333 Days until the Big Five-0

I wrote the following piece on August 11, 2004 when I was only 44 years old. How did five years fly by? It is now August 28, 2009 and I am searching for ways to fill up my Blog so I can get current on my countdown to the Silver Anniversary of my own Life. I am simply surfing through my documents treating my own words like an interesting website I discovered while flying through the internet in search of something else. What the “something else” is I never know. All this aimless wandering and all these tragic digressions lead nowhere… no book, no collection of short stories or essays, no job as a freelance magazine writer, no MFA Degree, no job at the Onion. Perhaps by re-reading my own words I will find out why I feel so stuck and suddenly a light will go off and a door will open and I will figure a way out of the maze. That would be A-MAZING!!

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“Nothing new or different” my mother says for the first time in months in response to my usual morning question of “how are you?” Typically, she moans and says “I don’t want to say anything, but I have been very very sick” and then adds one of the following:


a) “I was up all night urinating”.

b) “I had diarrhea something terrible” (as opposed to diarrhea something wonderful).

c) “I thought I was having a heart attack I had such pains in my chest.”

d) “I’m just no good anymore.” She says this as if she is a piece of fruit that spoiled or deli meat past the expiration date. Two things that would never deter her from consuming them, but definitely make most other people weary about the possibility of food poisoning.

Or, the most popular response since 1989

e) “My legs are killing me. I’m just afraid I won’t be able to walk much longer. Then, my life is over.”

I always respond to this lamentation with the logical solution which is “we could get you a wheel chair.” And, at that point she informs me she would rather die. I try not to take it too personally. Life in a wheel chair is worse than death. Even though her grandchildren and I are around I must admit there have been moments in my life when death seemed like a better alternative than life. But now, I have small children to think about. My mother has children too, but hers are not small. However, even when we were small, her talk of impending death warranted a daily mention/threat. We had to toe the line, or my mother might just collapse right there in front of us, life sucked out of her by our fighting, needs, complaining, demands, frustrations, etc. .

But today is a landmark day and I had even forgotten this particular “line” from my mother’s repertoire (script for life) so the moment she says it I start trying to recall the last time I heard it. I know it is not new, but it certainly has that new car feel and smell. “Nothing new or different” meant my mom was feeling pretty good. After all, what could be better than “nothing new or different?” It meant nothing has changed since the last time we spoke 24 hours ago. As if we had all been frozen in the matrix with Keanu Reeves – but instead of being caught mid flight in the splits, one arm bent back and one extended straight forward, Becky and I were frozen in our imaginations only. Physically, we could still both move even if one of us was in chronic pain.



“Nothing new or different” translated in our own mother daughter language to “no one died in the last 24 hours.” At least no one we knew or cared about. It also meant that even though interest rates were going up, so far the great old USA was able to keep a real economic depression at bay, only teasing us with a recession. No men jumping off buildings, no sad unskilled workers like my mother’s father being forced to walk along the rail road track looking for coal.

I savored the moment on the phone with my mother like a school girl savors a compliment from the boy she has had a crush on for years. I was walking on air. But I am smarter than some young school girl. I know it isn’t going to last. It may be tomorrow, or the day after, or next week and my mother will say the one line I have dreaded since the age of 18. It was the line that prompted me to write her a letter threatening suicide if she ever used it again. She stopped using the line for years after finding that note on her pillow. But by then she had already been saying it for 9 years, which is exactly how long my other parent had been dead. The damage was done. I was a head case. Eventually, she did start using the one line again, but by then I learned to treat it like the practical joke it was. Thus began the second phase of relationship as a comedic team, the likes of which had never been seen before.

I remember my mother saying the one line while semi-chuckling in response to a new tenant’s cheerful & rhetorical “how are you”. The young woman was coming down to the basement to do a load of laundry. She became just another innocent by-stander caught in the cross fire of my and my mother’s peculiar relationship . She walked in, laundry basket perched in front of her and found me and my mother cleaning out the shed for the 3rd time in less than 2 years. My mother sitting comfortably on the chair I had carried in from her kitchen across the hall while I dragged boxes and items being saved and sorted for some charity auction/bizarre at her synagogue. “Earning fund” was some crazy concept thought up by old people trying to keep their community alive. Bring in so many dollars “worth” of merchandise for re-sale at the annual fundraiser, and you get a “free” ticket to the annual dinner dance that only included dinner and not dancing. Things had to be divided up so she had enough donations each year for at least 10 years. My mother would not let me throw anything out. She sat there giving me orders as my 8 month pregnant swelling stomach held her first biological grandchild. I was 36 and she was 77. Not getting married until I was 34 meant I was already behind my mother Becky’s schedule. She spent her nights worrying about my status as an old maid until the day I wed at the tender age of 34, which was even older than she had been when she got married. The one thing my mother had convinced me of during our restless nights in separate apartments at 6242 North Rockwell was that my getting married and having babies would give her a reason to live and bring her more joy than she had ever known. So why would she say it in front of me as I worked diligently both externally cleaning the shed and internally making this baby ….but it came out just like it had so many times before.

“How are you.” The young tenant asked.

“Oh you know”, my mother replied “One foot in the grave and another on a banana peel.”

No wonder I eventually had to go on bed rest during the last six weeks of my pregnancy. Some of it might have been due to high blood pressure, but just like my mother always held her kids accountable for her various physical ailments, heart problems, high blood pressure, nerves, I have to believe my mother had something to do with my physical problems. It seemed only logical that 2 years later, after my first born would turn one, it would be me doing the splits… “one foot in Buffalo Grove, and the other in West Rogers Park, an old version of West Rogers Park that existed only in my sappy nostalgic memories having nothing to do with the dirty overcrowded neighborhood it had evolved into.

I grew up believing the concept of evolution meant things became better, more sophisticated. This was not the case during my initial exodus from the West Roger Park Shtetle I had grown up in. Perhaps gentrification would be happening some day soon, but in 1997, the neighborhood, along with my mother showed significant signs of deterioration. My regular visits between my new suburban home, and my mother’s apartment, that had once been my “home” often meant leaving a Polish cleaning lady on our bathroom floor in Buffalo Grove while I wiped the shit off the tile at 6242 North Rockwell. Only one of us was being paid, and it wasn’t me. Meanwhile, I thought of all my new acquaintenances, their money, their expensive homes, their young mothers who take their children on cruises, the way their snobby noses look down on my tired old face, and I can’t help but feel bitter. I was popular in High School. It never dawned on me that I would returning to high school at the age of 37, and coming back as less than my once glorious reign as a funny, loud mouthed girl well liked by all the a other girls and blissfully ignored by most of the guys.

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Neither my mother nor I managed the balancing act very well. And I thought it was only a matter of time before she was going to slip into that grave, and I was going to slip into the Suburban Malaise.

Fortunately I was only half right. My mother Becky is 90 today and while I indeed slip into the Suburban Malaise, losing my “self” in the process. Luckily, the story is not over yet and I am beginning to believe a "self" is something that cannot only be lost, but can also be found.

334 Days Until the Big Five-0

Of course, the term “desperate housewives” now conjures up the very popular Television Series with that name. First, we are asked to compare ourselves with our real neighbors. Who has the bigger house, the better car, the nicest jewelry, the coolest vacations, the most toys, the most athletic children, the smartest kids etc. etc. What makes us feel “desperate”, without hope, fearless of danger, frantic, reckless, in hot pursuit of materialistic possessions so our neighbors will think more highly of us, and even better, envy us.

Then the mass media enters our lives and we are being asked to compare ourselves with fictional women whose bodies are sculpted by personal trainers and plastic surgeons. Or better yet the “real” Housewives from New Jersey which has forever changed the definition of the word “real” in my mind. I for one will not be sleeping with the landscapers, who by the way are not hunky high school students. My friends who are divorced do not find themselves living comfortably across the street from some gorgeous hunk. No one is being murdered, that I know of. We probably all have dozens of skeletons in our closets even when it isn’t Halloween. Things like stressed out marriages, not enough sex, mentally ill siblings and/or parents, illnesses we encounter, overcome or learn to live with.

But our problems don’t seem as “sexy” as the ones on TV, both fictional and non-fictional. I am going to take a wild guess that today’s “desperate housewives” have it better than those from 50 years ago. There are still two wars lingering out there (anyone talking about Iraq or Afghanstan at the local Starbucks lately??) I don’t see many stars in the windows like I did growing up in the City during the height of the Viet Nam War, or are we calling it an “occupation”? Gasoline is still costing a small fortune, yet many of the homes built in the last 20 years have three car garages. “Once upon a time” many housewives did not even drive let alone own their own cars. Now we complain about driving our kids around all day.

There are no more neighborhoods where the children are sent out to play all day until dinner time. We need, and appear to have plenty of, money for classes so our children will be able to compete with out neighbor’s children in a whole host of areas from sports to academics. The chase is on. Is that why we are desperate? Does it all boil down to having too many choices and not enough sense to make the wise ones?

I am truly blessed, living a life of relative luxury, the life of a so called “desperate” housewife. I do indeed have landscapers come to mow my spacious lawn. My mother simply told my brothers to do it. They were free as long as you don’t count the cost of a complaint now and then. I don’t “feel” so desperate. I guess it all depends on your perspective, or definition of the words “desperate” and “housewife.” After all, I did not marry a house, I married a man. Perhaps that is why so many of my colleagues get so desperate comparing their houses. They should be comparing their husbands.

33Five Days to the big Five-0

I count the usual suspects when counting my blessings, good health for myself and my family, a warm home to live in, a car that works, good friends, etc. etc. I am trying to remember when my sister-in-law Denise (Hi Denise, my most loyal, and perhaps only, reader) started changing people’s lives including my own. The procession is never ending. It just happened again yesterday. She brought a friend she met at a bookstore to a writing event and I could literally feel the surge of electricity as it left her friend and radiated throughout the audience. It was magical. Allow me to explain. It all started a long time ago in land far away. I think it was Skokie.

When I was growing up I knew my brother was a brilliant writer. I remember reading his homework for the sheer joy of seeing words and sentences perfectly strung together like fine pearls. Perhaps that was another reason I never felt comfortable trying to become a writer. How could I ever live up to being the sister of someone I thought was as great as Dickens or Hemingway. Why did I think I had to be as good? (Please refer to recurring “good enough” theme in other blog entries.) Luckily my brother not only knew how to pick the perfect word, he knew how to pick the perfect spouse, a woman who would bring out the best in our family. She just does that with everyone, brings out the best in them. I jokingly tell her she is a cheerleader, but it is so much more than that. I have seen her work her magic with so many people and I feel lucky to be one of them. You see, I had forgotten I wanted to be a writer. Oh, I always wrote in my journals, but it was more for my own mental health. I had stopped thinking about writing as a possible profession of any kind. I took a class in the late 80’s. It was part of a continuing adult education program at Northwestern downtown. I managed to write rough drafts for three short stories, file them away and quickly stopped writing after that. Probably because someone in the class told me she thought I was one of the best writers in the class. I usually run in the opposite direction of any type of encouragement or compliments.

About 10 years ago my sister-in-law decided she was going to start writing. I do not remember how or exactly when she decided to take up this new hobby. She was talented in so many ways. She can play two instruments, piano and flute, she can cook like a professional chef, she is a magnificent gardener, and no one decorates better than Denise. Yet, she started sending me things to read. Then she told me she ran into someone who told her about a woman who teaches writing out of her home and does free workshops at local bookstores. Denise asked me to join her at a Barnes and Noble bookstore at the Village Crossing in Skokie to go see this woman, Nancy Beckett. All of our lives would begin to change for the better. Denise and I started going to Lakeside Studio to learn from Nancy. And learn we did. For the first time in my life I had found a real “Teacher”. Denise also found a friend and a soul mate. Over the years she and Nancy have encouraged, inspired and motivated each other to new heights. Denise is a published writer having appeared in two major magazines. Nancy wrote and acted in a fabulous one woman show featuring a back up posse of three women characters including one based on Denise. Nancy continues to successfully impart her knowledge at Second City and Columbia and has a new book, Branches featuring the writing prompts she uses in her classes. Of course a blurb by Denise is on the back of the book!

I started this blog because I thought it might help me find a way to make writing more than just a hobby. Perhaps I can turn it into a way of life and a way to make a living. Wouldn’t that be remarkable, if I ever got paid for something I wrote? But my greatest accomplishment is I found a way to accept encouragement, and I have Denise to thank for that.

336 Days until the Big Five-0

I have spent my life wishing I was an artist like my father. He was a painter. He knew how to make beautiful pictures. He could also draw faces that looked exactly like the people he was drawing. He did not leave much behind in the way of work since his desire to be a painter did not meet up with the circumstances necessary to see his dream come true. I know very little of his life. He died before I got to dig into his stories the way I dug into my mother’s life stories. She and I had the benefit of time, but more importantly the benefit of her desire to tell, to let someone know as much as she was able to bear to speak of hard times, rejection, disappointments and abuse. She occasionally will share a happy memory or two as well. She may not be introspective and does not have the need to analyze or explore all of the reasons for how and why things happened the way they did over 9 decades, but damn the woman has a great memory.

What did my father remember when he crossed the Atlantic and brought his tortured soul to America. My mother did not have to carry her memories across an ocean. I wonder if memories are heavy. Could my father have told me how his father treated him? Could he have told me what it was like to see his mother miscarry numerous babies before finally giving birth to his sister who was 10 years younger than him? What is it like to be 10 and having to share your mother with a new born? Did my grandmother mourn the loss of the children she miscarried? How many were there? I know there were some because my aunt told me about them, but that was before she was born so she had to be relying on stories her mother told her. My Aunt was 18 when she was separated from her mother. My father was 28. Obviously they did not share much of their childhood together. My aunt’s memories of my father are locked away in a vault deep behind a thousand other stories so terrible and heavy it would be impossible to move them out of the way. Most of my father’s family stories and all of his relatives except his younger sister went up in smoke in World War II.

I wish my father could have taught me how to paint. I never did well in any art class in school so I assumed I had no talent in this area, but I wish I did. I think it would be easier to paint on a blank canvas, mixing colors and making images of the things I see in my imagination. Would a blank canvas be less intimidating than a blank page? See, I have always thought I picked up the pen because I could not handle the brush. Perhaps that is why I never got very far with my writing. I treated my writing like a step child, a second choice, a runner up in a beauty contest, not good enough. Ahhh, the theme of my life automatically returns to me like the carriage on my old electric typewriter, “not good enough.” Perhaps my father left me more than I realized…. To be continued somewhere in time. It is the novel hiding in my mind….

337 Days Until the Big Five-0

Technically this should have been written on August 9, 2009. The Truth is it is August 26, 2009. But what does The Truth mean these days in an era where Town Hall Meetings are met with uninformed people yelling about a government that they don’t trust, but would like to see implemented in every other country across the globe? It has to be the same extreme right wingers who were manipulated into beating the war drums for on an invasion into a country under the false premise of looking for WMD’s. who are now screaming about the government trying to help people who cannot afford health insurance. Makes sense I guess if you blindly believe in people who do not have your best interests at heart.

So, Truth Be Told, I have always run late. Please don’t tell my husband I am admitting to this because I will vehemently deny ever having said or written it even though it is sitting here for all to see on paper/computer (I still cannot accept something truly exists if it is only on a computer screen, call me an artifact). One of the main things holding our marriage together is our endless dispute on who is causing us to be late all the time. This unresolved matter ensures we can never part because then the truth would be revealed. If forced to go our separate ways, then surely one of us would be proven wrong when he or she showed up late and the other was right on time. However, there is no denying I am the poster child for Late Bloomers – they should cultivate and name a rose after me, the “late blooming Benita”. It would be a mixture of colors fighting for dominance on each velvety petal. I think the reason I have always been a late bloomer is because I am so petrified of making any decisions. But all that is going to change when I turn Fifty. I am going to roll the dice and let the cards fall where they may. I know, I can’t even decide which gambling game metaphor to use.

So, it only makes sense that I have to back track and catch up by posting 20 separate entries until this Blog is current and my countdown can continue on schedule and I will reach my launch date of July 12, 2010 with a total of 36Five (remember I don’t have a key for the number Five on my lap top) entries culminating in a one woman show where I will dazzle and entertain the intoxicated (and bore the hell out of the rest of you).

338 Days Until the big Five-0

Can you be self-concious if you don't know your self???

339 Days Until the Big Five-0

Whenever I spend time with my daughter I wonder about how much of our time together will she remember. What will she be saying about me when she is my age? How is our relationship shaping the person she will become? I know of all my experiences and relationships I always considered my mother and the relationship we have had as being THE thing that has shaped me and affected me. I blame my mother for everything bad and give her credit for everything good in my life. I always did. Objectively speaking that does not seem realistic or even possible. Maybe I need to go listen to some Pink Floyd.