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April Fools in the Neighborhood

April 1, 2019 in Age Matters, City Matters, Feminist Matters

Exhibit A (knickers twisted)

I was rushing down Graham Ave today, doing my shop at the pork store, mozzarella store, pasta store. (It’s the kind of weather that calls for a meat ragu.) Bogged down with parcels, dressed in sweaty, schlubby workout gear, shuddering in the shitty cold wind, I rounded the corner to my house. And came face to face with one of the neighborhood old-timers who’s never acknowledged my existence in the 20 years I’ve lived here–not being Italian in East Williamsburg means I’ll always be dismissed as a Janey-Come-Lately. This time, though he stopped short. “You’re still pretty, honey,” he said. His consoling tone–that still–is cracking me up even now. Cuz, you know, he really was trying to be nice. P.S. The ragu turned out molto buono.

The Spark of Darkness

March 31, 2019 in Age Matters, Book Matters, Cat Lady Matters, Essays, Past Matters

Dad and I at Ellis Island Museum, c. 1994

My father and I never talk. This is not an exaggeration. I have not heard his speaking voice in almost a decade. Why this is so is not the stuff of blogs– it’s the stuff of the book–but suffice it to say I always feel my father in the very early morning. He is the only person I know who rises as early as I do though we’ve never discussed that pleasure and perhaps never will. Continue Reading →

Saint Agnès Now

March 29, 2019 in Age Matters, Feminist Matters, Film Matters, Spirit Matters

Agnès Varda’s movies were dreams spun by a woman, a punk rock pixie whose gaze–wide and eternally bemused–was amazing to behold but even more amazing to share.

A powerful female director when the world had few, she spun her dervish dreams while the rest of us stumbled stridently in linear time. While watching her films, I always calmed down and also came alive. Not one did I watch on a small screen. That would have been a profaning of her magic–that wondering wonderful movie magic that she birthed while like lovers and children we sat at her feet.

Once at a luncheon I was seated next her—the host thought we’d like each other–and I was struck uncharacteristically dumb. Her lavender-auburn coupe à la Jeanne d’Arc, her oyster smile, her puckish striped costume, they were all like her movies and it was just too good. Both object and subject, she was art and artist–what woman are trained to be, what women fight to be–and as we ate our lunch she asked good questions while her eyes told much more. I wish I’d asked more, said more, taken the hands off the clock. But then again, there are some people from whom we can never get enough. Fairy godmother, thank you for sharing your gaze. You showed us life.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy