The Furthest Step

When I was five, my mother remarried. Through this union I got a step-brother and a half-sister. We were told right off the bat that we were a family unit; that the steps and halves didn’t matter. We were so lucky to have siblings and that was all that counted. My new father became not my step-dad but also dad, or dad 2. The two of them worked to ensure equality among us all and I always accepted us as equal kids in the family standing. I assumed the extended family had adopted the same understanding and I grew up happy to have my larger family. It was nice having seconds of everyone. In my adolescence, I liked some of them better than some of my blood versions of the same. They were kind, funny and easy to be with. I considered myself lucky indeed.

As for my siblings, our unconditional acceptance of each other created confusion for others over the years. We would only admit to the sibling qualifiers if pressed:

“I was just visiting my dad.”

“I thought your sister said your dad passed away.”

“Well, yes and no, that was her dad. I still have mine.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Technically she’s my half-sister.”

We’d gloss over the explanations as if they were an ugly secret. “That stuff doesn’t matter to us,” we’d firmly state. “I mean, he’s my brother and that’s it. The step part doesn’t change anything.” It was as though we feared others expecting us to be somehow less devoted to each other if they knew we weren’t ‘real’ siblings, whatever that means.

Over the years there were some tensions with various family members who believed in the value of bloodlines. But as far as I knew those were long assuaged. We’ve been family for so long at this point, who remembers such petty distinctions?

By an accident of timing and venue availability, my sister and I both got married this summer. We chose very different wedding styles so on many levels there is no comparison. My sister’s wedding was an apple and mine an orange. Given that we’re siblings, however, and given there were only months between, it’s impossible not to take certain measurements. Theirs was held near much of their families making the guest list about five times the size of our remote destination celebration. Not for nothing but that also means five times the gifts which is petty and silly of me, I know, but when you’re trying to create a nice kitchen and your sister opens the appliance you most wanted from your registry it’s hard not to feel a little twinge.

The gift that knocked me sideways was nothing so extravagant. It was from a family member – one who was step to me but not her, not that I’d ever thought of them as anything but blood. As my sister opened various things from them, I didn’t really notice that the volume was far more than what I’d been given. It wasn’t until she pulled the tissue paper off a family heirloom that I felt a punch to my stomach. I’d been given no heirloom. Then the second punch: I wasn’t their blood and somehow that suddenly mattered. I quietly identified the period of the lovely piece for my sister who doesn’t share my interest in antiques and walked outside to breathe.

After all these years, really my whole life, of thinking we were all equal in the eyes of the family, it all suddenly seemed like a farce and I was the only one who hadn’t been in on the joke. I felt like at this adult age I’d only just realized there is no Santa Claus – and that everyone else had known since childhood. Embarrassment piled on the hurt. What a naive, dumb, accepting kid I’d been. The hurt I felt didn’t hit a just-married adult but a very vulnerable little kid part of me. I’d bought the family line I’d been brought up with: that we were all equally loved and accepted as far as family mattered. That was incredibly comforting to a kid who’d always felt like an outcast. As the last piece of tissue wrap fluttered to the floor, I was that kid again, on the outside looking in.

Then I wondered how far back did it go? Did the woman whose heirloom it was think of me as her own, like my sister, or merely as a child who happened to be in her orbit due to my parents’ marriage? Would she have wanted me to have something of hers or was that side of the family just carrying out what would have been her wishes? For most of my adolescence, I adored her as my favorite. She had a bright personality and she accepted me for who I was, tween warts and all. Or so I thought. This posthumous rejection flayed open a numbing gash. I cried for most of the plane ride home.

I want to be clear that I am not ungrateful for the gifts I received. They were generous and thoughtful all around. And I also want to be clear that I don’t begrudge my sister any of it. I would not want to take anything away from her in order to have it for myself. In many ways she’s had a much harder life that I have. She got dealt some rough cards. I can freely say that she deserves beautiful things more than I do and I am glad family and friends shared with her and made her feel special.

Of course it’s not about the stuff. It’s about the sentiments and beliefs that guided its giving. I know the family didn’t do it to hurt me and have no idea that I might have been hurt by the difference in their gifts. I’m sure they are completely justified in their actions: “she’s our blood” they’d likely shrug. I may be family, but not family family. I understand that to most people, most families, the actions of my step-family members are completely normal, acceptable and even expected. But I thought we were different from most families.

I grew up believing that family was who and what you said it was. I think that’s a nice idea and a good thing to aspire to. People may claim to accept and love without reservation but for most people – even some of the best people, in some small place in their hearts, the rules of who and how much still matter.

A Thank-You Note

A big part of any wedding is sitting down to write all the thank-you notes after. We've dutifully done ours. But as something was missing in our ceremony, something is missing in the soul of the thanking. It's hidden in the previously stated hurts and resentments that I chose to focus on.

There are many who deserve to be acknowledged for their actions over the last year and know that we are eternally grateful for the things they did, large and small, and the love they offered.

In no particular order, Thank You:

• Dad for footing the bill and for giving me away
• Giancarlo for footing the other bills, for running all over Tuscany and running up your long-distance bill
• Ash and Matt for wrangling and Matt for being the default best
• Joel for the wine labels, honey labels and programs
• Joel and HBH for coming to LA in the midst of crap-storm 2010
• HBH for shoe shopping
• Frannie for the quilt help
  
• Bella, Lucie, Dani, Caitlin for helping with the ribbon and tulle on the table and vases
• Christine for making sure the table cloths and flowers were right
• Mom for the flowers and for sharing your heirlooms
• Kristi for the amazing bouquet
• Cathy for loads of calm support and hands of help
• Sophie for driving, a dress attempt, band-aids, voice of reason and indispensable help
• Marco for not losing the rings
• Elisa for helping me laugh it off
• Barbara for the dress make-over and days at flea markets and tea
• Lisa for listening to everything
  
• Bob and Sharon for hosting
• Brian and Richard for the posh shower
• Ash for planning it
  
• Ellen for the cake
• Sarah for flying me out and nursing me back to sanity
  
• Everyone who shared their photos with us
• Miche for the villa
• Fernando for the ice
• Tina and Serena for the Tiramisu and helping hands
• Marta for the best wedding meal ever
• Angie, Annie, Felicity for their support in our BSG - The Conscious Bride was essential reading
  
• Lindsay/Jennifer for taking care of the furballs
• Danielle for the walk
• Don and Sue for coming so far and being easygoing always
• Lorenzo for finding the photographers
• Arnaldo and Marco for the most amazing honeymoon hosting ever
• All the generous gifts large and small
• Franz for driving at the worst time
• Everyone who danced
• Everyone for not spilling on my (grandmother's) dress
  
• My new cousins who accept me
• Eli and Mirco for the legal footwork
• Camilla for help on the ground
• Federico for wine recon and bottling
• Carlo for saying “si” in spite of me – foolish man

What an embarrassment of riches. It’s clear my tone has changed in the last year. I see I am not doing enough to stand in gratitude and that may be a big part of why things have felt darker in my eyes. This is me looking toward the light. The day feels a little brighter.

After I Do

My new husband and I sat on the bed in the master bedroom of the ancient villa. We’d been married for about nine hours. The guests had gone save those who were staying in the villa with us. The frenzy of the day finally drifted off and we could breathe the fresh Tuscan night air.

More than anything I felt relief; relief that the event was over and that the day had gone, more or less, according to plan, relief that I had gotten here. I was not out there alone and searching for The One anymore. I had found One and we were legally and emotionally bound. We’d survived the drama and could now focus on building our lives together.

I petted the ivory satin of my grandmother’s 1940 dress that a talented friend had made over for the occasion. I looked out of the windows set in the thick stone walls of my favorite place on earth. I smiled at the presents we’d just opened and cataloged for thank-you notes. My husband hugged me and we sighed in agreement: we should have eloped.

In many ways I got my fairy tale wedding: a select group of friends and family in Italy, incredible food prepared by a local chef friend, a relaxed party that lasted all afternoon and into the evening. That morning, I’d walked down the cobble-stoned main street of my favorite Tuscan hill town escorted by family and my girlfriends. Tourists out for their morning cappuccinos Ooooed and snapped pictures of me. Some had clapped or shouted congratulations. It was surreal.

We’d climbed the steps of the stately stone palazzo on the main piazza where I’d seen countless other brides ascend in my years of visiting this place. We stepped into the city council room where weddings have been preformed since 1435. A town official in a sharp black suit and Italian flag sash presided over the ceremony that was all in Italian much to the consternation of my mono-glot family. In the end we signed the certificate and stepped out into the sun a married couple.

Our first act as marrieds was to head to the gelateria next door for a celebratory gelato despite the fact it was only noon. We strolled the town with our friends and photographers for some unique wedding shots. Then we trundled back to the villa for a country buffet at the villa’s forty-foot, pergola-shaded picnic table in the back yard. Eventually there was cake (heavenly tiramisu made by the villa’s motherly caretaker) and dancing as the party faded into the dark of a rural summer night filled with fireflies. All the elements had been what I wanted from the wedding favors of local honey to my bouquet picked from the villa’s grounds. I’m proud that by and large we truly managed to avoid the American wedding industrial complex and do an out-of-the-box event.

And yet. At the end of it all our prevailing feeling was that of disappointment. The year of planning was fraught with such dramas and other stressors we could have done without – both financial and emotional.

As women we are told that in being a bride we are queen for a day. As much as I tried to downplay that, there was still a latent expectation to be catered to and adulated. Playing the wedding/bride card didn’t get me anything. Every flight we had, at the car rental, every hotel or restaurant I made sure to mention that we were traveling to our wedding. Yes dammit, I expected some special treatment, upgrades, squeals of sisterly delight from the gate agents, something. In general I got blank ‘so what’ stares. One bitter, single flight attendant seemed to actually treat us worse. So much for queen for a day.

We know our choices upset many friends and family. Some perceived our destination wedding as a financial boast or a chance to exclude them. It was actually cheaper for us to do what we did than to plan a standard ballroom wedding here.

Still we knew we were asking a lot financially for folks to make the trip. We decided doing a unique celebration in a place we loved was worth the risk. As we’d planned the event, I’d pictured certain friends there with us, sharing in our joy. One by one the NO RSVPs came in. Many cherished friends and family couldn’t make the trip. Some had understandable financial reasons. Some didn’t care to travel or couldn’t get off work. In many cases they were friends whose weddings we’d gone out of our ways to be part of because we knew how much it would mean to them. We found ourselves struggling to hold on to our understanding as the wedding approached. At the end of the day the reasons didn’t seem to matter. All that will be remembered is that they weren’t there.

In an effort to entice friends and family to make the expenditure, we’d planned a week’s worth of activities for our guests so we could share our favorite place with them. “Make our wedding your vacation this year, it’s worth your while,” we crooned. The problem with that was that we got a bunch of lovely guests and family who expected a vacation. And with us as the knowledgeable ones, the ones who spoke the language and knew the area, they needed our help. Instead of us getting pampered and assisted in the final prep days, we ran around taking care of them and still needing to manage last-minute derailments and obstacles such as ice.

Though well-acquainted with the fact that ice is not a standard beverage feature as it is here, it hadn’t dawned on us that large quantities of ice were not readily available. The husband of the villa’s caretaker finally volunteered to take time out of his fields, cart a giant wine cask he had in his tiny, ancient truck to another hill town an hour away the morning of the wedding so we could have ice for the white wine and water to chill in. As something Italians just don’t do, it meant a lot to us that he would take his precious work day, break with community norms and do this heavy, tedious job for us crazy Americans.

It’s actions like that that make me feel like a cad in whinging at all. I had some amazing friends who stepped up and helped me with both last-minute details and keeping my sanity. They were willing to sacrifice their vacation recreation for my well-being and I can honestly say I wouldn’t have gotten through the week without them. But they were the exception.

Most of our families were either too sick to help or more interested in sight-seeing than in helping us with the preparations or bonding with their soon-to-be in-laws. We both grew angry and resentful as we herded our friends through their fun activity days. “I’m not having fun,” my husband-to-be growled. “This is my favorite place, I wanted to share it with them and I thought it would be fun. I’m not having fun.” I agreed with him. We were drained and stressed while many people found our planned activities too demanding or not interesting enough. Instead of “we’re here for you” the vibe seemed to be “we came all this way and paid all this money for you, now entertain us.” Not one person offered to buy our lunch or even a coffee on our group outings. We hadn’t really expected it, but when we noticed it never happened we were hurt.

No one at the villa ever broke through their jet-lag to join me on what I’d envisioned as family morning walks filled with laughter and wedding advice. I walked alone along my favorite country paths as the sun took the night’s chill away.

Having now felt the incredible mix of tiny disappointments and drama, pressure to be lovely and kind, plan everything perfectly, not to mention the emotional journey of the larger picture: giving up our single identities once and for all and actually getting married, I have every sympathy for the creature known as bridezilla. I never thought I would be that girl but one’s nerves gets pulled so tightly by so many forces going in different directions I don’t really see how it’s possible not to have at least one meltdown. I’m happy to say I only had one. It involved screaming at my father-in-law to-be at the rehearsal dinner which was nearly two hours late, had many of us including myself getting lost en route, and friends with kids begging off before dessert exhausted by the long day. I’m not proud of my meltdown, and I’m not saying it’s justified. But I defy a modern bride to get through without one. Thankfully my father-in-law was understanding. Despite his wounded pride that night, he waved away my apology on the palazzo steps the next morning with a hug and cheek kiss.

As what we thought would be our festive pre-week with our friends and family came to a drained and drama-filled end, all we could think was “this was a huge mistake, we should have eloped.” Too late to turn back now, we went to sleep way too late on the wedding eve.

All in all, the day itself went smoothly. All the things that went “wrong” were comical and somehow involved dessert. One friend waved a gelateria’s card in my face as we reached the bottom of the palazzo steps, post-ceremony. She insisted she knew where we had to go for gelato because they had her one favorite flavor – never mind that I may have put some thought into planning where we’ll go and for chrissake, I’m the bride, we’re going where I want to go. We led the wedding guests to our gelateria of choice, which was the same one our friend had wanted, thank goodness, and she boldly strode right in front of me up to the counter to order her scoop. I stopped, an incredulous “really?” dying in my throat. I looked back at my girlfriends in line behind the groom and I. “Really?” one grinned at me, her eyes twinkling. We laughed at the line-cutting friend still completely oblivious to her faux pas.

After the delicious lunch, we made our way to the dance floor and picked up the mike to thank our guests for making our dream of an Italian wedding come true. We we’re going to have the first dance and then cut the cake and here was the mike if anyone wanted to offer a toast. We looked over to see my father-in-law with a heaping plate of cake he was thoroughly enjoying.

“Dad! We haven’t cut the cake yet!” my husband moaned.

“What? It was out,” his dad reasoned. We laughed and helped ourselves too.

We laughed less when the evening wore down and no one toasted us. Not one person stepped up to the mike as I had imagined and said kind words about us, wished us well, told funny, heartwarming or embarrassing stories. No one. Had the language barrier intimidated people (half our guests were Italian and half American)? Was there nothing anyone wanted to say to honor us? We were deeply stung.

We sat on our bed that night, relieved it was over. Awash with contentment and love mixed with disappointment and hurt. I was sad that I’d never had the family bonding moments I’d so hoped would be part of this gathering. I’d wished for heart-to-hearts, advice, stories, quiet moments shared in this lovely setting. I had wanted to feel closer to everyone. I didn’t think those were unreasonable or selfish expectations. But it hadn’t turned out that way. Instead we were thrilled that with the dawn we could kick them all out of our beloved villa and hit the road for a few days on our own mini-moon.

It was the final coup de grace when our wedding photos finally arrived from the photographer. They were all vaguely blueish and cold-looking. None of the fizzy joy or radiant beauty I’d hope to have captured from the day. There were a few nice ones but I felt like so many photos showing connection and love were just missing. I guess that’s fitting and truthful in the end.

As the summer wore on, we took part in several other weddings. Often I saw examples of the selfless toiling of friends and family, shared sweet bonding opportunities, and pampered bride moments. I tried not to compare these to the absence of my own such moments but bitterness grew. In one instance I was the one who took off from work, traveled and did the toiling. I couldn’t help wondering “where was mine?”

I felt that in spite of all the lovely things my wedding was, there were many emotional things it wasn’t – things I hadn’t realized I’d expected from it. My husband and I compared notes and he felt the same way. We talked over our resentment and tried to let it go. We resolved that no matter what, we’d never do that again. One big lesson I took from it all: no one truly gives a crap about your wedding but you. I don’t say that to downplay the efforts of friends or family who stepped up during the year or took care of things at the event. We did see much generosity and love and for that we are grateful. In retrospect I just wish we could have channeled that generosity and love into something different; an event with less built-in expectation.

The funny thing is, several of the summer brides I’ve spoken to this year feel the same way. It was much ado about nothing and left them feeling empty and exhausted from hundreds of little dramas. So why do we as couples continue to subject ourselves to this costly, emotional, draining ritual?

As autumn approached, my husband and I realized something important was missing about the day. With the secular nature of our ceremony, there had never been an opportunity to exchange vows. Aside from agreeing to uphold the legal obligations of an Italian marriage, we hadn’t promised each other anything. We agreed that was an empty spot that needed filling. So we are writing our vows now. We are planning a short get-away where we can be by ourselves to exchange them and feel our commitment to each other become true for us. It will finally be like we ran away and eloped. I can’t think of a better way to connect.

A Toast

For my little sister on her wedding day:

'A' has many roles in our family: The ray of sunshine, the glue, the leftover crap.

I was not too pleased when you came along. When it became clear mom was not going to return you to sender as I had requested, I agreed to tolerate you. The truth of it is that I was jealous. You were the one who was happy despite anything. You were loving, creative, funny, generous, and saw the good in everyone and I desperately wanted to be like you.

As we’ve grown, you’ve taught me about courage, diplomacy, how to step outside my own perspective, and how to organize a mean closet. I am so glad mom wasn’t able to return you.

Wanting nothing for Christmas but Bride magazines at 5 years old, you planned your wedding so many times who can say if this looks anything like what you had in your minds’ eye. The most important ingredient, however, is here: a man who adores you and loves you and promises his life to you. With his kindness, warmth and playful spirit, 'M' is the best gift I could have wished for you.

Likewise, M, you are getting an extraordinary soul. She lights up any room she’s in. She makes everyone feel valued and honored for who they are. She’s always looking within herself, checking her perspective against that of others’ and putting herself in their shoes to be sure she understands both sides. She would give a stranger the shirt off her back. Gentle and kind, and tough as the cliffs of Moher, anyone lucky enough to find themselves in her heart knows that her friendship is a treasured gift. She will weather any storm with you and be there to make sure you have a warm, dry place to sleep even if it means giving you her pillow. As you know, M, your challenge is to push her to put herself first. This way you will have a wife who is fulfilled and enriched and able to fulfill and enrich your life with her love. Welcome to the family.

A, thank you for always being there for me and listening to me. Thank you for making me laugh and comforting me when I cry. Thank you for being my cheerleader and my partner in crime. Thank you for having the courage to stand up to me and for pushing me to be my best self. If I am any good at all, it’s because for you I needed to try to be the person you think I am; the big sister worthy of your love and respect. Thank you for being my best friend. I can’t imagine being on this road without you. I’m so proud of you, so happy for you, so honored to have you as my sister.

To A and M: May you both always find in each other a shoulder to lean on in tough times, an ear to listen to both your troubles and your dreams, a hand to help through your day to day, a smile to share your joy and laughter, and arms to welcome your heart home for the rest of your lives.

Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

When he finally popped the question I was thrilled. Finally, I would be a woman with a Partner. I would be forever saved from the disappointing, draining dating trenches and the treacherous eHarmonies and Match.coms of my past. I would be creating a life and family with someone who loved me.

After a few days of engagement euphoria, it hit me: we have a lot of planning to do. The first question after “can I see the ring?” is “have you set a date?” followed by “where are you going to do it?” I could see a wave of stress beginning to crest on the horizon. I set to work getting foundations of a plan in place. I copied my best friend’s wedding binder, recreated Martha Stewart’s planning spreadsheets and started researching details.

Thank goodness we are no longer in the age of a wedding being the place for a father to pay back his business partners and clients and for a mother to show off to her bridge group and country club set. Thank goodness we won’t be bound by traditions that don’t speak to us and are free to create an event that resonates with our tastes and interests. For the most part, the fiancée and I are flexible. There are not a lot of details we care about. Flowers? Whatever. Food? As long as it’s yummy. Attendants? Wear whatever you want. We both agree spending obscene amounts of money on one day is silly when that money could better be used in setting up a life together.

There is one detail, however, that we both agree we’re not willing to budge on. Italy. We were fixed up in the first place because of our mutual love of Italy and fluency in Italian. Italy got us through a rough patch, joined in our romance and was the backdrop of the proposal itself. Italy is important to our relationship. We feel it represents us and we want it to be part of our big day. Plus with who we know over there we are confident we can pull off a wedding far more economically that would could here. It’s a win-win and everyone will be thrilled with a fun destination wedding, right? Besides, our mantra all along has been “this is our wedding, it doesn’t have to make everyone happy, just us.”

As we start to share our ideas with family it turns out everyone is less than thrilled. With the recession it seems no one can afford to go and now if we chose to go anyway it will look like we did so deliberately to exclude them. Some parentals aren’t thrilled by being fish out of water in a place where they don’t speak the language. Other parentals whom we thought would favor the plan also think it’s silly and would put too many people out. “A wedding isn’t about you” they inform us, “it’s about the people who love you.”

It is? I thought that was the one day in my (our) life that was unequivocally about me (us) and what I (we) want. Am I so mistaken? Maybe. I remember another family member’s wedding we’d all been looking forward to for years and our promised various roles in it. When the day came, our relative and his bride made different, far-away plans that excluded us and broke my sister’s heart. I don’t want broken hearts. I don’t want to exclude. But I want Italy.

My fiancée and I agree we’d rather have no wedding than something generic, expensive and tasteless here like so many weddings we’ve been to. So then. We’re either in for a battle of wills, family drama and politics gone wild or major compromises that will make us unhappy. Because I care so little about so many other parts, I am confident I won’t be a bridezilla. I’ll go with the flow of the day. However, I may just turn into a fianzilla before all is said and done. So whose wedding is it anyway? I thought I knew.

Scraping the Foundations

I started with the cabinet in my bathroom. I went through my house, methodically and slowly. Room by room, drawer by drawer, thing by thing. And I got rid of everything I could; all the expired goods, the unworn clothes, the unread books. All the unnecessary furniture, the well-intentioned gifts, the once-critical collectibles. Stuck in a darker place than I have been in a long time, I was at a loss on how to manage my days. So I cleaned.

I didn’t know if it was to prepare to move or to prepare a new work surface for living. I thought about calling my mom to tell her I was considering moving back home. But then I thought I couldn’t take her relentless optimism about my life here.

I worked my way into a closet and the phone rang. Naturally, it was her.

“Guess what I grabbed from the old house last week,” she gushed.

We’d just shut down and sold her house of ten years. We’d spent an afternoon tersly shoving boxes at each other, crying for the past – and crying we were laughing so hard reading my sister’s first grade stories and plays. I read them aloud in her phonetic seven-year old spelling and sounded like Borat.

Like me, my sister came to her writing early, left it and only came back to it recently.

“I didn’t think we were both allowed to be writers and that was your thing. Our brother did art so I couldn’t do that,” she’d explained.

“So you became a dancer instead,” I concluded. I understood how she felt. After a thirteen-year swim career, I’d quit the team when her times got too close to mine. We both agreed we couldn’t be great in the same arena.

We’d both been infected by that thinking for far too long. Now with me talking of leaving LA, she wonders what will become of our sitcom we are developing together. I think maybe it’s time for me to step aside for her to be the writer now. After all, I came here because I wanted to be able to say I’d given it a shot. I didn’t want to go on living a small life and wondering what might have been if I’d only tried. Well, I’ve given it a shot and it hasn’t turned out. So far.

Then - back to scene - I’m sorting my closet and mom calls.

I tell her, yes, I know she saved some of my sister’s elementary school writing from the trash heap. The stuff we’d been reading and laughing about.

“No, no. Well, yes. But there was yours too.”

I haven’t told her about my current personal distress, what I am considering or what I’m in the middle of doing.

“You know what? You’ve got to never give up on your writing. Listen to this…” and she proceeds to read me my elementary school teachers’ comments on various stories I’d written. “Heidi, even then…” She concludes.

How does she do that? She doesn’t read my blog. She hadn’t talked to my sister. She had in no way been told that I was rifling through my belongings considering chucking this whole Tinseltown life and moving home where life would be “easier.” Yet here she was, answering the unasked question. Like a perfect Act Two turning point. Just when you thought all was lost for our heroine…

OK so it’s cheesy and overly sentimental. But so like life. And movies.

I grunt but otherwise don’t really acknowledge what she’s said.

“What are you up to?”

“Cleaning…” I find a stash of mittens. I’d need these back home in the mountains.

“Oh. Well I just thought you’d want to remember what Mrs. Walsh said about your writing when you were eight. I’m so glad you’re out there, honey. It’s meant to be and it was from first grade.”

My mother, the deus ex machina.

I can’t say my faith is restored but I do know that sometimes you’ve got to go on other people’s perceptions of you when your own becomes dimmed. So for now, I’m just holding onto the fact that I don’t want to have to wear mittens in May. At least not this year.

Cosmos

“Billions and billions and billions of stars…”

Carl Sagan’s oddly comforting voice introduced his weekly PBS show. I sat watching with my step father. Sometimes it was boring to me. I was more excited about Knight Rider coming on later that night. But I sensed that it was important to watch if it was something John valued. I sat and we traveled through the stars.

The unseasonably cold wind whips a snowflake across my cheek and I snap back to the present. John’s been dead for ten years. I’m standing in our old drive-way as my mother, sister and I pack up the house we’ve been renting out to a stranger for the last five years.

John’s old hardcover copy of “Cosmos” sits on the garage sale table and I keep staring at it. I have been pushing my mother hard all morning to let go of things. Stop hording and move on. It’s just stuff. I’m wondering if I should grab the book.

I can remember it as far back as I remember John. It sat on the top tier of the built-in book shelves by his desk. “Cosmos” was part of the set of the movie of my life as long as it took place in that house.

It sat there as John taught me how to draw and write. It was there when my sister and I made up silly games running back and forth in front of the shelves. It witnessed the arguments, the nights John slept on the couch in front of the shelves. It saw me and Ted pretend to fall asleep on the couch so we could spend the night together without admitting we actually liked each other.

“Do you remember dad always watching this show?” I ask my sister as I cradle the book in my arms. I remember how fiercely we fought over his stuff when he died. A part of me wants her to fight me for this. I want this object to matter.

She grunts vaguely and continues sorting stuff. Granted the book was on a high shelf back then and she was much shorter. It’s a big, heavy book. I put it back on the sale table as neighbors and sale-cruisers mill around.

John’s “Cosmos” doesn’t sell. The sale pile becomes the Goodwill pile - except not really for Goodwill. For the Vietnam Vets Association since John was one. We are locking up the house to leave it for the last time. The house sale closes tomorrow and we won’t come back here again. The garbage truck will take what’s left tomorrow.

Will I regret not taking this book with me? I stare at it for a long minute. Then I close the garage. I continue to think about the book with its tattered cover as I fly home, back to the sun. I wonder if I’ve made a mistake. It was John’s after all. I imagine it being chucked into the donations truck with all our other old left-behind things. Things that used to matter to one or another of us.

I get home and sit with the books of John’s that I do have. The ones I took when we divided his stuff up after his death ten years ago. I wonder why my sister and I fought over some of them as though we could hold onto him through his things. We both had to have this one or that one. And now we just give them away.

I pull off my shoes and walk past my own book shelves filled with my books and John’s. The memories are not lodged inside them.

The Lesson

Nothing’s ever convenient in a life that’s packed wall to wall with obligations and goals. When a cog in this ridiculous machine comes loose something out of the usual schedule, say a family visit, becomes even less convenient.

I’d been doing my best to keep up on all my various writing projects, care for my animals, keep my house clean and handle the tasks of my side job that (barely) pays the bills. In general I do all this with the motto of do no harm. I try to do good deeds, help when I can and stay in integrity in all my communications. Imagine my surprise when a communication hit the fan.

As my sister arrived for a rare visit, I found myself embroiled in a crazy misunderstanding between industry friends that was being blown completely out of proportion. I am not used to people thinking ill of me. It makes me very uncomfortable. When I’ve done nothing wrong and people think ill, it’s really hard for me to accept.

As I took my sis around town I fielded phone call after phone call from various supporters and detractors. I floundered to come up with spin control and any kind of positive communication plan. As my sister and I walked on the beach, my stomach was in knots wondering how I would positively resolve the issues at hand and restore friendships where now there was upset.

My sister left later that day and I waved her off as I jumped on yet another phone call. I was so busy trying to manage people’s misinformed bad opinions of me, I hadn’t even taken her to frozen yogurt like I’d promised.

A friend called me later that night. She listened patiently as I told her the ins and outs of the crazy communication breakdown.

“People in Hollywood are nuts,” she wisely barked. “They always will be. You need to grow a thick skin and not give a crap what they think about you. You just focus on your good work and screw the rest. If they don’t like you, screw them.”

I had never considered the possibility of just letting go. Clearly these people were not any BFFs of mine if they would jump to the conclusions they jumped to, never checking in with me; if they would hold onto the drama of what was truly a non-issue to effectively end our friendship. The whole ridiculous incident felt like High School again and the letting go of the craziness was like fast forwarding the years back to the present. A relief.

All along I kept asking myself: what am I supposed to be learning from this? The thick skin was certainly part of it. Letting go of other people’s opinions, too. I thought about the crazy anti-fan mail some of my famous friends deal with. Certainly, there was value in that. But that still wasn’t quite it.

Before she left, my sister, out of the blue, gave me a necklace. A silver Celtic knot style pendant with the words “warrior spirit” stamped on the back. As I drove away from dropping her off and saying goodbye, I rubbed the pendant. And then I got the lesson. I had had one of the most important people in my life with me for 24 precious hours and instead of enjoying her, I had been worried about some crazy bullshit that I probably won’t even remember in ten years. Worried isn’t even accurate. I had let it completely absorb me. And my sister was leaving.

In the end, all the stuff resolved itself. Not in the way I would have thought. But as it does, it resolved in the way it needed to. More importantly, I got the lesson: don’t let the crazy bullshit take you away from the stuff that counts.

The Leftover Crap

Growing up, my sister and I disagreed on sisterhood. She loved me while I saw her as the interloper that killed my only-child flow. Overall she was a happy kid. Mom’s little sunshine. Everyone loved her. Mom often asked me why I couldn’t be more like her instead of the mopey little goth girl I was. Indeed. I felt it was my duty to toughen her up for the cruel, cruel world I knew as envisioned by the Smiths and 9 Inch Nails. The truth was I envied her more than my angry teen self could ever articulate. She was happy about everything and everyone loved her. People never said “Shame about Ash,” the way I overheard them say about me.

The first summer I had my license the Devito/Schwarzenegger movie “Twins” came out. Mom let me borrow the car on the condition I took my little sister with me. We could therefore only see a PG movie so “Twins” it was. I don’t really remember how I felt about the film but as it turns out, it deeply affected my sister. The concept of superior genetic material being channeled into one child and not another somehow hit home.

Dinners around our table were lively with debate and spirited sarcastic banter. You had to be able to keep up. We weren’t inclined to go easy on someone with cracks in their armor. So that night when my sister, who had been conspicuously silent for a while, suddenly burst into tears it was all we could do not to jeer.

“Honey, what’s wrong? Did you burn your tongue?” Naturally, Mom was first to break into care mode.

Her big blue eyes welled up as my sister looked to me and then back to mom. “I finally get it,” she wailed. “She got it all. I’m just the leftover crap from your body.” We all froze mid-bite. My little sister had somehow equated me with Schwarzenegger and herself with Devito. While I’d always thought she was the favorite, she thought I was. It was one of those pivotal childhood moments. It was the first time I knew that she looked up to me. As one crocodile tear rolled down her rosy cheek we all took a moment to let this heartfelt revelation sink in. Then we burst into hysterical laughter.

Mom sat her down later and explained how genetics works, that she had just as many good things as I did, just different. I was in my late twenties before I realized how much her love and admiration meant to my life. I thought it was a revelation when I told her that my childhood anger towards her had just been a mask for how much I loved her but was afraid to say. “I know,” she shrugged. “I love you too.”

Over the years we’ve grown closer and closer. No longer an inconvenient interloper, she’s my best friend and the person I turn to for advice and comfort. When I want to make sure she knows I love her, I tell her she’s the best leftover crap a sister could ask for.

Halloween, Part One

I’ve always been kind of last minute when it comes to putting a costume together. As a kid though, I had a secret weapon. My step-father was an artist.

John was a quiet, introspective man as I knew him. He trained us to appreciate a dry, literate wit. And he was always making something. There were years of fabulous costumes and school projects where his creative energy could pour out in a way his life as a business man did not allow.

On my sister, I remember a giant turkey costume consisting of a paper mache turkey head and some kind of feathered tunic. I have a picture of her from another year in a princess costume complete with wand, lavender pointed hat with a fall of tulle and elaborate purple cloak. She looks overjoyed in the photo; smiling to the bursting point. She’s everything she dreamed of being. John was like that; a dreamer.

I remember a second grade school project I left to the last minute. It was supposed to be a diorama of a dam. By the time John and I were done, we’d created a landscape complete with a concrete lake dam, sticks glued over a tributary representing a beaver dam, astro-turf crop lands and a lakeside resort. The only reason it didn’t win the science fair was because when a group of hapless first graders asked me what it was, my old nemesis first grade teacher heard me retort “duh, what does it look like?” The nerve of first graders to not recognize artistic genius!

I’m sure during those Halloweens when we were a family, there were many inventive costumes for me. But I only remember one. I was eight or nine. It was shortly before I left my mother and John to move to California and my dad. In case it’s not yet apparent, I was a problem child and I think it got to the point where my mom just didn’t know what to do with me. The nuns at school certainly had had their fill.

“In California you’ll get a clean slate but don’t burn your bridges,” my parents counseled me.

So I swanned around at recess finally standing up to the bullies. “I don’t have to be nice to you anymore. I’m leaving.” Add “Does not follow directions” to the “Doesn’t play well with others” list.

That was the year I began my lifelong romance with the automobile. I had just seen Herbie and was determined to strut my stuff on Halloween as the Love Bug himself. I have no idea what John thought when I made this declaration. But I know he enjoyed a good creative challenge.

He and I went down to the garage and over the course of several hours fashioned a Herbie out of two cardboard boxes bolted together, paint, and a pair of suspenders. My head and shoulders stuck out of the top as though I was standing out of the sunroof. It was a brilliant design and whimsical execution. Lucky for me, Herbie was already enough of a cultural icon that people got it and I didn’t have to answer the inevitable “And what are you supposed to be, little girl?” with “What do I look like?” which, if I’d been older, would have been followed by a “dumbass.”

Over the years, I was the beneficiary of many such creations of ingenuity and mundane genius on the part of my step-father. But the Herbie costume was my favorite. It was one of the more ridiculous things I dragged out to California along with the Dam Diorama. I insisted on keeping Herbie hung with pride in the garage over the real cars.

It was not simply out of a pack rat instinct to horde everything, trying as I was to keep some sense of normalcy in my up-heaved life. It was in recognition of an act of love. In my memory, there are some fantastical constructions for my brother and sister. But even then, I was aware I got something special from John. I think he knew I got him. Without judgment.

Nearly twenty years later I was helping my father clean out the California house I’d moved to. The one I ended up growing up in. I had been long gone, established in my own Tinseltown life and my dad was finally selling and moving on with his own life. Herbie came down from the garage rafters. It seemed so tiny now I had to laugh. The cardboard was floppy and crumpled in places. The paint faded. Still the design seemed like a simple stroke of genius to me.

“What do you want to do with this?” My dad asked.

The clear implication was “We’re trashing this, right?” I knew I had to as well. What can a grown woman in a little Hollywood apartment do with a cardboard Herbie costume? Still, I couldn’t be the one to crush it into the recycling box. I let my dad do that. I wondered if he was ever jealous that he hadn’t been the one to make for me that silly car that had survived so much.

So it’s time for Halloween again and as usual, I’ll have a bowl of candy ready. But it seems like kids don’t trick or treat anymore. I’ll be watching out for that kid with the funky costume that some inspired parent “helped make.” The one the kid’ll always remember wearing and feeling like, despite whatever was not working in their life, someone cared about them.

The Family We Make

As I’ve gotten older I have culled a handful of those friends that you have because you’ve had them forever. Sure they have all the shared reminiscences with you and you have a history in common. But the thing about old friends is they’ve seen you at your absolute worst and they’ve stuck with you anyway. This, it dawns on me as I move along my path, is an increasingly rare quality to find.

My oldest friend in the world and her husband just threw a one year anniversary bash a few weeks ago. I brought my new boyfriend with me and seized on our moments alone to relate the various events of our eighteen year friendship so he wouldn’t feel left out of the inside jokes and so forth.

This friend of mine, I realized as I shared our stories, has known me through loves and losses, through school and career, through family deaths, through bad haircuts and the eighties in general. As I showed my boyfriend around my friend's new house I delved into the archaeology of our friendship. Here was the candlestick I brought her from Africa. Here was the sarong from Mexico. A stained glass angel I remembered agonizing over with my mom. Which color wings would she like the best? A wooden elephant I bought with money from my first post-college job. I discovered each piece of memorabilia with glee. The memory of place I held in her life. More than anything, I think I was touched she’d actually kept the stuff; gratified that I’d seemingly presented a gift that had become a treasured object.

The day of the party arrived and my boyfriend and I helped get things set up. Little by little people flowed into the park space where the festivities were to be. I was excited because in addition to an old swim team chum from our teen years, my friend told me one of our old roommates would be coming. He’d always been a crack up and I couldn’t wait to laugh with him ten years later.

The summer between her junior and senior year of college, I’d convinced my friend to spend the summer with me in San Francisco where I was living, already through with college. I shared a huge Victorian with four guys in the Haight Ashbury district. Being a talented girl, she’d gotten herself an internship lined up and come right out. I was thrilled. How many people actually get to live with their best friend at some point?

How many friendships survive that?

Our roommate showed up at the party. And not alone. As a surprise, he brought with him our other roommate from that summer. It was a good thing I hadn’t had time to worry about this in advance.

When I first moved into the Haight House, I’d broken up with my college boyfriend and started my first corporate job. I wasn’t meeting new people and I felt that a terrible emptiness yawning before me asking me daily what I was doing with my life. This second roommate had become a companion in dinners and errands and in typical, lonely girl fashion, I’d developed a burning crush on him. Suitability didn’t matter so much as proximity. All the happy companionship felt like having a boyfriend, I reasoned. Just without the kissing. Surely that would come soon.

My friend had come for her internship and concurred with me: this other roommate was a cutie indeed. As I found out after he left for his summer plans across the country, he’d thought the same about her. They’d shared that part beyond just the dinners and errands that I had hoped to. In typical early twenties melodrama, I made their brief connection all about me. I’d cried for days. The rest of the roommates avoided me for fear I’d dissolve in another crying jag. My misery was two-fold. This boy I’d hoped might share warm feelings for me clearly didn’t. And my friend had gotten to the boy I liked instead of me. I groped through my days in physical pain. I framed my friend’s actions in terms of betrayal and heartbreak.

To top things off, when I heard from her that he had no clue about my feelings, I’d decided he needed to be told. “What else have I got to lose?” I’d slurred as I reeled around the living room in a drunken pity party that would have rivaled Liza Minnelli. I wrote him a long letter detailing just how I’d felt, how he’d trashed that and the impact he’d had on my most important friendship. Poor guy never knew what hit him. Hell hath no fury like a drama queen writer scorned.

When these old roommates of ours walked into the party and the four of us were reunited for the first time in ten years all we could all do was hug and laugh. My dramatic episode which had seemed all-consuming at the time was just a blip in the passing of the years. My old righteousness was now just a vague sheepishness. The ease and warmth between us was just like it had been ten years ago. It seemed that, thankfully, my twenty-something histrionics had been forgiven.

I pulled my boyfriend aside and recounted the story of that summer and saw that it had lost all its dramatic sting. It was no longer one of those “Look what I’ve been through,” stories. It was now a “Look what a dramatic, selfish asshole I was” story. “Man,” he said to me, “you are lucky she’s still your friend.” Another reason I keep this man in my life: his wisdom.

That’s when it hit me. The thing I have to most be thankful for with my oldest friendship is that my friend put up with me. She’s stuck by me while I had railed against her for breaking my heart. I’d made her sit in our friendship with bowed head for nearly a year while I worked myself up to forgiveness. In the end, she’d been friend enough to forgive me.

Later as I trailed up to my friend’s guest room in a happy champagne haze, it dawned on me that the gifts I’d given my friend over the years maybe hadn’t been just what she wanted. Maybe she hadn’t kept the antique Dutch clog pin because she loved it. Maybe she kept it because it was from me and that was its value to her.

Back in high school when we’d both been filled with teen “my parents are a nightmare” angst, my friend gave me a birthday card. It said “Friends are the family that we choose for ourselves.” At the time I adored it in a “yeah, we’re sisters in this teen crap together” way. I still have that card. And I think I finally get it. Like my own blood relatives, I know we may not be in touch as often as we’d like but we’ll always have each other to rely on when push comes to shove. Because that’s what you do with family. You accept them good and bad. Lucky for me, she’d figured that out earlier than I did.

A Brunch Toast

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in our lives:

To the moms who teach us to appreciate the tiny details of life.

To the moms who survive harrowing times and emerge more beautiful than ever.

To the moms who've had to move on to the next life but who've left us with grace, laughter (and fishies!)

To the moms who make every Christmas the best Christmas ever.

To the moms who know that we'll be beautiful and successful and strong before we do.

To the moms who know that we'll never really understand how much they love us until we are moms ourselves.

To the women who've taken up the call to the toughest job ever - parenting.

And to the women who haven't given birth to a human (yet) but to inspiration and who take care of their friends with unconditional love.

Here's to all the amazing women in my life and yours.

Flying Home

In the waiting area of gate B58 a beautiful man holds a long, narrow hand over the vacant seat beside him. He looks like an English poet. He tells the man who asked to sit that he is saving the seat for his wife. I watch him and wonder what woman inspired him to love. She returns with Starbucks and I am surprised. She has a long face, a prominent nose and tiny, close eyes that seem too far up her forehead. She reminds me of a troll. I want to ask him, “why her?” Who can say what it is that brings people together? Or, more importantly, what keeps them together?

I went home for my brother’s wedding this weekend. It was beautiful to see the threads of this family come together from all over the country. The tapestry that binds us together. In my urban life I think I am fine. I don’t need anything. And then I am with family like this and I am brought face to face with how acutely lonely the modern career pursuit can be. I find myself wondering why we are all so far apart. Why we live our daily lives without the benefit of each other.

At the reception, I see what keeps my brother and his bride together. She always has a smile for him. He goes out of his way to tell her he loves her. I watch them greet the wedding guests and wonder what that would be like. To find someone who went out of his way. My family indulges me as I offer a poorly thought-out toast to the happy couple. Still they tell me it was moving and made them cry. Maybe it did.

On the plane, the beautiful man now sits across the aisle. He smiles at me once. I smile back. He looks away. As he should. He touches his wife’s back. She does not respond. No warming to his hand, curling into his touch. I imagine the marriage is not turning out the way the beautiful man once hoped.

I took the back roads out to my brother’s rehearsal. “I remember the way,” I’d cavalierly told him. “See you there.” The wedding was taking place at an outdoor amphitheater where we’d grown up seeing concerts. As I rolled out of our mountain town I realized I had no idea about the right streets. I drove into the open scrub land flanked by towering rocks and lit by dramatic storm clouds. I felt a stab of that exquisite pain that comes from knowing you’ll never have enough time with beauty. This is the land that made me, I thought. I’d forgotten how beautiful it was. How could I forget? Lost in the reverie of home, I arrived at the rehearsal without a single false turn.

I lean my head back into the plane seat and feel the poke of bobby pins from the day-old up-do I wear like a badge of honor. I have been to a place of love, it says. I know people who love truly and they are part of me. It dawns on me I am never as alone as I pretend with so much love just a phone call away. I look at the bridal bouquet that I caught. Squashed into my carry-on. I try to believe in it.

The small plane banks over LA. It’s golden hour. Everything is flush with the veneer of perfection and possibility. I look back across the aisle at the beautiful man and the troll wife. Together they are watching the city grow larger beneath us. She nods and speaks softly as he points out landmarks. It hits me. Marriage is simply deciding yes, no matter what. And re-deciding every day.

On the Tenth Anniversary

When I was five, my mother married my stepfather, John, a quiet, artistic man. The first man she’d dated that I hadn’t chased out of the house.

I sometimes look at skittish dogs and I smile and hold their gaze. They sense they can trust me; I love them just because, even though I don’t know them. They come over and let me pet them. I think John had this same animal ken with me; a defensive, hard little kid.

That first week we started our new family unit, I climbed into his lap in our new house and asked:

“What do I call you?”

“Whatever feels right to you,” he responded in his even tone.

“OK. I’ll call you dad.” I scooted off to play with my toy cars

My mom tells me she saw his eyes well up before he went to make a ham sandwich.

John had his office in the basement of that house where we would grow up. He’d stand at his drafting table late into the night pasting up ads and product campaigns the old fashioned way.

He was always creating. I’d find him typing away at our brand new Commodore 64. Or at his workbench in the garage. His work always had a certain wry sense of humor. Once he decided to make a shrine to the ham sandwich. For years, an embalmed bun with meat sat in an airtight, glass-fronted, wooden box in a place of honor in the living room.

From John I learned my craft. I learned to sit in a room full of people and watch them reveal themselves. I learned the value of the well-placed witty remark. I learned not to give my dignity away by writing “please love me” letters to the boy who’d broken my heart one summer.

Though it’s technically my sister’s, I currently have custody of what I consider to be one of his greatest works. A monument to his life philosophy.

“What the heck is that?” Is the most common reaction it elicits followed by “Why do you have a giant, white painting?”

Mom was creating a white and off-white living room and wanted a painting to match. So John, a classically trained artist, finished painting the fireplace mantle and took the house paints into the garage. He laid a big, old, much-painted canvas on the floor, set his beer can on it and slapped interior semi-gloss all over it.

“It matches,” he told her as he hung it in the living room the next day. She thought it very avant garde.

He had a way of chuckling under his breath. I know in his way he teased any of us who took it seriously. Trying to understand the painting was like trying to understand him. Was it full of serious content or a joke?

It’s only the people who bother to look, who spend time with it, that begin to see everything. There are tones in the white, textures. Some tell me they see faces, some see city skylines. And they are all there. All that and less.

I usually just let it ride when someone asks me about the painting. Let them come to their own conclusions. That’s what John did. I’m sure he felt criticism of it only belied the artistic ignorance of the speaker. Or their pretentiousness. But sometimes, when comments feel derisive, they hook me and then I play the death card.

“My step-dad painted it," I explain, "…before he died.”

Then the critic squirms: the uncomfortable shifts, the backpedaling, the apologies. It makes me laugh when they then come up with an ad hoc compliment. I think John would laugh too. But then I think maybe he knew it was really about nothing, a giant white painting, no need to compliment or analyze. Maybe he’d be laughing at me for caring so much. Maybe it was the joke he played on all of us.

Of the three of us I was the only child not his blood. Yet in some ways I feel I got the best of him. My sister whom he had with my mom was just a little kid. I’m not sure if he knew how to relate to my brother whom he brought from his first marriage. I was new to him and I’d like to think he recognized a kindred spirit. Yet in death, I am the one with the least claim on him. People don’t get it. They say he was just my step-dad so of course my brother and sister are entitled to more. Not that he had much to leave us. But he shaped such a large part of who I am. He was an equal parent to me just like my own father or my mother.

“Yeah but you still have a dad, they don’t,” is the counter.

Of course that’s true. But does that lessen my loss?

How can we determine who is entitled to grieve the most?

Fortunately, that is a question most dealt without outside our family. Or in my own heart. Among my siblings, we never use the words step or half. For now, I study the painting until my sister gets a permanent home or for as long as she lets me keep it. My favorite part is the ring from his beer can. I trace my fingers around the circle raised in the paint wondering if he sees me and still laughs with that under-toned chuckle. The one I hear in my brother’s voice now.

I can’t believe it’s been ten years. I miss you, dad.