[Real] Rabbi Syme: Continued!

My previous post about [the Real] Rabbi Syme generated a wonderful internet "moment—" one of those lightning-in-a-bottle experiences where the internet proves to be truly connective. I wrote the post in response to questions I received through the course of my book tour, and online: is the Rabbi Syme (Perchik's teacher and advocate) of After Anatevka at all connected to a real person, particular a man named Rabbi Daniel Syme of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan?

The answer: yes. To briefly quote my previous post:

Fictional Rabbi Syme is based very loosely upon the real-life Rabbi Syme—loosely because my description in the novel is not so much a literal, but more of an evocative recollection and honoring of his influence. Real-life Rabbi Syme and I only spent a collection of minutes together in 2001, but they were crucial minutes. He gave me the gift of delivering the eulogy at my father's funeral service, as well as bearing witness to it when he lead the funeral service, and above all, he gave me an hour of his time months later, reminding me of what was eternal, and chartering a map toward the beauty, strength and individuality my faith. Irreplaceable gifts one can never forget. The influence of Rabbi Syme proves another true-to-life maxim: that we never know the depth of the influence we have upon one another. 

I then followed this by recounting a crucial memory of the real Rabbi Syme.
Keep in mind that I have not seen, heard from, been in touch with dear Rabbi Syme since 2001. Nearly 17 years.
I pressed "publish." 
I posted the blog's link to a few social media places.
The link was shared on Facebook.
Then again.
And before long?
An email in my inbox was sitting there from the real Rabbi Syme.
This was followed by a save-it-forever voicemail.
And finally, a phone call that, at long last, completed a circle I never even dreamed would reach its resolution.

Then today...

Today I gave a book talk at Temple Beth Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan—only a few miles away from Birmingham, the suburb of Detroit in which I grew up, and in fact, from Bloomfield Hills, where Rabbi Syme and I first met.

My talk went on, and as usual, I concluded with a reading. Whenever one of my book events is located in a temple I like to read the following passage and tell the audience a little about the real Rabbi Syme. How the character came to be and how this was my form of honoring the man who was my father's advocate, and thus, artistically, Perchik's.  I read:

  
     “Free a man of the constraints that limit and inhibit his development, and you have a free human being. Freedom is the natural state of man.” He looked away from the boy for a moment and recalled his youth, his own search for self. “My boy,” he imparted with a ferocious passion that shook them both by the throat, “there is nothing negative about our human potential—do you understand me? God Himself created you the way you are. Do not let anyone in this world convince you otherwise. And you are capable of anything, my boy. There is and shall always be a disparity among the gifts God has granted men, but we all deserve equal consideration. All men, no matter how low, how basic, or how tormented, deserve compassion, dignified brotherhood, and respect.
     “But part of respecting all men is respecting ourselves. Recognizing that God has blessed you. By embracing these gifts, we live as God lives, with love for all He has created—with an open heart.
     “Thus our Sages have said: ‘In every generation, a person must see himself as if he has himself come out from Mitzrayim.’ You, of course, know what Mitzrayim, this Hebrew word used for ‘Egypt,’ means, do you not?”
     “Boundaries,” the boy said quietly.
     “It does indeed—and the effort to free ourselves is a perpetual one.”
     The rabbi removed his spectacles and looked deeply into the eyes of the boy. “I promise you, Perchik: you are a truly blessed child of our Lord. I promise you will find the strength to overcome the oppression of your circumstances. This fight is your purpose—the strength for it inherent within you. Like rocks of salt shaken in water, the turbulence soon asserts itself in perfect order. My boy, you are supported by the greatest parent of them all. As it is He who has endowed you with your gifts, you can be sure that He, therefore, believes in their power. And for the record, my boy, so do I.”

Reader?
The real Rabbi Syme... was there.
In the audience.

Coming up in line as I signed copies of the novel that honors him in character, and thanks him in the acknowledgments, came the real-life, breathing man who bears the name Rabbi Daniel Syme.

We reunited.
Embraced.
Cried.

What other proof do we need that miracles happen?
Because they do.
Happen.

The Death Bed

(7 weeks on)

A week or so after the incident with the cat Grey headed home for Thanksgiving, slated to return to his creative den as soon as possible to continue work on his model for NIDA[1] .

Left alone to our own devices, Kent suggested it might be time to start thinking about changing The Death Room— to look forward.

    “A new bed, for sure” he said, “perhaps some paint, a little classic Cath-ay DIY?”
    “Great idea” Mom said, and three hours later, Kent and I returned from grocery shopping to find that mom has discovered beautiful solid hardwood floors beneath the early 90s carpet, ripped all of it up, rolled it up and taken it out to the curb. Now, she was already hard at work on the hallway, breathless, sweating and determined. All of this served to reaffirm a notion I already knew about Mom: once you put an idea in her head— there’s (possibly literally) no stopping her...[2]

The three of us spent the remainder of the night ripping up that hideous death-beige carpet and hauling it out to the curb with the bathwater. By 3am we had disposed of the detritus of our former life upon the lips of our lawn filled with an odd sense of higher purpose— we were not scavengers rummaging through the ruins of a fallen city. We were excavators! Like Heinrich Schliemann! Below the carpets lay new, undiscovered Troys and we would be the team to peel away the rubble, reveal the past and simultaneously, the future, just like the anthropologists of yore![3]

When we woke the following morning, the artifacts were gone— taken to the same unnameable place all life’s mysteries disappear to.

But we were not empty, we were lighter somehow.

The top floor of 1367 had been stripped bare to make room for new life, and we dressed that morning with a purpose— we were going to buy a new bed.

*

Art Van on Woodward at 14 Mile was the first and only thought that sprang to mind. It was constantly blaring its name on radio and local television commercials, and besides, it was on the same strip of Woodward as Dairy Deluxe, which gave it street-cred, not to mention 0% financing til 2004... Word.

Art Van as it would turn out, was above a Mercedes dealership, to be entered by sky-scraping escalator which crested onto a cavernous warehouse of fluorescently lit sofas, dinettes, media stations and bed frames (ostensibly, a well-furnished piranha tank).

Mom, Kent and I were each splayed—snow angel style—on a series of mattresses,
     gazing upward at the humming lights.
No, this was not a party at Elton John’s house— this was Art Van.

    “Too firm over here—” Kent called out.
    “Al?”
    “S’okay. A bit squishy.”
    “I’m on one of those individual coil ones over here,” Mom said, “the one from that commercial with the glass of wine and the bowling ball.”
    “Oh yeah!”
    “How is it?”
    “It’s great. It’s just right," she pronounced, “It’s a Sealy...”

Just then Mort, a short, middle-aged gentleman whose comb over, jacket, smile, and every gesture indicated that he was an Art Van salesman, leaned over into my vision, blocking my view of the fluorescent lights like a slightly-malevolent dentist, and, hands clasped behind his back, chimed,
    “Anything I can do for you?”
He smiled a slow motion smile like a cartoon drawing from the 80s.
Nobody moved.

    “We were just waiting for our porridge to cool” I said.

Mort’s smile was as frozen upon his face as our extremities were to the mattresses, only our eyes shifted, locking on him.

    “We’ll take this one” Mom said.

Throw in three bowls of porridge and a blonde girl and we’d have had ourselves a fairy tale ending.

   “Excellent” said Mort, straightening upward, eying us still. “You’re certain of the Queen?”
    “No doubt about the Queen” Kent smiled at Mom. Plus downsizing from the King-sized Death Bed felt right.
    “And we’ll take this frame” said Mom, “I like it— it looks like a sleigh.”

It did—a chestnut, caramel-stained Queen-sized sleigh.

    “I’ll draw up the papers” said Mort, as he turned on his tiny feet, hands still behind his back.

As Mort trotted away, comb-over blinding us, we turned to Mom, who was deep in thought.
    “A new bed…” I said.
    “Yes” she said, running her hand along the hip of the frame.
    “Happy?” Kent asked in a low voice.

Mom thought a moment before answering. Of course she was not happy, her one and only love was gone— gone almost as callously as the upstairs carpets. Our family was evil and the government unhelpful. She was lost, abandoned once again, and living in Detroit with a gaggle of equally lost teenagers. It all crossed her mind, you could see it in her face, and in the thoughtful hand still caressing the chestnut bed frame.

At last the hand stopped, Mom paused and clutched the wood, felt its solid weight. She focused on the bed—her brand new Queen sized chestnut sleigh bed, with thick orthopedic mattress, box spring and 20% Thanksgiving discount, all fit for a Queen.

    “Happy...” she said.

This was a step.
A Baby Step, as Bob would say,
     toward the next stage of our new life,
and that made her happy. 
That fact.



[1] The National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, Australia
[2] do not get between my mother and a power tool
[3] There was also an element of peeling off the used layer of a lint roller… But I’ll stick with Trojan excavation metaphor for now. However grand.

We do it for THAT Guy

Whenever I meet new people the question “How did you end up in the UK?” is almost always at the top of the list—and the answer, of course, is extraordinarily complicated because the winter of 2002, I experienced a very strange chapter of my life that I rarely talk about.

Thus, I do what we all do: I ‘Cliffs Notes-it—” that is, I give you the gist. Ya know: I skip over this weird four-month chapter of Twilight-Zone-Level weirdness that no one could possibly understand unless they were to be told the entire story, or perhaps, they were, by some miracle, there.

So whenever I tell what is the “Cliffs Notes story of my life” it goes like this:

    My Dad died.
    I moved to Scotland.
    SCENE.

That is… highly abbreviated. My Dad did die. And I did move to Scotland. But in between those events, I had to make a plan for the interim as if I were vaguely interested in continuing to live.

As one is want to do in a time of crisis, 18-year-old grieving Al made a series of incredibly impulsive decisions shortly after the new year.  In an attempt to “get on with things” I decided to:

    1. Fly back to the University of Minnesota, say goodbye, and clean out my dorm room,
    2. Drop of out of college 
to,
    3. grieve-but-not-grieve,
    4. Get a job. Perhaps at the mall. Perhaps at the diner I’d worked at all through high school.
    5. Maybe try out for some community theatre! Heck, I was pretty good and the Village Players were doing Our Town.

One day, while trawling the (still-baby-fresh) WORLD WIDE INTERWEB for options, I scrolled around for theatre gigs in my area to maybe “do some plays” while I worked at previously mentioned diner, got my freaking life together and I duuno like maaaaaybe re-auditioned for schools (but also maybe curled up and died— jury was out on that.)

I clicked on a link on Playbill.com: A semi-professional theatre was looking for a young woman aged 18-24 who could sing to play in their winter season— The Mousetrap, The Fantasticks and The Pirates of Penzance. You’d get $125 to build the sets, make the costumes, do all the marketing yourself, and be in the shows, and oh yeah: you got to live above the theatre for free and share a single landline phone in a hallway with everyone else who was clearly running away from their lives…Helloooo? Was the computer talking directly to me? I called the theatre and sold myself harder than an info-mercial, and 20 minutes later I had the gig.

Thus, I:

    6. impulsively moved, in January, to a little coastal tundra-town to live, and work in something (somewhat terrifyingly) called "Winterstock." The only catch? This theatre was five hours north of Detroit in a tiny little town on the coast of Lake Huron called Alpena, Michigan.

Alpena: mean January temperature 12ºF.
Alpena: where you were awakened every morning by the train that ran directly next to said theatre at 5am with a coal delivery from Cadillac.
Alpena: where the two main restaurants were Bob’s Big Boy and the other Bob’s Big Boy.
Alpena: With the weirdest, most provincial, Twin-Peaksy, and kindest gosh darn people you’ve ever met in your life.

I packed our car and drove there in the middle of the night with my also-grieving-mom who helped me move in and, miraculously, sort of…allowed me do this very, very weird thing.

And thus, once, long ago, in a mystical land known as Alpena, Michigan, several very magical things occurred that I shall never forget as long as I live.

- There were some eccentric adventures—which all took place in a very sketchy white van called “The Deer Slayer”
- I went to some peculiar social events (a few of which included babies in bars)
- I learned all about running a theatre.
- and I did three plays—two of which were sort of good.
- Crucially, I met some quirky, damaged, bizarre and totally wonderful people—all just as lost as I—and we held one another, lifted each other up in a very dark time.

I don’t know that I’d consider many of these people close friends to this day, but I do know that whenever I spontaneously run into them, or see them on social media, or come across a photograph or memory of that era— my heart swells with gratitude the way I assume an aggregate of shipwreck survivors must feel. Because like it or not we went THROUGH SOMETHING together—and those feelings and memories are ever-present. I am and will forever be grateful to the lost, rag-tag street gang who held me when I was a geiving child on the brink of womanhood, at my absolute lowest.

There were a lot of stories.
But this story?
This one was the most important of them all...


 *

I had a philosophy teacher in High School who once advised never to make life-changing decisions in February— and he certainly had a point. This? This was one of those Februarys. It was deepest February in Alpena Michigan— life was cold in every sense. The theatre had recently completed its not-so-stellar run of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, and we were all in a deep funk as we began one of the most beautiful musicals of all time— The Fantasticks.

The thing was? It was February. In ALPENA. A blue-collar town of roughly 10,000 people.
9.23 square miles.
One high school.
A lake.
Like maaaaaybe 5 restaurants.
And a set of railroad tracks.
Oh! And the World's Largest Cement Plant, wouldn’t ya know?
Who on earth was going to schlep through all that snow to go to the theatre?

But here’s the thing: in the middle of deepest February our motley little crew of broken people was bang in the middle of the doing The Fantasticks, and you know what? The Fantasticks was… good.
Really good, actually.

It wasn’t ideally cast, or sung, or particularly gorgeous to look at, but man: every single person in that cast knew what it meant to lose something, to break apart and put yourself back together. Every single person on stage knew what the heck was up with that beautiful little play, and we were giving it to you with every scrap, every single fiber of our fragmented, kalidescopic beings.

Kent flew in to play the young lover Matt so we were re-living our Interlochen magical fantasies, our professional cast of lost-but-talented-actors-living-above-the-theater were filling the roles beautifully, and we had a duet of local men playing the Dads so beautifully it evoked extreme emotions in everyone.  Something about this work felt important, and universal and like it deserved to be shared.

Basically? This production was one helluva little wonder, and we managed to play… to NO ONE.  And when I say “no one,” I mean it: there were days when there were SEVEN people in the audience—and I would know: I ran the freakin’ box office. There we all were— bleeding away, baring the beautiful nakedness of splintered souls to NO ONE, in the asshole of winter, in the middle of freakin' nowhere.

It was bleak….
…and heartbreaking.
    …and soul-crushing.
How could it not be?
No one was out there—if a tree falls in the forest does it make a noise?
If seven people see your beautiful play does it even matter?
What and WHO on earth are we even doing this for?


And then one day… a miracle happened.


We had just completed a midweek matinee where we had played to our smallest house thus far— a house of six. Six people. I changed out of my costume. I locked up the office, and, as one had to do between shows, I walked through the lobby in order to exit the building and re-enter immediately next door to the resident entrance of our apartments above the theatre. I moved swiftly—after all, I had soup to make and tears to shed about the state of my life.

And there he was: a man, probably in his mid-fifties, dressed in thick winter trousers, heavy-duty boots, a buffalo plaid winter coat, and a John Deer hat. This man was a living stereotype of typical Northern Michigan GUY—what on earth was he doing sitting by the entrance of a theatre? And why did he look so pensive? Was he lost? Was he ill? I approached him very slowly and asked:

    “Sir? Hello there, can I help you?”

He made no reply.

    “…Is everything okay?”

The man shifted on the bench beside the door, eyes locked firmly to the ground, and it was only then that I could see he had clearly been crying.

    “Oh, yeah” he said in a voice that evoked one scoffing off feeling “I uh— I just had the afternoon off and I saw that this play was happening and I thought, heck, why not? I don't think I've ever even seen a play with music in it before, where people sing and dacne and all that. Something just told me to come in and so I did and uh… yeah. I guess I didn’t expect it to uhh— ya know, hit me so hard…” His voice, laced thickly with his Michigan accent was breaking, “I— I thought it was really good. It uh— it made me—yeah. I’m fine I just … I… I really need to call my daughter…”

My insides lurched. It was as if the Universe was shining a spotlight on this man, in this lobby, at this particular moment in my little life.

...Who are we doing this for...?

We do it for THAT guy.

Because reader? THAT GUY IS ALWAYS OUT THERE.
Every show, in every audience, in every part of the world.
Even Alpena, Michigan.
In an audience filled with six people.
Because that day?
That day where six people were in attendance…? THAT GUY WAS THERE.

And when I tell you I think of That Guy every single day, I mean it.

So thank you, dearest and most beloved man I will never know or see again— you were a beacon of light in the darkest of days, and shine brightly in my memory, and continue to ignite every corner of my sometimes doubting heart.

It was all worth it.
It continues to be worth it.
Because then, now, and evermore: I do it for That Guy.

Alpena, Michigan

The Cat

There are some things we just cannot explain.


It was now late October, and (despite the slow passing of each unbearable day), unseasonably warm for Michigan. The trees (which should have been mostly bare), were a glittering amber aglow in the humming street lights, made all the more lustrous by the deep cobalt blue of the sky behind them, like pieces in a velvet jewel box. There was a knowledge we could feel in our skin that the dew would be heavy in the morning.

Kent and I were on The Walk. Silent and solemn, we strolled hand-in-hand along the curves and reaches of Fairway Drive, taking in the oddness of warmth in the evening sky, the strange intensity of the colors, and an unshakeable feeling that something was happening. There was mystery in the air—we could feel it on our cheeks as the humid breezes lightly gusted. We could smell it like a spice, and could faintly taste in the back of our throats. Uncertainty hung.  And we were alone.

    —I am going to openly admit here that I do not, nor have I ever possessed a particular faith. Prior to that evening, I had never given significant thought to, what we’ll just call, the world beyond—

Kent and I walked on, blanketing ourselves from the evening. Without discussing it Kent began to sing—quiet and low, light but solid. His voice was distinctive, it cut through the dark as I linked on to the song, my own voice dancing on top and then below, weaving in he harmony that was our specialty.

—Things I did have in place:
I believed everything happened for a reason.
I believed that forces, invisible and unnamable were at work in the universe.
I knew that my mother was raised Catholic, my father’s family supper-club Jews (which I supposed made me a “Cashew”??) raised in a largely secular home.
I had gone to Jewish pre-school (and kindergarten!)
I had played Golde in Fiddler on the Roof in High School and was deeply excellent.
I had read Macbeth, and I knew not to fuck with the ouija board—

All at once there was a gust so strong I buried my face in Kent’s chest. He wrapped his arms around me, hands clutching along my back, his own face shielded from the wind within the mass of my hair.

—I believed in good and evil.
I accepted that good and evil was just how the world worked.
I was afraid of unknowns.
There was no one to pray to, there was no structured religion to comfort me, but an inner self-reliant religion of the spirit—

When we looked up, there it was, plain as day.
The cat before us was a silent ginger thing: collarless, and almost impossibly orange with white markings on his face, paws, and a bright white front as if he were wearing a formal dress shirt. He—for you could just sense that it was a he—sat looking upward, paws together, his tail curled perfectly around his feet. One could not deny—no matter how many times you blinked or shook your head—that he was smiling.

Kent and I stared in silence. We looked at the cat. Then at one another. Is this happening? our expressions whispered. My heart twisted in my chest thrusting blood through my entire body but not, for whatever reason, to my brain, which still could not fully comprehend the nature of the creature before us.

Kent crouched down and reached his hand out toward the cat. Psssst psst pssssst, he cooed, rubbing his fingers together, beckoning. The cat walked in a grand circle, making the dramatic entrance of a great actor perfectly catching his light, and approaching, he nuzzled lovingly into Kent’s outstretched hand. Kent smiled. He nuzzled back, scratching under his ginger jowls much to both of their pleasures.

Soon the cat caught my eye and stopped. What? No nuzzling from you? his expression said. I hesitated, but leaned down and stroked the cat along the length of his back. He responded differently to my touch, twisting thoughtfully and placing his head in the crook of my elbow, as if he were doing so with great, overwhelming feeling. It was so intense a gesture that it startled me. I stood, and seemingly having satisfied the cat's needs, quickly backed away and turned toward home. My feet carried me swiftly, practically running from the encounter, Kent rushed up behind me, taking my hand as we moved through the darkness. 

All at once Kent’s clutch grew tight. He stopped dead in his tracks. “Al…” he whispered looking beyond my shoulder. I turned.

It was the cat.
—In the same smiling, perfect position.
It was following us home.

We opened the door to 1367, eyes locked on the cat. He hesitated only a moment before walking inside.
    “What's going on?” said Mom, sensing something as she came upstairs to the foyer. Catching sight of the cat she stopped dead.
    “Who is this?” she asked.
As if she knew what we all knew.
We all knew.

We made way for the cat—the very real, tangible cat—as he slowly surveyed the entire house, placing his paw contemplatively upon the walls, nuzzling up against the corners, soaking the place in with his oddly human eyes. He thundered downstairs in a too-familiar tempo, then thundered upstairs to peak into the office, the bathroom, my bedroom. Finally, he stood before the entrance of the master bedroom. He stared inward through the door left ajar; absolutely still, not breathing, not twitching, frozen in a kind of resolve.

He entered.
He jumped up onto the bed of Death, circled the side that days ago had been Michael’s, and settled into the spot, head down, eyes closed.
The three of us had followed the cat throughout his house tour—down and up the stairs, and now we lingered in the doorway, agape.
No one made a sound.

    “...Mike?” Kent said—it was as if the word fell out of his mouth without the will of the speaker. But the cat opened his eyes, lifted his head, and stared directly at me.

Suddenly he bolted beneath the bed, struggled with an invisible adversary, screeching, mewing, and without any warning, thundered down the stairs and out the still-open front door, never to be heard from again. Like a comet, one moment vivid and dazzling, the next vanished; away on its own journey through the endless dark unknown.

But these things happen.
They do.
Happen.


*


Nights later, I dreamed: Dad was back, and no one thought it was peculiar or remarkable but me.  I made my way downstairs and a particularly well-fed, healthy-looking Dad was leaving the shower in his favorite green velour bathrobe. I did a double-take, stopping him on the landing with sheer joy.

    “Dad,” I cried, “Oh Dad, you’re back!”
    “Hi Al” he said, smiling hugely, neither confirming nor denying my previous statement, "It's good to see you."
    “Oh yes…” I cannot stare at him hard enough, cannot suck in enough of his smell which is so pungent, and real tears fill my eyes, “Papa, we've all missed you.”
He nodded, and with only the slightest tinge of sadness he gathered his green robe close around him and moved to make his way up the stairs.
    “Wait! Dad!” I said, “The cat.”
I had to know.
He smiled.
    “The cat, Papa. Was—was that…?”

Dad came down a few steps and got as close to me as I could sense he was "allowed."
He laughed a little,
    “Of course” he said, eyes sparkling, “but you knew that" 
I nodded.
    “I knew you’d be afraid of a ghost or an angel, anything like that. I knew you would need to know that you had seen it, touched it.  And I just had to make certain everything was okay.” He  turned to go again.
    “Wait—Papa!” I cried, not wanting him to go just yet, “Please. What’s it like?”
    “Al…” he sighed, “you know I can't answer that.”
I nodded again.

He turned to go again, but stopped himself.  Then, looking down at me looking up to him doused in the soft, warm glow of my dreams he said,
    “It’s everything you hope it is...”

I woke in tears.
Comforted.
Certain of nothing.
Certain only, that we know nothing about the world beyond.


...So why not believe?
    Why not?

Because it happens.
These things do.
Happen. 

  

Big Trash Day

(4-and-a-half weeks on)
It was the night before big trash day—you know: the day you put out your “big trash” on the curb for it to be carted away to the “undiscovered country.” Last month’s big trash day almost shamanistic-ally removed the deathbed mattress and our death-beige carpets. That initial purge was like grief Viagra—we were on a roll. Re-doing the house, beginning with the upstairs, became the largest chunk of our daily activities.

Some of it was marvelous— Grey and Kent moving through the house as ‘Tessa,’ redecorating wildly, all of us in stitches. The strong scent of paint filled the house, its acidic odor burning off the smells of disease, and the windows flew open, somehow washing the place clean with the freshness and oncoming frosts of November in the air.
But other parts were not marvelous at all.

Tonight I sat at the curb, my body unfathomably fatigued; it was all I could do to remain awake. My back and every muscle sore, my head dense with dulling fog. The steady rain upon the street, rooftops and curb fell upon me too as I sat in a tormented ball within the seat of my father’s black leather swivel chair—the noisy, worn out chair that lived-on in his office. The one my mother had always hated. The one I associated with the sound of his IBM typewriter, that still smelled of him and held the unmistakable imprint of his body. I sat, feeling that imprint left upon the worn leather, soaked to the bone in the freezing rain. I would stay there all night.

  *

I am…

I am thirteen and sitting on the bed with Dad, frustrated beyond all reason by my homework for 8th Grade Money Management. I do not understand money, or how to manage it, and despite my horrific attitude, he is very slowly explaining everything with great patience until I absolutely do. Only a few years back, we sat in the very same positions reading The Chronicles of Narnia, and now I am being asked to manage money like an adult and I do not want to grow up. Most of all I do not want to disappoint him.

*

It is Thanksgiving 1998 and it feels as though everyone in (and several friends from out-of) town, are at 1367 gathered around our Chickering piano singing show tunes. Duets, solos, and finally, we all erupt in an emotional chorus of the Act 1 finale of Ragtime— my father’s eyes closed, his voice the strongest and most impassioned of us all.

*

I am fourteen and driving to my relatively new Groves High School with Dad, just as we have done every single morning since time began. He pulls up right in front of the back entrance on Evergreen Road. We hug, I kiss him on the cheek, and we exchange “I love yous” before I grab my purple backpack and run inside.

Before heading inside I catch the eye of Sarah Randall, a girl two classes ahead of me whom I’ve known since the summer before we moved to Michigan. She’s getting out of the car driven by her father, whom I wave to. Mr. Randall’s face looks thoughtful as I make my way inside.
I will learn a few years later, how much watching the Silbers say goodbye at the school entrance means to him. I’ll learn that when he’s having particular trouble with Sarah, that he will say, “you know how Al and Michael Silber say goodbye to one another every morning? If you could ever do that for me—just once—it would mean the world to me.”

I will learn, years later (when Mr. Randall also dies prematurely, in his case, from pancreatic cancer), that Sarah will listen. It will, in its own small way, change a little piece of their relationship.

*

It is the third Saturday of August 1995—the weekend of The Woodward Dream Cruise; a classic car event held annually in Detroit to celebrate the essence of Motor City.

After World War II, people began to “cruise” in their cars along Woodward, from drive-in to drive-in, often looking for friends who were also out for a drive, celebrating a new sense of freedom. Now the Woodward Dream Cruise is the world’s largest one-day automotive event, drawing 1.5 million people and 40,000 classic cars each year from around the entire world.

We’ve lived here a year, and we decide to pull up to Woodward and take a peak at the event that spans all the way from Pontiac to the State Fair Grounds inside the Detroit City limits, just south of 8 Mile Road. It is absolutely majestic. Most of the cars on display are vintage models from the 1950s to the early 70s—muscle cars, street rods, T-birds and corvettes, but there are some turn-of-the-century gems, some custom, collector and special interest vehicles all dating across the last century and change.

The initial sight renders all three of us momentarily speechless.

*

I am in the kitchen and it’s one of the rare nights when Dad has taken it upon himself to “cook” dinner. Mom and I stare down at our plates—a mass of crunchy, practically raw vegetables slopped in butter lay before us in meager piles. The only indicator that they have been “cooked” at all is that their once-colorful skins are charred so black the food is indistinguishable, so close to barbeque coal one might as well be eating it straight from the bag.

     “Dad?” I ask, careful not to pierce his pride, “What… is it?”
     “It’s stir-fried vegetables!” he replies, with the enthusiasm of a college kid who has recently made their first batch of Kraft Mac N’ Cheese without calling the fire department.
     “I see…” says my mother, pushing a few of the blackened vegetable turds around on her plate.
     “Don’t panic—“ Dad urges, “It’s not burnt.”
     “Eh…well then what is it?” I ask.
     “IT’S CAJUN…”

…Uh huh.

*

I am playing Miss Hannigan in the 3rd Grade production of Annie at El Rodeo School in Beverly Hills, California. It is my first theatrical experience and even though I am merely eight, I know that I am a hoot as I copy Carol Burnett’s performance from the film, down to every intonation and (inappropriately, for an eight-year-old) drunken idiosyncrasy. It is the morning of, the day of the performance and I am not the least bit nervous. At breakfast Dad says “you should eat.”
But I do not.
Despite never forgetting a movement, line or note prior to this day, I forget the words to my song for the first time ever whilst singing my big number. (Forevermore I have always eaten something before a performance).

*

I am on the banks of Quarton Lake getting ready for my very first ice skating sojourn outdoors, on a natural body of water. We have lived in Birmingham, Michigan for a few fledgeling weeks and Quarton Elementary School (where I have recently been enrolled in the 4th Grade) has an annual Quarton Lake Skate that features skating for parents and kids alike, as well as a vat of hot cocoa. I held my Dad’s hand as I took my first-ever steps onto a frozen lake, skating until my nose was red and dripping from the excitement of the cold.

*

I am at Dairy Deluxe on Woodward and 14 Mile; the classic Birmingham summer hangout that goes by many unofficial titles (among them, the "Twirly Dip," "Double D," "DD," to name but a few).
A Snickers flurry was a summer classic (that is most likely what I am enjoying), or some make it extra Detroit-y by adding Sander’s Hot Fudge on top (un-be-liev-ab-le.) The joy of a visit to Dairy Deluxe is indeed in the quality of the ice cream and various confections, as well as the little quirks that make it (and have kept it) so small-town-charming over the years. In reality Dairy Deluxe is really nothing more than a hut with a giant, neon ice cream cone sign atop it.

But it is much, much more. The same people have been running Dairy Deluxe for well over twenty years and they still write down your order by hand on bits of paper, count your change out with their minds and make your order themselves, handing it to you through a teeny tiny window box on the corner of Woodward and 14 Mile Road.

*

I am driving along Maple Road, rounding the strange curve any non-native Birminghamer would find confusing— right at the twisty point where suddenly you are confronted with what I always blasphemously referred to as ‘Christian Corner’— where the “First” Methodist, Presbyterian and Lutheran churches all appear in a clump, sprung up like eager flowers drenched in holy water.
On the same strip of Maple (between the churches) sits the beloved Mills Pharmacy; where as a kid Dad used to take me in to buy as much candy as possible for a single dollar (it was his way of teaching me about counting out and budgeting money). Individually wrapped Swedish Fish and Sour Patch Kids were only 10¢. Candy bars 50¢. Laffy Taffy, Pixie Sticks, Runts, Nerds, Necco Wafers, the list was endless. A charming bearded man behind the old-fashioned candy counter used to greet us, and he was so like the one in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory you practically expected him to burst into song at any moment. It was pure magic.

Passing Mills Pharmacy now I realize: every memory is now merely another painful nostalgic touchstone. None of it, not one single thing, will ever be magical again.

*

I am on the curb in the chair on big trash day.
I have been out here for hours.
I am soaking wet.
I am touched on the shoulder by Lilly.
The moment had arrived to just surrender...

When we woke the following morning, all had been cleared away.
If only all of it were that easy.

Wolfgang & Wonderland

LIVE TODAY at 3 pm EST (GMT-5) on www.dso.org/live: 

I am so excited to return to the Motor City to create the role of The Narrator in this world premiere of 'Dum Dee Tweedle' on tomorrow's live webcast. It's a crazy and amazing role (featuring my first-ever use of Glaswegian accent for Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee!), and I cannot wait to share it with you all! 

Watch & listen free, Sunday at 3 pm EST (GMT-5) on www.dso.org/live.
[Live from Orchestra Hall is presented by Ford Motor Company Fund and made possible by generous support from The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.]


Maestro Leonard Slatkin leads the live webcast of 'Wolfgang & Wonderland!' 

DSO Concertmaster Yoonshin Song plays Mozart's second violin concerto, and an all-star cast performs the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize winning David Del Tredici's Alice in Wonderland-inspired 'Dum Dee Tweedle.'



Music Director Leonard Slatkin's championing the use of technology here in Detroit and across the pond at Orchestre national de Lyon to share live presentations of music with the world is a marvel. 

Read his latest HuffPost Arts & Culture blog about live webcasting and the orchestra's "move to the Internet."
 

Giving Thanks is Serious Business...

 

The Goody Silbers wish you peace and goodly greetings on this day of Thanksgiving...

They warn ye not to engage in too much merriment. (Please eat, drink, smile, dress, burn witches and dance, responsibly)

But above all, goodly tidings to ye and yours!

DON'T SPEAK.

And HAVE A BLAST.

(We clearly are...)

JeremEy Tiger

He pulled up in the driveway.

It was the spring of 2000 and Jeremey was driving across the country— from Oregon back to Northern Michigan in his beat-up, late-80s, light blue Oldsmobile station wagon named Estelle--the engine grotty, the edges rusted.

He brought the car to a halt and jumped out with uncharacteristic elation, practically dancing as he swooped me up in his arms and kissed me, then theatrically kissed my mother’s hands and bear-hugged my father. He set the stage for his excitement, concealed within the back of the Olds.

     “Okay,” he said, “are you ready?”

Jeremey lacked practically all sentimentality in his everyday interactions with others. With his characteristicly harsh, judgmental armor, Jeremey prescribed to the life-theory of: It-hurts-too-much-to-laugh-and-I-am-too-old-to-cry-so-I-am-just-going-to-be-a-dick-to-everyone-until-I-feel-better. Today’s enthusiasm could have been the result of either genuine zing, an illegal stimulant trip, or a combination of both.

     “Ta-DA!” he said, opening the back door of the car with a flourish, revealing a giant, full-on child-sized stuffed white tiger…in a seat belt. He laughed out loud. I laughed too, we all did. As much for the brain-crushingly adorkable tiger (wearing, I should mention, a black leather spiked punk-rocker collar) safely secured into the back seat, as the equally gorgeous gesture. It was so out of character, and the moment so genuine. I don’t think I shall ever forget it.

Whenever I think of that memory my face grows a permanent half smile. One identical to the stitches expertly sewn onto the face of what we all came to call, Jeremey Tiger.

*

I never rebelled.
I was the squeaky-cleanest kid you had ever met, terrified that any trespass into the world of adolescence might only add further to the already crushing burdens of my parents. Not that either one of my parents were in any way terrifying, no. I was terrified of my own volition: a perfectionist almost crippled by the terror of error, for to disappoint (or, more crucially), to burden them would have been a weight too great to bear. I felt as though I was the only source of hope and joy and promise. And any mistake--even the tiniest of transgressions--was my contribution to not curing cancer.

I went to school.
I excelled in my extra-curricular activities.
I got straight As.
I over-achieved.
I was the hope, the future, the pleasure, the reason; the source of their focused strength.
And so I took it upon myself to provide my parents with every excessive joy and pride imaginable.
Not because I always wanted to exactly,
     but because I was terrified the entire world would collapse if I did not.

When I did socialize it was one-on-one, or in intensely G-rated settings. Safe. Hermetically sealed. I needed to be in control of everything to avoid making 'mistakes.' My parents wanted me to have as normal a childhood as possible, and so they kept me away from the bulk of the health difficulties.
Who could blame them?
But because of that, I spent a great deal of time alone.
There was no one to share the childhood, or the burdens with.

And so, to the companion of perfection—the only contribution I could truly offer to making Dad well again.

*

I arrived at the (full-time boarding) Interlochen Arts Academy in the fall of 1999, ready to continue on my path, when of a light switch went on.

As previously explained I was a “lifer,” and found myself returning to the Academy with big hopes for the year and big plans for the future.

But this Jeremey person: the strange, pierced, leather-jacket-wearing, punk-music listening, Antonin Artaud spouting, left-handed, red-headed, pseudo-intellectual guy named Jeremey (spelled with three “E’s, much to everyone’s curiosity and oft-time irritation) was rebellious, dangerous, über-damaged, and fiercely arrogant; plus, to a perfectionist ready to bust-the-f***-out: utterly irresistible.

Because in truth, Jeremey was just a sweet, rejected, floundering youth trying to find his way. Trying to find his way like all of us.
And though he was as strange and all-out-there as a Bruegel painting,
though he was ofttimes selfish,
     oh how I loved him as only a sixteen-year-old could!

Sure! He dyed his hair constantly (my favorite being “Number 44B for African American Women”).
Yep! He had a piercing in both ears (and eventually in his nipples)
Absolutely! He was more than a little manorexic, and  
Okay, he waxed on and on (and on) about how everyone on planet earth besides him was a philistine.

But he also held me like a cross between a boy, a man, and a desperate teenager, all of which he was. He wrote love letters, and poetry, and the best book inscriptions you have ever seen, and hell, it all came from a pain (and I mean: what assholish behavior doesn’t)-- a pain I think he probably--at least at the time--had only ever shared with me.

Growing up in Nowehere, Oregon is never easy, but in a Catholic family split apart by unnameable troubles which all led to his emancipation at the age of fourteen, well… no one expected Jeremey to even finish High School. But he found a mentor and an advocate in a local lawyer who made certain he was educated and taken care of at a place like Interlochen.


....I mean, all this said, my parents were still, understandably horrified.

I’m not about to brag about falling for the pseudo-intellectual-without-a-cause routine, but I’m willing to own it. Jeremey was my “motorcycle guy!” He was an assertion of my independence! Now that I was away from home full time,  I was free to explore, discover the boundaries with my own judgments and moral compass.

So after an initial flurry of someone-has-to-do-something-to-end-this-relationship-type phone calls back and forth to Interlochen, I think Mom and Dad resigned themselves to the fact that I would work it out on my own. That the world was not going to come crashing down if I dated a rebellious redhead with one-too-many Es in his name.

And oh how they tried.
I can’t even tell you how many patient, wonderful talks I overheard him having with my mother.
Or the vigorous banter he had with Dad. 
Or, how lovely the meal was that we all shared together after his graduation.
Or how (beyond all social mores and general parental reasoning) they allowed me to visit him over the summer in Oregon for a week. By myself.
Or how, at Thanksgiving, we all decided to have an early Christmas! And Mom remembered a story he had told about loving a 'Transformer' toy he'd lost from his childhood, tracked it down, and gave it to him.
Or, how Dad drove me all the way to Chicago to bring him home for Christmas, (and also where, in the car for the first time he tried to talk to me about sex and I turned into a Church lady while he locked me in the car and nearly crashed as he laughed and laughed at my discomfort. Awesome.)


So what happened?
As is everyone’s want Freshman year of college: Jeremey got out into the big bad world and learned more than he ever had, but still not enough to realize that he actually knew nothing.
It happens to us all.
But when you mix it with a preconceived proclivity to be holier-than-thou, with a dash of I-was-burned-as-a-youth entitlement? Well good ol’ Jeremey—already a little obsessed with himself— became more obsessed with himself, and he had to go.
No hard feelings but, you know, people were, like, dying.
Shame.

Still, though.
When I look back, all I see is what he gave me.
My first true love, a taste of rebellion, a box full of poetry, the best-ever book inscriptions in earnest, left-handed scrawl, and of course, a stuffed tiger I could never let go of as long as I love.

Jeremey gave my family a different kind of conflict to overcome,
     and the opportunity to understand one another even more deeply.
The Silbers believed in Jeremey, gave him a family to be a part of.

In the end, I think we all loved one another.
Very much.

for Prom: his nail polish matched my dress. That's love.

A Trip to the Cider Mill

In Metro Detroit, there is an annual autumnal tradition that begins with gusto after Labor Day-- Franklin Village--also known as "The Town That Time Forgot"-- is home to the 19th Century Franklin Cider Mill which opened in 1837 as a gristmill owned by Col. Peter Van Every and historically was the first mill in Oakland County where farmers could sell their wheat for cash.

Today, the Franklin Cider Mill retains its popularity. Along with apple cider and hot donuts, the mill also sells a variety of confections consisting (of course) of apple cider, (preeeeeettty epic) cider donuts, apples (this is the home of the Honey Crisp apple!), gigantic pies, scones, breads, cakes, fudge, Hickory Farms meats and cheeses, jams, spreads, everykindoffruitbutteryoucanconceiveof, local honey, and vintage candies.... (I mean... if you weren't jealous before, aren't you jealous now...?)

A trip home between Labor Day and Thanksgiving weekend always includes a trek down to the Mill.
 It's Michigan Autumnal Tradition.
Ah, the taste of home... 

Music: The Detroit-born genius, Sufjan Stevens. From his 2003 "Greetings from Michigan" album

Opa

Everyone needs a place like Greek Islands Coney Restaurant.

You know—a local “joint” that’s the just-right balance of casual and quality, so you never have to worry about whether the food is gonna be any good, or, critically, what you have to wear. A place where they know your family, your “usual,” and where “everybooooody knows your name…”

Hand-painted murals grace the walls of Greek Islands. One (in “section five”) is a parody of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel only God and Adam are reaching for a Coney dog. Another (which blazes just above the entrance) is of The Last Supper painted with Greek gods instead of Christian disciples.

I knew every person that bused the tables, waited them, cooked the food, and ran the register. I knew the ins-and-outs of their lives. I knew the neon lights. I knew the menu backwards, and what was better on Tuesdays (go get the Greek Islands Special Salad with the signature dressing, but start with saganaki cheese). When they light the saganaki on fire after smothering it in brandy, the waitress will yell “OPA!” before dousing the flame with a fresh lemon.

Mere words fail to describe not merely the love, but the enormity of time spent in "G.I" (as we all eventually came to call it), from eating there every night we “decided” not to cook, to working there for years as a teenager.

Greek Islands— as described in the full title— is a “Coney” Restaurant owned by a local Cypriot family. Its main (and original) branch is located in Birmingham Michigan, right in the heart of Downtown on Hamilton Road (between Maple and Woodward) in a building that used to be a carpet and tiling store in the mid-90s (Dad helped GI with a few legalities in fact). Their current location is right behind the Palladium 12 multiplex cinema that used to be a department store. Not to be confused with the Birmingham 8 Art Cinema down the street that used to be a live housing theatre—the town has changed a lot over the years. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Like all towns, everywhere.

Well. What better place to eat the day after the funeral?

Sleepless, haggard, and unable to face opening the refrigerator full of goulash and leftover deli-meat, the five of us piled into the Jeep and drove to Greek Islands, eating slowly, silently, unable to quite tell our friends behind the counter, at the register, bussing the tables, why Michael was not with us. Was no longer with us. Why he would, in fact, never be with us again. Never to share the Special Salad, or joke and laugh aloud with John (the owner), or smile at Shauna (the hostess), or ask if he could take an extra strawberry-flavored Dum Dum lollipop after paying the check to give to me.
The place was quiet, for we had come after the dinner rush, and the warmth from the people and the kitchen, along with the bright neon lights that lined the ceiling only served to emphasize the darkness both outside and within.

We sat there prodding at our food in a state of awful quiet.

Then, in a rush of lightning-quick, burning grief, tears burst from within my mother. The force of it was shocking, the kind that makes one choke. Catherine—in the same lavender coat she wore over the lavender dress at the funeral—quickly caught herself, tears leaking from her face. She reigned it in with the left hand which glittered still from her wedding ring in the impossibly cheery neon lights.

We all looked at her, and Kent, placing his hand gently atop her arm silently said We are here Cathy. We were. She nodded, and placed her hand on top of his own—in gratitude. And though we returned to our food, no one was hungry.

Our GI Family glanced over—Eleni the matron waitress consoling her children Paul and Theresa in the distant corner over in section five. Mercury the bus boy, Tikko in the kitchen— they all exchanged looks of disbelief. You could almost see their hearts sinking.

That night, dinner was on the house.

A Trip to the Theatre [a memoir]

We had decided to see a touring production of Tartuffe in Ann Arbor a few days after Thanksgiving.

I’d seen him at the intermission lurking in the corners of the auditorium, but didn’t approach because he’d been so integral the High School Theatre Department malarkey which still, despite all that had transpired, felt so raw and recent.

John Breen was wildly talented, popular and charismatic (certain to become a professional actor in the future), but he was also withdrawn and brooding and (what I felt was) dismissive of my underclassmen status. Not to mention, he was a classmate of A, S and K (and A’s boyfriend for a period of time), and all of this, I suppose, made him an adversary-by-association in High School terms. I dunno. I just tried to stay out of everyone's way.

But in hindsight, I realize he was most likely shy.

After the show I approached from across the theatre. (In case you were wondering, the journey through the cushioned folding chairs is also known as The High Road…) The trip was arduous.

    “Hi John,” I said, nodding awkwardly.
    “Oh, hey Alex” he replied with his signature nonchalance.

I tried not to wince at the jarring use of 'Alex,' (deeply, deeply not my name) and distract myself by observing that he was also finding our prior connection confusing—do I or do I not like her? Am I under the same obligations in college as I was in High School? Ah! This mind-of-my-own is killing me.

    “What are you doing here?”
    “I just saw the show.”
    “Right…” he looked about him and thought, “...but you don’t go to school here do you?”
    “No.”
    “Right. But you’re a Freshman right now, right?”
    “...Sure.”

I suppose it was technically true, and even if it wasn’t, it was the easiest response.

    “So are you home early for Thanksgiving or something?”

This was by far and away, the most concern John Breen had ever shown me, and that concern, far more than the probing nature of the questions themselves, was starting to feel a little uneasy.

    “Um—” I hesitated, “well, not exactly.”
    “Oh.” It started to dawn on John Breen that something was fishy, “God Alex, I’m sorry” he immediately retreated, “I didn’t mean to pr—”
    “—My Dad died.”

There was a horrible pause.
John Breen stared at me.

    “Pardon?”
    “A few weeks ago. He’s dead. He died.” I was repeating it because John wasn’t moving. I was beginning to become concerned for his life.

*

The Playing Frisbee with the Popular Kids story goes like this:

[AL— a Freshman in a large, typical, public American High School holding her own because of her ability to excel in the performing arts but a Freshman and young woman nonetheless. It is the spring of 1998 in a typical Midwestern “Wonder Years-y” suburb. The phone rings. AL answers it.]

Freshman Al: Hello, Silber residence.
Popular Senior: [awkwardly] Hey Al, this is Popular Senior calling.
Freshman Al: Oh. Um, hi Popular Senior [WTF?!], what’s going… on?
Popular Senior: Well…
Popular Junior: [calling from the background] Ask him! He said! He said to call! He said he’d play!
Popular Senior: Eh, sorry that was *Popular Junior Guy.*
Freshman Al: I see.
Popular Senior: Well, we were calling because we were just hanging in the park and wondered if...
[AL thinks momentarily “Ohmigod the popular guys want to hang with me…”]
…If your Dad wanted to play Frisbee with us?

[…Pause]

Popular Junior: [yelling from the background] Is he gonna come?!
Freshman Al: Let me… um… get him… one second…
Popular Senior: Well, we’re actually… like down the street can we just come over?
Freshman Al: Eh, sure. I’ll get my Dad.

[Hangs up. Calls upstairs]

DAD!

Dad: Yeah?
Al: The Popular Boys wanted to know if you want to… play FRISBEE with them…? [disbelief] Did you say you’d hang out with them?
Dad: …well… um, yeah. [AL displays further disbelief] Can I go? I promise not to say anything embarrassing. I’ll be really cool I promise!
Al: DAD! THEY ARE THE SUPER MOST POPULAR BOYS! THIS IS So…. RIDICULOUS!!
Dad: But Al I really want to play Frisbee! Pleeeease?
Al: Oh God FINE.

[Doorbell rings. AL answers door…]

Al: Hey.
Popular Boys: Hey.
[Pause]
…Um, is your Dad home…?
Al: [life-over] Yeah.
Popular Boys: …Cool…
Al: …okay…I’ll go get him…

[AL turns around and sees her Dad right beside the door looking really, really cute and anxious to go and play with the boys. Like a kid.]

Al: Oh go ahead Dad heavens sake!
Dad: Thanks Al! See ya!
Popular Boys: Later Al.

…[AL alone, “My Dad is more popular in high school than I am…Awesome” on her face.]



That was pretty typical.
A group of über-cool teenagers thinking my Dad was the absolute best. Of course the über cool teenagers could get in line, because everyone thought Mike Silber was the absolute best.


*


Back in the auditorium, John Breen was still before me, completely still.

    “Oh my God Alex, I am…” he looked at the floor, his hands in fists within his winter coat pockets, “I am really so, so sorry to hear that.”
    “It’s okay...” I replied without thinking.

I wanted it to be okay. For him. Despite the fact that we had never really been friends, that he had never really given me the time of day aside from the lines we exchanged on stage, and despite the fact that he had never exactly stood up for me. Despite it all I wanted him to come out of this conversation unscathed, for I could actually hear his heart crumbling from an arm’s length away.

     “I mean, of course it is not okay,” I reconsidered, “but… well, anyway thank you.” I could feel the acid in my throat.
    “I uh…” he hesitated, “I really liked your Dad...” John said, eyes still locked on the bizarrely bright carpet on the floor of the theatre, “… a lot...” said John Breen of the popular Frisbee boys.

Whoever would have thought he would be so devastated to hear that Mike Silber was no more?

    “Take care, John.”

And I left him there; alone and aching in the emptying theatre.

People I Went to PROM with: A List

"HAVE A GOOD TIME!"

'Tis the season to get your PROM on. So, in honor of the annual Promenade, here is a comprehensive list of Alexandra Silber's Prom Dates in Chronological order.

1. Bill Bradley
He was Mr. Webb and I was Mrs. Webb. He was John Jasper and I was Rosa Bud. He was a Senior and I was a Freshman. It was the scene of the "my-Dad-put-on-a-tux-and-jumped-out-of-the-bushes" crime.
It was super awkward and I was the only Freshman there.
But we got Slurpees afterward and that is what matters.


2. JP Zammit
I don't think I will ever know what JP Zammit was thinking when he asked me to Prom my Sophomore year--I barely knew him, truth be told. His mom sometimes came into the Greek diner I worked in, and he kind-of-sort-of lived around the block, but there must have been something about his  portrayal of Lazar Wolfe the Butcher, combined with the fact that he was in super rad band (and still is), combined with the fact that he was nerdy-cool-but-cooler-than-me. We never really talked before or after that night, and our Prom "date" was short, utilitarian and pretty business like: he showed up, we took some pictures, we ate, we danced, we went home. Scene.

But you know? I remember how he came to my house a few weeks after Dad died, and despite my pajama-ed, grief-stricken state, we had a gentle, meaningful talk. I remember the way he sat on the end of the bed with his hands in his pockets aching to know what to say. The truth was I didn't know what to say either. But ultimately it was his mere presence at the end of that bed that meant the most. Because people forget--they forget to come over and just sit at the end of your bed a few weeks later.  I doubt he even remembers so brief and uneventful an encounter, but it meant a lot to me at the time. It still does. All of which revealed to me that JP Zammit was, and is, a super great guy.


3. Nick D’Emilio
Now this is pretty weird. When I was 14-15 I was having a rough time. 1997-98 are sorrrrrt of a bluuuuur. I was having trouble with "girls" at school, my Dad was very ill, and the summer of 1998 at Camp was when I made some of my closest, most enduring, lifetime friends. It was the summer of The Alexandra Sisters and hurricane of charisma that is Oliver Friendly (who ended up marrying one of us). So, when a huge gang of us decided to gather in Washington DC at Oliver's House for New Year's Eve, my parents didn't bat an eyelid-- they let me go have a really special, utterly memorable New Year with what I knew would be a group of lifelong pals. It was magical. Then there was a blizzard that kept me in DC a few extra days and I got to meet a few more of Oliver's DC friends-- one of whom was Nick D'Emilio-- budding photographer.

I dunno. It was in the early days of AOL chatting-- IMing was like some sort of miracle-- WOOOOOW you could talk to multiple people at once from anywhere in the country just by typing. Remember that? I kept in touch with Nick and one night online, he asked me to go to Prom. In DC. And the crazy thing was? My parents let me go do that too. It was on a boat. I barely remember it, but I do remember sneaking into The National Zoo and kissing him in the Rainforest Room before seeing The Phantom Menace.
I never saw him again.
Good times.


4. Jeremey Catterton
Ahhhhh my first love. Jeremey may have irritatingly spelled his name with three Es, but, man: I LOVED HIM SO HARD. He was rebellious and dangerous, über-damaged and preeeeeetty arrogant (in truth, actually just a sweet, rejected, floundering youth trying to find his way); and though he was irrational, totally strange, sometimes selfish, oh how I loved him as only a sixteen-year-old could!

Sure! He dyed his hair constantly (my favorite being “Number 44B for African American Women”). Sure! He had a piercing in both ears (and eventually in his nipples). Sure! He was more than a little manorexic, and okay, he waxed on and on (and on) about how everyone on planet earth besides him was a philistine.

But he also held me like a cross between a boy, a man, and a desperate teenager, all of which he was. He wrote beautiful love letters, and poetry, and the best book inscriptions you have ever seen all in his glorious left-handed scrawl, and hell, it all came from a pain I think he may, at least at that time, had only ever shared with me.

All that said, my parents were still, understandably horrified.

To hell with matching boutonnieres-- this was MORP, Interlochen's version of Prom (it is "Prom" spelled backwards you see, and "Stag, Fag, or Drag: YOU GO") and this time my date matched his nail polish to my dress.

It was the most romantic dance I ever attended.


5. Michael Arden

O...MG. Babies.

Before Michael Arden was Michael Arden, he was Jerrod Moore and I went to spend "Spring Break 2000" with him in his hometown of Midland, Texas. We drove around. A lot. We sang. We went to the airfield. We stayed up late. We ate all. the. time.
And we went to Prom.
AT MIDLAND HIGH SCHOOL.
There were cowboy hats.
We did not fit in.


6. Michael Arden
Eager to not be outdone by our turn at Midland High, High School besties must go to MORP together and we did. We went in a big group of Theatre heavy-hitters and had an amazing night.
There was a giant yellow school bus.
And gowns made out of duct tape.
And epic dancing.
And bowling.

All of this is to say: six Proms in four years of High School is some serious result.

Grandma

She took me upstairs to talk.

I now realize Edna merely wanted to calmly express her hurt: I didn’t mention anyone from his original nuclear family in the Eulogy. Not once. (You know what's awesome? Irony. People my age learned what it means from Alanis Morissette so our grasp is tenuous at best, but when it plays out over life-and-death situations it can get pretty trippy. Listen, I want to be sorry for it, even in the present. Yet, while I can see it as a grievous social error filled with pointed animosity and bluntness, I admit: I am not sorry I did it. Or perhaps, did not do it…) I was so done with them I simply could not see or honor the nature of her anguish (for even the cruel and selfish can be bruised).


Once, I drew a portrait of her— a crude pen and marker drawing completed by a seven-year-old, wrinkles and all. I gave it to her hoping she would like it. But she looked down and saw the way a child saw “wrinkles” and had drawn “age” and was hurt. I hadn’t intended to mar her vanity or break her heart in any way. Still, she took me aside,  “One day you will have wrinkles and be old too, and there is nothing wrong with that.”

I wanted to tell her that I knew that. I was just trying to draw a picture of my grandma. But I don’t know that she ever forgave me for it. I now see that I had challenged her greatest (and perhaps, in her psyche, her only) commodity.


Yet, I thought: this is the woman who, despite grave warnings from her overbearing husband, flew to San Francisco to talk to Deborah face-to-face after she came out (in a vitriolic letter that arrived one day in the mail), and tried to be enthusiastic about PFLAGG.

The woman who heard I loved an authentic 1930s cocktail dress from a vintage store and went out and bought it for me.

Who wanted me to discover the “thing” it was that I liked so she could actively look for things to help build a collection of (and how I sort of wish I could tell her now that it was owls). I always felt she forced this collection business on me— nutcrackers, spiders, lobsters, but in hindsight I think it was her way of keeping me in her mind, of her fragmented form of connecting.

I saw the repressed artistic soul— the musician with a flair for jewelry, the best sculptor I have ever met, unable to fulfill her longings, possibly envious that I was afforded every freedom to do so.

The woman who tried to teach me to play the piano, and failed. I still have the books from the 1940s that she used to teach all those children on the block in Detroit. I wish I had been less intimidated by both her and her piano.

The woman who tried to reach out by taking me to the Fisher to see the tour of Jekyll and Hyde when I was fourteen. We had a wonderful day, a matinee and dinner after the show. I see now that she wanted to connect with me on a level that she knew I would appreciate. No more forced collections or wading through false histories, just the two of us in a theatre. It felt like home. That was probably the best day I ever had with her. We actually spoke, like people. She told me stories about the family, revealed some of the darker corners of her true feelings about everything and everyone, spoke to me more and more like a woman as the day progressed and I have to say I think the connection she longed for with me as a child actually sparked that day. I think it was the best couple of hours we ever spent together.

The woman who taught me how to play “another form of solitaire” called Thirteen (where you match all of the double cards that make up thirteen), and would patiently watch me assemble and disassemble the pyramid over and over again. It wasn’t until today, as I am sitting here writing this that I realize her whole life was another form of solitaire.


All these stories aside, I would never be able to forget how profoundly she screamed at Rabbi Syme on Tuesday, even as her unvisited son’s body lay upstairs. How ferociously she protested that I “didn’t even know him.” How her small, weak, once beautiful face transformed before my eyes to the face of a demon; maggots crawling from the crevices, rot at every corner like a frantic, desperate, ghoul, before returning to the world again.


It wasn’t that I didn’t know him.
It was that they didn’t know me.
And that was more threatening than anything.


    “You know what Grandma? Let’s just say it.”

It was okay that she didn’t like me. It was alright that this was true— because first, I didn’t think much of dishonesty and she was rife with it, and second and more crucially, I wasn’t very likeable. Not to her.

    “Let’s just get it out in the open—none of you have ever really liked me.”

She looked at me, thunderstruck.
Her hands lay over her face impaled with horror.
That was when I saw it:
    Her hands.


Back then, when my extended family was still speaking to me, people were always coming up to me and remarking upon how greatly I resembled Edna. I suppose I’m aware now that that is no small compliment.
But I don’t see it.
Perhaps because I don’t want to, perhaps because I can’t see the beauty in myself that others do (demons that have nothing whatsoever to do with Edna), or perhaps because I never really knew her so cannot see her face in mine.

But we have the same hands.

There they were, covering her horror-struck, once beautiful face, completely in awe of the fact that her granddaughter had just taken it there.

Small, with large palms and fingers prone to swelling, nail beds like a child’s, dry cuticles, skin baby soft, and subtly expressive. They looked as if they were created to work hard, to milk cows, to cook, freeze, and scrub. They were not long and lean, they were not what you see in magazines. They were the hands of a feminine warrior— the kind of hands jewelry looks out of place on, rings laugh, bracelets scoff, the hands too humble, too common looking to support the grandiosity of adornment. When I look down at my hands now it is undeniable— I see her clumsily cutting onions, I see her coaxing immaculate, expressive birds out of marble, I see her wrinkles and age and know that “there is nothing wrong with that.”

Oh Edna, I did not know you, and there are terrorist cells more nurturing than you.
But I have your hands.

       And that is the possibility of something.

For the Love of Words

One thing no one ever tells you about death, is how awkward it is after the first week. Not for you—for other people. You have counted off an entire week of days one by one, and have most likely been swept into a flurry of activity surrounding memorials and relatives and been distracted by that flurry—making plans and picking people up from airports and cleaning your home so that people can see how clean your bathroom is in your darkest hour.

Then there is the tsunami of flowers, donations, pots of casserole, plus the cards and phone calls (all ranging from the shallowest to the deeply felt). There was what seemed to be a State Park forest of trees planted in Dad’s name in places we’d never heard of, and, if you can believe it, even a small, terribly special collection of sympathy emails.

Ten days after the funeral, the food and cards and letters and trees being planted in Wherever-a-stan-erica-ville all stopped coming. Fruit baskets began to rot. Homemade borsht went off in the refrigerator. The mail returned to its normal flow of bills and unsolicited advertisements. The mailbox would open and all one could hear was the crushing silence of other people moving on.


But then came the letter from Lady Chu.


*


Judy Chu to be precise, for that was her real name. Well into my senior year at Interlochen I was presented with a problem—I needed another liberal arts credit in order to graduate with highest academic honors, and as a fully fledged perfectionist I wasn’t about to let three intense acting scenes, a budding secret romance, Shakespeare’s wordiest heroine or a father with cancer stand in my way. I reported to the Admissions office to comb through my options.

The options were sparse.
    “What about Psychological Lit?” I asked the counselor, Kelly.
    “Full” she replied.
    “Political Process?”
    “You already took it” she said, narrowing her eyes at me, “last year…”
    “What is available?” I huffed, arms flinging upward.
    “British Literature” Kelly said, smiling broadly at my predicament.

The world was ending.

British literature, I winced, are you kidding me? I saw weeks of quippy Austen and dreary Brontë passages ahead of me. I couldn’t cope. I buried my head in my hands like a petulant child and realized this was not only my fate but my fault.
    “Who teaches it?” I inquired, hoping the answer would improve things—perhaps my favorite teachers taught it and I simply didn’t know it!
    “Judy Chu.”
    “...Who on earth is Judy Chu?”

Judy Chu, as it happened, was a young, energetic, year-long adjunct teacher from Southern California, brought in for a liberal arts teacher on sabbatical.

    “Apparently the students really loved her first semester,” Kelly explained, “and apparently her classes are very exciting. Enrollment is light because so many of you want to take the ‘greatest hits’ before you graduate— but you are a bit late to the party. Obviously.”
    “Obviously” I droned. 

I signed up and left the admissions office in a mood, reporting to third-period British Lit the following morning, to a class of eight other people.

Judy Chu began with a bright smile, and by asking each of us why we had enrolled in British Literature. Dear God, I thought, not wanting to admit the truth, and I think I squeezed past the issue by explaining that fate had brought me here.

But fate had brought me to Judy Chu. Her class became the most important literary experience of my life.

This thoughtful young teacher was tough but fair, with complex weekly handouts, and uncompromising standards for grammar, essay construction and literary criticism. Plus, I can honestly say she taught me everything I’ve nearly forgotten about punctuation, verb tenses and second person narrative.[1]

But nothing will ever expunge the greatest lesson and gift she gave me—Judy Chu taught me how to read, and perhaps more crucially, why. Lady Chu (which I named her myself, for she is a lady first, and a teacher second if you ask me and you are) was bibliophilic magic. She handed you a book and gave you special incantations required step inside the pages— like the children in Mary Poppins jumping inside Bert’s sidewalk chalk painting. That final semester of High School at Interlochen was just the beginning.

When she assigned Howards End, she blew my literary mind. The copy still sits proudly on my bookshelf adorned with well-thumbed pages, color-coded highlighting, and adorable teenaged margin notes (such as “Love is a ‘He’?” and “when you show your homeland to a foreigner how do you show it all?” and “Oh… more LIFE!” and, of course, “Is love the only way to connect?”). I can recall how much I loved it more with every turning page! The deeply-feeling Narrator, the poetry in the slightest of prose, the humanity, and of course, my beloved kindred spirit; Howards End’s heroine Margaret Schlegel. With every word Margaret uttered my heart leapt in recognition, for Margaret Schlegel lived in me.[2]  I didn’t dare to hope Judy Chu could see it too.

For Judy Chu, I think Interlochen must have been a marvel— a place of such artistic energy and possibility. She seemed inspired, impressed by and deeply cared about her students which was evident when I saw her in the audience of As You Like It. She met my Mom and Dad and shook their hands, exchanged smiles.


At the end of the year, Judy Chu bid Interlochen farewell, but not before leaving our tiny class with one final handout. The simple sheet of white paper quoted Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” and  T.H White’s Merlin (beckoning us to “learn”) on one side, a personalized note to every one of us on the other. I still have this piece of paper, for last on the list was my name with a very simple message:

Al:  You are Margaret Schlegel to me.

*

I stood outside in clothing I had worn for days. Beside the mailbox, in a light rain spitting down from a sheet-white sky I extricated a letter.  A small envelope about the size of my hand with  the mark of a black and red Chinese dragon traveling from back to front. I recognized the small, perfectly neat handwriting immediately.

Dear Al,

I know that you, with your strong, strong heart, shall see through pain to hope and prosper.

With love,

Judy Chu

I held the letter to my heart. It said so little, and meant so much.
I wrote back to say so. It would be the first of a lifetime of letters.
Letters to and from Judy Chu to every single address I would ever have in my adult life.


[1] I must say: I owe my love of Russian literature as well as my understanding of Objective correlative to Jean Gaede, and my love of words themselves to Howard Hintze.
[2] She still does.

ten years later at our annual "Only Connect" dinner at the address I now know by heart.