baby boom – Page 4 – Don't Gel Too Soon

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER

There we are** – Jane and me on her porch one summer during college. Friends since Brownies, we’ve always had a warm, respectful and sturdy relationship, interrupted by years at a time but never diminished. Recently she sent photos of a family reunion – her four kids and their spouses and all their kids. And some things she had written. Beautiful things. Especially about her parents. I knew them well; I spent so many Saturday nights at their house, even going to church with them in the morning. They never ate breakfast before Communion but Jane’s mom always insisted that I eat something even though I was going with them After all, I wasn’t taking Communion so why not?.

A "nice Jewish girl" in a milltown suburb (here I"m on the right and Jane on the left, I had no Jewish friends; Jane, Catholic, was my dearest. What might have been a huge cultural gap was just a curiousity; differences in our lives but not in how we felt about one another. We’d always sworn to be at one another’s weddings; I’ll never forget her beautiful one in the cathedral at Notre Dame. Years later, when it was my turn, Jane was living in Dallas and already a mother; she just couldn’t make it.
Then, just days before our wedding, she called. "Do you still have room on that boat of yours?" (We got married on a boat.) "I have to keep our promise- I’m coming!" It was so great and meant so much. Just as she knew it would.
That was 36 years ago; almost twice the age we were when the top photo was taken. But it doesn’t matter. The blessing of shared memories — of remembering each other’s parents and the Girl Scout trip to New York and her first love, who died in Vietnam — and mine, who ran off, perpetually stoned, to Santa Barbara — those memories make her part of so much of who I was and who I’ve become. What a gift to me that the one whose friendship blessed me was so blessed herself – generous and fine — helping me to be what she knew I had to be when I wasn’t sure myself what that was…not at all.

***NOTE: In order to observe the Sabbath, this post was written in late October and set to post on Saturday morning November 17th.

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0 DAY EIGHT: WEDDING SONGS, ARTISTS, MUSIC AND MEMORIES — THE BEST ARE THE THINGS YOU WEREN’T LOOKING FOR

You know it’s true: we never know the best things are coming until they’re there. I can read this! It’s Kol Nishma, a song I really wanted to learn. I’ve twice heard it sung as a groom makes his way to his bride surrounded by friends — all singing (hollering) with energy and joy. A friend found the title for me, our Hebrew teacher typed out the lyrics in nice, big, first-grader font – and I can read it – even sing it in the limited tune-carrying that passes for me singing. Wasn’t expecting that one…

Later we visited the studio of a designer whose work we thought we might like. He shares his gallery with his 80 year old mother, whose extraordinary art hangs over tables where his is displayed. It’s quite a scene. That artist, Malla Carl, whose work was enchanting, grew up in Switzerland after her family fled the Nazis and landed in Lucerne.

Her father, she told us, had been a Chasidic rabbi. Even so, he gave her permission to go to art school – quite revolutionary at the time for an Orthodox Jewish girl. When I asked how this was possible in such a traditional environment, she explained, a bit tongue-in-cheek, that the chief Rabbi of Lucerne had come “from Berlin” – dramatic pause – and been influenced by Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch. The father of Modern Orthodoxy, Hirsch apparently believed even then that women should be educated and gladly gave his permission for her to continue her studies.

I wish I could describe the animation, the humor and charm, the sheer joy of our time with this spectacular woman. She told us great stories; some, involving others, I’m not able to relay. Suffice it to say she’s a pistol. She took us through folders of her work – not as customers but fascinated visitors – and her content and execution are memorable and evocative. They are not the work of an “old” person but of one always alive and aware.

We just went on and on — asking questions and receiving remarkable responses. Somehow our conversation moved to facts surrounding our move toward Orthodox Judaism. She was pretty shocked. As we prepared to leave, our newly purchased print rolled up safely in a tube, the story of our gradual move from no affiliation to such a commanding observance fascinated her. Finally, we left. From the top of the stairs, after giving us farewell greetings (a kiss for Rick, a motherly caress for me because I have a cold and she couldn’t hug me) Mrs. Carl continued our conversation. Upon learning, from one flight down, that Rick and I have a Kosher home, she saluted! I don’t know if I have the skills to describe it: A small, grey haired woman in glasses, standing in the dim light of the stair well, saluting us for embarking on this stage of life with such a radically different reality. The whole scene represents an idea dear to Baby Boomers like me — and the basis for the title of this blog. Whatever you do, DON’T stand still. Grow and change and explore and wonder and respond. Not so dramatic; just be alive while you’re living. The drama was reserved for a tiny woman, learning of our journey of discovery — (sometimes so so hard) — and saluting. It took about a block to be able to speak; both of us were enormously moved. Honored, too, not only by her gesture, but by the opportunity, however brief, to share the reality of such a gigantic life. They say Jerusalem is full of history – and it isn’t all built into the stones and walls. Every person leaving the old country and coming here to build a new life — every one of them is a figure of history. Today we met one of the best. You’d know it, too, if you’d been with us, seeing her grand salute from the shadows at the top of the stairs. I never expected that, either.

HOW OLD ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU CALLING A ELDER?

We live in a community where many of our closest friends are well under 40 – several the ages of our sons. Because we are culturally united, age isn’t such a big deal, which is strange. I’ve always identified very strongly as a Baby Boomer. Born in the first year of the cohort, I cherish the experiences and adventures and acknowledge the shared rages and disappointments that bind us. Even so, I’m struggling with my place.

There’s a group of bloggers led by Ronni Bennett, a wonderful writer and observer, through her blog Time Goes By – and she’s working to build a community she terms "Elder Bloggers."

I hate it. Hate it. I admire Ronni; I’ve always been OK with where I stand in age and presence but this is tough. I can’t decide if I’m being immature and clinging to a world I don’t belong in or I just don’t have the same sensibility. I moved online in the early 90s, I read science fiction and love Harry Potter; I listen to all kinds of music; I cherish every experience. When my kids were little I often felt I had more in common with their teenage babysitters than with the parents of many of their friends.

It’s not that I deny my age — or my friends who are peers. Or my responsibilities. I’ve had a successful career raised great, honorable and capable kids. It’s that I cherish the energy, openness and curiosity of those whose lives are more ahead of them than behind. I remember maybe 20 years ago when a friend of mine was about to take her youngest son to college. Eyes welling up, she said something over lunch that day that still haunts me. "It used to be that everything in my life was about beginnings, now it seems that most of it is about endings." It was a devastating moment. I swore I would never feel like that.

It’s no battle really. It’s my nature to be curious — I have a short attention span and, as my blog header says, "There’s always more." Remaining open is easy. Realizing that it’s sometimes time to surrender some options is harder — even, or maybe especially, stupid ones like clothes. I have a "style." It took years to develop – not on purpose just by trial and error. Often, I was in the fashion moment. I went through the 80s in leggings and tunics and arm-loads of black rubber bracelets. Oh and Reebok high-tops and thick saggy socks. And that was at work!

One day though, you begin looking at those cool of-the-moment clothes with the thought "I wish I were young enough to wear those" instead of "wow how much is that one?" It’s never said out loud (or at least not by anyone you’d listen to) – you just kind of know it. A friend of mine with daughters says it happens to moms with girls much earlier because, as she put it "you don’t want to look like you’re competing.") I, however, resisted as long as I could, then surrendered (except for jewelry and shoes, of course.)

Music too. I was in the loop until hip hop, then got shoved pretty far into the margins. My kids send me music now – from Great Big Sea to Jack Johnson to Green Day and I’m grateful. But these days I don’t even know who many of the Top Ten folks are — and don’t care.

That doesn’t make me an elder though. Or a grown-up. Just a responsible adult, defined by nature and interests, not age. So Ronni – I’m with you with great admiration as you bring all of us together and continue to build the world’s coolest Boomer+ blogroll. But the title — the title — not for me my girl. At least……..not yet.

Magic – Bruce Tells the Truth – Where’s the Rest of It?

Life is complicated. One day things are great; the next day someone you love breaks an ankle and faces weeks on crutches; another battles heartbreak and demons. One day you’re lifted high in celebration; the next, angry and resentful. One day you’re lost in silence – the next you’re listening to Bruce Springsteen warn you to "carry only what you fear" then enchant you with a wistful "Girls in Their Summer Clothes."

I would have bought Magic sooner or later — if it has Bruce’s name on it, it’s on my iPod. But my son’s endorsement sent me straight to Amazon right after its release. When The Seeger Sessions came out I played it for hours – over and over. It just lifted you up out of your chair (or the driver’s seat.) Magic needs more attention; it’s got a lot to say. No courting froggies or underpaid sailors here. What there is instead is a mournful, painful set of stories: political and personal. They describe feelings I’ve struggled to express: anger, disappointment, anxiety over the future.

Not much more to say except that I once saw Springsteen tell Bob Dylan "You were the brother that I never had." He is the diary I never had. In Bruce’s real-life anthems, you can find huge parts of my life. I was a lawyer’s daughter in a steel town. The football heroes and Dairy Queen cowboys of my teen years were the boys of Springsteen’s New Jersey. All so familiar: the longings of Thunder Road, the nostalgia of No Surrender .

Every time I hear the lines "Now I’m ready to grow young again, And hear your sister’s voice calling us home, Across the open yards" I can see it. The yard outside our house, the hill up to the neighbors and their tire swing, dusk in the summer when my sister really did call and we tore down the hill, sweaty, dirty and happy as hell.

I don’t want to feel just as connected to these angry, disappointed words, but I do. It’s not just aging, knowing that childhood summers are long gone. It’s the reality of the times he’s describing – so much the way I’ve experienced them without the capacity to express what I feel. Not the only thing I feel — but as usual he’s speaking for a part of me. This time though, instead of being grateful, I’m just so so sad.

The 50s, TV, The Company and The Hungarian Uprising

I was ten in 1956, when the people of Hungary rose up to end the Russian occupation. It was a rout – and they remained under Communist domination until the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s difficult to explain now just how scary it was to hear of these heroic people crushed in the streets, and, for a child, difficult to place. Could it happen to me? To my family? How did the Russians get there? Why did they care what people did in Hungary?

A couple of years later a local church group sponsored a Hungarian family’s move to the US and their son, our age and pretty good at speaking English, came to dinner at the home of my friend Lois and spoke to a group of us – maybe it was our Girl Scout troop; maybe just a bunch of girlfriends – I’m not sure. He was dramatic and dignified and so happy to be there. Listening to him and the stories of those he’d left behind was a haunting experience – especially in the mind of a romantic politicized 13 year old mad for JFK.

I hadn’t thought about any of this in years, but this summer TNT brings us The Company – a history of the CIA — and of the Hungarian tragedy of 1956. From the perspective of 50 years it’s still so sad, even through the gauze of TV melodrama – and the freedom and prosperity of Hungary today doesn’t mitigate much.

I’ve kept my eye on what happened in the East since then. We took our kids through Czechoslovakia and East Germany while they were still behind the Iron Curtain. We couldn’t get the boys dry socks after a heavy rain because, as the storekeeper told us “we don’t have socks today.” We gave all our Bruce Springsteen tapes to our guide; each one would have cost him a month’s pay on the black market.

I’ve even been to Pottsdam. That photo on the left is the bridge where spies were exchanged during the days of the Cold War. So it’s not like I don’t know what happened historically. Once in a while though the recreation of reality, even with Hollywood gloss, slams me back where I was for a little while.

That’s all – I’ve been sitting here trying to think of a real ending for this – and I can’t — no massive summary available. Good night.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Some picture, huh?

Yesterday a friend who is writing a book about the TV news business in the 60’s and 70’s asked me for some photos from the time we worked together. As I went through old albums and pulled out the few I had, I found this one. I remember the day it was taken – a sunny spring Sunday in Washington in a public garden. Newly out of college, newly employed, newly in possession of a Nikon, I’d gone with a friend to take photos of all things lovely. She took this one of me. (note to all curly haired people – this look was achieved by sleeping with hair wrapped around orange juice cans!)

Almost 40 years later, I am surprised that I look at this with pleasure, not sadness. I expected the familiar "ah I looked so much better then – so much was ahead of me" stuff but found none.

I’m sure something is still there – I got kind of weepy going through the books and seeing family photos from when the boys were little – so much time gone by. But that’s nostalgia for the joy that comes from wonderful children and the memories lucky families build. But this photo – no pangs at all.

Nope. I was a lucky girl. I had more adventures by the time I was 25 than many people get in a lifetime and I’m still having them. So there she is – the weekend me from the beginning of my grown-up life, young and happy in the sunshine.

GREY’S ANATOMY, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, MEMORY AND ME

Research shows that I’m hardly alone in this, but I have a deep and abiding fear of disappearing into the fog that is Alzheimer’s disease. I’m approaching my 61st birthday, which, these days, is young. Horrible to contemplate, but NOT old. Actually even for the last generation it’s not much – my dad lived to be 78 and my mom 80. So even in WWII generation terms, I’d have a good crack at at least 20 more years. And when I think about dying I really worry more about the sadness of those I love than anything else. No one wants her life to be over, but unlike many of my friends, including those far younger, I’m not terrified.

Alzheimer’s is different though. If you read the statistics, the odds are pretty scary for all of us. Today the New York Times reports (actually I think a little late – if you don’t have Times Select try this story on amNewYork) on a new awareness program by the Alzheimer’s Association. Here’s the video (short.) That’s good.

And it even includes Kate Burton, Meridith Grey’s mother (Grey’s Anatomy for those of you not addicted already.) Her character, in a series of almost unbearable episodes, suffered from Alzheimer’s. There is so much written about this disease and the risk to our nation’s future, one person at a time, but if the documents are to be believed research is far behind potential.

As usual it’s a question of money. And I know I should care about that. I guess I do. But what’s tougher for me is to face, almost daily, the small memory losses and forgetful moments of aging and not fear that they are all connected to the disease. People my age even joke about it – calling it “old timer’s” disease or “senior moments” but all it is is awful. To lose a word, see know the star of a classic film and not be able to retrieve the name, work a crossword puzzle (recommended to maintain brain “muscles” and besides I love them) and KNOW the missing word somewhere in your brain – but no place where you can get to it…. it’s all terrifying.

Think about it. Spouses who’ve shared years of generating memories suddenly seeing you lose yours; knowing daily that your access to those moments is disappearing. Children who’ve struggled to build strong and independent lives burdened with the emotional obligations created by a wasting disease in a parent. Friends self-conscious and uneasy on visits they know they should make – if they even have the strength to make them. Can you imagine anything worse – except the painful, protracted ending that cancer often brings?

As I write this, random thoughts wander through my mind. Most dominant are lyrics from a Bruce Springsteen (of course) song.

I don’t wanna fade away, Oh I don’t wanna fade away, Tell me what can I do what can I say, Cause darlin’ I don’t wanna fade away.

Yeah it’s about the end of a love affair but it’s playing in my head as a kind of Alzheimer’s anthem so you have to listen too.

The other things are really corny but right now I think I need to be corny. This one is part of what we read at the beginning of our wedding almost 36 years ago: In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it. It’s from William Saroyan’s play The Time of Your Life.

The other is from Our Town. And I know it’s old fashioned and sentimental. But as I look this terror in the eye, I know it’s what I have to do to keep it at bay.

Emily: Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?–every, every minute?
Stage Manager: No. Saints and poets, maybe–they do some.

I guess the answer to all this is to aim for the saints and the angels. Nothing is going to prevent the future from happening; not faith, not love, not Hogwart’s magic, not even the miraculous gift of children. So each day I need to be as present as I can. Whatever happens it’s a blow against the unknown and a prayer of gratitude for the privilege of being present and aware.

WILL YOU STILL NEED ME, WILL YOU STILL….??

My older son used to shave his head. He’d lost lots of hair on top anyway so just shaved all of it off and looked way cool. I used to tease him that he needed an earring too but he said he was his own kind of rebel – being the only person to graduate from his free-spirited university with "no new holes." He’s always been his own self. Very cool, he and his equally groovy brother have kept me up to date with what’s new in music, books, film and world view. They are, honestly, two of the most interesting people I know. But I digress.

Thursday night at a Thanksgiving dinner in his new, very beautiful condo, he started talking casually about his grey hairs. GREY! Then his [younger] brother chimed in about "a couple" that he had. Now this is not easy. If my children have grey hair what does that make me? Not to be selfish or anything but it’s kind of disconcerting.

Aging is inevitable and I’ve been fortunate in my progress along this continuum but when your kids begin to demonstrate the passage of time you have to take a deep breath and accept it. I just read a piece in the New York Times about Baby Boomers refusal to join AARP. I can relate to that. My PARENTS belonged to AARP. No thanks.

Yeah — that’s me just above here. I think in 1967.

I feel about as silly as Peter Pan ( I won’t grow up. Not a penny will I pinch. I will never grow a mustache, Or a fraction of an inch. Cause growing up is awfuller, Than all the awful things that ever were. I’ll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up, No sir, Not I, Not me, So there!) but that doesn’t change my mind.

An old friend used to say "Call me adult anytime you want; just don’t call me a grown-up." I guess that’s how I feel. Counter-cultural and generational identity is strong in people my age and I feel it particularly. I did dozens of Boomer stories when I worked at the TODAY SHOW – including a series when Boomers (including me, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Ben Vereen, Donald Trump, Susan Sarandon, Goldie Hawn and Cubby O’Brien) began turning 40 in 1986 and an entire year of anniversaries of 1968 in 1988. I am formed and INformed by the time of my birth and have always known it. I joke that I’m a "walking demographic" but it’s true.

SO. I will handle the grey hairs on the beloved heads of my beloved sons. I pray for and wish them well in their own journeys and am more grateful than I can describe both for them– and for the experiences of my own eventful life. And that’s not bad — not bad at all.

TRY TO REMEMBER — THE FANTASTICKS, JERRY ORBACH, THE INTERNET AND ME

OK – so I should be used to it by now. I’ve been — as I often say, a walking demographic Baby Boomer as long as I can remember. But on this morning after the re-opening of THE FANTASTICKS* – which ran off-Broadway for 42 years, I read "adults 55+ adapting online." Of course they are — sooner or later whatever I’m doing becomes part of a generational wave.

Don’t worry – there IS a connection.

I saw THE FANTASTICKS with my college room mate and her mother during fall vacation of my freshman year. That was 1964 – four years after it opened. At the end, all of 18, I was crying so hard that the woman sitting next to me – probably 25 or s0 – handed me the rose her date must have given her at dinner. I kept it on the wall of my room for years.

El Gallo — the irresistible seducer and originator of the "hurt’ without which "the heart is hollow" — was first played by Jerry Orbach. [hear him sing Try to Remember here.] I met him when I was close to 50 – and told him I’d seen the show when I was 18. His face just changed – not a trace of Lennie Briscoe but a combination of affection, nostalgia and pleasure. We spoke a bit more and then I apologized for approaching him at a reception and acting like a groupie. He replied "You saw the Fantasticks when you were EIGHTEEN! That wasn’t an interruption that was a pleasure." So I guess the story had the same impact on the cast that it had on girls like me. "Please God please," the young girl ("the girl") cries out – "don’t let me be NORMAL!" That was me alright. Please let me be singular – not like the others!

Well it hasn’t turned out that way. Whatever I come to, my peers hit within a year or so. It made me a great talk show producer – never a visionary too far ahead to be relevant, just enough ahead to know what story to do next. I guess that’s why I accommodated to my role as close enough to normal but with an edge — rather than the downtown woman I had once wished to be.

I knew about this headlong Boomer journey online because my older son, in the industry, had read a similar study. Last weekend I told him that I seemed to be getting a lot more online consulting work and his theory was that companies need boomer consultants more because more "civilian" boomers are finally hitting the web. I always knew we would; the tribe that is the baby boom loves to be connected. The web was a perfect home for us. Just like THE FANTASTICKS.

*OK Feminist friends, there’s an element of sexism in this original fairy tale (they’ve rewritten the only really troubling song) but I have chosen to ignore it. It just can’t trump the wonder and poetry.