Stop Asian Hate: a Letter to my husband and Chinese-American family

 Dearest Silver Family,

I wanted to send you all a virtual embrace about this recent wave of Asian violence and hatred. No matter the level of personal endangerment you do or do not feel on a daily basis, it is always horrifying to see and experience hatred toward *your existence* perpetuated. I just wanted to utter it; to acknowledge it as horrendous, and to honor you as Asian human beings who deserve every respect and dignity. 

I feel like all hatred shares a roots of Fear. Which I say because I experience inner rattlings all the time with a constant, still-quite-bad, 4000 year old wave of Anti-Semitism. I wonder if you feel this next sensation too: that the prejudice is “always there,” and then, every once in a while (like the last few weeks) a series of horrendous events occur that make it WORSE and you’re reminded “Oh yeah... people still hate me. And...that....is terrifying...” 

I am not the greatest revolutionary in a traditional sense. I’m not one to burn down buildings and fight hatred with anger. I’ve felt guilty about it for years. I’m quicker to weep than to rage. I’ve often felt that meant I didn’t have a recognizable place in fighting oppression— as if I weren’t “built” to be the “correct” kind of change-maker. 

But for what it is worth, in my experience of fighting evils, I have found that I do have a place! In addition to decrying Anti-Semitism, I can participate in “PRO-Semitism!” Which is a clunky term, but meaning: being a super proud, visible, relatable, and enthusiastic Jewish person, sharing the beauty of everyday progressive Jewish life through my very own proud lens. And that feels good, and gets me excited, and resonates as true to and for me. 

That’s not unsolicited advice, by the way— it is more of a direct affirmation of what each of you already do: SHARE THE JOYS of your cultural reality in every breath you take! And I’m here to declare: that is revolutionary, I think. Well anyway...that’s just my 2 cents. 

The most important message of this email is a huge embrace to each of you today and always. I am so proud to be a part of this Chinese and American family, and bring a little matzah to the dim sum tea room.

All my love 

Al

Hopeful Things: a List

• Blank canvases
• Blank Pages
• Seed packets
• New plants
• Train tickets
• Future dreams
• The sight of a surprise parcel waiting outside your door
• Rolls of film
• Collaborations with gifted and respected artistic colleagues
• New (beautiful) pens
• Helping my neighbors
• Making a new friend
• Smiling at a stranger
• A freshly made bed
• New blank notebooks
• The thought of a small child named Volodia, documenting a 1924 Soviet Leningrad with an unwieldy large format camera
• The first of the month
• 15 minutes just before dawn
• Learning a new word
• Seeing the world through the eyes of my nieces

my new plants: bringing the outside, in

Friends I Went to Summer Camp With: A List

CAMP.

Interlochen Arts Camp is located between two freshwater lakes in northern Michigan, and was the magical location of the majority of the lasting relationships I still cherish as an adult. 

Not everyone I met and be-friended is still in the arts, but most of them are kicking major butt, and all of them became the wonderful human beings they promised to become as children.

Summer arts camp is a funny thing—there you are, eleven years old an a total weirdo back home, and you get to spend 8 weeks with a handful of other weirdos just as passionate, talented, freakishly informed about a single art-form  as you are.

Three of those weirdos for me were:

THEN.

Alex Michaels, known today as Alexis Michelle of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 9 fame. (SHE IS FEROCIOUS and go see her werk). Little baby Alex and I met the summer we were ten and eleven. He had braces. I had glasses.

The day we met, we were auditioning for the Intermediate summer operetta, and, had to audition in front of the entire group of fellow middle schoolers vying for a role. What I remember best was that Alex and I BOTH sang excerpts from Show Boat, geeked OUT over one another’s talent and a shared obsession with Rebecca Luker, and never looked back. He was my first “best gay” and I was his first “best gal.” (Incidentally, we were both cast in that operetta as the comedy sidekicks…)

Last month, we reunited on stage at 54 Below, singing together once again, celebrating 20 years of friendship that all began in the Northern woods.

NOW.

Then.

Santino Fontana was my first ever scene partner! We met the summer of 1999 in ADVANCED ACTING TECHNIQUE (faaancy), and what I recall above all else is that
     1. The scene was a John Patrick Shanley classic that I only now realize as probably mildly inappropriate for teenagers
     2. We were REALLY into it and dare I say it, kind of good, and
     3. We performed our scene n what, at the time, was a very advanced form of communication called THE INTERNET. That’s right, we performed our scene and got feedback VIA SATELLITE for, of all people, Matthew Broderick.

I followed Santino to college (even though I had to leave the program to grieve the loss of my Dad) and he’s been one of my friends and artistic allies ever since. We’ve been there through epic highs and lows throughout all of adolescence and life. From the

Santino is not only (to quote his wife Jessica) "a unicorn" of talent, to his family and friends, he is the absolute loyalest man I know—unflinchingly, with all of his heart. When we made our Carnegie Hall debuts together in 2013, it had been a roller-coaster couple of years for both of us, and what a triumph. We'd "practiced." And above all, it was pretty special to realize that we’ll always just be those kids from Advanced Acting Tech.

At our shared Carnegie Hall debuts in 2013

THEN. ...Holy Moly.

Michael Arden and I met the same summer, and he was also in that Advanced Acting Technique class (that class was… obviously… fairly promising…). We instantly bonded, singing together at every opportunity, joined at the hip as budding artists and humans. The inside-jokes are countless.

Michael and I met at camp, but our friendship deepened and was made permanent when we went to the yearlong academy— we literally did almost every show opposite one another (he was the Charlie Brown to my Lucy, the Georg to my Amalia, etc).

Michael and I have both been through our share of tough stuff early on in life, and our families became very close as we grew up. His grandfather, Jim, wrote me a letter he handed me at high-school graduation. This deeply feeling, but very quiet Texan wrote that seeing Michael and I together on stage were "the happiest moments of my life" and that "it is the dream of my life to see you together on Broadway someday."

Well.

I was there for Michael's Broadway debut, he was there for mine. And last year, when we were both in the same season on Broadway, I was one of his guests at the opening night of Spring Awakening, and he was one of mine at Fiddler on the Roof.

Jim's dream came true. If only he, his wife Pat, and my father could have been there to witness it. That said, they were. They are a part of everything Michael and I are, and do; and because they gave us the gift of Interlochen, they gave us the gift of one another.

For Michael is, without exception, the artist with whom I credit with forming my capacity early on. Like a chess or tennis player who had the world’s best opponent to make their skills all the sharper, acting opposite Michael constantly made me better, and I owe everything I am today to that start. 

2016, Opening Night of Fiddler: a shared Broadway Season. Dream come true.

Camp. Magical.

I've Been: Spring 2017

Visiting beautiful San Francisco Bay Area:

     - Enjoying my (self-appointed) title of 'Aunt of the Year!'

     - Muir Woods

     - Bowling

     - bearing witness to my eldest niece Hannah’s 11th birthday party (my first birthday party as 'Aunt Al'). There were many emotions. 

- Building a freakin DOLL HOUSE with Jordan that almost made us divorce as siblings... (I genuinely can't believe people stay married after this family activity) but we DID IT!!!

     - Spending an entire day alone in San Francisco, visiting all my
old "spots" and discovering new ones before...

     - ...Having lunch and endless, not-kidding around real-talk with my "brother" Michael Luwoye, currently playing Alexander Hamilton himself in the California touring production.

     - Taking my family to see HAMILTON

     - Seeing #FiddlerFam Andrew and Jacob!

     - Coloring

     - Challenging my brother, Jordan to a pool war, henceforth known as 'Swan V. Unicorn'

- Healing

- Shaving my head for the final time

- Hit once again with auto-immune flares, new chocking health trials, and, as always, learning learning learning.

- SEEING
    A Dolls House Part 2
    The Price
    Pace 2017 Showcase
    The Sojourners & Her Portmanteau
    Groundhog Day
    The Lightning Thief

-  READING
    The Universe is not What it Seem Roberto Cavelli
    Don Quixote
    The Obstacle is the Way

- SINGING SINGING SINGING!

- Becoming a face of the incredible TODAY TIX campaign! Holy moly.

- Standing agape at #NotMyPresident Trump

- Participating in the Jewish Book Council 

- Drama League Awards luncheon with 'Hub' Adam Kantor and sisters Samantha and Melanie!

- Getting a new microwave

     And:

- Placing the old microwave (that I found on the street in Astoria, 2010) back on the street, still working. It served me valiantly. I placed it on the curb and sang "Til We Reach That Day" with NO MARKING.
- GETTING HEALTHY
     - Fighting a Mount Sinai battle (forever known as the "Impossible Dream")
     - Getting Infusions #1, 2 and 3
     - Feeling well on a cellular level

Hannah's 11th birthday present: a night at the Orpheum with 'Aunt Al'

In My Life: My Nieces

Hannah, Madison and Charlotte Silber
Lake Tahoe, NV
©2015

I've Been: California 2014

Three Sisters

Jet-setting

Being 'Aunt Al'

Getting to know the tiny little new Silber: Charlotte.

Putting Hannah in owl pajamas
Playing softball!
General frolicking
Jumping on the bed
Reading stories
Then,
     singing Hannah to sleep

Force-feeding my nieces [total critical] musical theatre

Doing some serious eating with my big brother

Thoroughly inspecting [what feels like] every single mall in Northern California

Shame about the view...

Playing in the pool
Sunning by the pool.

Climbing up the mountain and drinking and entire bottle of champagne whilst taking in THIS view [see right]

Walking up mountains
     and through forests

Surveying the “LAND!” my brother bought

the view from the ferry

Driving to Alamo with my former student, Jonathan...

Eating THE most amazing meal with his entire family

...playing bocci ball
...and WINNING!


Making friends with a gorgeous South Carolinian family on the San Francisco Bay ferry!

Giving directions to tourists and feeling “very” San-Fran-local

The team.

Going to the dentist. In San Francisco. Because that’s where my dentist is.

Walking across downtown San Fransisco…literally


Just… ya know…launching the West Side Story CD (Eeeeee!)


Reuniting with so many friends made last year!

Singing "I Feel Pretty."

In the presence of Rita Moreno

And freaking out
then
making-out with Cheyenne Jackson
...in the women’s bathroom…

ALL AT TWITTER HEADQUARTERS…

....where I discovered that everything is named after a bird... Cool.


*

Love is Strange premiere

Flying to LA for a quick hello

Having lunch in LA with people I saw 4 days ago in NYC, because, friendship.

Getting "real talk" from my second family.

Driving to Cheyenne's house
drinking smoothies
falling in love with Jason, his fiancé, 
     and Billie Jean, his dog. 
...then singing along to ourselves on the CD in his living room. (Mature.)

Then supporting the gorgeous Cheyenne at the premiere of his new film “Love is Strange.”


Staying in Michael Arden’s cabana… while he is in London, because, friendship.

Taking excessive photographs of his cat, Eloise (because evidently I have an addiction to taking cat photos...)

Business: with the sea.

Driving in the city in a Ford hybrid LIKEABOSS...

Getting long overdue Manhattans (because Manhattans are delicious.)

Going to the beach with amazing friends.

Having my (now annual) “business with the sea.”

Brunch and drinks
and Brunch dinner
and Brunch and dancing
     with a lot of amazing pals, old and new.


Making a lot of new friends.
Making a lot of 'lemonade...' 

Our Girl Band: Mermaids of Babylon

Loving my birth city. Loving it big-time. 

Seeing the “For the Record” and loving it.

Partying hard and late and dancing LIKEABOSS in the LA

Photobooth-ing
   and
Photo-bombing

Sunshine.

...a shit ton of sunshine.

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...)

How "noticey"...

So I spent the last weekend with my nieces in Corte Madera (one of the many perks to working in San Francisco is spending more time with the lovely Hannah, Madison [and now baby Charlotte!])

As we passed a Halloween owl decoration in the house, Madison (the precocious middle child with a cuddly disposition and a smile that could melt the heart of Sauron, The Grinch, Professor Snape, and probably any green-skinned monster wearing a helmet made of spikes) announced:

     "Aunt Al! Look! A Halloween owl! And you like both Halloween AND owls!"

I was floored.
My my. How "noticey" of her.

I promptly did what any sensible adult on the verge of a cuteness-diabetic-coma would do-- I responded by getting out my video camera:

     "What else does Aunt Al like?"
Supposing, naturally, that her response would be
     "MADISON!!"

But instead, allllll thiiiiiis came out...

Kids sure do say the darndest things... (crazy things-- like "Avant Garde" and "Danny Kaye")


[* taps arm, injects insulin*]

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

a Family 4th

Nothing like force-feeding your nieces some good, hearty, patriotic musical theatre on the 4th of July... Someone oughtta open up a window...
A Musical 4th from Alexandra Silber on Vimeo.

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.

San Francisco

Back from a great weekend with family in one of the most beautiful places on earth. In the glow of my big brother's identical laugh, Maggie's kind and gentle beauty, nieces laughing, handstands in the pool and local wine at the tops of mountains, I realized: family is made up of far more than blood, it is made of an infinite collection of the tiniest of moments just like these.

“It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

The “Hogwarts Incident”

Birmingham Palladium Cinema

[In which Lilly drove up five hours in a minivan from Oberlin only to be instantaneously whisked away]

*

[At rise: Deepest winter. Al, Mom, Kent, Grey and Lilly sit around the dining room table discussing various life events. All but Lilly have been in the house solidly for nearly six weeks, contemplating existence as well as preparing their various college re-auditions, but mostly obsessively reading the first four Harry Potter books, attending the local premier of the first film, and then re-attending it every-other-day or so, particularly after going to Greek Islands diner because the movie theatre is right around the corner.]

Lilly: So Grey, you’re applying for a school in Australia?
Grey: Yep. I want it.
Lilly: That’s amazing!
Grey I just wish we could all go to school at Hogwarts.
Al/Kent/Mom: [in unison] T O T A L L Y. 

[Pause.]

Lilly: …Um…What’s Hogwarts?

[—Record scratch—crashing pause—mouths agape—plates are dropped.]

Grey: [deadly serious] Lilly get in the car.
Lilly: —What?!
Grey: [action movie, Bruce Willis, intense] —GET IN THE CAR!!
Lilly: [laughing a little, albeit nervously] Where are we going?

[Everyone begins standing, moving mechanically, like a car service team at the Indy 500]

Kent: [taking her by the arm] We’re going to the movies—
Grey: —Taking care of a serious problem.
Kent: Jesus!

[They are at the door]

Al: I’ve got her coat.
Grey: Good.
Mom: [calling from the driveway, honking, already in the car] WE CAN STILL MAKE THE 8:30!!
Kent: Buckle her in. I’ll lock up.

[They drive off down the street getaway-car-style, and “christen” Lilly to her very first Harry Potter experience. A trip we would repeat dozens of times before the winter was out. Phew. Crisis averted.]

Twenty-Eight

Hey. Reader... wanna know a secret?
[she whispers] I've never been "okay" with birthdays. Never. Not since I was the tiniest littlest creature. A pretty infamous story in my family is, in fact, about my fourth birthday.

See, I really thought three had been great. Just great. It was real swell and I had juuuuust gotten used to it, and, I'm gonna put it out there, I've never had an easy time with the concept of change and well-- birthdays are the ultimate change! As my family rounded the corner, cake in hand, pitch chosen to start singing Happy Birthday, I scream, desperate, tortured:

"NO! NOOOOOOOOOO! DON'T. SING. THE. SOOOOOOONG!!!!"

"Well, okay..." said my mother, and everyone froze and she placed the cake on the table and we all just sort of stood there to take stock. 

Birthday #1

It was as if somehow the singing of the song DID it. It was the turning of the page. Three was all over. Something about the actual singing of the song heralded in the coming year and I was just not having it.

::sigh::

... I have learned from this. I have learned that referring to myself as "almost 28" is a good little "training wheels" tactic. (I have in fact done this since I was nine. No kidding.) I am aware that this is slightly over the top but whatever. we don't want an adult version of the "Don't Sing The Song" scenario to ever happen, especially in public so I'm willing to cope with the "almost [insert age here]" tactic.

The reason I bring this up is because this year I do not seem to feel this way. This year I'm happy for you to sing the song. Sing away!

#3 with Anna Maria Alberghetti

27 has been a sensitive year, one of introspection - a time to read, write, heal, work on my Self, to attempt be receptive to greater guidance, and to spend a great deal of time alone. It was filled with crushing doubt, and often there was great temptation to "quit"-- but I refused. I fought and clawed and grew into new direction and ways of being, and in the end the year was full of victory and long sought after peace, balance and equilibrium.In many ways, 27 felt like it paved the way for the next cycle of my life.

In fact, have you ever heard of this Seven Year Cycle business? It is seriously interesting stuff. Well, here I am about to begin the very final year of my current Seven Year Cycle and I can actually feel it, just like I felt it the last time (when I turned 21), in fact.

Looking back...

[*cue: back in time music...*]

On my 18th I was flown by my best friends Dane and Justin home from Interlochen to Detroit to visit my family. They played Judy Collins in the car.

on 19 - I was working at Interlochen again and the entire cast of Hello Dolly that I was working for did a whole full-on interpretive dance for me, and I got to have the "pudding" section from Matchmaker inserted into the play. I still have those birthday cards, I loved that group of people dearly.

at 20 - I was in Glasgow having just moved from Murano Street to my flat in The Gorbals with Kirsten Smith, and preparing for my Great European Adventure with Lilly (the one in which, on Lilly's 20th only a few weeks later, we would be doused with sleeping gas and robbed on the night train in-between Venice and Nice...).

#21: spent onstage in 12th Night

21 - I was onstage-- having just finished Pericles, about to begin  Twelfth Night at The Arches in Glasgow and director Ros Steen baked me a serious fudge cake. I was happy to spend it onstage, and happy to have it played down.

22 - I was in London and the cast of The Woman in White sang, and I picked up my phone to realize everyone in Scotland called and sang to me too. It felt wonderful. It felt a great deal like this year, actually-- on the brink of my West End debut, transitioning from one life into another. Magic.

23 - was the infamous "I hate surprises" surprise party during The Great Depression of '06. 

and, totally fascinating birthday-blog reflections from the past...

24

"This has been a strange year. Being 24. Twenty Four. The same number of hours in a day. This has been the first year I have experienced the sensation of AGE and time passing by. ...I suppose I am simply mourning the loss of childhood for good. (And I guess I'm also a little peeved because mine was cut so short by the Dad incident, and one never gets it back...) It's just a long spread of adulthood ahead, filled with unknowns, anti-wrinkle creams and possibilities... I haven't come to terms with any of it..."

25

"... whatever your ideology, whatever your age, whether you know the shape of a rock or the structure of a universe, the meaning of existence or the specific purpose of an individual life; the axioms remain the same: that it exists and that you know it. Whatever his future, at the dawn of his life, Man seeks a noble vision of his nature and of life's potential. And so do I. Here's to another year."

26

"Oooooooo! Fantastic. It was the best. The best birthday of my adult life. There was a treasure hunt. And magical coffee. And mexican food. And home-made cupcakes. And many many loving friends."

27

"27 is a magic number. ... When I started this blog (five years ago, yikes!) I was a slip of a thing. 21-year-old girl really, a student shoehorned into leading lady-dom-- and starting a new life in The Big Smoke and here I am today; Al Silber, citizen of the world. What a five years it has been. What a twenty-seven years it has been..."

So. here it is. 28. Twenty Eight. You know? This year? I'm okay with you singing the song... After all,

Twenty-eight is the sum of the totient function for the first nine integers.

Twenty-eight is a harmonic divisor number, a happy number, a triangular number, a hexagonal number,and a centered nonagonal number.

The average 'female cycle' is 28 days although no link has been established with the night-lighting and the Moon. (And for this moon-maiden, this must have significance!)

In Gematriya (the system of Hebrew Numerology), the number 28 corresponds to the word koakh, meaning "power", "energy".

The number of days in the shortest month of the Gregorian calendar, February (except in leap years, when there are twenty-nine-- incidentally Sophie DePalma's birthday is February 29th...). All twelve months of the Gregorian calendar have at least 28 days, regardless of the year.

The number of dominoes in standard domino sets.

Deriving from the 29.46 year period of Saturn's revolution around the Sun, the 28-year cycle as well as its subdivisions by 14 and 7 are supposed in Astrology to mark significant turning points or sections in the course of a persons development in life. (Thus, the number 28 has special significance in the culture of religious sects such as the Kadiri and the Mevlevi dervishes)

In Major League Baseball, 28 is the lowest uniform number that has not been retired by any club.

And, above all, 28 is the beginning of the final year in a Seven Year Cycle!

*

My own cycle of 21 to 28, has felt largely like a process of enlargement, of refinement. It was, I suppose, the period of life when I mentally and emotionally entered into true adulthood.  The start of  the foundations of a career, of intimate relationships, of outlooks and personal philosophies. We all deal with more and greater challenges during this time, we move outwards/forwards/upwards with a driving energy that we hope will gain us entry and respect in the larger world.

I know as far as my own life is concerned, I have developed a greater sense of discrimination; my faculties of insight, intuition, judgement and understanding have come to the fore (something I actually think you can see quite clearly in the contributions to this site, don't you think?) I am better at recognizing the needs of those I care for, yet not denying my own (Independence and connection can appear together instead of opposite ends of a spectrum, who knew?!) The sparks of interest that were awakened in my adolescence have been identified and further defined. And my personality has softened, definitely broadened, and yet my discernment has become sharper and keener. I tolerate less for the sake of approval. I am kinder to those who are different than I.

So, here is to long sought after peace. To growing up, and older. To ever present, ever ticking Time-- who reminds us that life is finite, ephemeral, and fleeting, yet that knowledge is what charges each moment with deeper, richer, fuller, meaning.

To time: and all the wisdom and gifts it brings us.

Now, [*she reaches for her pitch pipe*] who will be first to sing the song?

28: and as happy in my metaphoric skin and I am in that dress. Finally, that smile feels like the real thing...

This is what it is all about...

Today was the best rehearsal day I have ever experienced in my life.

For so many reasons.

I have walked on Broadway stages before. I have even performed on them. But there is nothing like stepping onto a stage you are going to live on for a while, for the very first time. And this time? This time, that stage is on Broadway. And there is no way to describe it but it is simply different. As I walked into the theatre I clutched Jeremy Cohen's hand-- Sophie and Manny reunited on the Great White Way. "I will never forget this moment," he said. I couldn't agree more.

There we were, on the stage, and everyone was so excited! Garret [Sorenson], who has sung on some of the most prestigious operatic stages on earth was as gleeful as a child in a 650 seat house. Sierra [Boggess], returning to Broadway after a stint in our beloved London was orchestrating the picture taking and "moment marking" like a gleeful big sister watching her siblings going to Prom. We shouted! We squealed! We hugged. We allowed ourselves to feel the moment. We are an exceptionally loving and jolly bunch.

We returned to rehearsal and achieved a new kind of theatrical divinity none of us could ever have dreamed possible. The already magical scene reached new depths, new heights, new glory, and we all felt it (there is no way to articulate these tingly moments in the theatre, the closest comparison I can offer is that feeling of kissing a person who is the one...). Progress. Catharsis.

But then, as if all that were not enough, I had a singing session that accessed a quality in not merely my voice, but in my self, that no words could ever articulate. Suffice it say that I sang like never before.

I returned home that night to my family, all visiting from California-- my mom, my brother and sister in law, my two little nieces, and created more memories. Food, laughter, stories at bedtime...

I don't know if I can find the words to describe the quiet perfection of May 19, 2011 exactly, but perhaps finding those words is not important. This kind of contentment, happiness, peace? It is a quiet thing. It requires no language, only silent inner knowledge, like a candle glow of contentment.

Reader? This is what it is all about.
This is what life is all about...

class in in session...

Things I would tell my 17-year-old self

Before the world lost Michael Silber and I lost Dad, before Scotland,
London,
Damian,
college,
the 'glittering' West End,
Andrew Lloyd Webber,
Hodel,
Julie Jordan 
or 'Alexandra Silber'  —
     there was just Al.
Seventeen.
With everything ahead of her.

Here are things I would love to tell her now... 

1. It is all ahead of you. . .

2. You are not fat

3. Enjoy the Interlochen magic while you can.

4. The friends you have right now? Yeah. They are incredible. And you will seriously be friends with them ten years from now. You will meet in many countries, cities, in many states of life, and in a few months they will all absolutely blow your mind with loyalty and resilience no 17-or-18-year-olds should rightly possess.

5. Never stop writing to Lady Chu.

6. Frizz-ease. Buy it.

7. You're going to get many many letters from people about how much you and your entire family meant to them.

8. Someday day, A and S will apologize to you. A will pour her heart out in a bar and S will stop you in the streets of London and look you straight in the eyes with her sincerity. But K will not remember. That is okay. All of it will teach you many, many things.

9. Wear sunscreen. ALL. THE. TIME.

10. Someday, you are going to meet Sheldon Harnick. And it will be magical. And for good. Then you will meet John Kander. And Chita Rivera. And Jason Alexander. And Tyne Daly. And Terrence McNally... and they will become your friends and colleagues. You will know the moment when you have arrived. You will be right where you belong.

11. Wear anything you want. Because you can.

12. Don't allow people to pressure you into dulling your colors (or colours) to make them comfortable.

13. You are not going to believe this but you do not know everything. Also, your parents are right. About a lot of things.

14. There is life after not going to Julliard. An amazing fracking life.

15. You are going to eat an omelet in one year. You will be alone. It will be four days before you leave for Scotland in an unfamiliar diner. There will be no need to let this moment haunt you because someday you will feel the thrill of overcoming it. Someday, this omelet will represent a great victory and be the symbol of serious growth and understanding.

16. Keep writing.

17. When your Mom offers to teach you how to sew, do not blow her off.

18. He will be unbelievable—he will exceed every possible expectation of what a young man of 17 should be able to handle. More people should be like him... Al? You have three months. Just that. Three months before your beautiful, tender romance that is currently bursting and full of every joy, every pleasure of spring and of magical, hopeful youth will soon turn very, very dark and serious. But he will stay, for years. And he will hold you, and stand by you, and you will grow up together. You will give to one another and advance through this crucial time in both of your lives. Never stop feeling grateful. Never stop thanking him. Never forget how you loved him or, indeed, how he loved you. And although he is not The One, no one else could have been better right at this moment. Forgive yourself. And never forget him.

19. David and Robin? These teachers are the real thing. They will teach you how to choose your family—and though you probably won't believe this now, that lesson is even more valuable than Shakespeare or Chekhov.

20. That thing you are all working so hard to prevent? It is going to happen. Soon. Enjoy this last year. Go on a lot of walks with him, ask for more stories, remember his eyes and his smell. What seems like always and forever will very soon be gone.

21. ...and seriously. Buy Frizz-Ease.

22. Fortune favors the brave. And you are. Braver than you think.

...as we liked it...in 2001...

Happy 30th Anniversary to My Parents

As previously mentioned, during the bicentennial summer of 1976, my parents met on an airplane in Spain.

In one of those classic (and almost unbelievable) love stories, my parents were both on individual journeys to Europe to heal themselves-- Catherine from a not-quite-right young relationship, Michael from a painful divorce involving a very young son as well as an existential mid-life moment.

Catherine's parents lived in Barcelona and her summer with them had come to an end. In the airport, she burst into tears in her mothers' arms, having not discussed her inner turmoil all summer long. There, at exactly the age I am right now, Catherine cried while her mother held her, dried her tears and spoke the lingering words "you will never leave him unless you truly believe you can love someone else..."

At this precise moment, Michael was running through the airport. Having missed his train to Paris, he decided to cut his losses and head home early. Searching for the gate, he placing his bags down on the ground to grab his bearings-- and then he saw it: two women, a mother and daughter, one comforting the other in tears. "Beautiful" he thought. And as the flight was called, he promptly made his way through the airport once again.

But they did not meet there.

They met on the airplane after the flight from Barcelona landed in Madrid.

Michael (one of those people who got up before the plane had touched the ground), passed Catherine (one of those people who waits until everyone is off the plane so she can take her time), and stopped dead-- it was the beautiful tearful woman from the airport. He spluttered, his tongue turned to lead, unable to speak, he feebly gestured to the beautiful woman that he would like to let her out in the aisle.

"No thank you, I'm just gonna stay here until everyone is off the plane..."

He stood still, staring at the beautiful woman who was reading a book to pass the time, a sea of angry Europeans fighting to get off the plane behind him. Still unable to speak, he feebly gestured again.

Catherine, starring at the gorgeous, tanned, European-looking man repeated, "NO. THANK. YOU..." she spoke up "I AM GOING TO STAY HERE UNTIL EVERYONE IS OFF THE PLANE..."

"Oh," he spluttered, "I'm really sorry.... to have spoiled your plans..."

Michael stared, unable to believe the lameness of his response, but Catherine found this man so earnest, so charming, and his response so delightfully sweet-- she burst out laughing and did indeed get off the plane. . .

But who would've guessed that Michael and Catherine both lived in San Francisco? Or that they would spend the remainder of that journey Westward together, slowly falling in love in the airports, on the planes. . .

When they got off the plane, they went their separate ways. But Catherine immediately returned home, packed up her apartment and drove to Michael's office the next day.
"Buenos dias," she uttered to him on the phone, "are you still in love?"
"You bet."

And she moved in. That night. And that was that.

Years ago, on the anniversary of this fateful plane journey, the three of us went out to dinner and the two of them told me the "whole story"-- the bits with the fully explored emotions, the little details, the kiss just before the landing... I don't think I'll ever forget the looks on their faces as they told me the story and relived the memories. "Her voice was... like a bell," my father said, "I just couldn't stop talking to her..."And mom almost blushed, her eyes gazing up at him, smiling.

Their relationship, their friendship, their marriage inspires me everyday.

So. In honor of what would have been their 30th wedding anniversary, posts about my parents...


Love. Keeps. Going.


*

8 Years On

Happy Birthday Mom

Father's Day - a list


70th Birthday

and my recent favo(u)rite:

Men of Parts

Father's Day: A List

I received the most incredible and unexpected email today from one of my oldest, dearest friends David Fetzer.

Three things I miss about your Papa:

1. Hearing him shout "Fetzer!" either from across a room, or hallway, or on the other end of the phone, in the background.

2. His talent for singing ever-so-subtly off-key.

3. His crazy infectious perma-smile, especially in the context of watching his daughter when she performed on stage. Which I did get to witness.

Thinking of you both today.  =)

* * *

It inspired me.

- Burger flipping in home movies

- Turning up the volume full blast on the television and marching to the University of Michigan “Hail to the Victors” theme when they scored.

- Running in the rain.

- Driving to Chicago to get Jeremey Catterton for Christmas.

- Our favorite game: 20 turns (every time you get to an intersection you choose left, right or straight ahead— after 20 “turns” you find yourself someplace new and do something fun!)

- Seeing Beauty and the Beast.
- and A League of Their Own (he loved both musicals and baseball— these cinematic experiences stood out)

- Driving to Interlochen in 1998 to see the Academy and listening to the cast recording of Ragtime. Whilst stopping at the gas station the “New Music” intro began playing and Dad, in typical Dad fashion, changed the script eeeeeeeeever so slightly… in what would have become a classic family line he spoke along with Brian Stokes Mitchell “..this is called, RAGTUNE…” Ragtune? RagTUNE?! Totally straight face. Amazing.

he had a heckuva Jerry Lewis impression...

- Prom with Bill Bradley:
I was a young Freshman on my way to Prom with a senior boy who was a little too fond of me for my taste, and the three of us had talked about sort of lightening the mood when he came to pick me up. My mother and I  were absorbed in the girl stuff and so off course did not catch the fact that my father had decided it would be really a trip if he dressed up in a full tuxedo (with no shoes) and greet Bill, my date, at the door. When he opened the front door, he look at Bill and said, “Hi Bill... ya look good... Al’s not quite ready yet.... let’s go for a little drive.”
They drove around the block and talked a bit and I think after Bill got over the initial shock of how strange this was, he realized it was through humor that my date was lightening the moment.
    Of course, as Bill and I left the house, Dad had mysteriously disappeared, and as we were about to get into the car, my Dad popped out of the bushes in the tux and screamed
    “HAVE A GOOD TIME!!” Whereupon he continued to dance around barefoot as we pulled out of the driveway.


- Playing frisbee with the popular kids. It went like this:

Freshman Al: Hello, Silber residence.
Popular Senior Guy: [awkwardly] Hey Al, this is Popular Guy calling.
Freshman Al: Oh. Um, hi Popular Guy, what’s going… on?
Popular Senior Guy: Well…
Popular Junior Guy: [calling from the background] Ask him *Number 1*! He said! He said to call! He said he’d play!
Popular Guy: Eh, sorry that was *Popular Junior Guy.*
Freshman Al: I see.
Popular Senior Guy: 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 Guy: [yelling from the background] will he come?!
Freshman Al: Let me… um… get him… one second…
Popular Senior Guy: 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…? Did you say you’d hang out with them? [disbelief]
Dad: …well… yeah. Can I go? I promise not to say anything embarassing. 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]
…Is your Dad home…?
Al: 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.]

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.]


- Family vacation to Mackinac Island

- Seeing Camp Tanuga

- Peeking from backstage and watching his illuminated face during his first viewing of my high school performance of She Loves Me