Jack & Diane

First, let me start off by saying, I’ve never gotten high in my life.  I have asthma so the idea of messing with my lungs makes me nervous.  I’ve seen people suck the whatever-it-is out of whipped cream cans, but I didn’t quite take that step myself.  I’m no goody-two-shoes, either; I’ve had my share of drinks.  Sometimes more than my share.  But I know where to draw the line.  I will never, EVER go into a casino and tap the ATM so I can keep playing.

I swear on my wool, I wasn’t drinking tonight, I wasn’t smoking anything funny (or anything period), and I’m not pregnant, but “Jack & Diane” came on the radio tonight and I started bawling.  That bridge section, “So let it rock, let it roll/Let the Bible belt come and save my soul/Hold on to sixteen as long as you can/Changes come around real soon, make us women and men.”  I lost it. 

I still have clear memories of being fifteen (since I was younger than most of my friends in high school), dancing at Sweet Sixteen parties, looking like frogs in a blender but having a wicked great time.  That song would come on, and we’d all get That Look.  You know the one.  You look at the other person and you each know what the other is thinking.  Yeah; this is It; this is The Meaning.  (We were all quite sure we’d found the meaning of life back in high school.)  I even remember a picture of my friend Mary Brouder, dancing beside Donna Mulcahy, and sorry to say, guys, but it was one awful picture.  You both looked like you were on the tail end of a 3-day bender.  I love that picture.  And I know you hated when I brought the camera around—I specialized in candid shots—but I’d like to believe you appreciated that someone was there to freeze that moment in time.

Unfortunately, I left my photo albums at my friend Stephan Ann Santoro’s house, when we were there for Shabeena’s going away party, and I never went to get them back.  But the pictures are still frozen in my mind, and hopefully, they’re dusty in Steph’s attic somewhere. 

Anyway, back then, hearing that bridge, it served as a regular reminder (because the song came on the radio at least 3 times a day) to grab onto the moment and appreciate our youth because it doesn’t last.

Flash forward to me now, 42 years old, married with 2 kids, a house, a mortgage, 2 cats, and more yarn than any human has a right to own.  Yeah, these are happy times.  I went to get the boys their Friday night special, McDonalds for dinner, and I thought about how Ryan’s high school is playing their arch rival tonight.  John said he heard there could be fights, it’s that tight a game.  They’ll be playing less than a mile from here; chances are good we’ll hear the band, the cheering, the whistles.  I’ve got to go one of these days.  I’ve never seen a high school football game, and I’ve grown fond of the Eagles.

Then “Jack & Diane” comes on the radio, and the bridge plays, and I think, “Holy hopping snot, I sang this song when I was 16 and being ‘women and men’ was MILES away.  Now I’m 42 and I’m buying dinner for my kids who’re teenagers, and one’s playing on the computer and the other is watching television.  I have bills and responsibilities.  I am women and men.  What the eff happened?” 

John Cougar Mellencamp (as he was known at the time) was dead on.  Hold on to sixteen as long as you can.  Changes DO come around real soon, and they make us women and men.  The funny thing is, at the time I was kind of scared of the idea.  42 is OLD to someone who’s 16.  But I’m 42 now, and…it’s not that bad.  I’m not scared of it.  I mourn for all the time I wasted, taking the wrong path here and there, but in the grand scheme, it’s not such a bad thing.  I learned a lot.  I’m still here, and at the moment, it’s more than a lot of people can say. 

“A little ditty about Jack and Diane,

Two American kids doing the best they can.”

Mr. Webster

Ever hear the joke, “What’s the Webster’s definition of mixed emotions?  Watching your mother-in-law go over a cliff in your new Mercedes.” 

That’s how I feel this morning after watching the World Series last night.  I grew up a Yankee fan but I couldn’t root for them in the Series this year because they played against the team from my adopted home town, the Phillies.  Call ‘em what you will:  the Frillies, the Sillies, the Fillies.  I don’t care.  They were the only game in town and I came to know and love these guys.  I still carried around my Yankee heritage like my maiden name, but when I came to Philly, I got to know the home team and I adopted them much the way they adopted me. 

I’ve seen the Yankees play the Phillies before.  They had a 3-game series in Philly in 2007, so I wore a Yankee cap and a Phillies t-shirt.  Someone in the parking lot yelled at me to “Make up your mind!” but at the time, there was just no way for me to divide my loyalties.  As I told someone else, I can’t lose, but I can’t win; either way, one of my teams is going to lose this game.   (The Phillies lost that series, 2 games to 1.)

As the last few years have gone on, I cheered my heart out for the Phillies and got to know more about the players as individuals.  I don’t know them personally but I feel like I know who they are as people.  They’re just like us:  guys with jobs.  Granted, no one will ever buy a ticket to watch me reconcile invoices or even write stories, and I sure don’t get paid what ballplayers do, but in the grand scheme of things, we’re not that far removed from each other.  We’re all just people, doing the best we can with the skills and talents God gave each of us.

I had a bad feeling, when the ‘09 Series began, that the Phillies were going to get outplayed.  The Yankees are a tough team, even if it looked like they phoned in their appearance in game 1.  (I think they seriously underestimated Phillies talent, but they corrected that in game 2.)  As the game 5 sign read, “The Yankees have $ but the Phillies have <heart>.”  The guy holding it was standing in front of us, section 210, row 9.  And they still have heart.

So this morning I’m kinda happy for the Yankees—even if the rest of the world may hate them even more—but more than anything else, I’m proud of my Phillies for giving it everything they had.  They’re still World Champions in my book, and they’re officially the 2009 National League champions.  In baseball, just like in life, there’s always next time.  Go get ‘em, Fightins!!

Just to be a good sport about the whole thing:  my congrats to the Yankees.  They played a good game, but they better be prepared to defend that title in 2010. 

For those conspiracy theorists out there:  Did anyone else notice that all week long, Fox aired commercials saying “All new ‘Bones’ and ‘Fringe’ on Thursday night!”  If you do the math, had the series gone to 7 games, game 7 would’ve been played on Thursday night.  It’s as if Fox knew well in advance that there would only be 6 games played in this series.  Methinks something smells fishy…  (After last year’s World Series, I still don’t trust or have any love or respect for Bud Selig, so if this was all pre-planned, I’m not the slightest bit surprised.)

Still here

Two days later, and I’m still recovering from the weekend.  Going to the NJRW Conference every year reminds me how much fun slumber parties were when I was a kid except we didn’t knit then.  Laura and I stayed up way too late, knitting and BSing until all hours.  Even on Saturday night, when I felt myself drooping and dragged my butt off to bed, we stayed up late talking just because it was fun and we don’t get to do it that often.  It was a great time and I hope we get to do it again next year, but she’ll have a gorgeous little 8 month old baby girl at home by then, so who knows what the future holds.

The whole conference was just fantastic.  We got there on Thursday to be at the 3-hour Jennifer Crusie workshop on Friday morning.  I don’t remember having breakfast, other than an apple and a white mocha at the hotel’s Starbucks, and honestly, I didn’t even notice.  I still have the blister on my finger from writing page after page of notes but it was all great stuff.  As Robin said, “I worship at her altar.”  Ditto here. 

What I learned in the workshops whacked me upside the head that my manuscript needs serious revisions.  When I went into the agent pitch session on Saturday morning, I had to confess that I thought I was ready…until I learned what I learned in the workshops.  What I thought was finished is back to being a work-in-progress, but I have a deadline of November 16th (also the GH deadline) so I’m on it like white on rice. 

We passed up the dessert/dance party on Saturday night.  Laura’s expecting so she couldn’t drink and it’s been nearly 2 weeks since I gave up candy/sweets, which I’m finding must be similar to giving up alcohol.  Hi, I’m Carla and I’m a chocoholic; it’s been 2 weeks since my last Snickers bar.  (“Hi, Carla!”)  I know so well that I could slip and eat just one and I’ll be back to where I started so I don’t tempt myself.  At lunch on Saturday I ate the slice of strawberry off the chocolate cake and that was all.  When the waiter came around to clear the tables, I showed Laura the plate and said, “Tell John I did this,” and then I handed the waiter the still-full plate.  I can’t believe I did it, and every now and then I heard in my head, “If you get hit by a truck tomorrow, are you going to wish you’d eaten that?” but I’m already seeing results in the way my pants fit, and my ring is a little looser than it was, so no, I’m not sorry I passed up the sinfully rich chocolate cake.  I’m still surprised I did it, though; I really didn’t think I could. 

I think karma rewarded me on Sunday, because we went to AC Moore before we left NJ and they had 2 skeins of Magic Stripes in the clearance rack.  Before you yawn, Magic Stripes was discontinued a year or so ago; the only place to find it now is eBay (and maybe Etsy; I haven’t looked there).  I grabbed 2 $8 skeins of self-striping sock yarn for $2 apiece.  Yay me!  Just when I thought I’d socked out…

So now life is back to where it was.  Several people there were sick, and I’m starting to feel a head cold coming on.  I think I can dodge it, particularly since I’ve eaten a tree’s worth of apples these past 2 weeks.  (The only sweets I allow myself are fruits.) 

But man, that was a great weekend.  For 3 solid days I wasn’t Mom or Honey or “I need this done”.  I was me.  I dressed myself as I saw fit, I ate what I chose to eat, and I went where I wanted to go, not where I needed to be.  It doesn’t happen all that often.  Women don’t always get to be who they are, because they have to be who the people in their lives need them to be.  It’s nothing to whine about; it’s just a fact of life.  But once in a while we really need to get away from our responsibilities and rediscover our true selves.  Even if I hadn’t learned as much as I did about writing, that alone was worth the price of admission. 

BTW, Laura taught a workshop on Building a Web Presence, and she pointed out that if you start a blog, a) it should be relevant (who wants to read a writing blog about knitting?) and b) if you post once a month, it’s not a blog, it’s a newsletter.  Oops; guilty on both counts.  I’ll try to keep this as relevant as possible, particularly since NaNoWriMo is coming up on Sunday and I’m really going to give it a shot, even though I’m (technically) halfway done with my now-WIP; I won’t be writing a book, I’ll be rewriting one.  But as long as the writing keeps going, life is good.

Remind me write tomorrow about the restaurant on Saturday night, and the waiter/bartender, Alejandro. 

Full Circle

When I was in third grade, I took an aptitude test to see if I’d do well in band.  I passed and chose to learn clarinet, but only because there were no flutes left.  Somewhere in the basement is the clarinet my parents bought for me for $100.  I still have it. 

I played in the school band from  fourth grade through eighth grade.  It doesn’t sound like much on paper but it was five very big years of my life.  The band was a clique all its own.  We even had special classes.  When everyone else took wood shop or home ec, we took typing.  Several times, because it was the only thing we could fit in around our band practice schedule.  It worked out because now I can type 100 words per minute, and for a while there I considered a career as a typing teacher.  We actually had one teacher at IS 61 dedicated just to teaching typing.  These days, that just doesn’t happen, and besides, modern-day kids are practically born knowing how to type.  RIP, Mavis Beacon.

Anyway, band was a big deal then.  We learned the basics with Miss Forsell in fourth grade and Mr. DeTaranto in fifth.  In middle school (aka Intermediate School) we had Mr. Laurenzano, a giant of a man with a booming voice that could span the Grand Canyon.  He scared the crap out of me.  There were actually two bands in middle school; there was concert band (us) and orchestra, which was for the kids who couldn’t cut concert band.  Think “Glee” with instruments.  And we were cool.  To this day I can see Willy Hakim on trumpet, Andrew Terjesen and Dawn Farley on trombone, Robert Powell and William Harding on drums.  There were some flute players too but I never quite got over getting shut out of that and I resented them with all my middle-school fury.  Heck, I had the fingers for it.  I could’ve been great at it. 

There were so many clarinets that we had 3 levels:  first row, second row, and third row.  I was third row, along with Rosemary Moser (my BFF) and Lisa Copeland.  I’ll confess right now, I wasn’t that good at it.  When I practiced at home–and trust me, my mother drilled it into me; I think it had something to do with the $100 they spent on the clarinet which, at the time, was a huge chunk of change–our dog, Shirley, would hide on the back porch and wail in pain for her poor ears.  Our poor neighbors couldn’t get away from it; they got misery in stereo.  I hit “clunkers” all the time in practice.  Play a woodwind instrument and you’ll know that ear-bleeding screech when the air doesn’t quite go in the right way.  I also hit clunkers in practice at school, but I tried my heart out.  

The best times were the concerts.  We’d all get dressed up, and we’d be scared out of our shoes that we’d screw up but we took our places anyway, read the sheet music, followed along when it was someone else’s turn, waited for our chance to play.  Man, we could wail.  We played some tough stuff, too.  Much as I love my son’s school, I’ve heard their middle school band; they struggle to play basic songs, and half the time the beat machine plays more than they do.  Us, we tackled the disco version of “Star Wars”.  We played pop music from our era, not our grandparents’.  But the best of all was Rocky. 

The movie came out in the middle 70’s, when we were in school.  I have no idea how Mr. L got the sheet music but he got it, and we played the sh*t out of it, let me tell you.  To this day, when the movie starts and that music cranks up, I get chills from my scalp to my toes, and my eyes well with tears because that, my friends, was one of the greatest moments in my life, when I belonged to something really, really good.  That was my Glory Days.  The staccato trumpets, the pounding drums, the fire and energy of putting everything we had into making that auditorium ROCK. 

And dammit, we did it. 

Eventually Mr. L realized I wasn’t cutting it and I got moved down to orchestra.  (There was that minor discipline incident where I put cork grease on Lisa Copeland’s chair.)  I hated every minute of orchestra.  We played lame classical music that meant nothing to me, and the teacher was as far opposite of Mr. L as any human being could be.  He was soft-spoken and low on discipline; he couldn’t get the orchestra organized if he used a bull whip, and it showed when we played.  I don’t even remember playing with them onstage.  I think I did, but if I could’ve played clarinet with a paper bag over my head, I would’ve done it.  At that point, I couldn’t get out of middle school fast enough.

I’m 42 and a mom of teenagers now, as you know.  Last night on the drive home from Variety, Alex and I fiddled with my iPod, and I remembered I have my “old” one.  It won’t update any more; it’s got corrupted software or something.  (Use the word “software” to me when I was a band geek and I would’ve given you the same blank look I gave most adults.)  But I figured maybe Alex would want to listen to it; there’s a playlist with songs I know he likes.  He was more than happy to take it, but what surprised me is that of the 900+ songs on it, he found a song on there that really caught his attention.  Last night, before I made him go to bed, he was playing “Gonna Fly Now” from the Rocky soundtrack.  The same song we played in band with the staccato trumpets and the thundering drums and the hard, sharp beats at the end that still raise the hairs on the back of my neck.  The song that still makes me remember how perfect life was when I was 12 and playing clarinet and belonging to something really, really good. 

The funny thing is that he’s playing that song all the time now.  He really likes it.  He even sings it.  I guess he gets that from me.

PS, I’m sitting in the dining room with the windows open as I type this.  It’s a gorgeous early fall evening, and the Eagles, our high school football team, are playing just a few blocks away.  The band is rocking on with “Rock & Roll Part 2″.  I guess they scored.  The Eagles’ band isn’t half bad. 

This sounds a little like us , but this was the one that still gives me chills.  (It was a Rocky Medley we played.)  We had French horns and everything.  We didn’t use violins; our clarinet section played instead of violins, and We.  Were. Good.

And then there were two

Teenagers in the house, that is.  Today is Alex’s 13th birthday.  I console myself at the thought that my youngest child is now 13 years old by remembering when Ryan graduated from elementary school and my mom put her arm around me and told everyone, “My baby’s going to be 40 next year.”  Yeah, that made me feel SO good when I was just 3 months past my 39th birthday. 

But now my baby is turning 13.  I remember where I was 13 years ago, pissed and upset that my OB called for another induction.  I wanted to go naturally, like all those cute movies and TV shows, but I never got the chance.  I also hadn’t found out if it was a boy or a girl.  I’d hoped for a girl but, well…at this point I guess it’s okay.  I wouldn’t know what to do with a girl anyway.  Our house is all Pokemon and Nerf and scooters.  Barbie?  Who’s Barbie?

Bringing Alex into the world was fun.  The anesthesiologist knew what he was doing and my epidural worked JUST fine, thank you.  (FYI to expectant moms out there:  they don’t give awards for delivering without drugs, so take the epidural; you can thank me later.)  Ryan’s didn’t, so I was pleasantly surprised this time.  You could’ve jammed a fork in my leg and I wouldn’t have noticed.  I sat on the phone, chatting with friends, like nothing else was going on.  At one point the OB came in and told me I was having a contraction.  That was a surprise to me. 

Midway through, the nurse told me the “baby is in distress”.  I had no idea what was going on, but I was told to lie on my left side and they gave me oxygen.  I’ll probably never know if that had any impact on Alex. 

Things settled out, and I turned the Yankee game on TV.  They were playing the Texas Rangers and my OB came in to watch with me.  They were behind by 3 runs, bottom of the 9th, two men on, two out, with Bernie Williams at the plate.  I told my OB, “If he hits a home run, I’m naming this kid Bernie.”  I don’t think of Alex as Bernie, but I ought to.  I owe Bernie for that homer that night.  (I took Alex to a Yankees/Phillies game one night, and Bernie patrolled right field, right in front of us.  I tried to tell Alex the story but he didn’t understand, nor did it make sense to him why I cried when all the Yankee fans around chanted, “Bernie!  Bernie!  Bernie!” 

The game went into extra innings but around 10:45 someone noticed that I was fully dilated.  Again, I had no idea.  My OB scrubbed up, telling me, “How long did you push the last time?”  “Two hours,” I told him.  “You know how long you’re going to push this time?” he asked.  “No,” I said.  “Five minutes.”

After the prep work was over, Alex arrived at exactly 11:00 p.m. on October 2nd, just one hour shy of his due date.  I’ll never forgot when Alex’s head arrived, and the OB told me, “Put your hands here,” and I did what he told me.  I felt warm, soft, slimy…something, I wasn’t quite sure, but he guided my hands under Alex’s arms, and I got to be the one to pull him the rest of the way out.  He landed on my chest and we met each other face to face for the first time.  He was so small…and so vocal.  The kid had lungs on him, even then.  The nurse wrapped him in towels and I asked what it was, and they told me, “It’s a boy!”  The nurse asked, “What’re you naming him?” and I proudly said, “Alexander!” 

He was such a good baby.  Compared to Ryan, who was very clingy and demanding, Alex just LOVED his morning bath and being wrapped up in his favorite blanket, which I still have today; a green and yellow afghan I crocheted in Coordinates yarn.  (Holy cow, that stuff is like silk after you wash it.)  I’d give him his breakfast, wrap him up, put him in the carriage we used for a crib, and go get myself something to eat.  By the time I came back to the living room, he was sound asleep.  I often wonder if I should’ve noticed his autism earlier, considering how he much preferred being clean to being dirty.  Probably even then, his sensory issues told him he didn’t like the feel of ick on his skin. 

But now he’s a teenager and I have to remind him to take a shower and brush his teeth and put his scooter away.  He’s taller than I am and he has a deep voice and before too long, I’m going to have to teach him about shaving.  Oy.

He’s SO excited about today.  October is his favorite month because on one end there’s his birthday, and on the other end there’s Halloween.  Christmas isn’t far away, either.  He still gets excited about this stuff, but hey, he’s still a kid.  I can’t even pretend anymore, though, that he’s my baby.  I can’t mentally see him as that tiny little gooey ball, squirming around on my chest 13 years ago today.  There are pictures to prove it, but he’s a teen now.  He’s very close to being a young man. 

He’s not getting married any time soon, but this song just says it all. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALEX!!!!

Honors

It’s that time of year again.  Kids have gone back to school, parents are back in the routine of “normal”, and schools hold their Open Houses so parents can see how their kid spends his/her day.  This is the first year in a while that I have two kids in two different school levels (high school and middle school), so I get to do two Open Houses in two weeks.  As compared with having to be in two different schools on the same night, this works for me.

I visited Ryan’s school on Wednesday night and it hit me on multiple levels.  It still feels like it was only a little while ago that I was the one in high school, navigating unfamiliar halls for the first time, dealing with kids whose priorities were different from my own (aka, bullies and cliques) and praying that in the sink-or-swim world of academics, I could at least keep my nose above water. 

Also, the hero in my latest project is a high school English teacher who writes fiction, so I drank every detail I could gather of the school layout.  Public high school in Pennsylvania is SO different from private high school in a converted mansion in Staten Island NY.  I can’t say I preferred one over the other; they just are what they are.  (Though I have to say, it surprised me to see that Ryan’s HS bore a little resemblance to the school in “Twilight”.)

And then there was the academics.  I have to say, I love all his teachers.  Well, all the ones I met.  I was a little disappointed that the English teacher wasn’t there.  Ryan had some issues with English in middle school, and I wanted to make sure the teacher and I were on the same wavelength.  Since my mother was a teacher (now retired), I know how vital it is for teachers to be present at these functions, so I can’t imagine what pulled Ryan’s English teacher away for the night.  Must’ve been something big. 

Each of the teachers I met gave a detailed explanation of what curriculum was covered and what their teaching philosophy was.  I didn’t know what to expect so all in all, I was pleasantly surprised. 

The real surprise was in finding out that Ryan’s in all honors-weighted courses.  If he can keep up with the curriculum level, he could make the National Honors Society.  I remember some of my friends belonged to NHS, and I was so jealous, but like I said, it was a struggle for me just to stay above C level.  Please don’t ask me about my Law grade in senior year.  I’m still so disappointed in myself because for one brief, shining moment, I thought I could be a lawyer.  Law is fascinating.  It’s like geometry, in that you have to put all the right pieces together to construct an accurate theorem.  One wrong piece and the whole thing falls apart.  But I digress.

NHS was unattainable for me, but Ryan’s on track for it.  I could not be prouder.  Somehow I managed to deliver unto this world someone who has the capability of exceeding me.  I still can’t figure out how I did that.  What did I do right?  And can I give it one more try to see if I can do better?  (Just kidding, God!)  He has the potential to do right, all the things I didn’t.  Color me delighted, surprised, and thrilled. 

Of course, I fully realize it might not happen.  When I started in high school, I was placed in advanced math but after the first semester, it became apparent to all involved that I couldn’t cut the mustard, and I went back to “regular” math.  I’m sorry, I’m just not a numbers person.  My checkbook looks like a natural disaster.  I can’t count to twenty without thinking, “Did I miss something?”  So if Ryan gets through this first marking period and we find that the honors course load he’s carrying is too much for him, I’ll still be proud as hell of him because he tried.  Yeah, sure, I know Yoda said something about, “Do or do not.  There is no try,” but in this case I think we can make an exception.  He’s still the best kid he can be, and that matters more than anything else. 

Yesterday he mentioned that he “still hasn’t figured out what I want to do”, but I reminded him that he’s a freshman; he doesn’t have to chart a career path yet.  I also mentioned that at the Open House, instead of just hanging a flag in the corner in the morning, each room has a television set and every morning, a broadcast team presents the news and annoucements.  (A far cry from that scratchy speaker stuff we strained to hear when we were in school!)  They’re looking for anchors and technicians, and knowing he loved working the camera in our in-house studio on Take Your Kid to Work Day, I told him he should apply.  He surprised me by saying he was thinking about applying to be an anchor.  I told him, “If you want some good examples, watch the news tonight.”  Can I see my kid being the next Walter Cronkite?

Hell yeah!  Go for it!  I love you, Ryan!

Addendum, 9 hours later:  watch this video by Billy Ray Cyrus.  I’m fine right up until the little voice says, “Dada,” and then I lose it every time. 

Can’t

Maybe I’ve tried too hard not to remember that today is September 11th.  Someone mentioned it yesterday in a meeting; we were scheduling something, and she said, “Oh yeah, can’t forget what tomorrow is”, and my first thought was, “Friday?”  (It’s been a long 4-day week, getting back into the school routine.)  But an instant later, I remembered. 

My problem is empathy.  I can drive myself crazy sometimes, envisioning what other people’s experiences are like.  It works for me as a writer, but sometimes when I see horrific events like 9/11, it’s the kind of thing that could drive me up a tree, never to return.  Especially in this day and age, when everything’s on video, it’s easy slip into my imagination and hear the sickening sound of bodies jumping from the 90th floor, landing on the pavement on Liberty Street or Church Street.  It doesn’t take much to feel the gritty soot on my skin and smell the sting of jet fuel and watch the papers fluttering all over lower Manhattan and feel the weight on my chest as I try to breathe air that isn’t really air anymore.

It doesn’t help that I used to work there.  For nearly 2 years, I looked out a window on the 53rd floor.  I had a fantastic view of NY Harbor and Staten Island’s north shore.  (Which happened to be my home.)  In May I could watch the big ships sailing up the Hudson for Fleet Week.  I’ll never forget asking my boss if I could take an early lunch so I could run to the World Financial Center on the west side and grab a quick picture with my Kodak Disk camera as the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy sailed up the river.  It took two shots to get the whole thing, that monster was so huge. 

We’d watch the tiny yachts sailing around Liberty Island, or laugh as the tourists took pictures as they ferried from Battery Park to Ellis Island to the Statue of Liberty.  The Woolworth in the concourse shopping center was my favorite place, especially when they stocked yarn, but I could just wander around in there browsing for an hour.  Mrs. Fields cookies was a staple in my diet.  For the first few years I’d go there for a chocolate chip muffin, which I’d take up to my office to eat.  One of the ladies in my department asked about them and I raved, so I made a habit of getting her a pumpkin muffin, too.  I never tried the coffee; now that I like coffee, I wish I had. 

It feels so odd to think there’s now a hole in the world where I used to make my life.  All those documents I signed and stored in the file room are now so much ash and dust, crumpled in Fresh Kills landfill.  The people I knew there have scattered to the wind, too.  Some I’ve caught up with, others are gone.  My brother and I, with our respective partners, went back there in January 2002, and we immediately knew the place was haunted.  Walking up Greenwich Street to work used to be like walking a wind tunnel, particularly in the winter, but as we walked up that January, it was eerily calm, no breeze at all.  The area was walled off and the line to overlook Ground Zero was tremendous, and I’m not sure we really wanted to look anyway.  It’d be like looking at the gaping wound where a body part used to be, one you knew wasn’t coming back no matter how hard you wished for it.  Still, every time I cross the Goethals Bridge into Staten Island, I look to the NY skyline and know, something’s missing.  That phantom pain never goes away.

Eight years ago today it was an absolutely beautiful day.  (Which only makes it that much more ironic that here in SE PA, it’s raining cats and dogs.  The Universe is crying too.)  It was probably around 70 degrees, sunny, crystal blue sky, and I thought, “I haven’t seen a day this gorgeous in all my life.”  I sat down at work and my then-boyfriend (now husband) emailed me saying he’d heard a plane had just crashed into the Trade Center, and I thought, “Well geez, how much damage could a Piper Cub do?”  It had happened before by accident, but the building came out okay.  Then we heard about the second plane.  For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine why two small planes would hit the towers.  It never dawned on me that someone would even think to do this.  We started filing into the cafeteria to watch CNN because all the online news sources were overloaded, and reality started to sink in.  I’ll never forget crying my eyes out, thinking about all the people I knew there who might still be there.  When I saw a diagram of where the planes made contact—so incredibly eerie, watching video of the planes just disappearing into concrete and steel—the 2nd plane hit the “south tower” (aka, Tower 2), the tip of the starboard wing went directly through the window I used to look out of every morning.  My department had moved from the 53rd floor to the 49th floor by then, but still, there were people I knew in that building at the time.  (Candace Hurley, if you’re out there, email me, please.)

We heard about the plane hitting in DC—my friend Hope Ramsay has an amazing story to tell about her experiences there on 9/11—and then a lady I worked with was concerned because she’d heard another plane was headed for Pennsylvania.  We thought maybe they’d be targeting historical sites, but my co-worker’s concern was that we’re a technology company; maybe they’d target us.  We’re not that important.   

My sister went down to Richmond Terrace on Staten Island to take pictures, and I think she was there right about the time the towers started to come down.  I remember seeing it on TV and thinking, “No!  That’s not possible!  They’ll stay up; they HAVE to!”  But no amount of wishing was going to change what we were watching live on TV.  To this day, I still harbor this tiny hint of denial that they really should still be there.

I’ll also never forget how, 3 days earlier, on September 8th, I left my VFRW meeting and went home to Southampton, PA.  I did some shopping at Ames on Street Road and standing in line at the checkout, we all heard the roar of jet engines overhead as the Willow Grove Air Show went on.  John and I met on Township Line Road to watch the goings on as the Blue Angels ripped through the skies, performing the most amazing aerial maneuvers.  It was, very literally, an awesome sight to see, and I can’t forget telling John, “What must it be like to have to live with this kind of thing on a daily basis?  I’m so glad that’s not going on here.  How on earth would any country in the world dare to come after us when we have this much power?  Shouldn’t this scare anybody into being afraid of us?  “  Three days later, I was proven wrong. 

Eight years have passed, and it’s like nothing has changed.  The feelings are very nearly as raw as they were then.  I still remember the first baseball game after 9/11, and crying my eyes out when that eagle soared around Yankee Stadium.  (One of the few times I’ll ever give W credit for a class act.)  I cried a lot that week.  The boys were little so I doubt they understood why Mom was catatonic in front of the TV every night, watching the towers come down over and over and over.  When the TV news stopped showing it, my mind took over, and it hasn’t stopped since.  There but for the grace of God could’ve been me. 

There’s a Darryl Worley song with the words, “Have you forgotten?”  No, Darryl, I haven’t, and I can’t.  I want to, but I can’t.

Busy Girl

Been working on Gabriel’s Angel—which, I find out now, is a title that’s already been used by Nora Roberts; at least I’m in excellent company.  Please feel free to amuse yourselves in my absence.  (I was going to write “yourself” but sometimes I get surprised.) 

I’ll give you a topic.  This is my new favorite song, and I’m not sure if it’s the lyrics or the Irish lilt in the singer’s voice that does it for me.  Either way, it wasn’t available on iTunes so I dug ’til I found a site that would let me download it.  I was the happiest girl in town, and it took me a little while to remind myself that, unlike records or tapes, I can’t wear out an MP3 download.  Life is good. 

Beauty’s Running Wild by Scars on 45

It Never Gets Old

NJRW posted the finalists in the Put Your Heart in a Book contest.  The only thing cooler than seeing my name on this list is seeing Laura’s name there too.  This isn’t the order of finish as of right now, but as far as I’m concerned, it should be.  (But okay, yeah, winning would be pretty damn cool too.)

I’ve been mad at work on edits/rewrites to Gabriel’s Angel.  If the stars align in my favor, I might have it done this weekend.  It’s been a blast, visiting with old friends all over again, creating a new story for them.  I really do love these two.  Just when I finish a story and I think, “I’m crazy for these people; what else can I do?” a new pair comes along and I fall in love all over again.

Okay, back to the job at hand…

Homeward Bound

I read Lee Lofland’s blog this morning about an old woman who escapes from a nursing home, and all she says is, “I want to go home.  I want to go home.  I want to go home.”  (I highly recommend reading it before you put makeup on.)  It triggered the thought in my mind:  What is home?

Billy Joel once sang, “Home can be the Pennsylvania Turnpike.”  Trust me, we drove it from one end to the other this past weekend.  Home is NOT the Pennsylvania Turnpike. 

Home is where the heart is. 

Over the years I’ve become convinced that home isn’t a place.  I’ve lived in a few different houses in my life, and I don’t feel that much of a connection to them anymore.  I wasn’t upset when my parents sold the house I grew up in.  I was more upset about the slaughtered deer in the back yard than about leaving my first apartment, the site of my first foray into independence and adulthood.  When I moved out of the first house I ever owned–a gorgeous 100 year old mansion with 6 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and a ghost–I wasn’t that upset because I had a new life to look forward to. 

On a cool spring evening in the house where we currently live, I took some knitting to the front porch and watched the world go by.  Alex went out to ride his scooter, and the neighbor kids rolled with him on the front lawn ’til the ice cream man showed up.  Relaxed in the fading sunlight, I felt like I was home.  Such peace and contentment, like if they could solidify that moment in amber, I’d be fine. 

For Fourth of July, we stood on the corner at the other side of the block and watched the parade (and they put on a great little neighborhood parade!).  In that moment, laughing and smiling with my neighbors, feeling an intense sense of belonging to something bigger than myself, I felt like I was home. 

Sitting next to my hubby in Citizens Bank Park with a lemonade and a hot dog, watching my favorite team play my favorite sport on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I felt like I was home. 

Laughing my butt off with my bestest best friends at the NJRW conference last October, I felt like I was home. 

Sitting in front of the computer, my fingers flying over the keyboard as the story drains out of my head, I’m very much at home. 

Home isn’t a place.  It’s a state of being. 

John and I have done everything we can to make this new (well, “new to you”) house a home for the boys, but one day they’ll grow up and make homes of their own somewhere else, separate and apart from us.  We’ve both called other places “home”, and even though moving was a b*tch, we very well might find another home in our lifetime.  You never know what curve balls life will throw at you.  The best thing about it is knowing that home is a moveable feast. 

And to my sweet, hard-working, long-suffering husband of 6 years as of this Sunday, just like Billy Joel said, “Home is just another word for you.”