Sunday-Night Tired

The color of the year, Peach Fuzz, makes me think of Mrs. C's pretty kitchen in Dumont. When I saw peach taper candles at Van Hook, I scooped up a pair.

Full day....instead of turning off my alarm at 7:45 a.m. and going back to sleep, I got up and went to 9 a.m. support group. Good people there, and it meets at a conference room in a nicely renovated local hospital.

I'm not too often in that part of town. I walked partway home so I could stop at nearbly Van Hook Cheese + Grocery (especially for pretty taper candles in peach* and yellow, reasonably priced) and smooth 100 percent dark chocolate that somehow carries it off without any sugar. Dan found it too bitter but I like the midnight dark Cacao Sampaka bar from Barcelona. Luxury priced at $10 for 2.64 oz. They make coffee and cappuccino chocolate "tablets," too. Also grabbed a half-gallon of whole milk from a farm, wedge of Brie for Dan/Punch/me, nice round wheat crackers.

The Jones Road (Bobbi Brown makeup) shop is right around the corner, so I also stopped there because my brow pencil is down to a stump and I wanted to try a new tinted lip balm.

Later, Dan and I gardened. He planted bulbs and I raked the lawn and around the shrubs and potted pretty pink-and-white-striped dahlias. In that regard, we are a good team. I made spaghetti squash with turkey bolognese sauce. I think there are leftovers for Punch's lunch tomorrow. 

Good night.

*Pantone's Color of the Year for 2024 is Peach Fuzz. I thought of that when I plucked a pair of peach tapers off the rack at Van Hook.

A Dream About My Mother on Her Wedding Day

I dabbed on Dream Anointing Oil last night at bedtime, the same magical formula that Krystal puts in the center of our palms at the end of Wednesday night Restorative Yoga. (The studio had six little bottles for sale.) The intoxicating floral blend is meant to enhance dream life.

It did. I had a very detailed dream about my mother and father on their wedding day (1951). I talked to them. I learned some things. I'm going to take notes for a short story or essay.

Last night I reread T. Capote's short story "Miriam" from 1945. It's haunting and like all of his best work, closely observed. He sold it to Mademoiselle, the June 1945 issue*.

Hope you have a good day. I have to jot before I forget about the fur stole my mother had on over her white wedding gown....and other details, like how it was to see Dad as a handsome young 28-year-old from the Bronx.

Only 28? That's Figgy's age....

*Per Wikipedia: Carson McCullers' sister, Rita Smith, who worked as an editor's assistant at Mademoiselle, recommended Capote's story "Miriam." She assisted George Davis, who gave Truman his first start in being published.^[3]

Back from Eclipse Chasing

Punch + Romeo on the museum terrace, near Central Park.

The teens made fast friends with New Yorkers around them, 

from a retired teacher to a museum guard. 

I used odd "lasso" effect to encircle photo. I'd like to redo/perfect/play 

with it more, but I have to do my work.

Michael + Dan near Canada. Full totality.

Our threesome in New York, New York.

I was on the terrace behind the Museum of Natural History in New York, New York to watch the solar eclipse with family (and strangers, who became fast friends). We three, even our hard-to-impress teen girl, are glad we went. Romeo, Punch and I are tired now. Walked to cute old train station in Montclair, boarded 10:56 a.m. double decker to NY Penn Station, explored Moynihan Train Hall, bustling and fun, and took C subway to 81st Street/museum stop ($2.90 per person each way when I used my debit card at the turnstyle, still a pretty good deal).

Dan and his close pal drove all the way up in Vermont near Canada to see the full effect and are stuck in crawling traffic back tonight. They couldn't find coffee or a bathroom on those narrow highways. Figgy and friend drove to Lake George and then another viewing destination in New York State. (Both parties left a day ahead and found lodging.) Punchy's school closed at 1 p.m. today for the eclipse (so everyone "could stay safe") and Romeo has spring break this week. So we let Punch miss the short school day. It was history. It was good. So cool to see that flat, perfectly round shadowy black skillet bottom glide slowly, slowly over the fiery cooking flame of the sun. We didn't see totality but all cardboard eclipse glasses on, necks craned, faces to the sky at 3:25 p.m. Eastern Time. No flash in the pan. Totally worth it.

Joan Didion + Prayer

Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne and Quintana Roo, likely in Malibu, 

or somewhere else on the California coastline. 

Photo by Julian Wasser from here.

I'm reading Blue Nights, a memoir by Ms. Didion. Much of the weave connects moments with and memories of her daughter, Quintana Roo. Quintana was adopted. 

I have loved the author's crisp, precise writing since I took Slouching Towards Bethlehem, an essay collection, from my sister's book shelf in our shared bedroom to read on the long bus ride to Atlantic City to visit my boyfriend. Words carefully parsed, sentences lean and slim, but they say so much. They say everything.

Something in Ms. Didion's steeliness, especially for such a small woman, inspires me. She sees it and says it. I also read that she enjoyed buying beautiful clothing, such a little cashmere sweater, for her girl or herself, sometimes even matching. I did that, too, with Figgy and later, Punch (though not matching for Punch, since she was away from our fold from age 15 months to 6.5 years).  

Dan returned on the red-eye today after being flown out to Palm Springs to write 60-Second Novels at a fancy party at the Dinah Shore estate. He was home by 11 a.m. and then had to leave by 6 p.m. (in an Uber, still no running car) to write stories at a party in NYC, a bar mitzvah.

I was so low. So low about many things. Coincidence that Figgy moved out a week ago yesterday? Did the significance of that escape me? I'm happy for her, and she is happy, building an IKEA dresser with her friend, choosing pretty accent colors for her bedroom, setting up her plants. But with her absence, I'm fretting these days over worries I have about Punch and Young Romeo. With Figgy gone and Dan away, my lens has zoomed in and frozen. I need to zoom out.

Our kitchen sink is backed up. Don't ask, we had an expensive new garbage disposal installed but we can't turn it on until an electrician or two comes to install an outlet under the sink, since this model has a plug. I managed to catch up on all the dishes, by hand (vintage china) and in the dishwasher tonight. I have a half-price-after-Easter pot of tulips on the mantel. Can't tell what color yet, since the flowers keep their secrets in those tight green hoods.

I went on two Zoom support groups today and made two phone calls. I prayed, in fear and desperation. Over the known and unknown, over things I can't control. I think I am okay.

Good night.

Pablum/Baby Food In My Overstuffed Chair

"Gidget" image from here. Problems all neatly solved 

and tied up with a bow by the end of the episode.

Sometimes TV baby food helps when I'm depressed. Spoon-fed mush for the mind.

Consider the first episode of "Charlie's Angels" (1976) or the dated movie "Gidget Gets Married" (1972), with a blonde Gidget/Francie and a surprisingly feminist thrust by the end. Doesn't compare to "Gidget Goes Hawaiian" (1961, Deborah Walley as Gidget, Carl Reiner as her Dad) and "Gidget Goes to Rome," (1963, Cindy Carol as Gidg) but it IS part of the movie series. A big slice of Americana (though white). And I can watch it all for free on Tubi, the streaming service (with ads).

The Screen Gems "Gidget" TV series starring Sally Field was the best. It ran on ABC from September 15, 1965, to April 21, 1966, with reruns after that.

I need more ice water and a tumbler of cold, creamy milk.

Until tomorrow, which I hope is a better day.

Discomfort & Unease

That's what I feel, discomfort and unease. Over so much. So much. Jittery and sad and scared, things looking dreary, like the weather.

Punch is on spring break this week. Our car is on the fritz. When our girls were young, Dan and I (or just I, or with my friend Anne and her kids) would take them away, give them a change of scenery. To Cape Cod, or Cape May, at the sandy tip of New Jersey, or to see Sis for an overnight in Connecticut. To make the breaks meaningful, to get another perspective, to get out of town.

This week, if anything, without a car, I will take Punch on the train to NYC for a day. Dan is also being flown to Palm Springs, California to work at a party on Thursday. He will be back on Saturday. And I'm stuck here with these problems.

I'm sad, and scared. I don't like a lot of what's going on around here. I don't. But my work is good, and also, I plan to productively put stuff away, hang clothes up etc.

Thanks for listening.

Signing off sadly.

White Easter Lilies and Little Girls in Dresses

Daff photo from Holland Bulb Farms in Milwaukee.

Easter Mass at 9:30 was nice, with banks of pure white lilies, purple hydrangeas and pink azaleas. A branch with flowering white buds was behind me where I stood (I was too late, so standing room only) and at one point, I got my hair caught in it. The little girls were there--sporting tiny white shoes with bows, hairbands, gingham and floral print dresses, sparkly ballet slippers. I thought back to my two little girls, and smiled. To these new little girls, though, I was just a stranger in a pink dress wearing lipstick and why was I smiling at them? One tiny girl clung closer to her mother's coat hem.

A packed church, as happens on Christmas and Easter. 

It saddens me that Dan and Punch and Figgy don't join me for church anymore, except rarely. That's a separate story, or three. But I still enjoyed the quiet prayer. Somehow, there was a bit less pomp and circumstance this year. I don't know why. A bit less magic. Father Marc, our young pastor of many years, was recently transferred, and we miss him. Change is a bump, or a spike. And in the Catholic church, transferring priests happens a lot. (Often because they are needed somewhere else but as you have likely read in news reports, sadly, sometimes, it turns out, to cover up a trail of abuse*.)

Then a simple midday meal at home. Sis brought ham, Easter bread, homemade cookies made from dough tinted pink. I enjoyed filling the Easter baskets and I roasted lamb, browned baby potatoes, steamed spring asparagus.

I walked all the way back, along Norwood. I passed that pretty Tudor, the little cottage that was built up into a bigger house, the house that has clutches and clutches of daffodils on the hill every year, their faces, in ruffled bonnets, turned to the sun. The house where the man was an expert gardener and a rose whisperer. The house where little Figgy went to Paulina's bday party with our nanny, since I was working full-time in NYC. And she made a point of telling me about it, as though it was important for her Mommy to know about the big thing she was doing without me. 

"That's Paulina's house," she said. 

"What? Whose house?" I couldn't understand the word in her raspy three-year-old voice. I didn't know anyone in that house on Norwood.

"Paulina," Figgy said. Maria, our Nanny, told me the name later.

Somehow, I felt the significance of Figgy's report. A bridge to her life while I was away.

It took me a LONG time to get home today, almost  twice as long as it used to. I haven't been exercising, between pandemic nesting and Punchy stress. I'm older and stiffer. But I'm turning a corner, I hope. I'm glad I made it.

I'm going to rest a little and go to bed early. Punch has spring break this week. Good night.

*I've been a Catholic all my life, 63 years. I feel disloyal to the church and my family writing about sexual abuse accusations (and convictions) in this public blog. You better not write that here. Don't say something against the church. The priests you knew didn't do this, not those two tall priests from Saint Mary's. Mommy and Daddy and your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, Jim/Gloria, Jack/Mary, Malachy/Peggy, Anthony/Claire, Aldo/Edith (all gone now, on both the Irish and Italian sides, and you miss them) would not like that you wrote that here. If the last of the 10, Aunt Gloria, your godmother, had not just died, maybe you would not even write that here. To put it out in the light. Did they keep those secrets for decades, stories from their own childhood Catholic parishes? But keeping secrets, that is why the sexual abuse progressed. Such buried whispers are cloaked in shame, darkness and denial and caused irreparable, cutting damage to victims in the parishes. They can't get their innocence and trust back, trust in men who were supposed to be holy. I am not implying anything about the priests I have known in my home parishes in Dumont or Montclair. And there you go again, participating in a cover-up. You know someone who was part of a group that went to court against a priest formerly in Montclair. And a priest you and your young girlfriends knew for a while at Saint Mary's (neither of the two nice tall ones) was on the published list of sexual abusers who were transferred. You found his name there. And look at that. Just like that, you do not want to write his name here. Perpetuating the sickness, the cloaked crimes.