Riding the Waves
I remember when my bubby taught me to ride the waves
It’s a mechaye, she would say, Yiddish for pleasure
Laughing, holding my hands
I would forget the trouble at home and laugh with her
She knew ― most of her children had married badly
If you know what I mean
Her grandchildren consequently sad angry listless
On sleepovers she would give me a nickel and send me to the grocer across the alley to buy rolls for breakfast, crusty Kaiser rolls like the ones she’d loved in the old country
And I’d feel so grown up, so trustworthy and loved
Breakfast would be grand, slabs of butter on the bread, a hardboiled egg
Coffee for her
Milk from the icebox in the backyard for me
Sleepovers with my bubby, days at the beach with her
Were counterpoints to sorrow
Who knew they were preparing me for forgiveness
For rising above the past
Forging ahead to joy
Like riding the waves with an invisible hand
To prop me
Do I Dare?
Do I dare disturb the universe?
― T. S. Eliot
“My head is boiling,” he said, and that was the beginning.
From there, strange turns of phrase animated every conversation. I hadn’t heard this command of language in the husband I’d loved for sixty years, and as a bashful girl in high school. I’d bop with friends at our Friday night sock hops, and there he’d be, on the sidelines, jocular with the boys and not ever with a girl. “Ask him to dance,” Winnie would whisper, but I never did.
One could point to inevitability, karma, in the way we finally landed together. He’d gone to Drexel, I to Penn, then home again and the first rung of our career ladders. At Winnie’s wedding I was the maid of honor, he the best man. Champagne flowed. We danced and drifted toward a merger.
We wove a tiny universe that expanded with each child’s arrival. I’d smile, feeling fortunate that we all got on so well, among the Schwinn Sting-Rays strewn along the perimeter of our well-tended lawn, bats and paddles, book bags and board games, a popcorn maker all black and shiny, a gift, not something I would buy. And before we could say ‘Jack Robinson,’ they were gone, the boys and their paraphernalia.
Life sometimes seemed as dry as dust, but then a grandchild and we were gay again.
We plied our trades, muddled through early days of retirement, volunteered and dabbled in local politics, waxed ecstatic about our Kindles, learned how to Google and bank online. And stream: on any given evening we were ensconced in matching recliners, rewatching movies we’d loved, or learning the truth about our late heroes in documentaries that featured yapping heads revealing bouts with drink and drugs, glory and redemption.
Until his attention began to wander and the TV remote control became a toy to be poked unto death; my meticulous husband seemed to have been swallowed by a pre-pubescent boy. No. No, no, no, no, no, I told myself. This is not happening to us. I programmed a new remote control and kept it hidden in my sweater pocket and went on watching, plying him with popcorn popped in the old black popper that was not shiny any longer but did the trick.
And then a neighbor called to say he had parked in her carport, and Safeway called to say he was wandering the aisles and couldn’t identify himself. And his sister said, “Spill the beans,” when he couldn’t identify her. “What’s going on with my brother?” I could not bring myself to say.
And here we are. I’m pedaling for two our well-worn tandem. The tires need air. I struggle and breathe heavily. I am Sisyphus.
Last night, as I slept, he figured out how to unlock the ornery contrivance on our door meant to protect him and slipped away. Someone found him crouched in hemlock dripping ice and brought him home to me.
“My head is boiling,” he said, the remaining fragment of his repertoire, though altogether he was cold. I led him to a warm shower and tucked him into our safe bed. But what is safe? Do I hold him here, dreading his next escape? Or do I hand him off to a place where no one will know who he was: jocular yet deeply still, my oldest, dearest friend?
Do I dare disturb our universe? There is no longer time to wonder.
“Do I Dare” appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of Vistas & Byways.
You Belong With Us
Judith and despair were becoming one. She felt that as she entered the restaurant and friends stood to greet her. In their eyes she saw sorrow; in the warm grasp of their hands, two holding her one, she felt their desire to reassure her, their need to convey: “We are with you. We are here for you.”
Greg held out a chair for her and she sat, acutely aware that the neat, universally prescribed table for four had been reconfigured. A fifth chair had been added, an anomaly, an odd mole on a face with otherwise perfect features.
Ed leaned over and pointed to the appetizers on the menu that had been thrust into her hands. “We’ve ordered shrimp cocktails, but feel free to get anything you like.”
“We”
“Feel free”
“Get anything you like”
This was the new vocabulary that would define her. She would never be “We” again. She would be expected to “feel free,” to “get anything” she liked, without consultation, negotiation, without concern for another’s allergies, his likes and dislikes. Judith’s eyes misted over, blurring her choices as she perused the menu. She would have to learn what she liked, what she alone could tolerate.
She forced her eyes to focus. She would not order the shrimp cocktail. Lars had developed a nasty rash after they’d shared shrimp at the Washington marina. That was more than fifty years ago and she’d never had shrimp since.
“Can you do a Caesar salad for one,” she asked the waiter.
“I’ll share with you,” Susan and Doris interjected in unison.
The waiter smiled. “Caesar for three, it is.”
“We’ve ordered a couple of bottles of Medoc,” said Ed. “We know you favor red.”
‘No,’ she wanted to say. She’d been drinking red with fish for a lifetime, but it was Lars, her meat eater, who always ordered red for both of them.
Judith smiled at her companions. So caring. They meant well. “You belong with us,” was what they wanted to say. But she didn’t, she knew. She belonged only to herself now.
“If you don’t mind,” she said softly, not wanting to offend, “I’d like a glass of Chablis. I’m having the halibut.”
You Belong With Us appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Vistas & Byways.
From Our House to Yours ― Our Annual Letter
As I write, and wanting to wish family and friends the happiest of holiday seasons, I can only say, we buried the cat this morning with neighbors standing round and cake.
But that’s no way to start our annual holiday letter, is it? Here’s the good stuff:
We took a grand tour of Spain, all the best places, the Prado in Madrid, Toledo, Barcelona, Gaudi, Picasso. And churches. Glorious cathedrals plastered floor to ceiling with the golden spoils of conquistadors. I guess I was tired, footsore, beaten down by too many tapas and sagging mattresses in our out-of-the-way Airbnb’s, because, gazing at the stained-glass tableaux on the walls of these magnificent behemoths, I began to see the faces of indigenous people from our earlier travels, the blood of disembodied Aztec, Mayan, Incan men, women and children morphing into the gifts of the Magi. But we loved the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Jeff Koons doggy, the surreal Gehry hodgepodge rising out of a sleepy factory town.
When we returned, Persephone was not herself. Her fur was sparse, she limped. She wasn’t interested in food or us.
Anyway, the boys are great, Jack in his senior year at UCLA. He wants to act, but to please us he majored in Electronics and is looking for a job in Silicon Valley. Billy and Joan are happily ensconced in Florida life, trying to get pregnant with no luck so far and new laws making it impossible to find help in that department. They actually are not “happily ensconced.” They are miserable, but of course one shouldn’t say that in a Christmas letter so forget you read it here.
And they are grieving the loss of Persephone. After all, when she strayed into our kitchen that day in 2015, Jack and Billy were the ones who begged and stomped and insisted that we keep her. And now she is gone. We buried her today in a weedy plot in front of our house. Our neighbors formed a human wall to shield us from HOA purists who would pounce upon such unlawful activity. Marnie brought cake, a vanilla pudding concoction, Vanessa brought compostable forks and plates and we hummed a hymn.
And now it will be Christmas and Jack and Billy and Joan will come home and we will open gifts, enjoy a Whole Foods feast and revel in being together again.
But Persephone will not be among us.
Merry, Happy, dear friends. May the New Year bring you good health, joy, adventure and the best of pets.
P.S.: Good News – Jack just found a job in Silicon Valley; he’s going to manage the box office in a San Jose theater; and off we go . . . .
Thanksgiving
I loved it even when I had to sit at the children’s table, squabbling with my cousins with playful glee.
I loved the stuffing and dark meat, pies bursting with apples or pumpkin filling, cream pies oozing bananas.
I loved the warmth of hugs from my elders (but not the pinches), listening to their gossip and watching their complex interactions and my sensitive mother’s reactions.
I loved it all, and eagerly took on the role of hostess when I married and moved to a new city, far from my clan. Under a sparkling chandelier, my dining room table was set for 12 with China we’d hand-carried from England and gleaming silverware. Serving platters were carefully arranged on crisp celadon linen, around a straw cornucopia of autumn fruits and flowers.
Along with appetizers, there’d be a perfunctory tip of the hat to gratitude, then my husband would bring the carved bird from the kitchen, shouting, “Dig in!” and friends, neighbors and visiting relatives would fill their plates, partaking of all that our bountiful lives afforded us.
Over the years, the cast of characters changed. Babies evolved into teens, new faces replaced those lost to divorce, illness and death. Eventually, I sold my house and moved to a large apartment, where my Thanksgiving tradition continued. I invited foreign families of my son’s Washington International School classmates, who contributed new dishes to our sacred ritual.
A few years later, when that son, Michael, moved to San Francisco, married and announced a baby on the way, I packed the China and linen, the silverware and cornucopia, and headed for Walnut Creek, California. My sisters had moved to the Bay area in the 70s, as hippies, my older son lived a stone’s throw away in Los Angeles, and suddenly I was awash in family again.
So, on my first California Thanksgiving, though it was a tight fit in my new condo, my table was extended with four leaves and once again graced with my beautiful things, sans chandelier. It was fun to be together after so many years, on my favorite holiday.
But the time came when one guest requested a vegan meal, another gluten-free, and yet another, pescatarian. My limited kitchen skills were tested as I prepared salmon, as well as turkey, and re-heated a multitude of vegetable casseroles. I was frazzled. The thrill of the holiday was gone.
That was the year I bequeathed our Thanksgiving tradition to Michael and my daughter-in-law, Georgianna. They had just restored an old house in Oakland and could easily accommodate family and friends in their massive dining room.
I transitioned well, never looked back with longing to my hostess days. We dined on turkey and Dungeness crab and kvelled over my grandson Philo. Eventually, he tried his hand as chef and regaled us with home-made focaccia and other delectables as he grew.
In my 70s, I found a lovely little home in Rossmoor and downsized for the umpteenth time, planning to bring only necessities, my art and photos, and small keepsakes. But as the movers placed my beloved dining room set and boxes of China near the elevator, to be picked up by a charity, they found me sitting on one of the chairs, crying. I felt so foolish. Crying over mere things, at my age. After a lifetime of real losses. But the guys were kind, accustomed to these events, and brought me a serving bowl and platter that had not yet been packed. “You can keep these, Mrs. Kaulkin. To remember. We’ll find a place for them in your new home.”
And then I really cried.
And life goes on. Covid hit and Thanksgiving went on hiatus. One of my sisters moved to Portland, and Philo went off to college. Now, those of us remaining enjoy the holiday at a restaurant, where they feature prime rib, salmon and abundant vegetables, along with Sir Tom. And a good time is had by all.
“Thanksgiving” appeared in the Winter 2023 issue of Vistas & Byways.