Officers and Gentlemen and Questions

This past week, while on Oahu for a class, I happened upon a strip mall that backs up to Hickam Air Force Base. I was looking for lunch when I realized I was actually looking at men and women in uniform. Everywhere. I was awestruck and feeling as though I’d stepped onto a movie set; any minute now Richard Gere would pass me, heroically carrying Debra Winger in his arms. A woman in my class is married to an officer. Her husband is currently on a submarine. She won’t see him again for a year. She tells me that in the fourteen years they’ve been married, she has probably spent a total of three to four years with him. I try to wrap my mind around this. Maybe I’m fascinated by their lives because they

seem so different from my own.

And yet, I remind myself, it’s not completely unknown to me. My grandfather was a general in the Army. Growing up, our summer trips always took us to Falls Church, Virginia, to visit our grandparents. By then, my grandfather was retired. I don’t remember ever seeing him in uniform. Still, every Sunday, we went for supper at the Army Navy Country Club. But the name of the club had little meaning to me. While the grown ups lingered in the bar, ice clinking in their bourbons, I focused on my Shirley Temple and eating as many ruffled potato chips and creamy onion dip as my mother would allow before we were shooed away to play before dinner. H and I would explore the outdoor lawns and indoor corridors, always ending up in the ladies' restroom. The front room was a lounge with couches and floral pattern covered chairs where ladies sat before mirrors reapplying make-up; the room smelled of grandmotherly powders.

For dinner, there was a long buffet and I remember little of what we ate; I do, however, remember the dessert buffet. A creature of habit, I always had vanilla ice cream with butterscotch sauce. But my favorite part was after dinner when the buffet tables would be cleared, and a big band would strike up Chattanooga Choo Choo. I would dance with my grandfather, my feet on his shoes as he sashayed me around, the scent of his sweet, smoky cigar dancing with us. This is what my memory digs up for me when I hear the words Army and Navy.

And then this. My father attended Staunton Military Academy and had a stint in the Korean War. But when I think of my father, this never comes to mind. He rarely, if at all, spoke of his early days in the military.

This June, H and I spent twenty-four hours in Washington D.C. and visited our parents in their little corner of Arlington National Cemetery. Per usual, we had trouble finding our way along D.C. roads. H. had inadvertently chosen “walking directions” on her GPS even though we were in a CAR. We knew we were thoroughly lost when we turned down a deserted road toward the Pentagon past signs that read - something along the lines of - You Are Not Supposed To Be Anywhere Near Here – Stay Away! When I saw stern looking officers put their hands up in the universal Halt sign, I stopped instantly and refused to budge. I’m not good with authority figures. This meant H. had to get out of the car and walk to them for directions. One U-turn and just a few minutes later, we passed through the cemetery’s main gate.

The down side of having parents die is, well, the dead parents. The upside is that if they’re lucky enough to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, you get a special pass to drive right on in. I know it pleases my mother to know her daughters are gestured in with a guard’s respectful nod of the head.

Every time I visit the Columbarium, where those who were cremated are kept, I have trouble finding them. I know they’re in a corner somewhere in the middle of the wall, but there are many walls with many corners and many middles, and I can never quite remember if it’s a corner with a tree or not. The irony is not lost on me that I can never easily find my parents, who - even when I do find them - aren’t really there. Just like a dream; it all makes sense, and yet you know that none of it does.

H and I eventually do find them, and we sit and lie on the cool ground staring up at their marble tile. It is peaceful in the open-air corridor. Silent. I read and reread the engraving. Morris Robert Nelson, Jr., 1930-1992 and Margreth Nelson, 1943 - 2002. Below my father’s name, or maybe beside it, is his ranking of 2^nd Lieutenant. I can never remember if he was in the Army or the Air Force, and I feel like a lousy daughter for not knowing. His ranking explains to anyone perusing these walls how he came to be buried in the nation’s cemetery. But it is not the whole truth. It is not even his true ranking. It is, if you will, the cover story. I wonder how many people have a cover story on their tombstones.

A writer, a mentor of mine, once said to me of her parents, “I am the daughter of a writer and a lawyer. It has helped form who I am.” And then she posed this question to me, “If you don’t know who your parents were, who your father was, then how do you know who you are?”

That is a question I ponder.

The Cleanse

The Monday before the long holiday weekend, O decides he’s going to do one of those lemon-maple syrup-cayenne pepper cleanses. He hasn’t been feeling up to par and has decided that a detox is in order. It takes me about 3 seconds before I graciously offer to lend support and join him in solidarity. I, too, will cleanse. See what a great fiance I am?

Not quite. In truth, I have been curious about cleansing for years. I’ve come close to considering it, but I wimped out each time. Recently, I read an article lauding a certain juice cleanse in NYC. I bookmarked the web site. O’s initiative was the push I needed to jump into this purportedly Über Healthy terrain.

The next day, I pored over the site’s information on cleansing, the benefits, the deliciousness of their product, etc. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was all great and fine, but - what’s this? They deliver? To my door?? Sold. I signed up for three days of juice as well as - oh, why not - the Day-Before and Day-After recommended “transition” menus, comprised of a combination of juices and raw, vegan food to help me ease into and out of my food-less foray.

The night before I was to begin, I drank wine until midnight. I felt like Cinderella right before her carriage turned into a pumpkin. Eat! Drink! Be Merry!

Day One: Pre-Cleanse
7:00am - My alarm goes off. I await the delivery of my raw, vegan Pre-Cleanse Prep. Normally, this is when I make my coffee and toast and read the paper. Today I just read the paper and drink water. My doorbell rings. Game on.

9:05am - My stomach growls. It’s way too soon for this. It must be anticipatory hunger.

9:30am - Time for my first juice: Pineapple and Ginger. Yum! Must remember to sip slowly. This puppy’s got to last two hours.

5:20pm - My tongue feels funky. I suspect all that raw ginger and pineapple played a role.

9:30pm - I have wolfed down my surprisingly delicious raw, vegan collard-green “enchiladas” and am moving on to the raw, vegan chocolate-coconut pudding. At first spoonful, I surmise that vegans may have forgotten what chocolate-coconut pudding is supposed to taste like. Then I realize this probably IS what it’s supposed to taste like. It’s just that my sugar-addled taste buds don’t recognize that. I appreciate my pudding anew.

Day Two: Juice
7:30am - my 3 days’ worth of juices arrive. I’m relieved to see nary a pineapple juice in the lot. I don’t think my tongue could handle another one. I am a little peeved to see that two of my six daily juices are the same. I’m spending 72 hours not chewing. At least don’t give me repeats.

4:00pm - I have a workout session with my personal trainer. He is not happy to hear of my cleanse and warns me I won’t replenish the nutrients I am about to expend in the next hour. I rebut that the website approves moderate exercise. He gives me a look and tells me my workouts with him don’t fall in the “moderate” category. I think I just insulted him. He warns me I’ll be wiped out tomorrow.

5:00pm - I survived my very-not-moderate workout and chug down my coconut water. Only two more hours before “dinner.” Walking home from the gym, I see people eating everywhere I look. In cafes, on the street, in the park, in their cars. I feel like I have a new appreciation for how this city looks to hungry people. I note the irony of being privileged enough to opt for self-deprivation.

8:00pm - O and I are eager to fill the time that would normally be spent eating dinner and drinking wine. We grab our beach chairs and beeline for the Tompkins Square Park’s Films on the Green Festival. Watching Jacques Tati in “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday” distracts me from the beet juice I nurse for the duration of the film. We go to bed early. It seems easier to sleep than not eat.

Day Three: Juice. Again.

The morning gets off to an unexpectedly good start. I’m in a great mood. The sun is shining. I’m feeling clean and pure. I recall my trainer’s words of caution. I don’t feel wiped out at all! I must be in better shape than I thought.

2:00pm - I am so tired I can’t keep my eyes open. I take a two hour nap.

7:00pm - O and I practically run to the movie theatre to keep ourselves preoccupied. We talk about food all the way there. When our movie lets out, we decide to sneak into the next feature one theatre over. We have successfully filled another dinner-less night.

Day Four: Juice. Juice. More Juice.

11:00am - I hear O yell from the other room, “God, I want breakfast!”

The act of eating takes up a lot of time. Without it, our day stretches out before us like a wide horizon. I countdown how many hours before I get solid food. 26, is the answer. I spruce up my beet juice by pouring it over ice and spritzing it with lemon. It’s marginally more exciting that way.

Day Five: Post-Cleanse

2:00pm: I’m chewing! My raw, vegan “couscous” is real food! It’s also... not so great. But I’m chewing!

4:00pm: O and I take a walk on the Highline. We stop at the beer garden below the 30th Street entrance, just to “check it out.” We survey the menus of the taco trucks. We pore over the wine and beer choices on tap. I think we are reminding ourselves that good food and drink are within reach. It’s just that we are choosing otherwise. We take comfort in knowing that it’s there. We have crossed over into pathetic.

6:00pm: O has roasted vegetables for his dinner. He offers me a beet. I tell him in no uncertain terms that I am not eating another beet for the foreseeable future. He insists that this is worth tasting. I relent. I regret. Seriously, no more beets.

Day Six: Return to Food

7:00am: The coffee grinder won’t grind. I have no coffee. A week ago, this would have fallen into the Catastrophe category, but today, I calmly reach for my decaf green tea.

9:00am: I order scrambled eggs, a coffee (small) and a banana from my corner deli. The scrambled eggs are completely tasteless. The coffee is bitter. The banana saves the day.

My cleanse has made an elitist of my mouth.

What have I taken away from all this? Well, for starters, I’m shocked by how little I suffered from lack of caffeine. I’m surprised (and relieved) by how little I missed wine. I am more committed to eating less meat. But mostly, I confirmed what I already knew: how much I enjoy the flavors, textures and varieties of food. I like eating.

And without question, I am definitely more resolved to select quality over convenience. You can rest assured that from now on, I’ll take the long way to work so I can get my morning joe from the good coffee place. That is, if I decide to drink coffee that day. It seems I don’t really need it, after all.

Cogito ergo blogum

Last week about this time, I started a blog entry. I didn’t know where it was going, I couldn’t figure out what I was trying to say, and then I put the computer away to be distracted by something I could figure out. Crossword puzzle, anyone?

Now, here I am again.

Earlier this month, my sister and I assessed the state of our blog. I was concerned that I haven’t said anything new. I voiced my fear that I’m not interesting, that I’m stuck in the past, that my entries are not contributing adequately to the Blog World. And then in my paranoid tantrum, I screeched, “I don’t even remember why we’re doing this!”

Perhaps your next entry should start there, my sister suggested calmly. It wasn’t true. I did remember the impetus for the blog, but I am quite good at being dramatic and my outburst seemed to fit the moment.

This whole blog business began with a desire to explore the question “how did we get here?” The fact is I am daunted by the notion that we all end up where we are simply by taking one step in front of the other. There are decisions we make in our lives that we know are life-changers. Choosing my college, for instance. I knew that was a defining moment. I can’t help but wonder on occasion how different my life would be today if I hadn’t gone to the Midwestern university that prompted my move to Chicago after graduation, thereby determining my first major relationship, career path, friends, and so on.

When I think about how choosing one thing over the next, all the time, every day, has led me to where I am this very minute, I feel like rewinding my life and playing it back in slow motion just to see where I might have done something differently. Sometimes I wish there was a little flag next to what seems like a small decision, alerting me. “Pay attention to this one. This one’s going to matter.”

I’m not speaking about regret. I don't dwell on mistakes I have made. It’s more that I’m thinking of the wanna-be writer who makes a point to get up at 5 a.m. so he can spend an hour working on his novel before he leaves for his day job. I think about the woman practicing Tai Chi at 6 a.m. every morning outside my window. She reminds me that I, too, could get up before work and do something that matters to me. And then I consider how much earlier I would have to get up. Then I think about how much earlier I would have to go to bed, and conclude it’s just not realistic for my lifestyle. In a matter of seconds, I have dismissed a potentially desirable pursuit. See? A Choice.

I go through phases when I fixate on the possibility that one might miss their true calling. Consider the fate of the world-renowned concert pianist had they not had a piano to plunk away at when they were a toddler, garnering the attention of over-attentive parents. Would they instead have never known that they had it in them to be a concert pianist? Or would fate have intervened and thrown a piano in their path?

Never mind the pianist. What about me? Do I have a true calling, and if so, am I ever going to know what it is? Or worse: what if I don’t have a calling?! What if my uninspired means of employment is just going to have to suffice, because maybe there isn’t something better for me out there?!?

And now I spin into my Woody Allen in Therapy mode, which is clearly a bad headspace to be in.

I digress.

Let’s get back to the beginning of this entry. It seems I am not without things to say, nor am I done exploring my initial query. I definitely haven’t figured it out yet.

And so, I blog.

Dating: 1927 -

The other day, a friend’s phone rang and she asked me to answer it. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how. Yesterday evening, I arrived at another friend’s home to dog sit. I went to turn on the water tap, but it’s all hooked up to an alkaline machine and I could not figure out which buttons to push, what the digital number on the screen should read, or which faucet the water is supposed to be coming out of. Don’t even get me started on T.V.s these days.

It has come to this. The only phone, t.v. and water filter I can handle is my own. I sometimes long for simpler times. And yet, not everything has become more complicated. Dating, for instance, seems to have stayed just as complicated over the decades. Lying on my bookshelf is my grandmother’s diary from 1927. That year, Miss Lucile Flannery, was a twenty-four year old southern belle living in San Antonio, Texas. My grandmother’s dating life was quite full it seems. Allow me a few excerpts:

January 2^nd.

Ak! I could cry and cry tonight I feel so awful. Nelson and I had it out tonight. He finally told me I either loved him or it was a case of pure necking. When he said that…I nearly died! Told him I was never going to let him kiss me again.

January 3^rd

I had a date with a new one tonight. Paul is real nice and awfully funny in a droll sort of way but he didn’t make so much of an impression on me. I hope he asks me for another date though because he is a date.

January 6^th

Ah me. I had indeed a wonderful date tonight. Mr. John Joseph Burns. My heart simply fails me when I think of it. He took me to a movie and when we got home, didn’t say, “When can I see you again?”

January 16^th

Margery and I sat at home tonight without dates, but I really didn’t mind and I hope she didn’t.

February 27th

Tonight I have been crying and crying until I am exhausted. My faith in Nellie just crumpled up like paper. I feel like I hate all men! Everything has been so beautiful up to now but it's all ruined now.

March 20th

Nelson is the sweetest thing on earth. I love him.

There are many other tortured moments that year, with my grandmother crying enough tears “to fill a bucket” more than once. Most of this torture was tangled up in her love for Nellie, also know as Morris Robert Nelson, a pilot in the air service. Nellie, whom she would become engaged to later in November and to whom she would be married for over fifty years. Nellie, my grandfather.

1927 vs 2011? Not so different. It doesn’t matter whether we get to know each other over mahjong or pool, via letter or telegram or text. The questions and confusion remain the same. If he didn’t end his text with a question, is it okay to write back? I thought we sparked…maybe we didn’t spark? Did we spark? He seemed so present. Then he wasn't. What if? Would he? Did I? AK! Ah me!

And let me tell you, making it all that much more confusing is the plethora of advice that comes my way, sometimes requested and sometimes unsolicited. Flirt more. Flirt less. Be open. Not too open. Care more. Care less. You’re not ready. You’re too ready. Negotiating the world of dating is kind of like an obstacle course, only the obstacles are set-ups, single's tables at weddings, and mixed signals. If at all possible, avoid parties where you are the only single person and where the game de jour is The Newlywed Game, only… “Oh, sorry, YOU can’t play.” (This happened to me once. Really.)

Dating is not simple. Figuring out what others are thinking, or not thinking, is not simple. It wasn’t in 1927 and it certainly isn’t now. And I like the simple things in life. A phone I can figure out how to use. A good glass of wine with friends. Beach walks with Petey the dog. But the truth is, a good story doesn't usual come from simple alone. You need twists and turns and detours. And when you hit that unexpected dead end in a cul-de-sac, U-turn and try again.

- - - - - -

WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM: 1928

TO LUCILE NELSON.

DELAYED BY RAIN BE HOME WEDNESDAY MUCHLY DISAPPOINTED LOTS LOVE

NELLIE.

Big Love

My own heffalump has been love, big love. I'm not sure what it looks like or sounds like; I'm sure it's a bit scary and I'm hoping I'll see it before it sees me.

I have loved and I have been loved. But of Big Love, I have been afraid. I have been so afraid, that I have left some loves because I was not ready. My parents, they had a Big Love. It began as an old-fashioned love affair. They met in Stockholm in the 1960s. He was a handsome, American diplomat, thirteen years her senior with three small children. She was a young, Swedish, green-eyed, fiery secretary working at the American Embassy. He was the son of a Southern belle and a Major General. She was the daughter of a prominent businessman and blonde beauty. It was a time of men in suits and hats, of cocktail parties, of elegance, of manners. They married in the city's cathedral, the surrounding grounds covered in February’s snow. To me, it always seemed a magical love.

When I was fifteen, I woke up late one night to the sound of crying. Crouching at the top of the steps, I peered down into the lit kitchen where my parents sat, dinner plates pushed back on the table, glasses of wine half full, my mother smoking, talking, crying. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but their voices were gentle. It was my first memory of what real love looks like.

Back then, I wasn’t afraid of love. I wasn’t afraid of love until my early twenties when my father died. My mother did not want to be without him; it took ten years, but at age 58, she literally gave up living. I have been afraid. I have been afraid to love so much that I will want to give up living if, when, I lose my big love.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. I am not a mother, nor do I have a mother anymore. But over the years, I have been mothered. I was read to, sung to, nursed back to health when my face swelled with mumps and when my body scabbed and itched with pox. I sat at the kitchen table after my first heart-break, comforted with tea poured from an earthen pot and words of empathy. When I wore the very wrong outfit, an - ugh!- dress, to a school dance, my mother – though quite annoyed – showed up in the rainy, dark evening with jeans, a blouse and sneakers, so that I could change. For many years after she died, I had a clear image of my mother flying below my plane, her red hair frizzy in the wind, her pointer finger gently holding my plane safely in the air. From my mother, I learned love.

The other day, I talked to my mother in the car. I explained that I wanted her beside me, but I needed to figure this love thing out on my own. I imagined she was sitting in the passenger seat, listening while gazing out at the passing sugar cane fields. I'm pretty sure the corners of her lips were turned up in a small, satisfied smile.

On Mother's Day

During the years that my family lived in Belgium, we lived in a Flemish area of Brussels. I was barely aware of the country’s deep, cultural and political ‘Flanders vs. Wallonia’ rift. In fact, the only way it touched my life was that street signs were posted in two languages. My mother, on the other hand, ran up against the problem at least once, when she called our local police station after an attempted burglary at our home. Our local police station, as it happened, was also in the Flemish district. My mother did not speak Flemish. The police officer refused to speak French. Then, in English, with no room for misunderstanding, she pointedly told him that she could speak English, French, Swedish, German, Spanish or Italian. In which language was he going to help her?
He assisted my mother in French. Miraculously, the police officer’s command of a language he claimed not to know was quite strong.

If my mother had a motto, it would be: Get it done. As she often reminded us, a job half-done was a job not done at all. The reciting of this maxim was especially annoying when the job at hand involved polishing silver or the annual chore of pulling up weeds from between the stone slats of our terrace (a task that invariably left little callouses to form on the side of the forefinger).

On second thought, perhaps it would be: Suffer no fools. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of one of her steely gazes, especially not when accompanied by a swift tongue-lashing. She could - and would - cut hubris with a single comment. She had a knack for turn of phrase. When my sister was born, the doctor saw her resemblance to our dad and said, “Well, there’s no question who the father is!” to which my mother responded, “There never was.”

When I was 15, I held a party on a weekend my parents were out of town. The following Monday, my mother surprised me by picking me up from school. Immediately, my guilty conscience told me I’d been found out, but instead she chatted pleasantly with me about her day and I breathed a sigh of relief. As we pulled into our driveway, she remarked casually that she had run into our neighbor earlier.
“Phil said he was sorry he wasn’t invited to my party. It looked like quite a success.”
My stomach flipped.
“I had to tell him I didn’t know what he was referring to.”
I had trouble hearing for the pounding in my ears.
“And that I was away for the weekend.”
The jig was up.
And it was then, and only then, that she turned to look at me. There was no reason to speak. The look on my face said it all.
My mother, the tactician.

My fiercely loyal, silly, loving, beautiful mother passed on to me the importance of the Golden Rule, being a good friend, choosing a mate I could laugh with, making time for myself, and finding a doctor I liked. I'm proud to say she also passed on to me her withering gaze.

Not Exactly Eat, Pray, Love

The very same year that Elizabeth Gilbert ate and prayed and loved her way through three countries, I high-tailed it to Maui to do the same. Gilbert’s journey from divorced and depressed to finding love, as anyone who has read Eat, Pray, Love knows, took about a year by way of spaghetti a la carbonara in Italy, yoga and meditation in India, and the temples and blossoms of Bali. By the time she left Bali, she'd found true love. My version of Eat, Pray, Love could be titled Eat and Drink While Loving the Wrong People, Pray Meditate Manifest, On Line Date, Confuse Love with a Slew of Other Issues, Crash and Rebuild Slowly. It has taken me eights years and counting. Allow me to backtrack.

New Year’s Eve, 2001, I lay in the porcelain tub of my Manhattan pre-war apartment. Candles were lit, Ella Fitzgerald was playing, and a glass of Sherry was within arm's reach. As my skin warmed and softened against the icy wind that blew outside, I knew that this was it; it was time to leave my marriage. I was young still, thirty-one. But I’d married much younger, before I’d grown into myself and out of this particular life. I did not know what I wanted exactly, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that there was more out there for me, more of life. My husband and I separated in the early weeks of January.

I did not know then that my mother would be dead in less than three months. I did not know then that my still-husband would drive to Rhode Island and play Amazing Grace on his trumpet at her memorial service. I did not know then that H and I would laugh at stupid things at the post-memorial reception in my mother's living room. We laughed at how many of H’s prom dates and ex-boyfriends were in attendance. At “friends” of our mother’s who cornered us in the supermarket aisles to offer condolences peppered with comments like, “So sudden. So sad that she died without having any grandchildren.” At how much Hawaiian Punch we’d bought for the reception even though we didn’t know anyone who liked it, and no one drank it.

That frigid, final eve of December, I did not know that eighteen months later I would have put everything in storage, found a rental on craigslist on the north shore of Maui, and flown to an island I knew little about to live on my own for six months.

The first time I came to Maui, it was to escape. This is where I began to heal, gasping at the clean, sweet air through the heavy exhaustion that enveloped me. I extended my ticket and stayed even longer. I, a northern European/ East Coast girl, slipped into a sweet existence of guava scented hikes, nights lit bright by the full moon, breezes scented by plumeria blossoms. I lived in the space of not being known, other than what I was willing to share. I danced at parties dressed in angel wings or beaded hats or whatever the theme of the night required. I drank too much and woke up hazy in the early morning hours, dipping myself in the cool ocean to wake up and refresh. I flitted. I flirted. I feigned nonchalance. I fell hard. I learned to surf baby waves, but was most content sitting in the ocean on my board looking back at the emerald green mountains. Instead of teaching, I picked protea on a small flower farm Upcountry for Auntie Ruth, a seventy-year-old Portuguese lady who'd be born in the house next door, the one with the red tin roof. Auntie Ruth swore a blue streak.

The first time I lived in Maui, I created a new life for myself far from home. It wasn't necessarily a life I recognized, but that was what I wanted. Ironically, I had moved from a city of 8 million people to a small island of 150,000 for the sake of anonymity.

Only later did I begin to connect the dots: my grandparents had lived on Oahu - one island over - in the early 1930's when my father was a toddler, my grandfather flying planes from Pearl Harbor. And my half- brother, my father’s son, had backpacked around much of the world after college, passing through this island. He’d camped on these very same beaches, sitting in the sand and playing guitar, watching the Kona storms blow in. I'd flown 10,000 miles to an island in the middle of the Pacific to get as far away from what I knew as I could manage, only to realize that part of me had belonged here all along.

In the past eight years, I've moved to Maui, moved back to New York, and then again to Maui. The second time I moved to Maui, I wasn't escaping. I was returning. Eight years, and I’m still eating, praying and loving. That's just the way my story has unfolded.