Watching extraordinary young people on snowboards, gliding high up into the air and twisting their bodies in mind-bending spectacular poses before they land. Sometimes they seem to float, defying gravity. A friend suggests that have different DNA than mere mortals; perhaps this is so. They are more than magicians, their exuberance lights their path.

Watching them lights up my world as well. I exalt in their prowess.

Earlier this evening, I listened to one of my all time favorite writers, TC Boyle, tell Tavis Smiley that he was blessed by no one ever saying no to him. You see, he said, my mother loved me, and she never said no – I wore what I wanted, I did what I wanted. Tavis connected the dots: that uninhibited ability to decide for himself, the freedom to create his own persona, to pursue his own path, had resulted in an often outrageous creative streak, and a willingness, rather a perpetual intent, to write whatever he wanted, however he wanted. Taking risks that satisfied his unwillingness to say no to himself. He answers only to himself and bestows upon himself his own rewards.

For those of us who have an inner voice that more often says no, this is a mantra of sorts.

I have a good friend in CT who cries whenever anyone wins an award – gold medals, Oscars, anything where there is a personal best. She cries because deep down she feels denied the option to take risks and answer only to herself. Her personal path was censored, as so many are, especially those of us of the boomer generation. The battle for most of us is not to challenge our personal best but to do the best we can with what we’ve got.

I often share her tears. I envy those unencumbered by that inhibiting inner voice.

So it comes back to risk. Risk, more often defined as what we have to lose, rather than what we have to gain. The older I get the more willing I am to take the risk, to reach out for not so much a personal best, not in the sense of the champion, but to move beyond the limitations imposed, integrated, deeply ingrained over the years, and thus self-imposed in the end. To break out, be a little bit outrageous [that’s about all I can muster] and not be afraid to fall. So much more to gain than to lose.

They say that one doesn't get older, one gets more so, but this does not have to be so. Colette said we are never too old to become the person we want to be. Although, there is something to be said for aging gracefully.

The Olympics is much more than a bi-annual sporting event. It is a bi-annual challenge to reset our own barre. That incredible spirit of youth that defies risk, that laughs in the face of risk and says ‘come and get me.’ Wow. I am in awe of them, and grateful for the reminder that we only live once. Really, what is there to lose? Always more to gain.

In Praise of the Music

OMG. The Grammy's. A 3-hour mind blowing concert. Some of the most remarkable talent, big productions [occasionally over the top, of course] the style, the outrageous, the sheer joy of the jubilance of young musicians and the pleasure of the rock. I am transported back to my youth, bouncing around the house to the music, watching every move Beyonce makes, and that wild Lady Gaga, with dear Sir Elton by her side, what a trip. Honestly, I felt like a teenager again. Wild and unencumbered. And reminded once more the power of music, whatever your taste, and even at this exalted age, I just love that rock and roll. All versions of it. I was enthralled with it. And I carried the jubilance with me into a night of sweet dreams and to another day of a slightly quicker step and that sense of possibilities that only the music divines. Wow. Pay attention Oscars and other award shows - it's about the magic, the entertainment. Awards, not so much. Simply the conduit, the conveyer of the art. I continue to be astonished by the sheer imagination of this generation, beyond even what I felt that joyful day in the early sixties when I discovered those boys from Liverpool. In this crazy world of manic politics, angry terrorists, homelessness and loneliness, it is only the music that brings us back to a Nirvana that comes in three minute takes that last all day, and night. I feel it still. Especially this year, the year of the women with incredible pipes and gorgeous bods. Gaga is indeed gaga, with the talent to match, the extraordinary Pink, the stunningly beautiful Beyonce, and the wonderful Fergie and Black Eyed Peas, the amazing friends of Michael Jackson, Carrie Underwood of special note, dear Dave Matthews... and all the rest. You made my day, and then some. And to itunes, my new friend, thank you for the instantaneous gratification.

It's a wonderful world as long as there is the music. Makes everything else possible.

On Demand

I have migrated to the land of iPod. I was reluctant, not a fan of earplugs, and uncertain why I would want to shutter my mind while walking when I might daydream or ponder the meaning of the universe, much as I love music, or why I might forego the pleasure of total immersion in a book while on a plane.

However, I have discovered the joys of the podcast and the return to my audio Spanish lessons, which, in 30 minute increments, are exactly the time I spend on the treadmill and thus extremely efficient use of time. And I have discovered the joys of podcasting. The opportunity to catch up on programs that I’ve missed while I’m working or simply because radio frequencies are often obstructed by hillsides is truly change I can believe in. Now, I can access my favorite shows whenever I want, via computer or iPod, and I’m hooked.

Although… I’ve been resistant in principle to the on-demand world. The natural outgrowth of my boomer generation’s determination for instant gratification, we now seem to have everything available to us whenever and wherever we want. I don’t DVR and although I have taken one step closer to this personal control of media, I still enjoy the idea, now and then, that I must get home to watch a special show. Remember the many Friday nights we went out late so we could first watch Mary Tyler Moore? I look forward to [some] award shows or Olympics or tennis tournaments and part of the pleasure is the anticipation, which has been neutralized in favor of the I-can-watch-it-later via the recording. Every show or event just another item on the playlist. The very idea of heading home to curl up with something wonderful or stay put to listen just a little longer, is already long gone. Ah, how my mother and I looked forward to Saturday operas broadcast live from the Met. Now we might get to it on Thursday. And I still enjoy the idea that it’s Tuesday night and tonight, when my eyes will no longer focus on a book, I can watch The Good Wife, one of the few decent dramas on TV, although, truth be known, I know own the complete West Wing on DVD [thank you Dana] so I can watch that brilliance whenever I want, and this is awfully nice to know. I confess that I am considering dismantling the television entirely in favor of Netflix and the few television shows worth watching on-line. Ah, the ambivalence.

My boss, a devoted football enthusiast, consoled herself recently with the inability to watch her favorite team in the playoffs because of a Board event, knowing she might watch when she got home, and still enjoy as long as no one snitched the outcome. I suppose it’s wonderful to know that what you want is always within reach, but what’s the trade-off? Certainly we are able to better manage our time because of constant access, but what do we, or more to the point our children, who are acculturated in this technology, lose in personal discipline. The ability to structure our lives and meet the demands as they come, not always as we plan them, is so important to their ability to navigate the world successfully. At least, the world as I see it, which may be the disconnect here.

We no longer have to manage our time beyond the daily work or school clock – what we want to watch or hear is always available, if we’re late we send a text, we can find directions on our phone so why even study the map ahead of time [another guilty pleasure of mine] and we can take classes at our leisure on-line, no worries about rushing to class on time. Will this younger generation fail to learn the fine art of time management and the meaning of being in the right place at the right time? If all or even most of our lives are constructed to our own choosing, how will we navigate through the construct of a larger world, increasingly beyond our control?

Perhaps it is simply that I am rapidly becoming obsolete, approaching life in a context that no longer exists. Which is odd because I am such a fan of technology and delight in its prowess… I’ll ponder this on my next walk. Then again, I’ve got a date with my Spanish teacher in my ear.

Next: The Joys and Woes of the Shuffle.

Plucking the Poetry

Ah the joys of a great book. I’ve read, and reread portions of The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker, an ostensibly simple but fantastically complex and profound study of a modern-day poet-procrastinator-socially inept-loner struggling to write an introduction to an anthology of poetry and doing everything else but. It’s of course a love letter to poetry and to the life of the great poets, but also the study of the human psyche, which in the end is all about poetry.

My dear friend Diane of Diane’s Books sent me the advanced copy and it is now filled with margin notes and folded pages and underlined quotes to be revisited now and then. It’s that sort of book. What you cannot do as well with a Kindle or a Sony electronic reader, nor the amazing Google Books that I’ve recently discovered, where great literature is digitalized so when you’re bored at work you can read a few pages of Jane Austen! I myself have been re-reading Dorian Gray two pages at a time at this gigantic cyberspace library. As fun as that is, there is no thrill of scratching your thoughts in the margins for posterity or circling the tiny number on the bottom of a page to remind you that a passage there is utterly divine.

But this is about the book – a study of life in poetry or poetry in life: Every moment of uncertainty, the challenge of change, the despair of creativity, the pain of loneliness, the jubilation of getting it right and the sheer importance of living in the moment. Lots of little stories within this story, and while it seems on the surface like the stream of conscious reportage of a few months in the life of a writer, it is oh so much more. You will laugh aloud and delight in the telling of tales of great poets’ lives. And you will find yourself nodding in commiseration with his thoughs and with the paralysis we have all felt when something important needs to be done and we just can't do it.

When at last he brings it all together you will rejoice, as we do when we read a truly great poem. This is a book filled with segment after segment, as if stanza’s, that alone are worth the read. Consider this moment as he speaks to a master class, when asked how he achieves the presence of mind to initiate the writing of a poem. “Well, I’ll tell you how. I ask a simple question. I ask myself: ‘What was the very best moment of your day?’ The wonder of it was, I told them, that this one question could lift out from my life exactly what I will want to write a poem about. Something that I hadn’t known was important will leap up and hover there in front of me, saying I am – I am the best moment of the day. It’s a moment when you’re waiting for someone, or you’re driving somewhere, or maybe you’re just walking diagonally across a parking lot and you’re admiring the oil stains and the dribbled tar patterns. One time it was when I was driving past a certain house that was screaming with sunlitness on its white clapboards, and then I plunged through tree shadows that splashed and splayed over the windshield and though, Ah, of course – I’d forgotten. You, windshield shadows, you are the best moment of the day.”

Of course, reading this passage was the best moment of that day.

Well, that was after this moment, this passage, which I must also share: ...“Horace didn’t say that. ‘Carpe diem’ doesn’t mean seize the day – it means something gentler and more sensible. ‘Carpe diem’ means pluck the day. Carpe, pluck. Seize the day would be ‘cape diem’ if my school Latin services. Very different piece of advice What Horace had in mind was that you should gently pull on the day’s stem, as if it were, say, a wildflower or an olive, holding it with all the practiced care of your thumb and the side of your finger, which knows how to not crush easily crushed things… Pluck the cranberry or blueberry of the day tenderly free without damaging it is what Horace meant – pick the day, harvest the day, reap the day, mow the day, forage the day. Don’t freaking grab the day in your fist like a burger at a fairground and take a big chomping bite out of it…”

What more can I possibly say? Pluck the day. At the very least, bite into a juicy plum and relish the juice on your chin. That too is poetry, in its way. One of those lovely small moments that make the day.

Times Go By

This will be the last neurotic-nostalgic-year-end blog, promise. I'm under the influence of shorter darker days. Colder air. That time of year. I apologize. I don’t do much in the way of resolutions, and try not to become too terribly immersed in soul-searching, but the spirit of Scrooge has come over me like a shroud.

Another year. Another decade. How did this happen? Time evaporates, more rapidly each year. As if everything we do, every activity, every emotion, were sucked into an invisible vortex, jammed together with all the other years, all the other people and all the emotions that go with all that. An emotional black hole.

Wasn’t it just yesterday that we celebrated the arrival of the new millennium while expecting the demon of Y2K to wreak havoc on our now nearly obsolete technology? Wasn’t it just yesterday that I sat in my CT home-office fighting back tears, clutching the phone to discover the whereabouts of my husband and friends in downtown Manhattan. Wasn’t it just the other day that my daughters graduated college [2000 and 2003] and now they have completed graduate school – Dana in practice and Julie on her way. Can it really be five years ago that we lost Rusty and four years since I resettled in Laguna Beach? I know it’s a cliché, but where has the time gone?

Time, unlike nature, moves beyond any vacuum in our lives, unobstructed, constantly plowing forward like a high speed train. And, like those trains, speeds also seem to accelerate each year. Something about age that makes the time pass all the faster, we all speak about it, marvel at it, complain of it. No stopping the clock, not in this linear space-time continuum. The only respite is the length of the day and here is where time tricks us. Just as the year winds down and the days have become almost unbearably short, winter solstice kicks in and the process reverses. So in the midst of darkness the light returns. Just a little bit at a time, nearly imperceptible, but there if you pay attention. The days grow longer, as if adding time to our lives, even as we watch the calendar pages turn and memories take on greater prominence than the moment.

The passing of time yet another reason, as my daughters remind me often, to be conscious of each moment, which so quickly slips away. More of our lives devoted to yesterday than tomorrow. I suppose this is why I find myself of late resenting the proximity to senior status. Before long, I will be old. More and more of my life is past and less in the future. I don’t fear dying, not at all, I only wish to live as well as possible as long as possible. If I don’t appreciate each moment as it comes, it will too soon be gone. As so many are. The first decade of the new millennium merely memory now. Fodder for nostalgia. In the blink of an eye, we will find ourselves celebrating the quarter century – OMG!

Happy new year.

It's Complicated

As soon as the presents were opened, breakfast complete, Julie and I honored the Xmas holiday by going to a movie; before Noon, the theater was packed. No wonder distributors make such a fuss over films opening Christmas Day. Clearly a tradition enjoyed by not just the Jews, but those who favor an outing or simply a less traditional day.

We saw “It’s Complicated.” Always happy to watch Meryl Streep work her magic. Lighter weight films are preferable on a holiday, no need to be immersed in existential struggles or conflicts.

To my surprise, the story is as existential as they come. What does it mean to be married? To be in a loving partnership that never lives up to its promise. To be left behind. To make choices that impact so severely and forever those we love most. That’s what this so-called comedy was about and it hit me hard. Hard for me to hold back tears at several scenes and, once out of sight of my daughter, the faucet blew. I loved my husband dearly from the first moment I met him, sometimes unexpectedly and often irrationally, but love him I did, and he loved me, although our relationship was often tenuous and painful. Not so much opposites attract, as our values were on the same page, but two people who approach life differently and seek different outcomes. What we had in common was our children, our community, our mutual respect and a lovely group of friends. It should have been enough.

His loss was devastating to me. I have found it exceedingly hard to transfer affection and thus have been denied [or denied myself] romance for most of a decade. [Although present me with an architect with the humor of Steve Martin and I'm there.] I still find myself reaching for the phone to call him after I’ve spoken to one of the girls as he was, despite his frequent absences, a co-parent. No one loved our children more nor shared the same concerns as we. I often complained that I was a single parent, and then the reality set in. He’s not here.

Unlike the characters of the film, there is no possibility of communication. No chance for reconciliation. No apologies. No connection whatsoever. I find myself mourning as fully now as I did five years ago, August, when Rusty died and closed the door behind our lives so tightly and so fiercely, as if a vault. Only the memories remain and these grow dim with age.

Sometimes it is so terribly hard to live in the present when we long so profoundly for those of the past. I indulge myself in these moments of sadness infrequently and without remorse, because to live in the hearts of those left behind is to live forever. A psalm. The words imprinted on my mother’s headstone. Gone 33 years and even now, now and then, I wish I might chat with her as well.

Sometimes I so deeply wish I might go back into my past and start again. Impossible of course. The stuff only of movies and fantasy fiction. And then I think: what exactly would I go back to? And would I want to live through these losses all over again? Better to keep moving forward. Stopping only occasionally to remember, to weep, to mourn, to reflect, and to smile in gratitude for the time we had.

That’s all there is. That's all there ever was.

Harbor House Cafe

I frequently walk down to Harbor House Café for Sunday breakfast. Armed with my favorite sections of the NY Times I enjoy a lazy morning and an indulgence: pancakes, a short stack of course. Harbor House is a large place, with classic counter and booth seating, with an adjoining glassed in patio with patio style glass-topped tables and plastic chairs. I favor that space as the light there is better suited for reading. Open 24 hours, this café, originally called a coffee shop, is equivalent to an East Coast diner. Reminds me of long ago late night dates with the gigantic menu of cheap eats and the slightly grungy ambiance that fits poor students and large families.

Down a dark hallway to the ladies room there is a large framed photo of Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke that always makes me smile. This is but one of hundreds of film-related photos and posters that line every inch of wall, and I mean every inch. These are not signed photo’s as at Sardi’s. Nor are they reserved to celebrities who might have lived in SoCal. No rhyme or reason. I once asked a waitress the significance of the film memorabilia and she had no idea. I asked at the counter, a shrug. I can only conjecture that the owner has a passion for film. Perhaps a family member has a Hollywood photo business. Or some poster store shut down just as the café was opening: instant décor.

A clue to the mystery is found on the website: Harbor House was founded in 1939, an exceptional year for film. Gone with the Wind. Gunga Din. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Wizard of Oz. Destry Rides Again. And the year before [one has to look] Holiday and Jezebel, two of my favorites. So I understand the passion for film at that time. Makes sense. Why Harbor House Café? The right of ownership.

The photos, while lots of fun and recalling many of my own favorite movies and actors, creates a real disconnect in this place more frequented by bikers and blue color workers than stars. I need metaphors and I can’t find one here. We are 70 miles from Hollywood. The photo montage covers nearly a century of film icons, well before the café was founded. As far as I can tell, even the wait staff has nothing to do with film production. Now and then I look up to see James Dean or Audrey Hepburn smiling at me and while a pleasant distraction, makes no sense. Of course, a patron with the New York Times in her face makes no sense either [LA Times and OC Register sold in machines just outside the door] so I am just as much a contradiction in this place as the photos. Perhaps that’s the connection in the end – we come from everywhere and end up here.

Whatever. Paul Newman always makes me smile.