hand ballet

21 Saturday Sep 2024

Posted by Editor in Lou Reed, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Music, The Velvet Underground

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hand ballet, laurie anderson, lou reed, magic and loss, Memoir

The day Lou Reed died shouldn’t have been particularly relevant, but I remember it. I remember the way the afternoon sun made shadows on my daughter’s fingers. Graceful and elegant.

Just a twinkling ago, my baby girl first discovered her hands. For me, her besotted mother, it was a magical milestone in her development. She was surely the first child to ever make such a discovery, her little fingers in constant motion.

Her father and I called it “hand ballet.”

Transfixed, as though under a spell, she paid rapt attention, staring intently, unblinking, at the dancing fingers that would soon cooperate to clap hands, tie laces, make music, whisk eggs, and wipe away tears. To fly, fly away . . .

Her dad’s favorite Lou Reed song.

I don’t know why Lou Reed was always relevant in my life. I first heard him on Radio One when I was just a little girl making daisy chains on the field in front of our house. The characters in “Walk on the Wild Side,” were on another planet. There was Holly, from Miami, FLA, and she hitch-hiked her way across the USA; Little Joe who never gave it away, whatever it was; and, Jackie who thought she was James Dean for a day. Just a child, I couldn’t possibly have known what the “hustle here and the hustle there” was all about. Had I known, I wouldn’t have been singing it within earshot of my parents. This was provincial Northern Ireland in the early 1970s.

Recalling this, I’m reminded of author, Neil Gaiman’s story of how he braced himself for almost twenty years for the inevitable conversation with his daughter about the story behind her name. Holly. When the day arrived, here’s how it went:

You named me from this song, didn’t you?” said Holly as the first bass notes sang. “Yup,” I said. Reed started singing. Holly listened to the first verse, and for the first time, actually heard the words. “Shaved her legs and then he was a she …? He?

That’s right,” I said, and bit the bullet. We were having The Conversation.”You were named after a drag queen in a Lou Reed song.” She grinned like a light going on. “Oh dad. I do love you,” she said. Then she picked up an envelope and wrote what I’d just said down on the back, in case she forgot it.

I’m not sure that I’d ever expected The Conversation to go quite like that.

If I’m honest, I have always been a tiny bit afraid of whatever truths awaited me on the wild side , but I still took that walk. And, I have never once regretted it, because there was always a book of magic in the garbage can to take me away. To take me back.

The first time my daughter clapped her hands, it was for her dad on his birthday, on this day twenty six years ago. It was perfect.

Suspended in the one thought this morning are my daughter and the late Lou Reed, their elegant hands in motion. Laurie Anderson writes that her husband, Lou Reed, spent much of his last days on earth:

. . . being happy and dazzled by the beauty and power and softness of nature. He died on Sunday morning looking at the trees and doing the famous 21 form of tai chi with just his musician hands moving through the air.

LaurieAnderson_LouReed My baby girl saying hello to her hands. Lou Reed saying goodbye. Discovering and rediscovering that we cannot have the magic without the loss.

Selective recall …

20 Friday Sep 2024

Posted by Editor in Dispatch from the Diaspora

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Aging and Memory, gratitude, Mortality, nora ephron

I tell people I have a good memory, and that’s less true than it used to be. I’m a bit forgetful. I’m also differently forgetful these days.

It used to be that I’d file stuff away in a mental cabinet and retrieve it later, usually right after the time I needed it … people’s names, titles of movies, passwords, the season finale of whatever series that won’t be back until next year.

There’s evidence to prove I’ve been to hundreds of concerts – a book full of ticket stubs and set-lists and anecdotes from friends who went with me. But I don’t actually remember being at lots of those concerts.
I suppose I don’t remember where I put my mental filing cabinet.

At the same time, there’s other stuff I remember effortlessly – my first phone number 64604, the shade of lipstick I bought at the Mac store in 2003, what you were wearing and what I was wearing when we went to see that movie, what I heard you said about me to someone you didn’t know would tell me. That goes in a whole other filing cabinet.

This realization reminded me of Nora Ephron’s collection of essays, “I Remember Nothing,” published in 2010 before she died. I remember I bought it at an airport bookstore, but I don’t remember where I was going. This morning, I discovered that I remembered to bring it with me to Mexico.

My favorite entry in this book isn’t an essay; it’s a list of what Nora Ephron will miss and what she won’t, after she’s gone. I suppose it should have been a sign to us in 2010 that she wouldn’t be with us for much longer.

Now, I have no intention of dying anytime soon, but if I were to make such a list today (it might change tomorrow) it would include the following:

What I’ll Miss

Sophie – Scott – Scott singing – Dogs – Texts from my brother – Phone calls with my parents – Strangford Lough – Dreams of living in Strangford, Portaferry, Ardglass or Groomsport – Slippers – The Christmas Tree – An Ulster Fry – French Toast – Butter & Marmalade on Toast – A whistling kettle – A turf fire – The pub – The idea of a turf fire in a pub – Vegetable soup & wheaten bread in the pub – A session in the pub – The first sight of the little church on the road to Ballintoy – Reading in bed – Clouds the color of buttermilk hanging over Lough Neagh – The Glens of Antrim – Botanic Gardens on a cold, dry morning in Belfast – the Arizona desert in December – The sun rising over Lake Chapala – Online friends that become best friends in real life – Pajamas – Shirts fluttering on a clothesline – Windchimes – Castlerock – Rediscovering something Seamus Heaney wrote – Tea in a china cup – Traybakes – The Last Waltz on Thanksgiving Day – Boots – Scarves – Sunglasses- Second chances – Davy Spillane on the Uilleann Pipes – A good hair day – Bluebells – Church bells pealing in old villages – Van Morrison’s “When the Healing Has Begun” – Airport arrivals – Finding the right word at the right time – The craic – The first cup of coffee.

What Goes Around … Murphy Brown

15 Sunday Sep 2024

Posted by Editor in Dispatch from the Diaspora

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2024 Emmys, J.D. Vance, Murphy Brown

Half-watching The Emmy’s, I looked up when Candice Bergen took the stage in a sparkly dress.

Bergen has always had a relevance in my “American life.” In December 1988, shortly after she showed up as Murphy Brown on primetime TV, I took up permanent residence in the USA. And for the next decade, I liked knowing I could find her if I needed her on a Thursday night at nine o’clock.

For many women, Murphy Brown was what Mary Tyler Moore had been to Candice Bergen, “I think Mary Tyler Moore really made women feel they were entitled to a career and to be defined without a man.” Following Moore’s death in 2017, Candice Bergen said Murphy would never had existed had Mary Richards not paved the way. In fact, Bergen had been told during the production of “Murphy Brown” to look to her predecessor for inspiration. “You want to see the yardstick of a great sitcom? Watch ‘Mary Tyler Moore.’”

Characterized as “Mike Wallace in a dress,” Murphy Brown was tough and didn’t suffer fools. She was also described as “one of the boys,” a moniker that has been applied to me a time or two, prompting me then— and now— to consider what it really means to be a boy, to be a man. On this question, I wouldn’t have consulted Dan Quayle in 1992 nor would not ask J.D. Vance in 2024. Given what the contender for Vice President has said about what it means to be a woman, I think I can figure out the rest.

At the end of the 1991-92 season of Murphy Brown, the nation was in a stir, with 38 million viewers tuning in for the finale to see Murphy give birth and then sing “Natural Woman” to her newborn son. The White House tuned in too. A fictional single mother with a fictional baby boy drew the ire of non-fictional Vice President Dan Quayle who, during President George H.W. Bush’s reelection campaign, told an audience at the Commonwealth Club of California:

It doesn’t help matters when prime-time TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today’s intelligent, highly paid professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice.

Chiding Murphy Brown, a make-believe divorced news anchor in her 40s for her decision to have a child outside of marriage, these words would come to define Dan Quayle nearly as much as his ability to spell “potato.” The White House explained that his remarks were intended to “stir a debate” over “family values” and Hollywood’s treatment of them. Mission accomplished. The nation lost its mind. The media salivated. And then the nation moved on to something else, like Murphy’s latest hairdo, meanwhile the issue of policies that might have something to do with the percentage of absent fathers went undiscussed.

For a few moments at The 2024 Emmys, the nation was reminded that we haven’t changed that much since 1992, divided again—or still— over the values by which Americans should raise their families.

When the Murphy Brown show ended in 1998, Murphy had a son, and I had a brand new baby girl. Smitten, my baby made me feel like a natural woman too, but she also intimidated me like no other force in my life – six pounds of pure hope in my arms. An “older” first-time mother, I often wondered if I was up to the task of motherhood. I know now that I was. I am.

Motherhood had exposed a vulnerability in the irascible Murphy Brown, as did the diagnosis of her breast cancer in the final season. The latter was a vulnerability that was no match for her big hair or the business-suit armor and the smart-ass attitude. Out of the blue – the way life happens – I would meet a similar fate 13 years later, not fully aware of what the woman who played Murphy knew. I’m aware now. Cancer and widowhood and storms that pass remind me still of Lou Reed’s wisdom – “There’s a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out.”

I have been an incredibly lucky girl. Which is why when a big shadow falls … it feels like the rug is being pulled out from under you, as if to say, “Now we’re going to give you the real stuff.” That’s how the universe works. Life is wondrously and appallingly surprising. Anyone who doesn’t know that is unarmed.

In its rebuke to Quayle in 1992, Murphy Brown incorporated some of his comments into the show, drawing about 70 million viewers. “Perhaps it’s time for the Vice President to realize that whether by choice or circumstance, families come in all shapes and sizes, and ultimately what really defines a family is commitment, caring and love.” Real news on a fake news show.

In her rebuke to J.D. Vance tonight at The Emmy’s, Candice Bergen opened with this:

For 11 years, I had the tremendous privilege of playing the lead in a comedy series called Murphy Brown. I was surrounded by brilliant and funny actors. Had the best scripts to work with. And in one classic moment, my character was attacked by Vice President Dan Quayle when Murphy became pregnant and decided to raise the baby as a single mother. Oh, how far we’ve come. Today, a Republican candidate for vice president would never attack a woman for having kids. So as they say, My work here is done. Meow.

Meow.

P.S. With only 50 days until Election Day, please make sure you have all you need to vote. Please visit Vote.org to check your registration status, register to vote, vote by mail, and get election reminders etc. We have a ways to go.

In the Bluest Sky

11 Wednesday Sep 2024

Posted by Editor in 9/11, Anything can Happen, Billy Collins, Healing Field Tempe, Memoir, Remembering September 11th, Seamus Heaney, Terrorism, Themes of childhood

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9.11, American Airlines Flight 77, Billy Collins, Healing Field, Irish DIASPORA, Juliana Valentine McCourt, September 11 2001

The sky above Lake Chapala is blue this morning. I wonder is this the same blue that hung over the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. Cloudless, infinite—and in the parlance of aviation—it was a “severe clear” sky. Intensely blue with seemingly unlimited visibility and air so pure, such a sky can blind a pilot. With the previous day’s storms blown away from New York city that morning, it was the quintessential Severe Clear sky. Conditions were perfect for the ordinary travel that would take thousands of people to business meetings and conferences and end-of-summer vacations.

A little girl only a few months older than mine was on board United Airlines Flight 175 that morning. Just four years old and a nature-lover, little Juliana Valentine McCourt, and her mother, an Irish immigrant from Cork, were on their way to Disneyland, the happiest place on earth. They were close. Close. Like my daughter and me on our numerous trips from Phoenix to Newark, Newark to Belfast, and back again. Close. Even when rendered illogical and unreasonable, she by adolescent hormones, me by the unrelenting effects of cancer treatment, we were – and we remain – close. Two peas in a pod.

Sophie and I have the same piano hands. We love Sephora and dark chocolate-covered almonds, mashed potatoes, the smell of books, Derry Girls, and the little dogs that love us. We are ‘friends’ on Facebook and Instagram, where I have promised not to gush too much in ways that embarrass her. We binge-watch – for me it’s The Bear or Yellowstone, while she is on re-runs of Law and Order, and most recently, Breaking Bad, which she tells me holds up well even after all these years. She’s in Arizona, I’m in Mexico, and we love each other madly, bound forever by knowing that we once filled the heart of the man who died when we were far away from him and from home one November a decade ago.

We’re not pessimistic. We’re not. We just know the other shoe can drop at any time. As such, we’re ready for it. Then again, we also tell ourselves that that kind of thing is the kind of thing that only happens to someone else.

I watched on TV when United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Juliana and her mother and everyone on board died instantly. In Washington, D.C., sisters Dana and Zoe Falkenberg, died too when terrorists hijacked their plane and crashed it into the Pentagon. Just 3 and 8, they had boarded American Airlines Flight 77 with their parents to begin the long journey to a new life in Australia. Surveillance footage from Dulles airport would later reveal that little Dana Falkenberg was carrying an Elmo teddy bear. Also on their flight, three exceptional 6th grade students, traveling with their teachers to the Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary on a special trip awarded by National Geographic.

“Every one of the victims who died on September 11^th was the most important person on earth to somebody.”

–President George W. Bush, 12/11/01

Until that too-bright morning, I suppose I had taken for granted the sense of security I felt as an immigrant who had traded Northern Ireland for the United States of America. Foolishly, I had too quickly dropped my guard, forgetting anything can and does happen. I had reached that point where I’d almost stopped reassuring myself that the sound of a car backfiring on the freeway was not a gunshot; that a clap of Monsoon thunder in the mountains was not a bomb timed to go off in the heart of a village on the busiest shopping day of the year; and that a backpack forgotten on the bus was not packed with explosives.

Twenty years ago, my daughter and I first visited The Healing Field, a 9.11 memorial in Tempe, Arizona, heart-achingly beautiful, each of its 2,996 flags a reminder of a life taken. Wordless, undone by the sheer enormity of the memorial and her diminished stature within it as she walked deep into a field of red, white and blue, I forced myself to look up and away, to recollect the way we had been that September morning when I dropped her off at pre-school. To remember the blueness of the sky …

In a blink of an eye, Sophie is out of sight, deep in the Healing field. Row upon row of flagpoles are set five feet apart enabling us to stretch out our arms and touch two lives at a time, lest we forget what happened.

From somewhere, a mournful “Taps” pierces the air and then Amazing Grace.

Out of sight.

Under that expanse of desert sky, I knew my daughter was not lost. I also knew that such a thought is the one that scares me most.

Colorful tulle butterflies are attached to the flagpoles in the Healing Field. Stuffed bears sit on the grass. Yellow ribbons wrapped around those flagpoles encircling the field represent the valor of those “first responders,” those sworn to protect and serve those within. Ribbons, blue as that September morning sky are wound around flagpoles in the heart of the Field, for the flight crew members who perished. And, on the grass, for the veterans who perished that day, pair after pair of combat boots.

On the anniversary of September 11th 2001, from New York to Arizona, and in cities across the globe, wreaths are laid, bells ring out, and names are rubbed in pencil on cherished scraps of paper.

We say their names.

Juliana Valentine McCourt.

She would have graduated from college by now, trips to Disneyland perhaps less appealing than thoughts of a new car or a promotion. Such a trajectory is only in my imagination. For Juliana, there was no Disneyland, no first day of school, no soft place to fall.

For a moment or more on September 11, we remember those lost. We fly our flags at half-mast and watch as footage of the World Trade Center’s final moments are replayed on television retrospectives. Keyboard warriors wax conspiratorial about what they think “really” happened at the Pentagon. Politicians pay their respects before they resume election campaign trails that are not always respectful. Family members of 9/11 victims gather on the Memorial plaza in New York to read aloud the names of those killed in the 9/11 attacks and in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Others carry out personal observances.

9.11 is history.

I remember that on September 11 in my daughter’s final year of high school, not one of her teachers remembered 9-11 out loud. Ostensibly, it was no different than the day before, no different than September 10, 2001, when Ruth McCourt was packing for a trip to Disneyland with her daughter, Juliana.

I read on Facebook or Instagram that on September 10, 2001 “246 people went to sleep in preparation for their morning flights. 2,606 people went to sleep in preparation for work in the morning. 343 firefighters went to sleep in preparation for their next shift. 60 police officers went to sleep in preparation for morning patrol. 8 paramedics went to sleep in preparation for their morning shift of saving lives and 1 K9 went to bed a good boy. None of them saw past 10:00 am the next morning ”

Someone will say all their names today.

So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

“The Names” is in dedication to all the victims of September 11 and their survivors.

The Names – Billy Collins

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.

A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,

Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name —
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner —
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O’Connor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening — weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds —
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.