Essie called La Toya on her cell phone. They hadn't spoken before and when La Toya answered she heard some newish hip-hoppish stuff playing in the background. Essie wasn't sure if it was La Toya's voicemail or a live answer.
So, she hung up and called again. It went to a generic prerecorded voice message.
She called again.
"Hi. La Toya?" Essie's voice cracked with fear which surprised her.
"Yes."
"Hi. This is Essie. Abe and Louises' daughter. Is this an okay time to talk?"
"I'm in the car."
Visions of speaker phone or a woman driving with a cell in her hand made Essie uncomfortable.
"How about calling me when you have time?"
"I will call you when I'm home."
"Sounds perfect. Thanks!"
Essie felt confused and sad when she hung up the phone.
Waiting for La Toya to call. This person she never met.
This person her parents pay to take care of them now.
The Sitter.
It's all new and strange.
3 hours passed.
Her phone rings.
"Hi. It's La Toya. My phone lost its charge."
Essie tries to imagine a face. A child's voice echoes in the background. Where are they? What are they wearing?
"Hi La Toya!"
"What's your name again?"
"Essie"
Silence.
I just want to check in and see how it's going with my parents. I also want you to have my phone number. This is all new- my parents needing care. I'm glad they found you and like you. Would it be okay if we keep in touch? You let me know if they need more help and I'll see how things are going.
"Your dad is very helpful. I let him help me."
That sounds great. It's important to him that he feels useful.
(Oh my god. Did I just say that about my father?)
"We need to keep an eye out in case, or when, there is a need for increased level of care. Their safety is paramount."
"Of course. They are very nice."
Her voice is clear and deep, and though Essie knows she is young she sounds older.
Okay. Thank you so much for looking after them. They need help with cooking, grocery shopping. I know you know it all.
"I wasn't there today. My son had a doctors appointment that I forgot about. I'll be there tomorrow."
Great.
Essie suddenly feel like an untethered astronaut outside Apollo 13.
We will be in touch. Thank you.
"That sounds fine."
Essie hears her voice and she sounds just like her mother. She proudly puts down her phone and feels tears well up.
She doesn't cry.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
#73 La Guardia Airport and Thinking You're Losing Your Mom
Traveling from a Marriot long term parking facility in a van with sleep deprived until hysterical merry pranksters who are wearing flight wings, caps and wheeled carry on bags on their way to Buffalo in the middle of a storm, is one way to get to the airport. You wonder if they are hung over because they are, and guess they didn't sleep all night because they, well, look like it. When you are let out at the Jet Blue terminal and they continue on to Delta you are so grateful they won't be your flight crew today, but certainly cannot help wondering if this is the standard condition of most flight crews on a Saturday morning. They indicate that one man in the van is a pilot which does not inspire confidence in air travel.
Getting through the line to check bags is sort of like a bad day at Pre-k. Tears, toys scattered, hand flapping and tantrums. Why people travel with more than three children is a mystery.
The counter is understaffed and when luggage is weighed and your ID is examined there is zero eye contact. You think it is a cold start to the travel experience until you face the reality of TSA, which is managed so poorly you wonder if there should be TSA for TSA. A prescreening for the actual event which feels like a set for a docu-drama, especially when flight staff directly ahead of you kicks off her pumps and tosses them into the plastic dish container on the conveyor belt, drops her ID on the ground in front of the metal detector which you notice and hand to the TSA guard who screams her name to see if she is still in the vicinity.
After you quickly grab your giant unkempt pile of personal belongings and jam your feet into your shoes and shuffle past the feral crowd, you see a Starbucks ahead of you and you have never been so happy to see Starbucks before in your life so you drink a Grande whatever to get yourself going again. And it works like the paddles to resuscitate a heart attack victim in the ER! Instantly, you are brought back to life.
Temporarily.
The gate is about 3/4 mile to the left and if you can find a seat in the waiting area, you win the reward of being able to quasi-rest before you are squeezed onto your flight. But there is still time to use the restroom (with broken doors that won't latch and swing open while you are taking care of yourself) with broken faucet sensors, and browse the duty free shop.
No need to go further.
You arrive safely and learn that your mother is not well. The next three days are spent navigating pain medication, wheel chairs and doctor visits. This was not in the intinerary, but you swing with it and don't sleep at night because you are too busy thinking about how life will proceed when she is gone; feeling selfish the entire time because she is almost 86 and you've had a lot of years to have her around. More than most, but still this is something that you are shockingly unprepared for and you wonder if losing her will be something you will never recover from. Ever. You kind of know that the answer is never and you are propelled into a place of sadness and fear that you've been avoiding your entire life. Then dawn breaks and coffee helps get over that particularly morbid hump and you proceed on.
As you wait in the examining room with your father for the doctor to assess all three MRIs you look at her and wonder how you got here, but know that you are part of the sandwich generation: the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation who take care of older parents while tending to young children at the same time. A magical juggling act which is emotionally challenging: like a tight rope walk over a land mine field, a tank of sharks and a mountain of poison spiders.
Just then, the doctor comes in with a glue stick and promises to put her back together again- like a damn lucky Humpty Dumpty. You all cannot believe your ears and want to hug him, but are certain he would not tolerate such a display, so you thank him and wheel her back to the car and cannot believe your luck. Certainly, you will collapse from both shock and exhaustion because visits aren't typically so active, but you don't. You sit in the back seat and think about it for a while.
You have another chance.
Getting through the line to check bags is sort of like a bad day at Pre-k. Tears, toys scattered, hand flapping and tantrums. Why people travel with more than three children is a mystery.
The counter is understaffed and when luggage is weighed and your ID is examined there is zero eye contact. You think it is a cold start to the travel experience until you face the reality of TSA, which is managed so poorly you wonder if there should be TSA for TSA. A prescreening for the actual event which feels like a set for a docu-drama, especially when flight staff directly ahead of you kicks off her pumps and tosses them into the plastic dish container on the conveyor belt, drops her ID on the ground in front of the metal detector which you notice and hand to the TSA guard who screams her name to see if she is still in the vicinity.
After you quickly grab your giant unkempt pile of personal belongings and jam your feet into your shoes and shuffle past the feral crowd, you see a Starbucks ahead of you and you have never been so happy to see Starbucks before in your life so you drink a Grande whatever to get yourself going again. And it works like the paddles to resuscitate a heart attack victim in the ER! Instantly, you are brought back to life.
Temporarily.
The gate is about 3/4 mile to the left and if you can find a seat in the waiting area, you win the reward of being able to quasi-rest before you are squeezed onto your flight. But there is still time to use the restroom (with broken doors that won't latch and swing open while you are taking care of yourself) with broken faucet sensors, and browse the duty free shop.
No need to go further.
You arrive safely and learn that your mother is not well. The next three days are spent navigating pain medication, wheel chairs and doctor visits. This was not in the intinerary, but you swing with it and don't sleep at night because you are too busy thinking about how life will proceed when she is gone; feeling selfish the entire time because she is almost 86 and you've had a lot of years to have her around. More than most, but still this is something that you are shockingly unprepared for and you wonder if losing her will be something you will never recover from. Ever. You kind of know that the answer is never and you are propelled into a place of sadness and fear that you've been avoiding your entire life. Then dawn breaks and coffee helps get over that particularly morbid hump and you proceed on.
As you wait in the examining room with your father for the doctor to assess all three MRIs you look at her and wonder how you got here, but know that you are part of the sandwich generation: the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation who take care of older parents while tending to young children at the same time. A magical juggling act which is emotionally challenging: like a tight rope walk over a land mine field, a tank of sharks and a mountain of poison spiders.
Just then, the doctor comes in with a glue stick and promises to put her back together again- like a damn lucky Humpty Dumpty. You all cannot believe your ears and want to hug him, but are certain he would not tolerate such a display, so you thank him and wheel her back to the car and cannot believe your luck. Certainly, you will collapse from both shock and exhaustion because visits aren't typically so active, but you don't. You sit in the back seat and think about it for a while.
You have another chance.
Thursday, February 12, 2015
#72 Review Of Sally Gil's Installation At Jack Geary Contemporary
Yes, I think it’s going to be a
long, long time
Till touchdown brings me 'round again
to find
I’m not the man they think I am at
all
Oh no no no
I’m a Rocket Man
This song was stuck in my head while viewing the installation.
This song was stuck in my head while viewing the installation.
Sally Gil’s installation aptly titled, Another Way In, at Jack
Geary Contemporary (185 Varick Street @ King) is an encompassing visual journey
spanning past, present and future. This work isn’t something typically seen in
lower Manhattan at a commercial gallery, for an in vivo process installation with artist working,
crafting, creating, with open door invitation to the source of her full
expression (paint, fabric, maps, walls) is wild and illuminating. Geary allowed for this freedom, and good
chemistry allowed Sally to get down to work. This is something more inventive, reminiscent
of early Williamsburg, Soho or the Village when artists inhabited spaces and co-mingled
with community by bridging access to people on the street who enter and meet
the artist at work, before the dominating and raging art star market boom. Sally's installation is person to person, face to face: the fantastic images horizontally
travel the perimeter of the room in time-line fashion.
The time-line loosely moves left to right and tumbles out of a wall (with the door to enter the space) painted entirely black with tiny white stars and asteroids and abstract blips painted and collaged with a yellow rosebud, as a shooting star, optimistically propelling itself through the darkness. At this point we can stay with the time line or take off anywhere our visual interest takes us. There is no rule or logical direction dictated by the dominant horizontal pattern which moves from flowers and stars swirling into a field of grazing cattle and transitioning into kids on an African beach playing on surfboards with purple mountains hazily holding the scene in the distance. Those mountains and the water are a combination of photo collage and paint without any stylistic clumsy transition. Sally's craftsmanship of impeccable editing through chaos, selection of images and ability to paint to "match up", without it feeling too literal or stunt the flowing experience, is pure poetry.
The time-line loosely moves left to right and tumbles out of a wall (with the door to enter the space) painted entirely black with tiny white stars and asteroids and abstract blips painted and collaged with a yellow rosebud, as a shooting star, optimistically propelling itself through the darkness. At this point we can stay with the time line or take off anywhere our visual interest takes us. There is no rule or logical direction dictated by the dominant horizontal pattern which moves from flowers and stars swirling into a field of grazing cattle and transitioning into kids on an African beach playing on surfboards with purple mountains hazily holding the scene in the distance. Those mountains and the water are a combination of photo collage and paint without any stylistic clumsy transition. Sally's craftsmanship of impeccable editing through chaos, selection of images and ability to paint to "match up", without it feeling too literal or stunt the flowing experience, is pure poetry.
The fine craftsmanship of Sally’s
work seamlessly and viscerally grabs the space as she submerges herself into
each and every detail of the piece, yet freely allows herself to travel in all directions. Is this a sculpture, a painting and a
collage? If this intense work is is going to be experienced and absorbed we will have to slow
down, put away our phones and visit details which bleed cut out magazine pages and
fabric into paint. The hot water pipes and electrical outlets are collaged and
expand the boundaries of the materials and images. Painted black galaxies
puncture dark holes between poetic stream of conscious visual narratives which,
for me, remind us how tiny and insignificant we are in the vastness of the
celestial universe. There is an astronaut 3 feet above me untethered over a
blue mountain. We will go with her on this journey which like intensely felt ephemeral existence, and it is both exhilarating and challenging to keep up. Taking beautiful detours, which are vital for survival (Sally's and mine) is essential for our health. Sally provides tons of them, and I am grateful she is so fantastically able to provide for us.
Sally deeply cares about creating
and it is evident, depicted in delicate paint strokes creating blue green shadows where
wall meets material revealing tactile, colorful beauty which exists in our natural
and manmade space, here on earth. There are flowers bursting and fruit dripping off a mountainous rainbow lake. Tucked behind that is a tiny photo of a 1950's ranch house which, if discovered, opens up an entirely new context for the viewer.
If only we would take some time to
look.
Mars ain’t the kind of place to
raise your kids
In fact it’s cold as hell
And there’s no one there to raise
them
If you did.
Rocket man
Burnin' out his fuse up here alone
Sally and I met about 25 years ago.
She went to UCSD with a mutual friend who is now far away, but remains a warm
shared memory. Sally has lived in Park Slope forever, designed shoes for 20
plus years and raised a family. Her most recent studio borders Gowanus. She
never gave up creating. She is like many friends of my past who are diehard
artists -whose names we all don’t know and work doesn’t flash in our memories.
They work hard and continue to believe in themselves when the commercial NYC Art
World spit them out. Sally knows that it means more than that to be an artist. This is partly why I want to write about her,
because her timeline and narrative somehow parallels the back room installation
at Geary’s gallery. She is a significant,
mature artist who lives and works here. Her work is visionary, alive and an
expansive product of the heart of her creative soul.
She refuses to be extinguished.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
#71 Where Have You Been?
Gillie hadn’t seen his brother in
30 years. He wasn’t sure when and where
their paths uncrossed, but occasionally he pondered it. Likewise, Ike thought
about his older brother Gil upon occasion. Particularly, on the bigger holidays
like Passover and Rosh Hashanah. Otherwise, one way or another, he occasionally
crossed his mind. Neither brother ever lost an ounce of sleep over this.
Gilllie’s son, Jon, periodically asked about Ike.
“Dad, what happened with Uncle
Ike?”
Gil would sigh and swat the
question away like an annoying mosquito.
“Seriously dad, what happened?”
Gillie would close his eyes
conveying an answer to Jon. There they would sit and Jon would wait. They would
sit and wait. Jon imagined that his father was waiting for him to go away and
stop asking. Gil would imagine that Jon would eventually stop asking and get
the message, once and for all, that he would not produce an answer for his son.
And that would be that.
Likewise, Ike’s son David would ask
about Uncle Gillie.
The interaction went exactly like
Gillie and Jon’s. In fact, it was identical.
In this day and age it was easy
enough for the cousins to be in contact through the internet. They never met
and googled each other to find out as much information as they possibly could
about each other. Each went to their
respective therapists and did some deep exploration about this family conundrum
. All they had at their disposal were fantasies and hypotheses about what
pulled the brothers apart. Every other normal enough family had even the basic
connections. Even if they hated each other underneath, they still showed up for
a Bar Mitzvah or bris. No one would be the wiser or even care if there were
deep seeds of hatred planted in the garden of their family history. What is underground stays underground until
it grows and unfolds above the dirt, perhaps, for anyone to notice if they
looked or cared.
Years passed and Gil died. Jon and
his mother had a simple memorial and several friends attended. Gillie was kind
and affable, liked by many. Jon wasn’t sure if Ike was still living. He toyed
with the idea of contacting his cousin David. Surely he would be receptive to
connection. Or would he?
Likewise, David wondered about
aging Gillie and wondered if Jon would accept or embrace an overture to
connect. He was ambivalent.
One day Jon was on the uptown 6 train and he looked across several seats and saw a familiar profile: his father’s. Just then, David turned his head and their eyes met.
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