred spirits. One person in a fiction class asked if I wanted to keep exchanging short stories after the ten-week class officially ended. Although I liked her and admired her work, I felt leery of embarking on a one-to-one relationship. It seemed like I’d lose my precious anonymity—she’d get to know me too well.

But during a subsequent class, this one on writing poetry, I was again approached (via email) by a class member whom I’d gotten to like and whose work I enjoyed reading. She proposed that she and I, along with a third person in the class, continue to workshop our poems independently. We could keep up the helpful structure of deadlines and writing critiques, she said, but we wouldn’t have to pay. An excellent point. We agreed to submit poems only once a month, rather than weekly as we’d done in class, and I signed on.

My cyber poetry buddies were far flung, Bonnie from Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula and Cheryl from the Jersey shore. We knew nothing about one another other than what we revealed in our poems. It was fantastic—poetry in a pure vacuum. Over time, bits and pieces about our lives did emerge. Cheryl emailed to apologize for a delay in her critique, saying she'd been on vacation. Bonnie wrote a poem about the death of a young girl’s father, then revealed (in responding to our comments) that her daughter’s ex-husband had been killed in a car crash. From that I gleaned also that Bonnie was a grandmother.

Still, it was all very sketchy. We continued in this liberating anonymous vein for almost a year. Then Cheryl sent a fateful email. She reflected how amazing it was that we’d maintained our cyber relationship for months, yet knew so little about one another. She wondered in her email what would happen if we shared more information about ourselves. While I was mulling that one over, Bonnie took the bull by the horns and sent a lengthy email telling us her life story.

There it was. The genie was out of the bottle, no turning back. Almost before I could press send/receive, Cheryl responded with her story, and a photo! Instead of a wispy brunette, as I’d imagined, she was a big, brassy, blond! With growing trepidation, I typed out the story of my life and sent it into the ether, complete with the most flattering photograph I could find.

Self-consciousness had entered my cyber world. Now I worried about looking good for these ladies. They knew who I was! And maybe they’d want us to meet. Not a cyber meeting, but a real one, at the continental divide or some other poetically symbolic locale. I told myself to stop being irrational, that nothing had really changed. But everything had.

After the flurry of email autobiographies and photographs, things quieted down and seemed to return to normal. We sent off our poems to one another on the first of the month and our critiques within the next couple of weeks. But then Cheryl emailed us with the good news that she’d sold her house. After all, we now knew all about the house she’d been renovating with her husband, so of course we’d want to know that she'd sold it. And I confided my fears about Alex being in London after the bombings there last July. Why not? We were friends, weren’t we?

But our poems were suffering. That month, Cheryl submitted an older one, not having had time (in a month) to write something new. And Bonnie told us she was working hard on a novel, with little time left over for poetry. As for me, I eked out a poem, but it was uninspired. The muse had deserted me.

Just last week, as our little group's year anniversary approached, I emailed Bonnie and Cheryl, confessing that my heart wasn’t in writing poetry anymore, and wondering how they each felt. I was grateful when Bonnie responded, agreeing that our workshop was “winding down,” and saying she hoped we’d stay in touch but perhaps the time had come to end our formal relationship. We’ve not heard yet from Cheryl, except an email saying her computer crashed and she’ll get to our emails soon.

I expect she’ll be disappointed. After all, it was she who brought our little group together. But it was also she who initiated our self-revelations. For me at least, anonymity set me free to write intimately revealing poems. The loss of anonymity was fatal to that endeavor.

But I haven't given up hope. For one thing, I've started this blog. Here I can communicate with my imagined audience without ever having to make eye contact. Furthermore, I'm thinking of taking another class online. There's a universe of people out there who know nothing about me!

Famosity? Is that a word?

Yes, famosity was once considered a bonafide word, defined in Webster's 1913 edition as "the state or quality of being famous." In my current revival of the term, famosity refers not to the state of being famous but to the exalted sense of self-importance people feel when they achieve any degree of fame or even know someone who's famous. In my dictionary, fame (or proximity to it) plus pomposity equals famosity. For this blog, I plan to write about what's on my mind under the famosity heading. I hope the word will serve as a constant reminder to me not to take myself too seriously. And I won't hesitate to point out examples of famosity in others when I see them!