The Red Rose Of Paris

I recently had the pleasure of adding a blog feed to my RSS reader: Arnon Grunberg. I loved his post called Eternal...(clarifying punctuation mine...sorry Arnon)

After Delhi, Mumbai, and - to a lesser degree - Varanasi, Manhattan feels like an empty and civilized town. Almost provincial, an eternal Sunday. Not at all unpleasant.

My boss, Lomesh, once described India to me in such a way that I could feel and smell and see the crush of people, hear the constant cacophony of sound. He told me that from his experience, there is no other place quite like India. I can see how Manhattan, the 20-dollar town, when every turn you make, you have to give somebody 20 bucks, the town where everybody's in a rush, where live moves at an astonishing pace, could feel like a Zen monastery after India.

Arnon's brief but deep post reminded me of the fluidity of perception, and in turn, reality. A city in one context, turns into something entirely different in a new context. When this happens, it's like a Zen koan, the awakening thump of the master's stick upon our distracted meditations. It's a gift that life gives us, a way that sometimes pulls the rug of illusion right out from under our feet, and makes us take a second look at beliefs, places, and people we took for granted.

When I had my first management job, when I managed the west coast region for a computer company, and more than 20 employees, I took it all way too seriously, as I'm wont to do. I bought into the illusion that my work, and all of its problems, and all of the people in it, were critically important. Life began, and ended, in my job.

Then, I got on a plane and flew to Paris for the very first time. This was probably 1988 or thereabouts. I'd traveled before. I'd been to Europe before. But on this trip, suddenly, I had a shift of perception. I flew over the ocean to a magical place. All along the way, I practiced my French, badly. As I'm wont to do. I was worried, you see, about that cab ride from the airport to the hotel. I was worried about the cab driver, about my French, about getting lost, about making a fool of myself, about everything.

And so, after much practice, I made my way to the curb-side cab, smiled my best smile, and slid into the back seat. I remember the cab driver's stubble, and his meaty face. And then I delivered my long-practiced line:

"L'hôtel Grand, s'il vous plait." With much faux confidence. With overly-accented aplomb.

Meaty Stubbleman turned almost completely around in his seat, his white wife-beater's T-shirt pulled and puckering across his chest, and with an ironic grin he said: 

"Eh Beeg Oh-tel? You waant eh Beeg Oh-tel?"

I blushed scarlet, realizing my overanxious, anal-retentive French fried bumblings. It was the whole "adjective after the noun thing." Except of course, the rule doesn't apply to proper nouns. To hotel names.

But, he knew exactly what I wanted. He was just giving me a hard time. And he was very, very sweet. He smiled at my blush, and over the top of the front seat of the cab, came a red rose, which he handed to me, as he said, "You waant le Grand Hotel, n'est-ce pas Mademoiselle?"

We became friends for a brief moment in time, this cab driver and I. I pushed the red velvet petals of my rose against my nostrils and smiled as he pointed out monuments and complained about Paris traffic. It was rush hour, and it took a very long time for him to take me to my hotel. I didn't mind. The hot summer air sat thick and still, like a patient sentry, upon the ledges of our open car windows. My driver sweated in his wife-beater, as did I in my prim little travel suit and matching pumps. The fragrance of the rose drifted light and fresh above it all, and the driver's laconic chatter gently moved the sweaty, rosy air between us.

On the sidewalk of Le Grand Hotel, in front of the Paris Opera, in front of the legendary Café de la Paix, I paid my cab driver, and reluctantly watched him drive away. It was then that I realized I had forgotten all about my "important" job, all the people I was trying to please, all the critical problems I was trying to solve. Suddenly, the rug had been yanked from underneath my practical pumps. And I realized that my life, and all its minor complexities, was an insignificant little blip within the monumental, pulsing, historic flow of Paris. 

It paled - my silly life - in comparison to the wilted rose I still held in my hand.

Mangled Bunnies & Galecians or Confessing To A Banker

My friend Me-Me just gave me the lemonade stand award. Me-Me has two blogs: Mad Mad Margo and The Turquoise Moon.

I've known Me-Me in my non-virtual life for at least 10 years. We didn't pal around like terrorists or anything (well...), but I always enjoyed her company whenever I had the opportunity to hang with her. Now that she's joined the Blog-uh-sphere, I feel like we live right around the corner, even though she's encamped in the Arizona desert and I'm hiding in my apartment in Paris. We meet up on Yahoo chat sometimes, when she's sleepless and listening to the coyotes mangle a bunny, and it's the next day here, and I'm listening to church bells across the street (why do they ring for a full ten minutes? why?) or the revelry of the Galecians, who have a little social club on the first floor of my building, and like to sing songs outside on the sidewalk on special occasions.

I've never told Me-Me this, but I had one conversation with her years ago, that I've never forgotten and that helped me enormously. It was during a really difficult time for me, after being fired from my job in the family business, and disowned by my family. It was like I'd been kicked in the stomach, and just couldn't find a way to stand up straight. I certainly couldn't go out on corporate job interviews. They prefer that you arrive somewhat upright for the interview. Then they ask you stupid questions like, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" I could only imagine me stuttering, trying to keep myself from saying, "Still kissing your ass for the sake of health insurance?" Instead, I went underground and cobbled together waitressing and hostessing jobs, drove a van for a trail riding company and babysat an art gallery.

During this time, Me-Me was working in corporate banking. So, I confided in her about my precarious financial situation: an overhead of about $3500 a month and if I was lucky, an income of about $800 a month. I lived in a great apartment, but it was in the ghetto. I only paid $500 a month, and split that with a roommate. I always made sure I paid my rent. I just couldn't pay all the rest of my bills. So, I became paralized. I never went to the mailbox. Too many threatening letters. I didn't answer the phone. When I did tie myself to the kitchen chair and force myself to pay bills, I called it "in-basket bingo" (a term stolen from my corporate buddy Steve). I just closed my eyes and grabbed one of the bills in the pile, and wrote a check for $25 to them. Everybody else would have to wait.

To this day, I still avoid the mailbox.

I guess, when I told Me-Me all this, I was confessing my financial avoidance behavior to a banker. At that point in my life, I projected a lot of validity on the corporate world, and worried too much about what the people in that world thought of me. But Me-Me told me the story of her own "fall from grace" at an earlier time in her life, and how she too became paralized and avoided her finances. It was very kind of her, to reveal her own humanity. And it made me realize that underneath the suits and ties, the practical pumps and professional briefcases, we are all human.

Me-Me knows a lot about making lemonade out of lemons. So her little blog gift of the lemonade stand is more poignant for me than she imagines.

Recently, when I was having a tough time, Me-Me wrote to me in an email, "I'm a fan of Lisa Wines." That statement inspired me to become a fan of Lisa Wines too.

And right now, as much or maybe even more than before when she was still wearing her banking suit, I'm a fan of Me-Me King.

Greatest Gift Of 2008

A few days before Christmas I was on my way out of my apartment building and heard my name called. Loudly. I turned, and my Guardien (super) hooked his finger to summon me to his office. I was in trouble. Déjà vu! (If you're wondering what that means, it's French for "I have been in trouble most of my life. So I know an angry finger hook when I see one." The French are amazing how they simplify such complex concepts into two words, n'est-ce pas? <-- That, by the way, is also two words.)

Then he started yelling at me in French as he jabbed his finger in the direction of a medium-sized box on his desk, then back in the direction of my nose. Most of what he said I didn't understand, but the part about it being "la dernière fois!" (the LAST time!), I understood. Evidently, he had placed the usual slip of paper in my mailbox telling me that a package was waiting for me. But I never open my mailbox because nobody ever sends me anything. That box had been sitting on his desk for 32 seconds longer than he could stand, so he was mad. 

It wasn't a good day for me. I took the box, tail between my legs, went back upstairs to my apartment, set the box down on the floor, and burst into tears. Then I wiped the snot on my $1.50 Target gloves, took off my coat and hat and called my girlfriend to tell her I was too late to meet her at the cemetary. I mean, in my condition, strolling through the avenues of mouldering death at Père-Lachaise didn't appeal to me any more. Fuck Jim Morrison. I've already seen his grave anyway.

I didn't look at that box for a couple of days. When I finally did open it, I was stunned.

A few months ago, my oldest friends from Marple Newtown junior high in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania had found me online. One of them, whom I'll call Dina, had been my bestest buddy. But when my parents moved me to Scottsdale, Arizona when I was 15 years old, it began a gradual separation between me and Dina. It was purposeful on my parents' part. They never approved of Dina, or any of my other friends. Those girls weren't Catholic. They were 'publics.' They were hippies and whores and such. The interesting thing is that they are now all normal humans with husbands and kids, and I'm, well, not married and I have no kids and I'm a dirty socialist...and such.

But be that as it may, after Dina and I exchanged a few emails, she asked me for my mailing address. Then she boxed up and sent me every letter I had ever written to her - from the letter I wrote on the plane from Philadelphia to Phoenix on the day we moved - July 1, 1971 - through my three years at Xavier high school in Phoenix, through my short and tragic time at University of Arizona in Tucson, through running away from home, through my love affair in Guadalajara, Mexico, through my time with David the drug smuggler. At one point I had asked her in one of my letters to save them all for me. In a note Dina wrote to me that she slipped on top of the letters in the box, she copied my letter and circled that sentence. She said in her note that she saved them not just because I asked her to, and not just because she's sentimental, but mostly because she thought that they would make a great book one day.

I think she's right. I just need to get my arms and head and heart around it all, and figure out how I want to approach it.

I cried salty tears and laughed out loud as I read every letter. It took me two days. I smiled or cringed sometimes at my naivety. I was surprised at my insights. I was sad for the girl that I was, who missed her best friend so much, stuck in what I thought was a cowpoke town, wishing I was back home. My parents strung me along with a promise that they would send me back to Philadelphia to visit my friends if I saved my plane fare. I was washing cars, cutting people's hair (shag!), and had my friends in Philly sending me dollars and quarters in the mail! I saved the money, and my parents reneged on the deal. In desperation asked Dina's mother to write a letter to my mother, inviting me to come and stay, and reassuring my mother that I would be safe. My mother's reply letter was in the box. She was gracious, but said that "these are different times, and these are different children," and she worried about me, and needed me to be where she could keep an eye on me.

Trust me, I managed to get in way more trouble on my own in Arizona than I ever would have gotten into with Dina in Pennsylvania. Let that be a lesson to parents out there - while you're locking the kid's bedroom door, she's sneaking out the window. Control isn't the answer, communication is.

And I don't remember any of this drama. I don't remember working for the money. I don't remember my never-ending longing to be back in Pennsylvania. I don't remember my deep disapointment when my sister told me that my mother laughingly told her that they would never let me go. There's an amazingly big gap in my memory, across the board. I professed love for a couple of different Bills so many times. I only remember one gorgeous, Jewish Bill. (THAT must have delighted my parents.) Who were all the rest? I don't know why, but there are events and people in those letters that I have no clue about.

There were two guys that I dated pretty seriously in high school that I actually do remember, one of whom was Glenn Keane, the son of Bil Keane, author of the syndicated Family Circus cartoons. But I never remembered how that relationship ended. After reading the letters, now I have some idea, but still not the whole story. Glenn is head of animation now at Disney. He went to work there directly out of college and never came back to Arizona.

Almost every envelope I sent, almost every letter inside, was illustrated. Once when my parents took me and my brother to a friend's cabin in Heber, Arizona for a week, I bought a Son Of Big Chief writing pad and vowed that I'd fill the whole thing up while I was at the cabin. And I did! And that whole Big Chief pad was in the box that Dina sent.

I wrote long letters in it, full of my adventures and thoughts, copied my favorite poems and song lyrics in there. There were line drawing portraits of my mother on the couch reading a book. Her one leg was tucked up under her like it always was, her other leg on the floor, her hair in a flip, with her reading glasses on. My Dad was sitting in a chair reading the paper, with his legs up on a hassock and his feet crossed at the ankles, the way he still sits even now, at 85 years old, in his home in Scottsdale. My brother had surprisingly long hair (how'd he get away with that?) and he was sitting in a chair reading Mad Magazine. I captured them all, in simple, quick line drawings. I was such an artist then. What happened to that part of me?

My letters were 20 pages long! (Shocking, I know.) Looseleaf sheets, every line filled, both sides of the paper. I guess I was a writer all the way back then. I wonder why I didn't follow that path? I had even started a book called Available Men And Where To Find Them (I was 16!). I had typed up (and mimeographed - remember that smell?) a questionaire for the guys to fill out, and I'd sent the questionaire to all my friends and told them to go and get single guys to fill them out so they could be listed in the book. I even had a legal release for the guys to sign. Wow.

With this blog, I've regained the writer in me. I'm also now making money from my writing. I will be forever grateful to Blogger for giving me this space to express myself, so I could finally realize my dream.

Perhaps it's time for me to start drawing again too, n'est-ce pas?

In the next few weeks, as I sift through the slips of paper and doodles that constitute my past, I'll scan some stuff in and post it for your pleasure, and mine.

Oh. Did I Miss Christmas?

Dah-yam. OK. Here's your card. Sorry.

(If you received this post in an email and can't see the animation, click through to my blog.)

Courtesy of Willisays.

Stepping Out Of Fear...Into The Light

Today being New Years day, 2009 (in case you didn't notice), I'm still in bed, pleased after an evening out with friends at our favorite restaurant, La Sauterelle, and with our favorite chef and barman extraordinaire: Patrick. I'll tell you more about that at another time. Right now, I'm geeking out trying to figure out how to get the contacts from my IPAQ phone into my Mac address book. But before I went through the transfer process, my contact list needed a little cleanup.

That's when I realized how much my life, and everybody else's lives, have changed in 2008.

Two good friends got divorced, the husband moved to Los Angeles, the wife moved to a tropical beach town in Mexico. He weathered a few career dramas (I participated briefly in one of them :-), but has now found himself in a good place. She picked up a little scruffy Mexican stray doggie and named her Betty, had a few interesting adventures (ahem), and pursued her art. Recently, she moved back to Arizona to undergo treatment for breast cancer. Her emails reflect a positive attitude, but I know that what she's going through is hard, and lonely. I send her much love and light. If you pray, please send a prayer in her direction.

Two good friends, a very successful couple who lived a happy social life full of loving friends, took quite a beating in the financial downturn. He was a custom home builder, she an environmental consultant. Their home sits on the market in Arizona, empty and unsold, and they've moved to a ski resort. She tends bar and waits tables, he is a ski instructor and bellman at the local hotel. They have always dreamed of living in this place, and so that's where they are. As usual, they are just as cheerful amidst this change, as they were when they entertained us all like kings and queens at their long, food-laden table, in their gorgeous desert home.

My friends Debby and Jack, whom I met here in Paris, moved back to the states. I don't have to update their phone numbers, because Jack was just as geeky as me, and travels everywhere with his Vonage box and the same phone number. He could be calling me from Tahiti, or Machu Pichu, but I'd think he was in San Francisco. They also face financial uncertainty, but continue to look outside of themselves to see who they can help, who they can love. I have benefited greatly from their generosity and wisdom. I can't speak for them, but I suspect that a deep faith in their God sustains them while they map out their future. I send them much love and my own brand of prayers.

None of these people are spring chickens, by the way. They're in their 50s and 60s. I give them great credit for remaining positive and flexible. They are an example to us all.

Of my old Sandbox.com friends, who were and still are much younger than me, I see lots of new little babies in their Facebook pictures, which is delightful. I laughed so much when we all worked together, and so now, when I see that these brilliant and quirky people have kids, I can't help but smile at the thought of their progeny.

On the other hand, I just learned of one couple who met at Sandbox that just got divorced. This saddens me, because I love them both. But I'm not the all-seeing wizard, and so I don't know if instead of sadness, I should be happy for each of them, as they pursue their ordained paths. I know I wish them both well. It was at their wedding, as I was dancing alone, when a drunk girl crashed the wedding party and danced with me. When the music ended she looked me up and down with approval and said, "You must have been hot...back in the day." Mmm. Hmm. That I was.

Another Sandbox friend moved to Germany and has his own computer forensics company. I imagine that he may have landed himself in a recession-proof business in these days of international uproar. I say 'uproar' because I refuse to use the 'T' word. I don't know about you, but I'm sick to death of the last 8 years of fear mongering by our leaders. Fear only shuts us down, makes us less creative, makes us more vulnerable, and less responsive to obstacles. I look forward to the opening of hearts and minds around the world, to the opening of dialogue and the end of the barbaric use of war as a means of settling disputes. I sincerely hope that the world stops throwing its toys, stops its violent tantrums, and grows up enough to sit respectfully at the negotiation table and do what's best for mankind, and not what's best for lining their own pockets or pumping up their inflated egos and false sense of power.

BuildYourMarket.com shut its doors in 2008, putting Tom, Paul and other friends out of work. These guys had families to support, so I worried about them. But they both landed on their feet, and I hope they continue to do well. This is the job that cinched it for me, the one that made me finally quit corporate America. In the space of 5 years I reported to seven CEOs, went through three ownership changes, three complete system redesigns by three different development companies, sat uncomfortably in the middle of a couple of lawsuits, and had all the money taken out of my bank account by what I suspect was an employee, who I later discovered to be an ex-con. It was the definition of insanity, that job, and although I worried for my friends when the company closed, I worried more about them while they were still working there. No matter what sacrifices they had to make in salary or commute time, I know they are in a better place now.

My niece moved back to Sacramento from Washington D.C., but during a recent anniversary trip back to D.C., her highschool sweetheart got down on his knees and asked her to marry him...in front of the White House. She agreed. She's a Republican; he's a Democrat. I hope he wins all the arguments.

My other niece graduated from Moore College of Art in Philadelphia with a focus on fabric and textile design, and took her first plane ride to Arizona to spend time with my family. She's back there again right now, enjoying the weather, and taking a little trip to Vegas. I hope to lure her to Paris and take her on a magic carpet ride through the fabrics of St. Pierre and the African wax cloth stores in Chateau Rouge.

There are many more stories to tell, but I couldn't fit them all here. But they are all about change. I think that change is good. It can be uncomfortable, sometimes painful, but if we choose to learn from every change, we will become better human beings. This is what I tell myself, anyway.

I'll end this post with the first person in my cell phone contact list, Armando.

I met Armando while I was in Mexico City during Christmas and New Years of 2005. He has a band called Chikita Violenta. (MySpace) He was in a music store on Christmas eve, buying himself a vintage 1970s Fender Rhodes for his Christmas gift. The music shop was magical. While talking to Armando, I also met the man who owns the store, and he brought his father out to meet me too. His father had been a pioneer in the 70s when he filled up a plane in the states full of Fender Rhodes pianos and other instruments, and flew them down to his shop in Mexico City. Up we climbed to the store's rooftop storage. The son opened a door and there all the pianos were, or what was left of that shipment from long ago, stacked one on top of each other in their original boxes, unopened, pristine. I don't know why they didn't sell, or why they kept them hidden in storage like that. I think there are probably a hundred or so people that would give anything to pick one of those up.

I didn't stay in touch with Armando. It was just one of those fleeting travel friendships. But I went to his website today to see what he was up to, and found a great video, where he took 70s footage of his family having fun at Christmas, and used it as a backdrop for one of the band's songs. It's brilliant, especially if you're like me and actually used to dress, and dance, just like that (er...back in the day). Here's what SPIN magazine had to say about it:

"Filming your whole family grooving to your song is pretty cute. Editing footage of your family from the '70s to look as if they're now lip-synching your song enhances the novelty. But mixing the two into a generation-spanning holiday party takes the cuteness and novelty and blows it up like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters, only instead of being evil, he just wants to dance."

Here's a link to the video. (Sorry, the embed code didn't work.)

There were many changes with my friends, and in the world. I'm sure there will be many more to come. In 2009 I wish for myself that I stay open to opportunities, even when I'm afraid, even when I have doubts about the future. In 2009 I wish for myself that I be what I want the world to be...I want to step out of fear, into the light.

Join me, won't you?