Thank You, Georges, for Dancing Feet

One of each denomination... a single, a five spot, a ten and a twenty. Thirty-six dollars so tidy, so deliberate, so dear.

Into the bandaid box they go, rolled with the single on the outside and crammed next to a dozen other similar rolls. They remind me of cigarettes. Twelve dollars is for this week’s tutoring session and twenty four for what he owes me for last week and the week before. Thursday after Thursday, Georges chips away at his ignorance of English. His thick lips work hard to produce the new sounds of English and wrestle its absurd grammar. Japanese and French, so complicated to my ear, roll trippingly off his tongue. Born in Japan, he moved to “Ros a Ahnjeres” from Paris last year where he lived from age eleven to twenty one. He’s two years older than I am and is going to be a famous film-maker.

Today, as usual he’s dressed completely in black. An opera cape tied at the neck swoops behind him like a tot’s super-hero cape, accentuating his hollowed out frame. His shoulder-length black hair is pulled into a loose band at his neck. He doesn’t so much sit as alight - like a dragonfly - twitching - more apt to dart off again than to sit still. His smile, too, flits. Some teeth are missing and the spaces pull the curtain of his mouth down when they feel shy.

He asks about my feet. He knows I dance. Six classes a week; three on point. Recently, my feet hurt a lot. The sesamoid bone in the ball joint of each big toe is in two pieces - a genetic mishap. Swelled, red, bunionesque protrusions butt up against the insides of my toe shoes and hurt more with every jump, turn and plie. By the end of a ninety minute class I’m in tears.

Dr. Lucien prescribed Indomethicin - an anti-inflammatory. It jacks up my stomach. Ex-boyfriend Gypsy prescribed Foster’s Lager beer and Robitussin Cough medicine with codeine. They both jack up my head. I’ve decided to tough it out.

Today, I’m feeling very Russian and very dramatic. My high-neck white lace blouse, with cameo pin at the throat, is tucked into my calf-length cocoa colored skirt. I have cinched the waist so tightly with safety pins where the button should be, that my stomach hasn’t room to complain - even if I had taken the Indomethecin. This outfit is one of my post-hippy experiments with grown-up clothes. I’m an English tutor at Los Angeles City College and have to look the part - professional. 

Still, my feet hurt. What idiot would stuff these puppies into ill-fitting high heeled boots just because they match the skirt, and make the Russian theme come alive? What idiot would ask these puppies to walk from where I found parking six blocks away? It is I who ask these puppies to comply. It is Georges who begins today’s session on the quad in the slanting afternoon sunlight with a recipe for reducing the pain in my big toe joints. It’s sweet that he’s been thinking about my feet.

“First, you beat two eggwhites until they very fluffy.” I begin writing it down. 

“Chop a half a onion very, very fine - maybe even grate it. Add little bit a frour.” His mouth struggles with this last word - making it sound more like “FRAU-RER.” 

I look up to see his deliberate pronunciation. He sees the question on my brow. “Like a wheeet fraurer; like you use a make a bled... toast.”

“Wheat flour,” I say and write it down, feeling more and more puzzled by this recipe to relieve foot pain.

Georges goes on to explain, “You mix a all togeza like a paste. At night you put on feet and wrap in cloth and a plastic bag. You go sleep.” I’m writing and wondering if this is a joke...  if he’s making fun of me.

“Pain in foot smells onion and come out a see what is. Eggwhite and fraurer paste catch it good and hold a all night long. In a morning you wash a off. Soak a feet in vinegar ten minute.”

“What kind of vinegar?”

“Apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar... no matta... no, no wine vinegar.”

“No wine vinegar,” I write.

“Zen you rub a foot with olive a oil.  You do this three nights in a row. You miss a night, you start a over. You see. You be betta. You dance.”

“O.K. Georges, I’ll give it a try.” I say, putting the recipe in my Indian mirror-cloth handbag that does not go with my Russian theme.  I hide it under my shawl which does complete the outfit nicely. “Let’s see your progress on the script.”

He pulls out a sheaf of twenty dog-eared pages from his black leather satchel and we get to work.  The scent of fine cow-hide lifts from his eraser-smudged pages - widening my nostrils in a pleasurable way as I lean my head on my hand, my elbow propped on the lunch table. He sits straddling the bench, his spine curled forward in concentration. We read and correct, read and correct. He is making progress on his script, for sure.

I try Georges’ recipe for two nights, soaking my feet in vinegar for ten minutes the next morning, and spending another thirty minutes showering to get the vinegar smell off. On the third morning, I don’t have time for the soaking and the washing and I just don’t want to smell like a salad, so I don’t exactly follow the recipe all the way for three days. Even so, I notice that my “Russian boots” don’t feel so tight, my toe-shoes don’t feel like Iron Maidens and my feet are just not as painful.

Thursday afternoon, I wait on the quad for Georges - eager to give him the “foot notes.” At 4:20 he’s still nowhere to be seen. At 4:45 I leave a note addressed to Georges under a rock on our table: “Gone to tutoring office. Call me.”

Next to the door of the office is a bulletin board. I scan it. There is a note with my name on it. The phone memo reads: To Mindy Maxwell, Date: 4-24-69 Time: 1:10 pm. Message: Georges F. went to Japan, grandmother sick. Please say thank you.

I never saw Georges again. I wish I could have said, “Thank You.”

Moorpark Park and the Hood

“Krap Kraproom” is backward speak for Moorpark Park, which is a triangular green swathe at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Moorpark street. There are few amenities beyond four picnic tables and a fenced-in sand area where swings and a climbing structure are in nearly constant use during day-light hours. Recently, there have been some minor improvements - a new water fountain and a couple of benches with dedication plaques on their backs. A few times a year the park is the venue for arts and crafts fairs, and more regularly, for pet adoptions on Sundays.

Moorpark Park becomes a corridor of welcomed softness when walking the mile or so between my home and Ventura Boulevard which has convenient shopping, banking and eateries. Even my dermatologist, some great thrift stores and Book Star for browsing are an easy walk from home by way of the park. I’ve been delighted for decades by what I’ve witnessed in this neighborhood park.

February 14, I am walking through on my way home from food shopping - with bags that are way too heavy to schlep for a mile, and there is a sweet tableau unfolding.

I set down the four cloth bags full of Trader Joe’s goodies to rest my arms, mop my brow and scan the scene. An internal smile warms me further. A twenty-something woman, who clearly has been instructed by her boyfriend not to peek, is standing with her back to a blanket on the grass, and poses prettily in her red and white heart-bedecked frock. She‘s barefoot. He has set stuffed animals of “Lady” and “The Tramp” up-right on the picnic cloth and is serving out spaghetti and salad onto paper plates in front of them from plastic deli containers. Totally engrossed in his task, he doesn’t see a real dog who is running off leash towards him and putting distance between herself and her persuing owner’s shrill voice. 

Seeing potential for imminent disaster, I hoist my groceries and walk between the mutt and the picnic spread with a warning, “Hey! Go to your mama,” to the four-legged, and a cheery “Happy Valentine’s Day,” over my shoulder to the two two-legged ones. The dog loops around and back to shrill-macher who finally catches and leashes her. 

I’d like to think that my actions are a payback to the Universe for guiding me to meet my beloved, dear-hearted Valentine forty one years ago and to Luck which has given us opportunities to ground our relationship in mutual respect and adoration.

For us, Happy Hearts Day means walking through the park again to our favorite Indian restaurant on Ventura Place for supper. It is not spaghetti that brings our lips together, as it did for Lady and Tramp in the iconic scene from the Disney movie, and hopefully, the lips of the young couple in the park, but rather Tandoori chicken and fragrant Basmati rice. We savor our papadum appetizer - still making moon eyes at one another after all these years... until we notice the next table.

Seated there is a family of four. The nine year old girl finishes her dinner before anyone else and clearly she is bored. My funny valentine keeps making faces at her, wiggling his ears and pushing his glasses askew. We all laugh at his antics. He is a natural-born clown.

When the family leaves, Manit, the owner of Gangadin’s, comes over to our table and tells us all about Isabella, the nine year old, who first started coming here in utero. He says her parents are actors. I ask about Manit’s wife Sangeeta. He asks how we know her. I say that it was in her capacity as Physical Therapist with Kaiser Permanente when she came to our house a few times in 2002. My mom had just received a bionic hip. Manit turns and tells the diners at large, “My wife took care of her mother!” He says to us, “I want to show you something.” He bustles to a back wall and brings a framed color wedding photograph. In it, he and Sangeeta are being showered with red rose petals in New Dehli. Both look radiant, slim and very happy. My husband and I “Ooooh and Aaah” over the photo. All three of us remember the sweetness of new love. Manit hands me a red rose, just as he did Isabella and her mom.

As we walk home through the park, I put the rose through my lapel button hole and tell Mark about the young couple’s Valentine’s Dinner on the grass and how I hope the relationship turns out well. When we pass the spot, I reminisce about caligraphing our wedding invitation while sitting on this same grass in 1972 when we lived in an apartment across the street. 

All of 2011, we would bring mama Barbara here in her wheel chair every fair afternoon from our home around the corner. She chattered with the squirrels in their own “Ehh, ehh, ehh, ehh” language.

Our local farmer’s market happens on the street right in front of Sangeeta and Manit’s establishment each Sunday. The family, including two grown sons now, is often out in a vendor stall selling Tandoori, Tikka, Masala and Curry dishes. They’ve been in business since 1984. The farmer’s market has been on Ventura Place about 15 years. Since mama Barbara passed away, I’ve wanted to share a passel of pictures of her with Sangeeta and again thank her for the sweet care she provided Barbara when she was still active, but every time we walk to the market, it’s either too early and the Gangadin stall is not yet open or I’ve forgotten the photos at home. One day, it will all come together. 

Meanwhile, I marvel at how refreshing it is to maeander through Moorpark Park and note how far it and the neighborhood in general are from being a "krap kraproom."

Life happens here and it makes me happy.

Bottle Necks

Wine from the belly of the bottle pours with grace out the spout.

Why can’t emotion get past the bottleneck of the throat?

Glass is not as yielding as flesh, but neither can it contract.

The bottle is proud of its contents. Check out the fancy label.

When opened, it pours.

Why this cork of shame stuck in human bottle’s neck?

Musculature so practiced at constricting against years of tears deserves an Oscar. 

Where’s the pride? Why the shame in having cried?

Out loud

So young when we tried to reach out.

No reach back, no response made us tongue tied.

Biography becomes physiology event by event, chapter by chapter and verse.

Where’s the spout? Where’s the out for survival energies?

Full up with frozen Fight, Flight 

Pent up, fed up, deep down pressed down... waiting...

'til safety on the horizon beckons

What would it be like to be met? 

What if healing happens - for real?

Could we stand to kneel 

In gratitude for our birth on the earth?

Such bound energy it feels volcanic.

Search around for a body mechanic.

Watch for re-organization they say.

The ordinary miracle of healing turns night into day.

Slowly by slowly  learn the way. 

Shiver-shake-wave, undu-late and undo early 

Earthquakes of the soul.

Find the groove and move, move, move.

In goes the good air out goes the bad... out through torso and out out out 

Five chimneys, no waiting.

Out two arms, out two legs and out that chimney-pot head & neck of the body bottle.

My body bottle

Softening

Italian Time

There are more clerics on this flight than civilians! Judy and I are astonished that the majority of early morning commuters between Dublin and Rome are wearing backward white collars. If my father the atheist were alive today, he’d turn over in his grave!

My high school buddy and I have enjoyed two full weeks touring all corners of Ireland and searching out our similar but parallel roots at the Ulster/American Museum in Northern Ireland.  We’ve tucked away our Irish souveniers and are looking forward to the next adventure’s base camp - an apartment in the mountains of Umbria owned and loaned to us by Judy’s co-worker in Los Angeles.

Outfitted with carry-on luggage and packaged  snacks, we arrive in Rome at 9:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001.

The SUV we rent takes time to master as do the maps showing us the way to Judy’s friend’s apartment. It will be our home away from home for the final week of this Irish/Italian vacation. By the time we see Rome’s airport in our rearview mirror, it’s nearly 11:00 a.m. local time. 

We are driving through a valley of vineyards that has a patent on gold light. Walled cities on gentle hills glow and small farms stream by our windows awash with artist's most prized colors. We’re feeling free and autonomous after the regimented Trafalgar bus tour of Ireland. Windows open, the air is whipping through our hair back-lit by the slant of the late afternoon sun. I snap a photo of Judy at the wheel. She is glowing golden too. We sing ‘60‘s hits and camp songs winding our way up the mountain pass.

We gas-up and buy Italian versions of fast foods which are delicious slow food offerings in neat packages. The store is over-the-road above the gas station on the median strip. You can reach it by elevator from either side of the highway. All is different from home. It’s about 3:00 p.m. local time as we pull onto the road once more.

By the time the wall enclosing Norcia is before us, it is nearly dusk. Lost, we park and head into a Pharmácia just outside the wall for directions - our first opportunity to try the Franklin electronic translator. As soon as we walk in, however, the two women behind the counter blanch white and cry out, “Momentiti, Momentiti!”  We think it an odd response - considering we haven’t even tried to ask for directions yet.

One of them goes through a back doorway and returns with a priest. It turns out that Father Joseph is the only English speaker in the town. He tells us two airplanes have just crashed into the World Trade Center Towers in southern Manhattan and that thousands of people have died. I feel my knees buckle and am nauseous and shaky. Judy is equally pale. The other gal behind the counter brings us two glasses of water.

Father Joseph is a Benedictine monk from Calcutta. His English is wobbly but understandable. He calms and soothes us, reassuring us that there is nothing to be done  tonight but to find our lodging. He offers to walk alongside our car to the address inside the city. It is close. I'm oddly settled by the sight of his head shaking side to side as he speaks in his halting and heavily accented English as he walks next to my window. There is no other car traffic on the narrow street.

Mrs. Lina Rotondia, the land lady, greets us like a worried mother hen. She has been listening to the radio and also knows the terrible news in New York, and now, too, at the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. Father Joseph has a conversation with Lina. He is surprisingly fluent in his third language. They know one another from the huge and only church on the square, which, we learn, is the center of this tight-knit community. He tells us the Golden Gate Bridge and other iconic sites at home are on high alert.

I’m viscerally relieved when I reach my husband by phone from Lina and Giovanni Rotondia’s apartment and find out that our New York family is OK, but terribly shaken - as our nephew’s building was across the street - two buildings down from the towers. He saw the second plane hit and the ensuing jumpers and implosions.

Wrung out and travel fatigued, Judy and I try to sleep after agreeing to meet Father Joseph at the church entrance next morning at 11:00. 

When she was about six, my older daughter described a sensation in her body as “hunga-junga” - that all wiggly - can’t find a place for yourself feeling. Judy calls it “jervous and nittery.” Both of us have this feeling tonight. I take the smaller of the two bedrooms. At some point during the night, we are both up. We step out onto her bedroom balcony with a bottle of wine and two glasses to sit at the small table there. It’s so quiet, but for bird peeps, whuthering wind and soft snoring - perhaps from Mr. Rotondia downstairs. 

Trying to suck sleep from the chianti bottle, I last look at my travel clock at 4:30 a.m. By 9 the sun is so bright it rouses me from dreamless sleep. Street sounds, bird sounds, and coffee wafting on the continuously blowing dry wind orient me to this new place. Judy is not yet up. The bath is just across from her room. Quietly, I gather my toiletries and clothes.

I love the sound Italian doors make when they latch so firmly into place. These carpenters KNOW how to fit doors properly. There’s no play; no after-shake. Once the heavy wood latches into its frame with a definitive click, it is plumly, cozily secure. I love the latching sound and that the solidity of tree trunks fashioned into doors seals out all exterior sounds.

Immersed for a quick soak in a warm bath, I try not to imagine people leaping from falling buildings. We are lucky not to have access to televised repetitions of the horror. I realize we are outside the cultural and retinal imprint of those scenes - emblazoned forever in our countrymen’s memories. For us, there is an urgency to get home, but unknown schedules and frustration meet us with every effort to make our way back to the United States. We feel out of the loop and out of the experience everyone whom we love is going through. Perhaps we are the lucky ones, despite being stymied. There will be no flights home for several days. We keep to the original plan - hoping we will be able to fly September 19.

Every day, Father Joseph takes us to a different religious sight in Umbria. On Friday, September 14, there is a moment of silence world-wide. It is noon at the Basillica of Saint Francis of Assisi. We are here with Father Joseph and hundreds of other people. All is silent except for the slap of good Italian leather soles against worn undulating marble and the incessant Latin prayer being intoned from the pulpit. The Franciscan Priest never does honor the silence. Father Joseph eases our hunga junga angst in the evenings with Grappa. His small apartment is spare and neat and is watched over by an enormous crucifix above the door. He has quite the supply of Grappa made from truffles, and plies us with it generously. It's a little like viscous vodka - sweeter and tastier. He also imbibes and confides in us how much he misses his family. He wants us to adopt him; I am to be his mommy and Judy his daddy. He is in his thirties. Judy is disgusted and cannot wait to get away from him! I am bemused and slightly sorry for him so far from home - as are we. 

Finally, today we fly! We have seen Italy under duress. I hope to return to appreciate and savor the beauty, the people, the food, and the Grappa. 

At LAX, I kiss my hand and bend to touch terra-not-so-firma. I Love L.A.