THE CHRONICLES
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Fall 2001

 

 

JUST ONE AMERICAN BEAUTY ROSE

by Marilyn Farber Jacobs

The crash woke me. Sitting up, I looked around. In the dim light coming through the window, I saw my tall glass bud vase broken on the floor.

My cat must have been admiring the red American Beauty rose I'd received that evening. "On Candy," I sighed. "Your curiosity has done it again." I switched on the lamp, went to the hall closet, and took out the broom and dust pan.

"Brrr. It's still cold." I remembered how I'd shivered outside earlier while waiting for the WALK sign, my breaths forming little clouds in front of me. Three cabdrivers stopped and almost in unison started tapping their fingers on their steering wheels, feet no doubt poised above accelerators, anticipating the maneuver around Columbus Circle.

I crossed the street and headed uptown, walking along Central Park. With my black hat covering my head, I buried my chin in my black scarf, hunching up my shoulders, hands in my pockets. My black windbreaker had a Burberry beige, white, red, and black plaid fabric on its cuffs and collar. The red plush pile lining, neither detachable nor visible, kept me warm. My pants and walking shoes, too, were black, THE New York color, especially in winter. "Such a thrifty idea," I reasoned. "If everything I buy is black, everything matches."

Very few people were out in the strong wind. Mid-February in New York City is usually like this. "But I'm here," I mused, "where I decided t move, so I'll just have to get used to the cold." My friend Jeffrey had emailed me from Florida where he'd spent the morning on a beach. "Come on down," he wrote. "I saw your weather report, and you have my sympathy!"

I kept up an even pace. "Heel, toe, heel, toe," I said out loud, concentrating on getting the most out of my walk, like the book I was reading had instructed. My large black handbag, the size left over from years of carrying a diaper bag, rested easy on my shoulder. But it got in the way of swinging my left arm, so I just did the best I could. "This," I thought, "is real exercise."

I crossed over at 66th Street and continued up Central Park West. Twice, as I walked north, I had to stop for the light, breaking my rhythm.

I'd eaten at a nice Italian restaurant on Columbus Avenue several times before. A friend had recommended it. "I'll go there tonight," I thought, raising my eyebrows. "I'll treat myself to capellini with tomato sauce and capers." I was feeling good, free, emancipated from a marriage that had been going nowhere.

I marched past apartment buildings with doctors' offices on the ground floors, signs advertising their speciality. A young delivery man stood outside a deli, rocking back and forth to keep warm. An elderly man was walking his dog. But I mostly scanned the architecture, sometimes craning my head to see it. A few buildings featured art deco designs, dating them back to the 1940s.

I rounded the corner and walked south on Columbus Avenue, almost always filled with people. You can window shop, or buy clothing and makeup in airy, well lit, non-intimidating boutiques, often open at night, with young attractive 20-something salesmen and women. On warm days and nights, you can eat outside and watch passersby, couples holding hands.

Even though it was not yet 6:00, the official start of the dinner hour, a Chinese restaurant was already half filled. I paused long enough to look at its taped-up menu, but still wanted pasta.

A man and woman walked into the next restaurant with their little boy. It's menu read in big bold letters, FAMILY STYLE PLATTERS. "I'll bring my grandchildren here sometime," I fantasized, and kept going.

When I reached the Italian restaurant, I went inside to find almost all the tables taken, the conversations melding into a loud buzz. I smiled at the host, "Table for one, please."

"Madame," he said, "I cannot accommodate 'one' this evening, we have no table for you." He then turned to the next woman and asked, "Table for two?"

"Really?" I asked. He glanced at me but did not answer. I'd been dismissed.

"Did he reject me because I was alone?" I wondered. It was Valentine's Evening.

There are enough restaurants in this area, I knew I'd find another one quickly, maybe a quieter one. As I walked along, a little faster now, I told myself I would never go back there. The other times I'd been alone, they'd been happy to feed me, but a single woman, on this night!

I remembered going into almost vacant restaurants other times where I'd been led to an undesirable table, near the kitchen. I would gesture towards a better location and say I wanted to sit there. They usually moved me, but if they wouldn't, I'd leave and go elsewhere. I figured "It's my money and I want to feel comfortable, respected, and taken care of. I want to feel that way all the time."

I continued down Columbus Avenue, crossed the street, and stopped at a restaurant I'd never noticed before, for good reason. A food market adorned its front with permanent though empty bins and shelves. An awning projected out over those.

Polished wood paneling framed a large glass window, beckoning me to peek in. An arrangement of large red shrimp flowers and exotic leaves sat on the bar. The lighting was set at a comfortable glow, making the place look warm and inviting. Scanning the menu by the door, I saw sea bass. My mouth watered.

The prices were a bit high, but I peered in again. Only a few tables were taken. I went inside.

The hostess was wearing a black dress with a red jacket, shoulders squared with pads, her black hair styled in a pageboy. She sat me at a table for two.

One side wall was brick, the other painted white. There were etchings of buildings and New York City scenes in black frames. The tables had white linen clothes, and the glasses and flatware had an upscale look, making me feel special, showing promise that I would be treated well. So many times I'd been to a restaurant where the food was good, but the ambiance was not. I sat back, content and hopeful.

The servers and busboys were in clean, white, starched uniforms, and they were smiling.

My waitress told me the specials. I started with a glass of white zinfandel wine. I like sweet wines. It came in a generous round shaped goblet with a delicate stem. "Eleganta," I whispered.

My salad combined the flavors of apples, skinny red onion slices, lettuces, and goat cheese with balsamic dressing. So far, I rated the restaurant as excellent. The service was polite, and not rushed. The busboy kept my waterglass filled. I like lots of water. I did have to ask for a second time for a slice of lemon for it, hardly a major catastrophe.

The kitchen prepared my sea bass as requested, grilled rather than sautéed, butter sauce on the side. There were mashed potatoes with herbs, baby carrots mixed with sweet red peppers, and a sprig of broccoli with a delicious white sauce. I ate slowly, leaving a small amount n my plate, too full to order dessert. I declined coffee, feeling completely satisfied.

My watch read 6:45. I paid the check, leaving a generous tip. The restaurant was full now, and there were about two dozen people waiting. Most were in casual dress but neat looking. At that moment, the waitress came over and put one long-stemmed American Beauty rose wrapped in cellophane on my table.

"This is for you, Madame," she said.

"Thank you. It's beautiful. And so thoughtful." I noted that not every female patron had received such a gift.

I thanked the hostess for the rose and put the restaurant's card in my purse. "I'll definitely be back," I told her. "Next time, I'll bring friends." I walked south toward my apartment building, smiling all the way home.

Marilyn Farber Jacobs is a short story writer and an internationally published poet. Her restaurant and museum reviews can be seen on Digital City New York. This article was excerpted from Single Women: Alive and Well!, First Books Library (July, 2001). ISBN 075960104-6.

 

MY PLACE IN TIME

by Fran Lombardo

Not long after departing from 33 years of wedded unconsciousness, I was determined to release the past and start anew. While purging my photo albums, I picked up a recent photo of myself. Etched on my features was the testimony of my life journey for all to see. I stared at the picture long and hard, realizing I was looking at the Prime Mover of Life: Time. I was face to face with something I had tried to avoid, my mortality. Perversely my inner voice verified my despair—you are old!

Did the Wrinkle Genie need a sacrifice, and had come to collect me? Was time running out? I was lost. I remembered reading "Old age is like another country." Who was that person staring back from that picture? Time had passed her by and now I would lose her in the growing army of older women, newly divorced or widowed, alone and aging.

What could I do? Neither wine, chocolate cookies, nor a call to my special friend did anything to alleviate the feeling of loss. Her clichéed comments "join the crowd and make the best of it," made me angry. I was not ready for the reaper. I was still young inside!

So began my journey into the valley of denial. I became one of the "others" who tried dancing back into lost years. I read magazine articles on how to stay young, watched televisions programs on style, and how to be your own person. I tried mummifying techniques with cosmetics; I went for hair dye, liposuction, diets, exercise, shorter skirts, and on and on. After a year I still did not know who I was, and began doing and saying things that were not comfortable for me. I was becoming one of "them."

Somewhere during my aging process, my mind had parted company with my energy. This change had occurred so subtly that I had not been aware of it until I entered the territory of perpetual youth. As I jitterbugged down memory lane, I began to get glimpses of another me. My thoughts were those of a 30-year-old with years of experience to guide my actions, but my body moved with 65-year-old bones. My energy had become precious, so I began to identify where and how I wanted to use it. I did not need to do the things I did as half of a "couple," or think as an amendment to someone else's thoughts. I did not have to laugh at jokes that were offensive or crude. I did not have to fill every day with busyness. Most of all, when I got out of bed in the morning I could direct my own energy. I was not yet reaper material.

The years have taught me resilience, and studies show that adjusting to changing life shifts is a trait of successful agers. What I needed was a new perception to my shifted world, and a way to use it. Since my energy was precious, what I needed was not to waste it on someone else's vision of aging.

I found that old roles got in my way. Roles such as senior, oldster, grandma, mother, wife, daughter, carried mental pictures attached to them that were limiting. I needed one that would allow me to have the freedom to change direction as many times as I wished and to move at my own speed.

One day, it came to me that growing older was nothing more than moving in time. I had my new role. I would no longer be a senior or an oldster, I would be a Time Traveler. The mental picture of that role was hopeful and creative, and far-reaching. As I absorbed this new role, my reality shifted, and my perception of time expanded. Because of the vast concept of time travel, letting go of endings became easier. No longer was I intense about the numbers of my age, as they no longer bound me. I am able to seek out and experience quality instead of quantity where moments become expanded capsules of time.

The Wrinkle Genie and I get along famously now, as she is nothing more than my validation at being a survivor and no longer an ending.

Now there is no one else inside my skin. There is no room for "others," and my days are filled with beginnings. I take the pulse of my rhythm, gauge my energy, and ask my soul what it needs. This is my guide for what lies ahead.

Forget the old role of aging, let go of the numbers, the wrinkles and the hair changes. Spend the rest of your life in a different kind of time.

Become a Time Traveler. Join those that are taking a journey into alternative ideas when life shifts for them, so they can live out the rest of their life in harmony.

Fran Lombardo has worked for the last 25 years in the field of positive self-esteem and taking personal responsibility. She has published newspaper columns on the subject.

 

THE SPACE BETWEEN: NOW AND THEN

by June McAllister

Two tender and fleshy teenage girls on the subway this afternoon, the lines of their bodies and faces still without edges. They sprawl those arms and legs at the other end of the almost empty car, talking and squealing in that ear-splitting decimal that is particular to females between the ages of twelve and sixteen.

I am inconceivable to them. They will never be this old. Their mother is this old. They are arrogant in the knowledge that they will never become their mothers. They are so far away from me that I am almost not here at all. But I was THEM only yesterday. Time and space have become distorted. They cannot see me but I can reach back and almost touch them. They are here inside my slacker skin and softer muscles. They are stored forever under my heart, held close in the tender and somewhat flabbier arms of middle-aged memory.

We remember when summer was of course always endless. We knew that September would eventually arrive. We knew this because it had arrived every fall of our lives. But each June the memory grew dim and we forgot the reality of crisp and pristine brown paper book covers not yet scribbled and limp with slogans and initials in intricate and inky scroll.

So summer is endless and fall might never come. Those long shadowed and dreamlike days are also filled with endless possibilities. Anything can happen. Skin can clear up. Weight can be lost. Breasts can swell. Sought after coolness can be attained, or perhaps regained. The social disasters of last winter can perhaps be repaired with the perfect shoes and haircut.

I turned 50 this month. I have glorious memories to look back on and much to look forward to but I am sad. My life is on fast forward. Mortality is no longer an unseen and silent monster lurking under my bed. It is beginning to rattle around under there and wiggle its little green webbed fingers at me in a gleeful and toothy greeting.

June McAllister lives in Riverdale, NY.

 

 
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