Annette Simons's Open Salon Blog

For Mother’s Day: Confessions of a Shopaholic

Mon, 9 May 2011 02:05:53 -0400

To borrow from the iconic work of artist Barbara Kruger, “I shop therefore I am.” I am not ashamed of being a shopaholic.

First, while I have infinite lust for shopping, I exercise substantial control in buying. This discipline keeps me from drowning in debt. The process of shopping – the thrill of the hunt – is a large part of the exhilaration. (Although coming home with all those tissue-wrapped items in nifty shopping bags is a major high, too).

Second, while I love shopping, I am not materialistic to the exclusion of other redeeming qualities. For example, I have devoted most of my career to advocating philanthropy and children’s arts programs. I’ve never smoked or gambled. I eat and drink moderately. Shopping is my relatively innocuous vice. Besides, I help the economy.

According to my mother, my love of shopping goes back to when I was about four years old. Mom said that when I asked, “Mommy, are we going bye-bye?” I really meant “Buy! Buy!”

Until I started school, Mom would take me out for a walk every afternoon, weather permitting. We’d go window shopping in our Manhattan neighborhood and often she would take me somewhere that had little items – toys or decorative trinkets – that she could afford. We usually ended up in a “dime store” like Woolworth’s. Little Golden Books, the children’s line published by Simon & Schuster, were only 25 cents back then and I loved them. I also liked crayons, paints, tea set dishes, paper dolls, and coloring books. Sometimes we would buy something for the house like a pretty floral dish towel or a cupcake tin to make treats.

When I was old enough to understand, Mom explained that, back in those days, she was careful to avoid taking me inside stores that were too expensive for her budget. She did not want to disappoint me too much. Whenever we bought something, I would light up at the pleasure of carrying the package home. Mom got a great deal of joy from these little shopping excursions.

Some mothers and daughters cook together. Others bond while gardening, playing sports, or making quilts. My mother and I shopped. The early Woolworth’s experiences were just the beginning.

As I grew up, the shopping trips became searches for school supplies, sneakers, Barbie clothes, party dresses, and lipsticks. We did not always have a good time together. Sometimes we argued and walked home angry at each other and empty-handed.

Of course, in the difficult teenage years, I wanted to look like “everybody else.” This meant trips to the drugstore for black mascara, eyeliner, and turquoise eye shadow that melted into the creases of my eyelids. I was not good at applying this cheap make-up and resisted Mom’s offers of instruction for fear I would look like “a 1940s person” instead of “everybody else.” One day, Mom declared in frustration, “Your eye make-up makes you look like a roach.”

Years later, after I had long since graduated from the drugstore to the Chanel cosmetics counter, Mom would remark with astonishment, “Your make-up looks beautiful!” I guess she was relieved to know I had it in me after all.

Once I began working, our shopping arguments were usually about what looked good on me. Mom was not one to mince words:

“It makes you look fat.”

“Never wear that color.”

“You’re too short for that. Who do you think you are, Beatrice Arthur?”

“It looks deadly on you.”

Of course, as I got older, I often shopped with friends and bought clothes when I traveled. I think Mom felt left out, but continued to provide her What Not To Wear commentary:

“Who was with you when you bought that? She let you buy it? Did you try it on in the store? Don’t go shopping with her anymore!”

I always had many friends, but Mom didn’t. I was her daughter and her best friend, which made our relationship especially complex. When I announced I had saved up enough money to move into my own apartment, I think Mom stayed up nights inventing reasons for me to stay living with her and grandma.

“You could save even more money if you stayed with us longer.”

“That place is over-priced.”

“The bathroom is small and dark.”

“Friends will insist on staying overnight on your sofa and ruin it.”

“Think of your grandmother. She’ll miss you. Who knows how many years she has left?”

“We won’t be there to make you a meal when you get home late from work. Take-out food will make you fat.”

I figured that she felt excluded from my life, so I gave her tasks to help me. My goal was to make the situation more tolerable for both of us:

“Mom, could you make a list of all the cleaning products I should have on hand in my new place.”

“Mom, could you help me find another chair for the living room?”

“Mom, what kind of skillet would be the best buy?”

This approach did the trick. Mom was so busy with her assignments that she didn’t have time to rain on my new apartment parade. More importantly, she felt needed.

Of course, I could generally count on my mother’s total devotion to her tasks and this benefit yielded all sorts of bonuses for me. As Mom constantly reminded me, I am “not domestic.”

A match-making friend wanted to introduce me to a widower who was new in town. He had seven children, ranging from five-year-old twins to a middle schooler.

“Don’t bother. It won’t work,” volunteered Mom.

“Well, I do like kids…”

“But you are not domestic. A man like this needs a woman who can make children’s clothes out of drapes. That’s not you.”

The blind date never happened, but some months later Mom asked, “Whatever happened to the Sound of Music guy?”

But back to shopping. One of the tasks I gave Mom was ironing. I would take my clothes over to her home to be pressed. There was a time in the early 1990s when I was working primarily at home or in an informal artists’ environment. I wore relatively drab, ill-fitting clothes for everyday to save the budget for more extravagant concert and opera wear. I had an aversion to jeans at the time and wore beige and khaki pants with oversized chambray work shirts. Hideous, indeed.

Mom called. “I finished your ironing, but I ask myself, ‘Why does my daughter dress like a Boy Scout?’ I haven’t seen so much khaki since pressing your father’s uniforms during the Korean War.”

Mom did have strong style sense and good taste, though I did not always listen to her. However, I did always appreciate that she encouraged me to buy the quality clothes that caught my eye and discouraged me from cheap items or foregoing smart purchases just to save a few dollars.

As a young woman in New York, Mom took fashion modeling classes and loved stylish clothes. She remembered being sad that she could not afford them. She told me how she’d buy inexpensive simple dresses and then hunt the Manhattan garment district to find quality buttons, lace collars, trims, and leather belts to make her outfits more distinctive. I think she hoped I would enjoy the life she wanted at my age that was out of reach to her.

For example, we went shopping for a black evening top for a benefit event I was working. We found two pieces that fit my immediate need and I was having trouble deciding between them. She encouraged me to purchase both, even if that was not my original intent. “You’ll need it in a few months for a concert or the ballet or something. You might not be able to find it then. Buy both.”

We did go shopping for Mom’s clothing, but she had long lost interest in her own life. Despite her love of fashion, she was very practical about her own needs. She seemed to prefer living vicariously through me.

Perhaps we had the most fun together when Mom worked at Robinsons’ department store in Santa Monica. I was making pretty good money by then and we could take advantage of her employee discount to augment my closet. We would plan ahead for her bonus days or big sales. Since Mom was at the store almost daily, she would watch for new merchandise and alert me when my favorite makers’ lines were delivered. She’d put things on hold for me to try on and I would meet her at a bench in the mall to plan our strategy.

I cannot remember our final shopping outing. Mom started to devote herself to taking care of my grandmother, who began to decline when she reached 100. Mom left the house less often. I hoped against hope that things would get better and we would shop together again. But Mom’s own health began to fail and she spent her last months in a nursing home. I wish I could remember the last thing we bought together.

Robinsons’ is gone now. The Santa Monica Place mall was remodeled and reopened last year with all new stores. The bench where I used to meet Mom is gone, too, but each time I pass that spot on my way into Bloomingdale’s, I think of the best shopping buddy I ever had. She took me from Little Golden Books to Kate Spade bags. Shopping is just not the same without her.

Pickles, Small Potatoes, and Compassion

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 21:04:39 -0400

Don Knotts – the actor best known as Deputy Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show – passed away in 2006 at age 81. His obituary in The New York Times reported that “The Pickle Story” was among his top favorites of the 249 Andy Griffith episodes that originally aired from 1960 to 1968.

I have written about my family and will doubtless write more about them. But this post turns to a special “extended” family that holds cherished memories for many of my generation – the first to grow up with television.

That family included the Ricardos and Mertzes of 623 East 68^th Street; the Cleavers of Mayfield, with their two boys Wally and Theodore (better known as The Beaver); the Petries of New Rochelle; Wilma and Fred Flintstone of Bedrock; and an extraterrestrial named Martin O’Hara. We watched these characters’ adventures unfold not merely once – but over and over again via years of reruns, so that some episodes became a sort of memorized folklore. Can I measure their influence on me? No, but I know their impact has been profound.

For example, something in me still expects to resolve any life situation in a half-hour segment with a laugh track. … But let’s get back to Don Knotts. “The Pickle Story” is one of my favorite Andy Griffith episodes, too.

For those who do not know the series, here are the basics: Andy Taylor (played by Andy Griffith) is Sheriff of Mayberry, a very small, basically crime-free North Carolina town. He is a widower with a young son Opie (played by Ron Howard, who grew up to be an Oscar-winning director and producer). Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier) lives with them and serves as the lady of the house. Barney is Andy’s Deputy, side-kick, and straight man.

Aunt Bee is a lovely, loving lady – who makes notoriously bad pickles. Barney calls them “kerosene cucumbers.” Bee seems to have a blind spot about these pickles; she’s entered them in the county fair’s contest for 11 consecutive years and lost each time. Andy, Barney, and Opie cannot stand the pickles, but do not want to hurt Bee’s feelings. “It would break her heart,” laments Andy.

What to do? The ever-clever Andy devises a plan: Operation Pickle Switch. Andy and Barney will dispose of Bee’s pickles and replace them in her jars with tasty “store-bought” pickles. Andy directs Barney to dispose of Bee’s pickles “so there’s not a trace of them left.” Opie understands the noble reasons for the apparent deception: “We don’t want to hurt Aunt Bee’s feelings and you don’t want me to get sick again,” he tells his dad.

The deed is done. Barney gets rid of the kerosene cucumbers by gifting them to unsuspecting out-of-towners driving through Mayberry. Aunt Bee is elated to see her boys enjoying her latest batch of pickles. She surmises that the improved flavor is attributable to her new recipe.

But there’s a complication. Since the fellows like them so much, Bee decides to enter her pickles in the county fair contest again. Her friend Clara (Hope Summers) has won first prize for 11 years and Bee sees a chance to compete. At first, Andy and Barney laugh the whole thing off. It would be funny if store-bought pickles win, since the ladies believe that anything homemade is better. But Clara happens by the Mayberry Courthouse with a gift of her prize-winning pickles for Andy and Barney – and her visit changes everything.

Clara beams when Andy compliments her pickles. She admits that perfecting her pickles means perhaps too much to her. “Perhaps I’m just a foolish old lady,” she laments. Clara shows Andy her scrapbook with the 11 blue ribbons won in the pickle contest. She confesses that she looks at these ribbons when she gets discouraged or lonely. “It’s a great comfort to know there is something I can do.”

Andy has an epiphany. He tells Barney, “I was dead wrong about figuring that contest didn’t mean anything. What’s small potatoes to some folks can be mighty important to others.” Andy’s conscience will not allow him to live with the possibility that Aunt Bee might win the contest with store-bought pickles. To prevent that from happening, Andy, Barney, and Opie agonizingly consume all eight quarts of store pickles in record time, thereby “encouraging” Aunt Bee to make another batch of her own for the contest.

As always in Mayberry, all is put right in the end. Clara wins blue ribbon number 12. Bee does not mind that she lost – all she cares about is pleasing her family. On winning the treasured prize, Clara reflects, “I’ve worked and suffered for this so long!” Andy adds, “Yes, well we all have…”

I find this little parable extraordinary. It sends the message that sparing someone from hurt feelings is important. Andy and Barney go through significant trouble to implement Operation Pickle Switch. They launch an elaborate plan just to avoid telling Bee the pickles are terrible. They go beyond the call of duty. Then, they launch another plan to avoid hurting Clara. Why? Because contributing to the happiness of others matters.

Most remarkable is the quintessential truth in Andy’s realization: “What’s small potatoes to some folks can be mighty important to others.” This deceptively simple idea is basic to all interpersonal relationships. It speaks to the value of respecting the needs, priorities, and ideas of others, even when we do not understand them.

Respect fosters relationships with friends, family, and co-workers as well as between nations. It starts with everyday thoughtfulness and becomes empathy when we go out of our way to consciously step into someone else’s shoes. Respect transforms to compassion when it leads us to comprehend and share in the suffering of others. Respect breeds patience, generosity, community, and peace.

When we cannot accept the beliefs of others, our reluctant respect may at least yield peaceful tolerance. We can agree to disagree. But sometimes even tolerance is impossible. We arrive at a juncture where we cannot tolerate contrary ideas because to do so would betray our key values and cause intolerable harm and injustice.

On an international scale, this impasse is the challenge that King George VI addressed in the 1939 speech central to this year’s Academy Award-winning film. Faced with telling his subjects why the declaration of war against Germany became inevitable, the King explains, “Over and over again, we have tried to find a peaceful way out of the differences between ourselves and those who are now our enemies; but it has been in vain. We have been forced into a conflict, for we are called, with our allies, to meet the challenge of a principle which, if it were to prevail, would be fatal to any civilized order in the world.”

I cannot recall a time in my life when my core standards did not include sensitivity to the feelings of others as well as respect for their ideas and needs. Compassion has always been on my list of essential virtues to develop in myself and admire in others. I am disappointed in myself when I fall short of these ideals through my own carelessness or selfish behavior.

Did “The Pickle Story” contribute to fostering these personal values? Maybe. It certainly didn’t hurt.

Young at Heart

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:03:12 -0400

My grandmother lied about her age. She had just turned 106 when she passed away in 2003, but we thought she was only 103. She would have been 113 this month.

Her birth year is listed as 1900 on her death certificate as well as the crypt that holds her ashes. But several months after her death, I found a baptismal certificate that revealed she was born in 1897. Even my mother had never seen it.

My grandmother shared her birth year with Amelia Earhart, Frank Capra, Thornton Wilder, and Walter Winchell. In the year she was born, Gustav Mahler became director of the Vienna Court Opera and Johannes Brahms passed away. Scott Joplin and John Philip Sousa were composing. Claude Monet and Mary Cassatt were painting. George Bernard Shaw and Edith Wharton were writing. Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac premiered in Paris and the Eiffel Tower was only eight years old. Thomas Edison patented his movie camera. Spain granted autonomy to Puerto Rico and Brooklyn officially became part of New York City.

My grandmother’s name was Maria, but the family called her Tata. I lived with Mom and Tata until I got my own apartment as adult. In our bilingual Puerto Rican household, Mom called us The Three Musketeers or Los Tres Mosqueteros – “all for one, and one for all.

”Tata possessed Zen-like calm. She was the most easy-going person I have ever met, yet quite speedy on her feet when she did errands around the neighborhood until she was about 90. Mom was always telling her to slow down and be careful. “You’re not catching the subway – no need to rush,” Mom often said. She was referring to their life in New York City, where Tata worked in the YMCA laundry for many years and commuted via a substantial subway ride.

Tata loved to be out and about. She wanted to do all the errands for the Musketeers – all on foot. She never drove an automobile. The soles on her shoes constantly needed repair.

Tata walked to the drycleaner, the shoe repair shop, the post office, the bank, and – most frequently – the supermarket. When I was living at home (through undergrad and my first years in the working world), Tata walked about 10 blocks to the Santa Monica Farmers Market every Wednesday to buy a five-pound bag of oranges so Mom could squeeze juice for me in the mornings. While making her shopping rounds, Tata chatted with the people she met and developed casual friendships along every route. She always seemed to communicate successfully, even though English was not her first language.

When I was a little girl, Tata said to me, secretly and more than once, “You know, I’m older than your mother thinks I am.” I mentioned this to Mom when I was about 12 years old and she did not take it seriously. “Your grandmother is old and she’s just saying that.”

Tata’s disposition was a direct contrast to my mother’s, at least from my perspective as I grew up. Tata was almost always cheerful, while Mom generally was not. Tata was trusting – maybe even naïve; Mom was cynical. Tata made friends everywhere she went; Mom kept to herself and did not invest in relationships. Tata seldom complained of aches and pains; Mom did incessantly. Mom had quite a temper and would become loudly angry with me and Tata over small issues – my failure to hang my clothes or Tata’s buying the wrong brand of bread. Yet I do not recall ever seeing Tata angry and she never raised her voice. She would just shrug or laugh if she made a mistake.Mom seemed to resent Tata’s relaxed nature.

Comments Mom made while I was growing up suggested that she thought Tata was not a strict enough mother and did not encourage her daughter to seek opportunities for advancement. Perhaps Mom overcompensated by being very strict and sometimes overprotective with me.

Besides running around town doing errands, Tata’s other major interest was romance. She read the Spanish-language equivalent of Harlequin romance novels. Heroines with flowing hair and off-the-shoulder bodices in the arms of dashing young men graced the covers of her paperback collection. We could not find enough of these books to keep her supplied. She read them quickly – and smiled the whole time. When I joined the ranks of the working world, I got the idea of buying her Spanish translations of English language classics, including the works of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters; Tata loved these stories, too.

She also loved English and Spanish language televised soap operas or telenovelas. When I was in college, I used to watch As the World Turns, The Young and the Restless, Another World, and The Doctors with her. When I missed the shows because of work or school, Tata would fill me in on what happened – the kisses, the weddings, and the divorces. Despite her limited English language fluency, she also much enjoyed watching Upstairs, Downstairs with me translating as needed. Perhaps the costumes and settings reminded her of her youth.

Tata seemed determined to fill her life with romance. She read tarot cards for her friends and their friends and immensely popular, because her cards always predicted that tall, handsome strangers were in the future.

When I was about five or six years old, Tata and I would visit churches in the neighborhood on Saturdays in search of weddings. When we found one, we would stand outside to see the bridal party emerge, so I could see the pretty dresses. Sometimes people gave me some rice to throw at the bride and groom. It was a private, silly adventure that Tata and I shared alone – and I loved it!

I do not know much about Tata’s life beyond her relationship with me. She was married three times and widowed three times. Her third husband was the love of her life. She was over 56 when they met – and I brought them together!

I was born in Manhattan in June 1953 (the same year the Ricardos welcomed Little Ricky). My parents lived on East 20^th Street near Gramercy Park – a private oasis boarded by Third and Park Avenues and East 20^th and 21^st Streets. My father was a sales clerk at Macy’s at the time and had a discount that enabled him to purchase the stylish pram mom wanted for me.

Tata was very proud of her little granddaughter. She loved to take me in the pram around the neighborhood to collect compliments. One day that summer, she took me to the Gramercy Park quad. Only the residents of select buildings bordering the park have access to it. Tata was looking through the iron gates when a tall Irishman in a doorman’s uniform came to her and asked if she was lost.

“No,” Tata replied. “I was just looking at the lovely park. I wish I had a key so I could sit there with my little granddaughter.”

“I’ll let you in,” he said and pulled out his key. As a doorman for one of the Gramercy buildings, he probably was not allowed to admit strangers into the private park, but Tata must have been attractive enough that he took the risk!

Thereafter, he watched for her and continued to let her into the park whenever she appeared with the baby pram. After a few sightings, he began to sit on the bench with her when she visited and they became acquainted.

His name was Stephen. In a short while, he and Tata fell in love and got married. As a toddler, I grew up playing in the very exclusive Gramercy Park as if it was my own backyard. I called it Grandpa Park and Stephen was the only grandfather I ever knew. I have some memory of him in his doorman’s uniform and visiting our apartment on 20^th Street. I remember his bringing me presents and buying me ice cream cones. Mom said that he was a wonderful man who treated Tata “like a queen” and was a good friend to Mom, especially through my parents’ divorce in 1957.

Stephen and Tata were deeply happy, but their joy did not last long. Stephen passed away in 1960. Not long after his passing, Mom decided that The Three Musketeers would move to Los Angeles, as described in my January 2010 blog post. I learned this sweet story about Tata and Stephen’s romance from Mom just a few months before she passed away. If I had not happened to ask her how they met, I would never have known.

Now, whenever I visit Manhattan, I go to Gramercy Park and look through the iron gates. I imagine Tata, petite and stylish with her shiny black hair, sitting on the bench with the handsome doorman – the baby buggy (and me!) at their side.

Tata had never been seriously ill a day in her life until she had a heart attack at what we thought was 100 (she was really 103). Until then, her medicine cabinet had no prescriptions. She did go to the eye doctor, but he did not warn us that she had cataracts. Her eyesight began to fail in her late nineties, but she did not admit it. Sadly, she became withdrawn when she could no longer enjoy her rambling walks about town, her romance novels, and the telenovelas.

Ultimately, however, we learned about the problem and she had cataract surgery as an outpatient when we believed she was 97 (she was really 100). Before going in for the procedure, the doctor asked her if she was frightened. “No,” she replied. “I want to see. Let’s go ahead.”

The day after the procedure, we took her back to the doctor. She was wearing an eye patch. Mom took her into the doctor’s office and I waited until they emerged after some fifteen minutes. Tata was smiling. Her face was incandescent.“She can see,” Mom exclaimed, “and she is all emotional about it. Look at her! She’s glowing like Katherine Hepburn in On Golden Pond.”

Tata glowed all the way home in the taxi. Like a child, she was pointing at things she saw on the street – trees, children, traffic, buildings. After she regained her sight, she would stand on the balcony for hours looking at the passers-by and enjoying the California sunshine. I will never forget her delight that Mother’s Day, when I gave her flowers and she could see them.

I expect I will never know why Tata lied about her age. Was it for romance – to please a man who wanted a younger woman, maybe? Was it to qualify for a job? I like to think she preferred to say she was born in 1900 to sound more modern – to be part of the new century.

Not long after Tata passed away, I was waiting at a bus stop in front of a diner where an old juke box was playing Frank Sinatra’s recording of Young at Heart, by Carolyn Leigh and Johnny Richards. It was among the greatest hits of 1953 – the year I was born and Tata met Stephen. As I listened to the lyrics, I could not help but think of my grandmother, her attitude toward life, and everything I learned from her.

Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you, if you’re young at heart.
For it’s hard you will find to be narrow of mind, when you’re young at heart.

You can go to extremes with impossible schemes.
You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams.
And life gets more exciting with each passing day.
And love is either in your heart or on its way.

Don’t you know that it’s worth every treasure on earth to be young at heart?
For as rich as you are, it’s much better by far to be young at heart.
And if you should survive to 105, look at all you’ll derive out of being alive.And here is the best part: You have a head start, If you are among the very young at heart.

Celebrating Love

Tue, 2 Mar 2010 14:03:38 -0500

February 2010 has come and gone and another Valentine’s Day is history. I have not had much success in the romance department, so each year I make silly jokes about this holiday. I tell friends I’ll be wearing a black arm band. I buy myself a rose, a bottle of perfume, or a box of chocolates. I dramatically spend a quiet evening at home watching the 1945 David Lean classic Brief Encounter and drink a glass of solitary sherry. Very civilized.

This year however, I decided to celebrate the love in my life. I am proud to boast that I have lots of love, despite my lack of Mr. Wonderful. Many aspects of life yield disappointments, but I can honestly say that I have never been disappointed in my friends. In fact, my cup runneth over in this brand of love.

Why do we say things like, “Oh, we’re just friends?” Many longstanding friendships outlast marriages I know. I have been blessed with loyal friends who have demonstrated support and love in countless practical ways during the most difficult challenges of my life. Their contributions are priceless.

My friends go out of their way to be with me when I need them. They listen to me ardently – whether I am ecstatic or complaining. They forgive my bouts of vanity, self-indulgence, and moodiness. We support each other’s schemes and causes. We have shared birthdays, professional triumphs/disappointments, the loss of loved ones, and the ups and downs of their parenting -- which I can experience, thanks to them, despite having no children of my own. My friends are the family I created for myself.

So this year I made a few Valentine cards and sent them to my closest friends. Because we were already into February when I came up with the idea, I did not have time to make many cards. So, if you are a dear friend reading this and you did not receive a valentine, trust that you were not forgotten. I am sharing the virtual valentines above with you this year via my blog, but perhaps I will launch a tradition and make more snail mail cards next year. I just have to develop a card design I can replicate efficiently for some 50 people! An embarrassment of riches and a magnificent challenge to have before me. I’ll start working on this project now.

Each valentine was a little different, but all featured a lace envelope (made from leftover paper doilies) that contained a card. This “card within a card” shared my favorite line from The Wizard of Oz: Remember, my sentimental friend, a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.

I also have a devoted friend in my Yorkshire Terrier and we spent Valentine’s Day together. There’s no place like home.

The First Chord

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:01:19 -0500

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 contains a great mystery. The second of the work’s three movements is just one measure of notation, consisting of only two chords. Each time I hear this piece, I find myself reflecting on its second movement as an imperfect metaphor for life’s options.

Scholars and artists have speculated on Bach’s intention. Some musicians treat this middle movement, marked adagio, as punctuation – a breather between two vigorous allegros. Some use these chords to frame an improvised cadenza, typically for violin or harpsichord. Some interpretations insert other works by Bach that begin and end with the two chords.

Life is like Bach’s mysterious two chords. The first chord is immovable. It represents the circumstances of birth and the limitations and opportunities they carry. This chord is the initial lens through which we perceive the world around us and our place in it.

The first chord can bear gifts – ideals, character, talents, distinguished heritage, rich traditions. It can also impose heavy baggage – prejudices, guilt, preconceptions, misconceptions, responsibilities, and challenges.

Are we born into wealth or poverty? Democracy or dictatorship? Hope or despair? Are we female or male? Urban or rural? What is our race? Our ethnicity? What is our predisposition to health or illness?

Yet – after the initial chord – life is an unwritten symphony. We can improvise our own cadenzas, seek inspiration from other composers’ repertoire, or seize the opportunity to innovate.

What makes the between the chords metaphor imperfect? Melodies, harmonies, and rhythms come in and out of our lives and some play a larger role than we might have scored – for better or for worse. People and places sing their leitmotivs, altering our moods. The expected allegro turns into an unexpected largo. Circumstances force us to travel andante, rather than prestissimo. Our anthem can become a dirge and our fanfare a lullaby. Hurdles thrust us from major to minor keys. Yes, we have choices to make and opportunities to seize, but things get in the way.

What else renders the metaphor imperfect? The musician interpreting Bach knows at the outset what the final chord will be and controls when it will conclude the movement. In our lives, we know a final chord is inevitable, but we do not know when it will sound. The words of Shakespeare’s Hamlet echo: There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.

This blog is part memoir, part essay. It shares reflections on the influences and the inspiration that drive my cadenza – a work in progress.

*****

My opening chord resonates with the influence of my family. I can say without a doubt that my mother considered me the most important person — and achievement — of her life.

I know little about the circumstances of my mother’s birth – her own first chord. She was born in Puerto Rico and spent her early years on the island. My great-grandmother, called Mama or Maman (she was of French descent) appeared to be a significant influence in her life, though I know few details about the relationship. Maman was an herbalist in her village. She cared for the sick with herbal remedies and served as midwife. I know nothing of my great-grandfather.

As a child, my mother moved to New York City with my grandmother, known as Tata to distinguish her from Maman. (I plan to devote an upcoming post to Tata; watch this space.) My mother spoke little of her father. The men in my family are most notable for their absence.

As a young woman, mom was very glamorous and took courses in fashion modeling. She was beautiful. She enjoyed working as an usherette in Broadway movie theatres so she could see all the films over and over. Thanks to her, I learned to love Fred Astaire, Katherine Hepburn, Ronald Coleman, Greer Garson, Claude Rains, and countless other stars. In the 1940s, mom was a licensed beautician and completed a commercial art class.

When I was very young, my mother had a brief career as an artist. She worked at home hand-coloring black and white photographs with special oil pencils. Of course, technology advanced and by the late 1960s this skill became almost obsolete; mom would have been great at Photoshop. She was always searching for something creative to do, but seemed to lack the drive, self-esteem, or resources to pursue a focused career; I am certain obstacles I cannot fully understand got in her way.

Mom suffered many disappointments — in her failed marriage to my father and friendships that let her down. But perhaps saddest of her frustrations was her unfulfilled desire to express herself through dance, drawing, photography, and painting. To make ends meet, she worked in factories and retail most of her life. Our family’s only other income was the small sum my father paid monthly for child support and my grandmother’s social security benefits. I remember rushing to the bank with Tata to cash these checks immediately on their arrival.

At some point in mom’s disillusionment, she decided to focus all her energy on being a good mother – at the exclusion of everything else. Mom gave up on herself; she stopped working at building her own happiness. She became bitter.

She stopped caring about fashion and the latest hairstyles – at least for herself, though she loved going shopping for my clothes. Mom deliberately wore dowdy garments and even wore a cheap gold band on her ring finger to make sure no man would look at her with any interest. She did not cultivate friendships. Once she told me that, when I became old enough to converse, she stopped making friends because I was so interesting she felt she did not need anyone else.

Mom, Tata, and I left New York in 1961 on a train bound for Union Station, Los Angeles. I was eight years old. This move was both brave and foolhardy. Mom knew no one in California. She said she thought it would be easier to be a single parent in Los Angeles, but I think she just wanted to put distance between us and my father after the divorce.

When I visit Union Station today, I try to picture the three of us getting off the train and walking across the waiting area, luggage and my dolls in tow. Mom later regretted the move to L.A. and lamented that she had not opted to go back to Puerto Rico instead. California meant yet more disillusionment for her.

In retrospect, I am astonished that my mother managed to give me dancing and music lessons, to rent a piano, and to make sure I could attend all the choir and play rehearsals I wanted. Each year, Santa brought what I wanted for Christmas and I always had a new party dress when I needed one. Despite all her challenges, I never felt “poor” as a child. It must have been critically important to her that I have the opportunities that she felt were out of reach in her own creative life.

Before we left Manhattan, we were living on the Upper Westside. I remember doing the last errands in the neighborhood with mom before we moved to California. We passed a huge construction site and I asked mom about it. She explained that they were building something called Lincoln Center and it would have lots of ballet. Nearly thirty years later I started my arts management career in this very spot – working for New York City Ballet. I credit my mother for nurturing my love of the arts, which became my passion and my life’s work. I am forever grateful for this priceless gift.

It was wonderful to feel so loved, but I wish my mother had not excluded other opportunities in her life. Her devotion to me created strains in our relationship as I grew up, exercised my independence, and spent less time with her. Nevertheless, we each make decisions based on our perception of the options open to us. She made the choices she believed were right at the time. No one is a perfect parent. I deeply regret that she did not experience more joy and fulfillment.

Mom spent her final 16 months in a skilled nursing care facility, where she passed away in 2004. Most of the staff there were Latinas who, like mom, were single mothers facing a host of challenges. One day, mom told me that many of these women had come to see her to ask for guidance.

“You’re Latina,” they would say, “and you brought up that daughter with no man to help you. Your little girl went to college and has a good job. She is kind to everyone here. She wears nice clothes and knows all about fine things like music and art. How did you do it?”

I am tremendously gratified that mom shared this with me. More than anything, she wanted to be a good mother and now other women admired her triumph! By the time her final chord sounded, she was proud of me – but, more importantly, she was proud of herself.

I had this essay nearly completed when something prompted me to rethink my mother’s story. Some weeks ago, I decided to replace the tattered frame that held a photo of me and mom. I had forgotten that mom liked to store some of her favorite pictures behind each other within a frame and rotate them periodically. To my surprise, I found some treasured photographs – and memories – lurking hidden in the frame.

Among these pictures, I found the little ballerina featured above. Mom hand-colored this photo of me at age six, wearing the costume from my first recital. Behind the picture, barely attached with tape turned orange, I found a yellowed newspaper clipping with a poem by Ben Burroughs:

MY LITTLE FLOWER

There’s a flower in life’s garden…

Far more precious than the rest…

A blushing rose from heaven…

With whom I’m truly blest…

Just a little pug-nosed female…

Who is but six years of age…

And yet a seasoned actress...

On life’s revolving stage…

For she knows the way to make me smile…

And how to make me cry…

She is poetry in motion…

And a tender lullaby…

Pure, even with a dirty face…

Oh, what a work of art…

She is my key to happiness…

This rosebud of my heart…

God bless my little flower…

Keep her safe throughout the years…

May her life be filed with laughter…

Free of doubt and bitter tears.

Cloyingly sentimental? Absolutely. Great literature? Certainly not. But I pictured mom as a young mother, taping the scrap of paper to the back of my picture. Discovering this little poem touched me more deeply than any words can describe.