Midlife Mambo

READ ME AT A NEW LOCATION

2010-06-07T18:06:00.004-04:00

Hello gang who may come to read from time to time.I do not want you all to think that I have been idle sitting on my typing hands, or not thinking. In fact I began a new blog this January called Memory and MovementFind me at www.wixboyle.wordpress.com I like this project. It has gotten me to walk some, in honesty that is the least successful portion of the project, but I have committed to

Movement and Memory January 2010

2010-02-01T16:36:00.002-05:00

A year of walks and poemsChapter One January: Makes One Little Room an Everywhere This is the year I turn 60. I want to give an overview of the reasoning behind my Movement and Memory Project. I want to find a way to move more and to use my brain. I want to pursue adventures, which are difficult for me, meaning out of my comfort zone either psychologically or skills wise.

The Bike Fund

2010-01-25T11:16:00.002-05:00

When I started riding my three-speed bike after graduation from college in yes it’s true, 1972, I never thought to bank the money I saved every day. Instead I began buying fresh flowers, with what I intuited was my extra cash, all because I biked everywhere. Now 38 years later I am still on my bike, it is one of the great loves of my life. I have ridden home from work twice

Sled Alone

2010-01-04T08:01:00.002-05:00

It has been said that man does not live by bread alone, but I found that woman can live by sled alone. You can trudge up the hill and carefully, painstakingly, carve a firm path down by inching your way in a snow coaster, or flying saucer, as we used to call them. After a few slow, snow packing trips down the hill, where you walk up hill breaking another path in fresh

XX X Triple X New Year Resolutions

2010-01-02T15:52:00.002-05:00

January 1 XX X As you can see that I have decided that this will be the triple X year. In Roman numerals one X is ten, thus two are twenty, a space and another X is ten again. Making it the year XX X or 20 10. Oh my dyslexic self loves the look of this; without the space it is another perfect palindrome year like 2002. This stuff makes my heart soar and my differently

Winter Solstice 2009

2009-12-21T21:39:00.001-05:00

Today is the shortest day with the longest night and we had a blast of sunshine during the peak hours and I ventured forth. I did nothing of consequence, I went to the bank and the super market and I ran into my Italian teacher from ages ago and actually turned my bike around after hearing his voice. It was clearly him, even though I hadn’t heard those dulcet tones in

Time To Write . . finally, maybe

2009-10-15T14:11:00.001-04:00

Oct 15, 2009 As I left my loft downtown, bouncing my bike down from the loading dock and donning my slicker, while coughing heartily into my hand, I encountered my neighbor. Wow even in the rain, this cold, the bike . . . really ? Oh well if you give your self a day off, or an excuse you are done for. . . NO EXCUSES With that I pedaled off coughing and wheeling

Let Me Down Easy Anna Deavere Smith

2009-10-07T11:49:00.001-04:00

Let Me Down Easy Written and performed by Anna Deavere Smith Anna Deavere Smith is a genius, and she even has a MacArthur fellowship to prove it. Anyone who is lucky enough to take a seat in the Second Stage Theater on West 43rd Street and be regaled by the 20 real life characters created by Smith in For Let Me Down Easy will burst out acclaiming her bravura intensity for

59 for the First Time (day 1)

2009-09-28T15:03:00.002-04:00

September 26 the very day I ran away yesterday, by myself, almost by myself. I took a fat cat named Huey Newton with me, and as two chubby felines we drove to the county. Why? Well I was in meltdown mode and my husband was nervous about work. I was all a twitter with the same old twits of why I am not more in some ways and less in others. Not more in career and not

Aging Downtown Experimentalists Shine Uptown

2009-08-25T16:08:00.002-04:00

I came of age in experimental theater. Ellen Stewart the doyen of LaMama dragged me, in 1972 at 21, to see Philip Glass in concert under one of futurist Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes, perched on a hillside in Spoleto Italy. Stewart crooned,“ Baby you have to hear this cause Phil is another LaMama baby, just like you.” After so many decades, there are many ageing

Making a Home Make Money

2009-08-11T15:56:00.001-04:00

Making a Home Make Money By Wickham Boyle ⋅ 2:06 pm August 10, 2009 From Recessionwire.com I love having a house in the country and a place in the city—so much that I have chosen country abode over health insurance. But even that sacrifice has not saved me enough to be able to hold on to my second home year round. On the last day of July, I drove to my beloved little

Machine Mania

2009-08-08T12:21:00.001-04:00

I have harped, ranted and griped about this before and will again, but I am overwhelmed by servicing and serving an army of machines. Yesterday I lost my IPOD Touch, a machine I call SHINY. I never wanted SHINY, sad to say, but my husband, a techno fan, gave her to me as a Christmas gift two years ago. I filled her with pictures and some music and came to value her when

Gardening in a Time of Recession

2009-08-04T13:19:00.002-04:00

This is from the wonderful siteWWW.recessionwire.com Look for other posts from your trulyLIVINGNo New Plants, Period.By Wickham Boyle ⋅ 3:03 pm July 27, 2009 ⋅ Gardening, after storms and the economic downturn, is akin to living with the dogged devotion of a Mets or Red Sox fan. As I wander through the garden and see the places crushed by the ice storm or rotted by the ceaseless rain I say to

The Power of Laundry and Polish

2009-07-30T10:05:00.002-04:00

As a woman of the liberated sixties and seventies I never thought that at near sixty I would scurry to my writing device, AKA laptop to write a blog post, well hold on . . . who thought of blogs, the internet, OK other than Al Gore. But to write, in whatever modern fashion, a musing on the power of laundry and polish, that would have been unthinkable to me back in the day.

Generation DRINX

2009-07-18T14:20:00.000-04:00

I am a lightweight drinker. I never learned to drink. Who knew that had to be on the TO DO LIST for life ?My father was an Irish alcoholic and it worried me, as I seemed to possess many of his foibles and gifts. We had the gift of gab, and rage and humor and strength and irony and sadness. And so I eschewed drinking, thinking that would inoculate me from all the other pejorative traits we

I Spawn Spoiled

2009-07-15T09:18:00.002-04:00

I Spawn Spoiled, Except in the GardenJuly 13 2009It must be me. I see that all around me there is a trail of spoiled. My cats, my kids, my co-workers and friends; all often seem too coddled and catered to. It has to be me. I must spawn a kind of spoiled hierarchy that I seem incapable of escaping, except in the garden.I didn’t start gardening with a vengeance until I was 55 years old and by then

In Search of Whirled Peace

2009-06-25T11:02:00.004-04:00

As someone who’s been pegged a whirling dervish on numerous occasions by friends and foes alike, it was no surprise my announcement of an assignment to go cover the real-life spinning mystics was met with chuckles, chortles and knowing winks all around. Not that anybody ever meant to imply I was a Turkish dancing mystic and follower of a charismatic philosopher-poet born in 1207… Many of us who

Fragility: Look it up

2009-05-26T13:40:00.002-04:00

You can see a word endlessly and never notice it, until you look it up. Then as if by magic, it is ubiquitous and it seems as if there is numinous haze surrounding it, the equivalent of highlighting. Every book, every New Yorker article has the word: limn, palimpsest or numinous. And you say AHHHHHHH I know that word.I feel that way about fragility. I know the word, I know how to recognize and

The Aftermath of Disaster

2009-05-19T19:16:00.000-04:00

Today I went out early to try out my new light, strong weed-whacker and I wept. I didn’t cry at the efficiency of the machine or its ability to cut clean swaths through my over grown acreage. No, I cried because I had snipped a snake in two.The temperature dropped and it rained hard last night, not ideal circumstances for a reptile, but great for a middle-aged gardener who likes to work hard when

Travel: Vice of Choice

2009-03-31T13:54:00.002-04:00

In my house, we say travel is our vice of choice, which means a voyage takes precedence over trinkets, gadgets, fancy dinners or fashion. Apparently we are not in the majority because in late March, the U.S. Passport office announced that the applications for passports dropped by 25% auguring that many consumers have decided to dedicate their hard earned dollars to other corners of the market.My

Mantra for a troubled times

2009-02-19T20:59:00.000-05:00

As I was riding home, down Broadway last week in the bright winter sunshine, I was attempted to boost my spirits by taking some solace in my health, family and general robust nature. You see I had just had a dispiriting job interview. I am not alone, but that does not necessarily make things better. It does make them different. Sometimes the fact that we are all in it together, mounts

They wouldn't sell me my home... now

2009-01-21T13:28:00.001-05:00

They wouldn’t sell me my home now. I know this for a fact because I just got off the phone with the mortgage specialist who was recommended by my broker. “Oh we don’t have mortgages like that any more,” she demurred.I am a consultant who works in the arts, my husband is also a consult, but he works in sports. Meaning we both make money some times and have long dry spells. We also have no health

Obama Day in TriBeCa

2009-01-19T13:27:00.000-05:00

We considered going to Washington D.C. for the big day; my African American husband grew up in D.C. so we have places to stay and invites, but my husband wanted to be home. And home is TriBeCa. He wanted to be home to hear every word and cry and cry when he needed and wanted to. And so we watched and held hands and then, overcome, I had to go out for a walk.The streets of downtown Manhattan, or

Enough wallowing

2009-01-07T09:11:00.002-05:00

I decided enough wallowing and wailing and weeping.After all, it is the Epiphany. Thousands of years ago, wise men in long dresses schlepped through the desert using a star and found their way to the manger where a baby named Jesus lay with his surprised mom and dad.And so we took this day as an auspicious one, and the name Epiphany morphed over time to mean a great awakening, a happening that

The Day After Christmas

2008-12-26T15:25:00.002-05:00

I suppose I keep waiting for the day when I feel clam and safe and whole. I know it is never coming. I am the only one who can dispense with the fear, the dangling shoe waiting to fall and unseat whatever morsel of fearlessness I have cooked up in my kitchen.Here it is again. The holidays, and I have been searching for work: in the arts, teaching, upstate or in the city, but to no avail. Then

Where the hell did I put that?!

2008-12-01T12:02:00.003-05:00

I am of an age when one begins to forget. I am not old, I know that, so don’t go complimenting me for all I do and achieve, it is not about that. This is reality. People forget, and the more you do and whisk through, the greater the chance of moving on automatic pilot. And that means losing things. This infuriates me and turns me into a raging harridan. Not pretty.Then my son, daughter, or

Humanity: The Anti-Loneliness Cure

2008-11-25T19:54:00.002-05:00

I waited in line at the famous Ottomanelli butcher today for my fresh Thanksgiving turkey. One waits in a long line, and while you wait, you scan the butcher paper to find your name. I found mine just as I was called up to the counter; # 225. I know the butcher, Pete, and his brothers, Mike and Joe. They have fed me on a regular basis since I lived in the Village when I first moved to NYC after

33 Years: November 18, 1976 – November 18, 2008

2008-11-19T20:41:00.000-05:00

I met the father of my children 33 years ago today; it was the best and worst day of my life. I adore my children and yet the man who fathered them has been an intermittent source of incredible pain.We met; maybe I can unfold all the intricacies later, but for now suffice it to say we met when I traveled from the city to the Adirondack Mountains to do some consulting on an arts project where he

Yes We Did!

2008-11-05T09:17:00.000-05:00

Yes we can.Yes we did.And yes, we will keep on.So is it now President-elect Back Obama, and in our multiracial house the phone never stopped ringing well into the early morning.Our son calling from his college apartment where he was hosting a party with wine and cheese and feeling very classy for a 20 year old.Friends calling from Times Square and London and the South of France and Milwaukee, and

Orgasms, Ice Cream, Coffee and Doughnuts: The joy of voting

2008-11-04T12:14:00.002-05:00

My daughter, who is 23 and terminally cool, informed me this morning that with an “I Voted” sticker, you can get treats at Krispy Kreme, Starbucks, Ben and Jerry’s and Toys in Babeland. Thus the title and impetus for this entry.I have never heard of incentives like this before as a way to reward or inveigle voters to hustle to the polls. But I love it. It is what I hope may be the start of the '

Who's the jumper and who's the pusher?

2008-11-02T13:27:00.002-05:00

I learned long ago how to jump-start cars. It was a byproduct of owning classic British cars that were touchy in rain, sunshine, cold or any other meteorological contrivance. Or at least that was the excuse to which we ascribed their fragility; after all, a racy British car with a snarl for a grill and sleek fins could not be badly made, there had to be a reason.So faulty Lucas electrics, or

Mending

2008-10-29T13:36:00.000-04:00

Does anyone mend anymore?I have a note on my refrigerator that says only: MENDI know that it means I have to stitch up the tear in the old cashmere blanket before it bisects and I have to use the sewing machine. I guess that's where the Ben Franklin aphorism, “A stitch in time, saves nine” emanates. I may now need more than 30 to staunch this rip.And I have a nightie that is unseemly due to

Meltdown

2008-10-11T09:45:00.000-04:00

I recall back in 1987, my daughter was three years old and witnessed with us the biggest one-day stock market crash, which looks quite pale by comparison to this eight day descending market. A group of grown-ups sat around the dinner table discussing the market crash in terrified tones, when my smart girl piped up, “And the super market, did that crash too?”It was a joyful realization that some

Last Performance

2008-09-30T08:33:00.001-04:00

9/29/08 I had to change the date on this posting, I thought I’d come home from the final performance and write, on Sunday night. Right as I came in; I would sit and write. Well I am a fool. I was wrung out, a puddle. Not tired, but done.During the run of this show, at all 15 performances, we were all tested by heat, lack of working machinery, and nearly every cast member was so late on at least

The Day After

2008-09-27T14:45:00.000-04:00

I had a big flowery birthday, with the cast giving me a bouquet on stage and they sang to me, I HAVE NEVER HEARD HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUNG LIKE THAT. And Henry was there and came on stage with me and later over a great dinner at the local Japanese place Zutto, he told me loved the piece and further so surprised me with his attention to details to discuss. My friend Susan flew in from SF (OK on her way

58 in 08

2008-09-26T18:39:00.003-04:00

Okay, disorganized, but here goes. It’s my birthday and raining. I remember that for 20 years it rained every year on my birthday. Then I met this man, my love, to whom I am now married, and it stopped raining. So now when it occasionally rains, that is fine by me.A great good friend Susan Burks jetted in from SF on her way to trek in Morocco and my lovely big son, all lank and sleepy eyes,

Birthday Week/Country Blog

2008-09-22T14:08:00.000-04:00

In my family, we attempt to celebrate what we call a birthday-week. Mine started this past Friday, and it ends this Friday with my actual birthday, a show and a party given by child-wonder Madison Pappas’ equally wonderful mother, Liz.But for the next two days, I am celebrating in quiet fall splendor in the country. Right now my celebration consists of sitting in a café waiting for my car to be

Small House. Big Hearts.

2008-09-21T17:50:00.002-04:00

Today Saturday, a gorgeous perfect fall day.And I was stuck attempting to continue to take this mechanized assessment test for the REAL JOB, a series of endless computer screens and math questions. Oh my god -- math and me. Bad in high school, worse as I got older. The lowest math score ever registered by anyone applying to the Yale School Of Management. I mean, a monkey would have gotten higher.

Rocky Racoon

2008-09-19T20:03:00.003-04:00

Last night was so rocky that what I said to composer Doug when the lights finally went out and the 3 people in the audience (OK that is an exaggeration but sparse yes) finally left was "WHEW...that was Rocky Raccoon!!!!!"It was awful to watch for me, not because the cast was so bad, but the energy to get the show going was flat and scary at the same time.Here we go.I get a call that there has

Keeping the Beauty in Mind

2008-09-18T18:27:00.001-04:00

Today I had to ride to the dentist for the third attempt at a root canal. I was not in the best mood, still tired, wrung out from an encounter with a former friend who is trying to keep his aged mother, who is suffering form dementia, away from all her friends, as a means of control. It was ugly yesterday and made me cry torrents. I always feel depleted the next day, which is today.I woke up late

Why Do We Need Others To Tell Us What We Already Know?

2008-09-16T17:00:00.003-04:00

A September Day Like No Other for a Downtown Family By STEVE SMITH Published: September 16, 2008 “Calling: An Opera of Forgiveness,” which received its first complete staging on Friday night at La MaMa E.T.C., is based on Wickham Boyle’s “A Mother’s Essays From Ground Zero.”Rather than trying to portray the unthinkable scale of Sept. 11, “Calling” focuses primarily on one downtown family: a

The Ides of Everything

2008-09-15T19:00:00.001-04:00

Okay, today is the 15th of September. I had an article due, I had a Guggenheim grant due and this is my first day off in three weeks.Whew, the market, the stock market, took a giant dive, while I typed, and edited and talked to potential grant recommenders. It seemed all around me swirled craziness and I attempted to keep my head down and write a very large grant.Although I have received grants,

The Day After Opening/ Lucky 13

2008-09-13T11:39:00.000-04:00

Last night was beyond astounding. Packed house, really full, me telling the box office to sell tickets that were not there--I mean not printed, and we used programs as tickets.People sitting on folding chairs on a balcony or stair. The New York Times photographer snapping as folks arrived and the reviewer sitting in the aisle. FINGERS STILL CROSSED.Energy through the roof. The singers hit the

Paragraph Depeleted

2008-09-12T16:32:00.000-04:00

What I mean is that I don’t feel as if I have the brainpower, or mind space or some good computer term that would indicate how fried I am. So I thought maybe I would resort to lists to express how the first invited performance went last night.This is in the order the thoughts come to me, and I wish I could send this out without spell check or spacing check or insanity check, but alas I’d like to

Seven Years Later

2008-09-11T18:59:00.001-04:00

It seems as if it was yesterday and eons ago.A part is the weather; it is not the scrubbed blue September 11 sky that helps me to not go there to that day as deeply. But we all hear the bells and the sirens and the bagpipes at fire stations intoning our grief, the mournful wails tears at us.And then tonight I open this opera about September 11 and my family’s little personal involvement in it.

Lights In The Sky

2008-09-09T13:46:00.003-04:00

Last night as I rode home . . . WAIT, do all these blog entries start this way? Okay, how about this lead in: During rehearsal I received a phone call from the costume chick, my new girlfriend from across the street in TriBeCa, Liz Pierce. Liz is still a Catholic--don’t hold it against her--she is also very spiritual, so let her hold on to whatever floats her boat. Liz called breathlessly saying

Our Mission

2008-09-08T16:15:00.001-04:00

Last night, I made an impromptu speech--in the middle of rehearsal--when we finally had everyone present, for the very first time. Okay, imagine that we open in three days and last night was the first time all cast and crew members were in the same room at the same time. So when we were all assembled, I gave a little rant or pep talk, because I realized that not everyone knew what I thought the

Gathering Storm

2008-09-06T15:55:00.003-04:00

I am awake and neither in a meeting nor rehearsal. I am up, well-coffeed and processing the dream I had last night about seeing a performance of Calling, our little opera at the grand, Paris opera house. I have seen work there, and it was that very place, with the fru-fru like a wedding cake interior, and a full orchestra and stage filled with our casts’ wonderful faces and, of course, more and

Oh My GOD I forgot to BLOG

2008-09-04T17:14:00.002-04:00

I just forgot. I thought for a second I was holding it together dealing with my son in school, where I didn’t get him a meal plan or health insurance. And speaking of insurance, the adjusters are here to look at the flood damage. I just shut the doors to those flooded rooms and I forgot about that too.My life is an overwhelmed flurry where I have to navigate a web site to sign over a trademark to

Home-free-all

2008-09-02T10:50:00.004-04:00

Yesterday... what a strange combination of emotions. WOW -- the New York Times saying actual nice things about bone-head me. And me taking my still silent, grumpy son back to college -- or at least I drove to the country house. (And yes, John McCain, I know how many houses I have, and, yes I know I am a very lucky person.) My husband, Zac, drove the rest of the way from the Hudson Valley to

Writer’s 9/11 Experience, From Essays Into an Opera

2008-09-01T13:49:00.010-04:00

People had plenty of painful reasons for leaving New York after Sept. 11, among them tragic memories and overwhelming fear.For those who never would have considered leaving, New Yorkers like Wickham Boyle were probably a big part of the reason. Ms. Boyle, who lives in TriBeCa, spent the third day following 9/11 spreading grace as best she could, buying up ash-covered flowers from a local grocer,

Memory Lane In A Real Rolodex

2008-08-31T22:42:00.002-04:00

We had no rehearsal today, not tonight either. It is Sunday and Labor Day Weekend, and I was ready to work. Our local Mail Boxes ETC volunteered to post any cards, by real snail mail. An incredible luxury for a production with so little money. We send a giant thanks to owner Joe and workers Avery and Wendy for taking such good care of our copying, and mailing needs. They are more than a village

The Flood

2008-08-30T09:25:00.001-04:00

Last night I came home after a long slog in rehearsal. Some folks were missing and still we attempted to be very good sports; all to extraordinary results. A storm was brewing in the City stirred up by hurricane Faye, and the humidity hung like bags of wet wool. I was grumpy. I called my husband on my bike ride home, who informed me he had ordered Chinese as a treat for he and our son.I was

A Month From Tonight is the Last Night

2008-08-28T16:58:00.001-04:00

I woke up this morning and blurted out to my poor, still asleep husband, “A month from tonight is the last night of the show and we haven’t even got it ready yet. How can something be over in a month that isn’t yet ready?““Okay, baby, how can you be seeing the end of something that hasn’t begun? Now that’s the real question.”I don’t know, but it seemed huge to me. It made the project both loom

The Birthday Boy

2008-08-27T16:46:00.001-04:00

Birthdays are sometimes harder, maybe deeper for the mom than the kid. Or am I imagining this in a hyper-exhausted, need emotional support kind of a bog and fog way?My youngest kid is 20 today, and we haven’t been having an easy time. So does that make me feel older, less competent? Yes, it does. And I am steeped, working on a piece that takes place in my family's life nearly 7 years ago, right

Today was a long week

2008-08-26T12:51:00.001-04:00

When I clumped into rehearsal last night I said to Composer Doug, “Wow, this was a long week!”He said, "Wicki, it’s Monday.” “I mean today, today was a long week.”I said it as if it were a perfect clarification for the way the day had gone.Interviews at the crack of dawn, followed by a fun photo shoot, with both photographer and subject astride our steeds zooming on the cobblestones.Followed by

A Life Of Its Own

2008-08-24T21:57:00.001-04:00

Yesterday at rehearsal it was the choristers, the group of kids who sing in the opening and closing of the opera. This group of kids who lends their voices to infuse this piece with an authenticity that cannot be artificially created by electronics or adults. The voice, the energy, the bobble-headed trueness of children is a sharp knife in the sometimes-doughy presence of grown-ups, as we are

Being Perfect

2008-08-22T13:15:00.002-04:00

In the midst of all this opera hubbub (what else can I call it) I stumbled into an email conversation with a young downtown mother, who is also a big time Conde Naste editor. She and I are connected through other friends and my daughter, who baby-sits for her. It began as an email in passing, HEY WHAT ABOUT NURSERY SCHOOL? And it segued into being a discussion about the desire of mothers,

How to conduct oneself

2008-08-19T13:12:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was a lesson in old time values that one does not usually see bundled together and they are: Dentistry and Musical Conducting.I went back to the dentist for what I thought was the completion of my dreaded root canal. Instead he got in there, cleaned the bad hole for the second time and lo and behold there was still--this man does not mince words--PUSS. He further went on to extol the

Spinning Wheel

2008-08-17T09:18:00.000-04:00

It is nearly suppertime and I have passed most of the day sitting behind a wheel. No not driving, but spinning clay into bowls. For five hours I took slabs of clay, between two and four pounds and I spun them into bowls. Fat, flat, lifted feet, stuck to the ground... each unique, and I was in heaven. In my head, there was no missing voice coach, no lack of funds, the clay slabs all got along. I

Beyond The Brain We Know

2008-08-16T13:28:00.002-04:00

It is Saturday, which means little when one is immersed close to drowning, in a project of passion. The work piles up and it has to be done. Calls must be made, parties planned, singers scheduled, invites printed, calls made to recalcitrant wine donors and tricky plans made to hang lights, and make dances in a theater space often unavailable for rehearsal at the same time as actors. It is a

A blur

2008-08-15T11:50:00.002-04:00

A blur is all that remains of yesterday. I don’t know why more than other days? Was it the back-to-back meetings, the actual job interview, the rain-rain-rain and constant wetness seat, pants shirt and hair and the very depressing movie I saw, but it all coalesced into a blur of movement and strange stasis.How does it occur that so much transpires and it all looks like a smear when I try to

Unlucky 13

2008-08-13T14:31:00.002-04:00

Usually I love the 13th of the month. In my mother’s family lots of kids were born on the 13th. I even opted to take my brokerage exam on Friday, January 13 when so few others wanted to, thus the date was available. I passed.But today I seem to be falling prey to a concatenation of unlucky happenings. It was not enough that yesterday we had to whittle the set back to bare bones and I was

Keep Yur Friggin' Chin Up

2008-08-12T13:37:00.002-04:00

Thirty days to go. OK yeah, so I actually counted them putting one stubby finger on each day for August and September.Last night was the first rehearsal and it did go well. Lots of energy and the incredible, really genius, Edisa Weeks whose calm, choreographic leadership is a rock and wings to all of us. We had kids and chorus and some leads and some musicians. Just the way I knew it would be

The 11th Is Always A Bit Strange

2008-08-11T10:55:00.002-04:00

It can’t be just me.The 11th of the month is strange now. It has taken on a taint; maybe more so now that I am swimming in the shoals off the coast of this opera about the events of September 11 and beyond. So when the date pops into my consciousness, I see not only a bright blue day with cooling temperatures after a soaking summer storm, but I see the opening of our project zooming toward me,

Frozen in August

2008-08-10T10:54:00.000-04:00

It is exactly one month until the opera; I so haphazardly wandered into, will open.How does one wander into an opera project? I wrote a book about September 11th, A Mother’s Essays From Ground Zero; then two years ago I produced a fashion show (horrible incongruity I know, such is my life.) For the show I hired a young, most fabulous composer Doug Geers. After the show Doug and his virtuoso,

Terror and joy

2008-07-17T11:03:00.002-04:00

I don’t write this blog regularly or even semi-regular-like as my father used to say.I can’t.I think all the time, but I want to escape from saving my thoughts.I am in the midst of creating an opera from a book I penned.Simple right?It is terrifying.We have very little money and a mountain to trek up involving artists and logistic leaps and slogs.And so I move daily from abject terror to a giddy

My Birth Year in an Obit

2008-06-19T12:01:00.001-04:00

We all know by now that Tim Russert passed away. He has been rightly lauded and eulogized and will be missed by family and those of us who came to think of him as a part of our “news family.” Russert was someone on whom we could rely for the strait answers and tough questions. But this is about me.It is about me, because when they first flashed the dates of his life under a smiling picture of Tim

What was your favorite age?

2008-05-21T15:23:00.001-04:00

My husband, my lovely, sweet, generous husband’s mother is sinking into the miasma of Alzheimer’s and it is unraveling him.I watched my father dance around the edges of dementia as he limped into his nineties, but he did continue to take in new information and even upbraid me with his Irish rancor when I repeated myself after he had processed and owned the new facts. But Nana is losing all sense

The Eyes Have It or Weepy VS Old

2008-05-14T18:17:00.001-04:00

No, it is not some new weird, reality show where people wrestle... it is just the reality of my life as a mid-life mom, woman, worker, wending my way through life.I ride my bike everywhere, you know that right? Well, I do and today it is beautiful, gorgeous enough for me to feel as if perhaps the universe is paying me back for all the lousy, rainy, cold days I slogged to and from work and

Between Mother and Grandma

2008-04-13T20:28:00.004-04:00

I caught a snake this morning. You will see him, small, green, stripped, tender, like spring shoots. I have been catching and loving snakes all my life, well since I have been coordinated enough to get behind their head, stoop and scoop them up.But now I am 57, and when I saw this little beauty slithering among my daffodils, my first instinct wasn’t to capture him. I was alone in the country with

We're not alone...

2008-03-28T15:53:00.001-04:00

If there is one thing that separates the self-employed from those employed by others, it is their preoccupation with health insurance.

No health insurance: 1st report

2008-03-26T15:57:00.002-04:00

My insurance is finished at the end of this month.OK that is five days from now.My insurance is also my husband’s and my two big children.My job is over; my boss “let go” five editors as if we were catch and release fish. He also let go of our health insurance. I had been paying this man and his company for seven years to cover my family and now I find out that it was “ illegal” for him to offer

The Health Ostrich

2008-02-21T11:22:00.002-05:00

Is it just me? Or is everything we have to say or write about health embarrassing?It seems wrong to be constantly complaining about how one aches, or does or doesn’t digest food, or feels dizzy or slow.Maybe it is this: I have begun to assume that any malady effecting me, after 50 or after 55, is just me getting old. That’s the sum of the sickness and I just have to suck it up and get used to

Hearing the passion in Obama’s Downtown supporters

2008-02-16T13:25:00.001-05:00

I have lived in Tribeca for over 30 years and certainly in its graying, last decade, when its residents either got just older, or older and riche, it has seemed as if my neighborhood was a very indifferent place, politically. Many of us who came of age in the Mark Rudd, S.D.S. anit-war protests of the ’60s and ’70s, of late have tread the road more taken. The political apathy of the

Winter Reveals

2008-01-18T14:01:00.000-05:00

I am in the country writing. And waiting.My husband has taken our son back to college after a semester of forced hiatus, during which he worked in Scotland as an assistant Game Keeper and grew up by leaps and bounds.I am waiting to see how the re-entry goes. And I am waiting here at home, because Henry says everything is less dramatic without me. Now I choose to imagine that can be a good and bad

Sheets at Year End

2007-12-30T17:18:00.000-05:00

It is the last Saturday of the year and I am in my country house attempting to organize the sheets. This is not a complaint.I decided that if ONE has two houses there can never, jamais, never be the moan “Oh, poor me, I can never recall what is in my rural residence and what is in the city.”What a crock.If ONE is lucky enough after years of work to purchase, rent or borrow a home out of the city

What makes you happy?

2007-12-19T18:52:00.000-05:00

Last week I had a meeting with a potential client. A woman who works in skin care, very fancy high-end skin care. This woman has a practice so evolved that she requires interviewees sign a confidentiality statement before even starting chitchat.I was talking to her about ghost writing, and in order to see if there was a click I asked her about her practice, why is it different? She explained that

Photo journal from Galapagos

2007-11-09T10:07:00.001-05:00

Kindness and the Survival of the Fittest

2007-10-31T14:55:00.000-04:00

Oct 30-31 2007Galapagos IslandsEarly a.m.I am here in the cradle or spiny nest of the theory of evolution; and as one tramps around the unwelcoming island landscape, observing sea lions, red and blue-footed boobys and Darwin’s celebrated finches, you can do nothing but think about evolution. Evolution for us as a species, and for all the endemic birds, reptiles and mammals I will never see again

Birthdays I recall

2007-09-26T14:05:00.000-04:00

Today is my birthday. It is an easy and popular day for births as it is 9 months after Christmas. Couple that with having been born in 1950 and it is very simple to know how old I am or how old I was in a particular year. My mother joked that she knew I would be mathematically challenged, and hence had the prescience to birth me in such a simple arithmetic year.It seems birthdays, at the very

The tyranny of the web

2007-09-13T12:59:00.000-04:00

I used to be able to rise with a joyful list in my heart or hand and, after sufficient coffee, start to take bites out of that list, but now I am waylaid. If I so much as open my email I am bombarded by needs.I must send a certain saccharine message to no less than 20 people or my roof will leak, my hair fall out and most prolifically I WILL NOT BE RICH!!!Since that is the case, I must have

9/11 + 6

2007-09-11T12:37:00.000-04:00

Six years after September 11, 2001 and I forgot what day it was; until my friend and the man who published my book, A Mother’s Essays From Ground Zero, called to say he had dropped his kid off at school and made his annual donation to the fire department.“OOOHHH, is it that time again.” Of course I knew it was September 10th yesterday, I had given it as a deadline to many writers for the October

The day after cleaning

2007-09-03T13:18:00.000-04:00

AHHH a scene change; after my explosive cleaning energy I am left with an overwhelming desire to sit like a lox on this final day of summer and make a fifth attempt as yesterday’s crossword puzzle. Perhaps I can blame the sudden laconic mindset on the party we held last night outside on our loading dock. It featured a pitcher of punch; made by my ( grown) daughter and contained apricot, and

Fall Cleaning

2007-09-02T13:14:00.000-04:00

I think it is fall the flip to cool that triggers my need for clean. I could care less about a tidy place in spring; all I want is outside, to dig in the earth and to run wild, but in fall my fancy turns to clean.Crazy, but on this Labor Day morning as soon as my kid went to work and my husband ran to tennis, I polished the silver to a burnished new high. I brushed the super furry cats into a

Producing theater then and now

2007-08-27T10:51:00.001-04:00

The last time I produced something, a real something with collaborators and sets, casts casting about for motivation and the pressing need to raise funds to raise the curtain, was over ten years ago. I had a staff and the technological revolution had hit them, but not me.Today I am in the throes of producing and writing an opera about the very personal effects of September 11, 2001. Any one of

Marakech

2007-08-19T11:10:00.000-04:00

Morocco post 1

2007-08-14T11:14:00.000-04:00

I haven't written since I have been back. It was a long and often arduous trip. We were given a guide who we thought was from the Moroccan government tourism office but it turns out had been subcontracted to a car rental place. Really… So here we had this idiot, Simo, who told us things like, "This says Coca-Cola in Arabic," when it was written on the distinctly shaped bottle that Coke had spent

The road to Morocco

2007-07-16T14:38:00.001-04:00

I am off and running for the next few weeks.I fly to Morocco with my daughter, who finished her studies at Columbia having read all about Africa and colonialism, never alas, to have set foot on the continent.So it will be a big bonding trip for mom and her first baby.It will also be hot, and we will fill our eyes, ears and mouths with new delights, coming back to fill in pages. Silly perhaps,

Beggar With Clean Socks

2007-07-13T11:02:00.000-04:00

Hot summer had taken a holiday; a little spring breeze tickled me, pushed tendrils or evaporated sweat and the world was out in summer profusion. Bare midriffs, street food, bikes and busy sidewalks at lunchtime.I was walking on the wide swath of 23rd Street before it comes to Fifth Avenue. My gym is here and I try to come as often as life permits. I was still walking my bike; as I decided

A small lie

2007-07-12T12:52:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I tried to ascertain what would be interesting about my life, what might cross over to be that ubiquitous moment and I was overwhelmed with watching. I saw myself lie to a stranger about the bounty in my life because I felt embarrassed.I was standing outside a public garden in Greenwich Village. There was a rather tattered man also peering in; he was sketching in a small book. I was

Signs

2007-07-11T10:31:00.000-04:00

I am always looking for signs. Not, “right turn 100 feet ahead” but, danger; do not go on the second date. Quit now and avoid years of heartache.To simply, try the fish.I do not sit inert waiting for things to happen.I don’t throw bones or read prophetic books auguring auspicious days.Instead I look at everything.I believe that information abounds. Personal, private codes bounce along next to us

Starting the blog

2007-07-10T08:45:00.000-04:00

When you decide that you might have words, thoughts and emotions to share with readers on a daily basis what does that mean? Beyond writing in a journal, where you can say, I have new and detested hairs sprouting out of my mole that does seem to be really growing. Or, I hate my children sometimes, most of us have no place to venture forth, out loud with that. Or maybe I never should have had