Sound Bites

My family and I attended two Bat Mitzvahs for two grand nieces in New York on consecutive weekends. The first was Saturday of Mother's Day Weekend and was held in a beautiful Conservative Temple on the Upper West Side. The second was on Long Island at a more modest venue.
The two celebration parties were of equal extravagance and included DJs whose ears must be blown-out long ago. The decibel level had our clothing bouncing off our bodies - much like the iconic movie, Children of a Lesser God. Painful! The sound was biting my ears!

At the second one, which was even louder than the first, I was desperate. I have some hearing loss, perhaps hereditary, perhaps related to too much loud music in the nineteen-sixties. It makes some of the finest hairs in the inner ear take on responsibilities for fellow fatter fallen soldiers. These delicate ones don't know how to deal with the force of the sound waves attacking them. They feel pain, akin to having weak muscles do too much heavy lifting.

Remedy: Dinner rolls the consistency of Wonder Bread that are better for making dice and small sculptures than for eating. I followed my husband's suggestion and used small pieces of my roll to make perfect contoured earplugs! Buffered from the onslaught, my ears were happy hearing what conversation I could while the doughy bits held the offending heavy base vibes at bay. Yay! In case you were wondering, NO, I did NOT have them as a midnight snack! Eeeeewww!

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Delights filled the days sandwiched between the two celebrations.  New York City is alive! We explored it with our two daughters and our granddaughter. After gorging on Zabar's delicacies, we left the first of the obligatory Sunday Brunches on Central Park West to walk with our grand nephew in the Park.  Zach, who is twenty-two and lives in a small apartment near 57th Street and Columbus Circle at the South end of the park, showed us around. There was a Japanese Festival going on with food, face painting, and families dancing to (yes, LOUD) music. Wandering gave us time for quieter conversations. When we got to the lake, we four gals rowed a boat across the very lake on which E.B. White's Stuart Little navigated his human brother's model boat. By the time we got to the very bridge on which Stuart's family stood to cheer him on, the granddaughter was really into the whole adventure, recalling the tension of the story. Her Gran'Pun and her cousin Zach cheered us on from atop the bridge.

Glorious springtime scents wafted to our noses, petals floated on the swells caused by the crowd of boats going in all directions. There was lots of laughter as boats bumped - mostly gently, mostly with cordial apologies. (Who really knows how to steer or slow down these old boats?) Cool breezes and warm sun made it a perfect Sunday outing. As we bid goodbye to Zach and headed toward the subway, a surprise squall drenched us and everyone else on the streets of Manhattan. We laughed and scurried for cover in whatever doorways we could find.

Once on the train back to our hotel, the nearly eight-year-old grandie started up a game of charades. The aliveness of her acting out a book title engaged all surrounding passengers, so much so that a woman seated next to me, when the subject of our plans for the week came up and they  included a trip to the Museum of Natural History, turned to me and said, "Here. I'm a volunteer at the museum. I've got five voucher passes for you." Wow! We could hardly contain our delight at the serendipity. We thanked  her profusely and intend to send a hand-written Thank You note to her in care of the museum.

The day at the museum was a special one too. Sister-in-law Betsy also got tickets for us to get in. While Mark waited in line to turn the vouchers into actual tickets, my job was to scope out a family of five with which to share the vouchers. Two little ones and three adults from Argentina proved to be the perfect recipients. The funny part was that as the long line snaked forward and doubled back on itself many times, my beloved husband / kid magnet, who didn't know who had received the vouchers, kept encountering this same delightful family and making the kids giggle at his goofy antics, jokes, and rope tricks. We bumped into them again at several of the exhibits... mummies, and dinosaurs, and dioramas, oh, MY!

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Families each have their unique dynamics. Being on vacation couldn't stop my observing mind. My take-aways from the week spent with ours were love and feelings of great compassion for all the nieces, nephews, grand nieces and nephews, sisters and brothers-in-love.

Wishing the miles weren't so many between east and west coasts, but grateful for the opportunity to traverse them, I'm resolute to stay in touch with family.

Stay Tuned...

My Monday Muse will be off line for two weeks while I am on a computer fast.

Please join me again Memorial Day, May 29, 2017.

May all mother's everywhere be remembered for their labors of love.

May all women who have taken up labors on behalf of any wee living thing be celebrated for their gift.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be well. May all beings be peaceful.

Namasté,

Melinda

Morning Songs

Uncle Larry will turn ninety-three May 10. He and my cousin Lynn spent five days with us and we celebrated his Birthday together Sunday morning, with cake and ice-cream, before they drove back to Los Angeles.

During their stay, my husband and I gave them a tour of Oakland, Berkeley and surrounding areas. They seemed particularly taken with Roberts Redwood Park's hiking trails, and Julia Morgan's iconic architecture, which we saw from the outside-in. It takes some doing to get four folk ready to leave in a timely way from our house. Chapel of the Chimes at the Piedmont Cemetary had just closed by the time we pulled up to the curb Saturday afternoon, so we walked around a bit and looked in windows while I described for them the urns of ashes that look like library books on shelves, with names, birth and death dates on the book's spines. Room after room after naturally lit room, with fountains and lush plantings hold these book-shaped urns as well as more classically shaped Grecian ones. Sunset is a perfect time to be there. All is awash with golden light. The sound resonates in these lovely spaces and Jazz Concerts are a regular Sunday feature at Chapel of the Chimes. Too bad our timing was slightly off.

We piled back in the car and went over to Berkeley City Club, where we could go inside, delight in a a bride and groom posing on the sun-drenched steps for a prenuptial photographic session. We observed diners arriving at the members-only-restaurant, and even found a door accidentally left ajar, so we could peek in on the gorgeous pool - so reminiscent of Ms. Morgan's stunning indoor pool at San Simeon's Hearst Castle.

Friday we went to the Oakland Museum - everyone's first time except for our granddaughter, who has been there many times before. Such fun to see the California History exhibit. In the Hollywood section, we had fun recording sound effects for an old Western Movie in the Foley room, and coloring costume designs over tracings on a light box. The Grandie also liked watching the huge coy and turtles in the outdoor pond.

Sunday morning was my favorite time of the visit. Uncle dines early on the same foods each morning - yogurt, prunes, oatmeal, toast with peanut butter, and coffee. Cousin Lynn lingered longer in bed. Uncle and I sang morning songs alone together in the brightly lit east-facing kitchen. Oklahoma's "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" was top on his mind. He didn't know about Cat Steven's rendition of "Morning Has Broken", so I pulled out our large print edition of "Rise Up Singing" so he could see the lyrics and chord progressions. He's quite an eclectic musician. Guitar is his most accomplished instrument, but he also plays Ukulele, piano, flüegel horn, and slide trombone. He's in a group called The Geritones that plays gigs at senior centers and nursing homes. 

There's such a fine line between "fine" and "not-so-fine." My mother's brother at ninety-three has all his faculties, shops and cooks for himself, drives himself to folk-dancing, stores, and book club meetings every week, in addition to any gigs where his group is playing.

I'm listening to Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal", which is about frailty, dependence, and aging, Oh, My! I recommended it to my cousin. She lives with her dad and, right now, everything is "fine."  

His sister, my mom, had a catastrophic brain event one day, which ended her independence with a BANG. Bodies have moving parts and they wear-out. I have a great deal of respect for the elders I know who are vibrantly alive even if they live with diminished and diminishing capacities. To greater or lesser extent, we all have capacities that wane. When in the presence of those who are wobbly of foot or of mind, I sometimes have the fear that I'm sharing company with a ticking time-bomb - that may explode at any moment. Perhaps the suddenness of my mother's extreme decline marked me, and I expect something like that will happen to everyone eventually. Here today... gone tomorrow. New Normals are hard on the soul.

Uncle shows no signs of not being fine. I wonder how Frank Weller was that morning at home, before he mistook the gas pedal for the brake in his car and plowed into the Santa Monica Farmer's Market. I worked with a child who was badly hurt by his mistake simply by being innocently in the pathway of his speeding, out-of-control vehicle. Heart-breaking - for all concerned.

Cousin Lynn, my honey and I had a conversation, out of Uncle's earshot, about THAT conversation which must be had at some point with her father. We came up with the phrase, "We'll know it's time to hand over the keys when the joy of independent living, which includes driving yourself around, is outweighed by the risk of possible danger."  We didn't have to have that conversation with my mom. After her stroke, it was a no-brainer. (Pun, sadly appropriate.) With my mother's boyfriend, however, it was a one-sided conversation that fell on his deaf ears. He continued to drive - illegal - even after having caused a bad accident. Fierce independence is admirable as long as it stays out of the driver's seat. 

Meanwhile, morning songs continue to knock around my noggin... "... but she lived on the morning side of the mountain, and he lived on the twilight side of the hill," and "Good morning star-shine, the earth says hello, you twinkle above us, we twinkle below." (From Hair)

I look forward to singing with Uncle Larry again soon. My preference is that we sing only morning, and no mourning songs.