Trip Down Memory Lane

For years, my big brother, J., lived in a loft on Mulberry Street*.

Hooray! After many years of missing her, I saw my friend and former boss Ruth Arnstein today. In all those years, life got complicated--with Punch coming and going, the tree falling through our roof, Figgy's struggles, losing Dad, and with our own crossed wires. I once waited in Sarabeth's on Madison @ 92nd Street but Ruth didn't come. So I sampled a couple of cookies and headed back to NJ, tail between my legs. Last week, I tried to see her but she had to cancel.

Ruth is in her eighties now--time waits for no one. She hired me as lifestyle writer at Good Housekeeping when I was 28, in 1989. I promptly left Seventeen--with its shoe giveaways and colorfully named staffers like Cissy and Kit. Ruth and I worked together side by side, writing about makeup, sunscreen, couches, cameras, pie crusts and more in our elegant wood-paneled office. Ruth retired in 1996, and I worked there another three years until deciding to freelance.

We weren't just writers/editors and co-workers. We were gatekeepers, politicians, strategists, stone cutters and nags--we had to play well with a wide variety of personalities and get the copy written and shepherded through. We collaborated with divas and pros, sticklers and cranks--but most of all, with a staff of smart women who knew their stuff. Together, we moved from typewriters to computers.

All those years, we talked about each other's lives, too--Ruth's childhood in West Orange; her daring and stylish Aunt Sophie; Ruth's sophisticated older sister, Helen; their parents. The paint store in their family. Ruth knew all about Dad, and H., and Figgy. She came to our wedding and she came to our house. "How's Ruth?" Dad would ask. "Have you heard from Ruth?"

It was like a tonic to see her. A sweet-smelling tonic, made from pressed garden flowers and Youth Dew, with subtle notes of vanilla and cinnamon. It brought back visions of her nubby black winter coat, her favorite gray skirt and shirt jacket, her slim, stretchy white skirt, our orange china marker pencils, the black bound volumes of the magazine from decades past. The donut and coffee Ruth had at her desk in the morning, the cup of soup at lunch. [She frequented Twinkee Donuts, the corner coffee shop.] Her boyfriend, who called on the phone for her. I took the messages. Ruth was much younger then, and so was I.

Lee Quarfoot, skilled fiction editor of GH for decades, was there, too, and so was Margaret DeMeo, the long-time assistant managing editor. [Lee lives near Ruth, and escorted her there in a cab.] Lee is now a nurse in neurology at Mount Sinai--she made a major, remarkable career switch, going back to school and everything--and Margaret is a new grandmother. Her daughter, the young girl who came to GH many schoolday afternoons, has a two-year-old daughter.

The baby they remember--Figgy--is 17, and I brought her senior photo to show them.

We met at Da Nico in Little Italy on Mulberry Street, which has great weekday lunch specials [with salad] for under $10. Lee chose a wine she found on her travels to Italy--a welcoming, warm-bodied red, perfect on a bitter day with bowls of hot pasta. The wine was called Montepulciano Abruzzi** and was $27 for our one bottle, but well worth it; our entrees were all $7.50 to $8.50.

Oh, it was a treat to see them all. And I drove in, so I happily gave Ruth and Lee a ride back to their apartments on the Upper East Side. Which meant we got to talk for another 30+ minutes.

You can't go back, but the memories are always yours, like rubies, emeralds and pearls in a velvet-lined jewelry box. Take them out and wear them whenever you want. Hold them up to the lamp, and observe the color play, the facets, the hidden light and warmth. And remember, too, the rule about pearls--the more you wear them, the more luminous they are.

Good night.

*I am going to try again to see my brother J. 
**Per wikipedia: Montepulciano d'Abruzzo is a red Italian wine made from the Montepulciano wine grape in the Abruzzo region of east-central Italy.

TCOY

1. I have lost just over five pounds per scale today.
2. Moderate dinner after that big lunch.
3. Writing class tonight. Someone wise gave me good advice. Do and be your personal best. Don't let competition/comparison/envy hold you back and bring on negative feelings that derail your good intentions. I repeat, do and be your personal best.