The San Remo

Driving home from Manhattan I turned onto Central Park West to weave my way to the Henry Hudson Parkway and headed for West 75th Street to go past an apartment I lived in eleven years ago for a couple of years. On the left just before the turn was the San Remo. A beautiful apartment building on Central Park West and I realized I am never going to live in the San Remo apartment building. And all the pretenses I used to tell myself. Like that I would one day write a giant best seller or be a famous movie star and I would earn so much money that I too would have an apartment in the same building as Steven Spielberg or any of the other wealthy people who live there.

Or I guess I should just start in here:

I will never live in the San Remo. It hit me driving home from the city today. And all the other things I used to tell myself to prop up my near existent self confidence. My no sense of self. So what does this mean to me today? I guess it is a wonderful reminder of where I have been and where I am today. I used to day dream all the time about writing a blockbuster novel, being an amazing actress discovered late in life.

in another womans house (the beginning)

In Another Woman’s House

I sat watching the ceiling fan for a long time. He was already asleep next to me in bed. His glasses still on, the movie he had been watching moving noisily to its conclusion and he was not so much snoring as just breathing heavily. I leaned over and asked if I should take his glasses off, if he wanted to get under the covers. He asked what time it was and when I told him 10:00 he took his glasses off himself and handed me the clicker. “You can watch whatever you want you know,” he said.

I took the clicker, turned off the tv and laid for a long time just watching the ceiling fan. I ached. And I hated thinking that the sweet little tea set I had gotten Lily was made of glass. It was such a cute little set with its cloth napkins, and tiny silver ware in the little basket. And she had been genuinely delighted taking the little cups and saucers out, pouring tea. And then Julie must have realized they were made of glass or china or something breakable. She is such a good mother. Why had I not thought to look at the cups and saucers? To check? Oh well. I guess I could find tiny plastic cups and replace them. The little wicker basket is so cute.

Was that the ache? That the tea set had been china? No. Of course not. It set in on me when I saw Robbie down in the little bedroom the twins sleep in when they stay over night. He was just sitting on one of the beds, looking at the books in the bookcase behind the beds and he just looked sad. Missing his mother. I am sure. It was touching and so incredibly sad. What an amazing mother she must have been. Here is this handsome, accomplished 41 year old man with his beautiful wife and 3 incredible daughters and he was so sad because here he was at his father’s house and instead of his mother there was another woman. Me. His mother having died five years earlier.

I came onto the scene exactly 2 years ago this being the second anniversary of our first date. And I live in her house now having moved in almost a year ago. We would have started out fresh but we couldnt afford to. The housing market what it is. So here I am in another woman’s house. An odd mixture of her bowls and pots and pans and my china and silver.

When I had climbed into bed it also hit me this had to have been her side of the bed. I said I did not want to go to visit friends we were scheduled to visit in New Hampshire. I just can’t do it. Jeff gets so sad missing his wife too in the places they used to go. And it was enough just realizing I was sleeping on her side of the bed and living in her house it seemed the least we could do was to travel to our own new places. Make some new memories.

Or Jeff could go alone. I would not mind being alone for a few days and he could drive with the top down in his little Audi which he adores and I hate. He could be with his friends and have some time with them. And if he missed Lois then at least I wasnt there feeling like some interloper, some false idol steeling the place of a dead woman. No not this time.

The time three months ago his mother was here. She told me how perfect Lois had been. That everything she did was art. Even the way she cooked a meal. There is just no beating someone who was not only perfect but is now dead. And I hate myself for not being more zen like, more understanding, more able to simply nod, and feel their pain. I mean I do feel their pain. I have known it all too well. My own mother having died at 38 and the step mothers I had to endure. Three different women living in our house with our father until he got senile and our last step mother had our father moved out of his own house. Ugh! That was something from another planet. He never spoke of our mother after she died. Just moved all of her things out of the house and then moved us. A whole new house.

In Recovery

I woke up feeling off around 3:00 in the morning. My stomach is where it hits me first. I feel a little like my stomach is hurt. And I just sort of ache. Then I start trying to go back to sleep which never works. I have the little yellow AA book called Living Sober which I got in early sobriety and it spells out very clearly what to do for things like insomnia. The part I like best says not to lie in bed with it. To get up and perhaps read, work, watch tv...even the shopping channel. When I am sane I read the Economist. Perhaps an article on East Timor. Always puts me right to sleep. (I adore the Economist but only North America, and business. Also I love the obits in the Economist. Great magazine just some parts of it can be very dull. Those are the ones to read as sleep aids. But last night I did not get up I just rolled around and tried to figure out the unfigurable. My son seems to be mad at me for some reason. It came out in strange ways while he was here in town for work when I would see him. He was off again on again. But we are so close that I know when something is off and it stabs me in the stomach. When I am fully in its grips I am almost doubled over. Like I can't breathe. So I am making a lot more meetings. My therapist is gone to the South of France for the next six weeks too which I guess makes me more susceptible to the screaming me-me's. And my sponsor's cell phone is broken. The silver lining? My companion. Instead of immediately going to a morning meeting (early) I talked to him this morning and he always has such great adult perspective. That was better and we could be closer. And then I will go the noon meeting and leave early so that I can be at work by 1:00. (Work is just a few blocks from the noon AA meeting.)

Bright Orange Nail Polish

Yesterday I got the second best manicure, pedicure I have ever gotten. Both were from Molly and Sophie. Because first times are the best thats why this is second best but I adore it. I am sure I glow in the dark. I love these girls and of course the baby Lily. I am their almost grandmother. Living as I do with their grandfather. Molly and Sophie are twins. 7 year old twins and brilliant. And so gentle. It is incredible the care they put into their manicures. So each time I look down at my dayglow orange finer nails I am happy. They did Jeff's nails too. Amazing. He is looking for the nail polish remover right now so that he can take it off and I can't say I blame him though I adore him for letting the girls polish his nails. Every time I look at his hands now I am unspeakably happy. And the night was perfect. We got to have dinner with the girls and Jeff's son and daughter-in-law when they got home. (We were there for just a few hours babysitting at the end of a Saturday afternoon so that Robbie and Julie (parents) could go to a meeting. They brought home pizza and pasta and spaghetti and meat balls. And Lily did not want to sit at the big table instead she wanted to sit at the kids little table with me. So I got to eat across from Lily (she will be three in less than 3 weeks.) I am not sure there is anyone else I would rather eat with. She spoke to me of radishes and meatballs. Even ate a little of her pizza. Unconditional love. What a triumph. A tonic really. There is something going on with my own son who seems to be short and mean to me. Just doesn't really want to talk to me. And I love that kid (34 and married) so much that when we are out of sinq i am just heart sick. So I am learning to let go a little more, respect whatever he is going through and I really need to not take it personally. That is more difficult. But I am aware of it so a beginning. Anyway my gratitude is enormous. For the days when Wiley gave unconditional love, adored me and was so sweet. And now that that seems to have disappeared for the moment or time being to be able to look down at my bright orange colored nails and know that it still exists.

HALT

There are about a million great sayings in AA and one of them is HALT. They tell you never to get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. Thus HALT. All four of those things can lead us back to a drink. And at this point in my sobriety I will do anything almost not to drink. So I try to watch out for these things. The hungry part I am just learning to drink coffee or water or something ...anything besides alcohol. Turns out that when we feel hungry sometimes we are really just thirsty so drinking some coffee or tea cant hurt. And boy am I an expert now on great non-alcoholic things to drink. I brew teas all the time and mix cranberry juice with lime and seltzer and even have my own seltzer making machine. I should probably get a blender too. It is a hot summer and some frozen blended strawberries sound great. with lots of ice. And I am learning that protein helps too to fight off hunger and not gain weight. Of course when I first got sober they

What someone else thinks of me is none of my business...

I am a little off today. Just mild grumpiness. Maybe that comes with the territory of being an alcoholic in recovery. I just dropped my son off at Laguardia and he seems stressed out. Mean even or is it he is just short tempered? Or am I just getting old? (I am 60 after all) and maybe the rolls change so much. He has been married for 3 years to a beautiful girl and maybe to have to see your mother is just some reminder of how far you have come. Threatening? What goes on? I would love to know? Am I annoying? I am learning to listen. Maybe I am just not cool anymore. But one thing I am learning in AA is wonderful (actually I am learning a million things...) but one of them is that what anyone else thinks of me is none of my business. Its true. If I am to be true to myself I hope people like me (especially my son) but at this moment if there is something going on with him and he doesnt solicit my advise then I have to just sit quietly. I dont want anymore drama. God knows there was enough of it when I was drinking. But it is 3 and a half years now and I am actually becoming a grown up. A sober woman of dignity and honor is what I strive to be and some days I get closer than others. Yesterday I was mad at my son for being curt with me. Just not nice. He was basically an asshole. Very self centered and all head as they say. But he is 34 and I guess that is what happens. I need to cut him some slack and remember that I adore him and he is probably working very hard--too hard? and just on a tight reed. One little thing knocks him off. So what I am learning (painfully) is he can be whatever he is and I ache for him and hope he finds his way smoothly but if I am really taking care of myself the way that I should be I will be solid. And just me. Un knock offable. I should probably go to a meeting. I hate that feeling of churning stomach. And just feelaing mildly restless, irritable or discontent. But for the most part I was feeling better today. Late to work.!

the golden ghetto

They say in AA that we are only as sick as our secrets and one of my biggest secrets is the three years we lived on Charrington. That was one of three or four streets they called the golden ghetto in Birmingham, Michigan. It started out in Detroit where I grew up on Pinehurst. 17539 Pinehurst. I can't believe I can still remember the address. It was a very middle class neighborhood and was predominantly Jewish. We are Jews so this makes sense. The house was a colonial and when mom got polio dad bought land behind the house (Meyers Woods we called it.) and built mom a swimming pool so she could excercise. And the house was perfect for us. I remember the wooden table that pulled out of the kitchen wall to make it into an eat in kitchen. On the first floor we had a powder room with black and white tiled floors, a living room, dining room and that kitchen with the pullout wooden table. And there was a screened in back porch. On the second floor 3 bedrooms and a full bath. I loved living there. I was the happiest kid in the world. Popular, lots of friends, a great mom and a great dad and a very skinny little sister who my father did not particularily like and said she had two left feet and called her poor pitiful pearl. In fact she could have been miss america she is so beautiful, she is brillliant, creative and very funny but that is a whole nother story. Our mom was an artist--a sculptor--and she was back in school at Wayne State getting her BA (she only did two or three years of college at Mills because she got thrown out for having a c- average. Anyway she was back at school working to be a writer. And I can still see her at that giant old black typewriter writing a story about our next door neighbor Mrs. Levenberg. But that was the least of it, mom had us out gardening--we planted everything that would grow in that amazing huge garden, and lots of trees, and we had baby ducks, she took us down to Eastern Market and bought baby ducks, and chicks and cameleons, and you name it we had it. And she taught us to draw though I am not very good at sketching--Lynnie either...though Lynnie would go on to be a great potter. Mommie worked with her more than me on the kick wheel in the basement...oh we had a finished basement with washer and dryer and a mangle where van did the sheets. that basement was dark and damp in my memory. with a place where the laundry shoot dropped the clothes down. I dont ever remember more than a couple of times thinking about money. The most vivid time was coming home from Joanne Kozloff's house--she lived on Outer Drive--which was fancier than the rest of the bungalows we lived in and I just remember parking my bike, which I adored, and going in and asking dad if we were rich. (I think JoAnne may have said something like she was richer than we were or maybe it was my friend Nita Fisher who said it...) Anyway Dad hugged me and said, "We are rich in love." That seemed right at the time. God I loved mom and dad. And I have to confess I remember sitting on the floor playing with Barbie Dolls all by myself but daydreaming that I would marry a Mott. I was young at the time--no more than 9--and I don't know how I had heard of the Mott's but they were wealthy--and owned a big apple sauce making company. I think I used to fantasize about marrying a Mott so that I could be as wealthy as a princess. But for the most part I was not concerned with money. I was a normal little kid and played baseball after school and had a ton of friends. We even had a club. The Capris. I can't believe I am remembering all this. I was in 6th grade at the time. I even like doing math. I remember asking dad how to divide and he showed me and it seemed wonderful. I guess I was asking dad already even though mom had not yet died. She must have been in the hospital in between operations as we did the slow switch to dad only. Anyway everything changed--so cliche--in 6th grade. Mom got more sick even though she had had the mastectomy that the doctors said would save her. And I was going to Kingswood in the fall for 7th grade. Away from Schultz School, the wonderful public school I had gone to for all of elementary school k-6. Mom and her two sisters had gone to Kingswood and they lived in the city way down almost downtown Detroit on Chicago Boulevard and they had a long ride into the city. Mom was determined that we would live near Kingswood and not have that hour long ride to school. But Jews were not allowed those days to live in Bloomfield Hills so that's how we came to live on Charrington in the golden ghetto. The house was I think 922 Charrington but I cannot remember the exact address --blocked?--it was a white colonial, funny looking brick and very plain. It did have a lot of land with woods in the back and hills and beyond the hills lived the Wilsons in a big fancy house. Probably the Wilsons had owned all the land around and sold some off for our subdivision but I dont know. (The Wilson's were very cool. Linda was a year older than I was and very nice and her little sister Peggy was Lynnie's age and her friend and their mom Peggy had gone to Kingswood with our mom and they were sort of friends but not really. I remember mom telling us that Peggy was very goyish. That she blew hot and cold and mom could never really figure her out. One other thing about the Wilson's was their father was the son of engine charlie the ceo of GM long ago and faraway who said, "What's good for General Motors is good for the United States.") Anyway that was a very long digression...sorry. So we moved to this non-descript house with good land and dad built us a pool that looked just like the one we had on Pinehurst but that was where any similarities ended. It was after all the country.