Report from Cuba - 1

I'm dusting off my old blog.   field of vision -- what was I thinking when I gave it that name?    Please forgive the pretension.

On this MLK day, wanted to upload the short essay I wrote in response to the "homework" I was given by the U.S. Department of Treasury.  No kidding.    In order to get our visas in order to travel down to see the Havana Film Festival,  the Department of Treasury,  demanded that Al and I give some kind of presentation -- an essay or a talk would be fine -- about the Festival.

Of course -- after everything that's happened -- no one is going to check on us.  But I did write the essay as an exercise.   Eventually I'll get to it, and paste it here in sections (been trying, without success to get it published) , but now,  I just want to retrieve some memories and offer some impressions


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Background: We went down as independent travelers,  with an official mandate to see the film festival, and that information was included on just about every document we had to fill out.  So I wasn't surprised that when I walked through customs at the Jose Marti airport,  I was immediately button-holed by a government agent.  He was young and very handsome, and brought me to a quiet spot off to the side on the main floor.    Al -- my husband -- didn't see this little move, so for about fifteen minutes he was baffled about the location of his wife

I liked this agent -- he asked what my purpose was in visiting Cuba, and what I hoped to gain from it.  I told him I  wanted to get a sense of Cuban film, as well as LatinAmerican film in general.  He nodded, and filled in the gaps -- you want to learn about social problems, right?  And added some of his own biography.  He told me he was studying social work, and was interested in this too.  I had the feeling we could have talked for another hour,  but Al suddenly spotted me and came running over.  

 We left the airport, and tried to get our bearings,  though part of me was still back in New York.  We left December 4,  just a few days after the failure to indict the police officer in the killing of Eric Garner,  and everyone from our home city of New York was on edge.   

Much had changed since our first visit to Havana in 1997, but one thing remained stubbornly the same.  The broad, increasingly bustling avenues are still missing  news stands.   You still can’t find  any type of newspaper aside from the eight page (very unsatisfying) daily State publication, Granma.    And,  wending our way through the venerable old hotel, La Nacional, to log on to the internet,  and typing NYTimes.com,  we found the page blocked. (We had hoped against hope.)  There were no other cyber-news sources.  

We arrived at our casa particulare (or home hostel)  and  turned on the television in our room to find that we couldn’t find much of anything there either.   There were about two seconds -- literally --  depicting a nighttime protest.  But no word on where it was taking place, the numbers, the daily pounding message of the protest.   You wouldn’t know there were thousands of people peaceably marching up 6th Avenue in New York City,  essentially taking over the streets.  The reason may have been diplomatic of course.  Cuba can’t have any journalists in the States, even if they wanted to, but they seem to have chosen not to show any of the other broadcast news shows available --  say, the BBC or Al Jazeera.  Isolation from the sweep of the day’s events felt complete and impenetrable.   That evening,  the gatekeepers had chosen an interesting alternative, however -- Stephen Vittoria’s 2012 documentary, Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal.  There we were on an old mattress in our room watching Cornell West and Amy Goodman!  It was a hard-hitting documentary about race in America.  But we desperately wanted the current situation.  

Today,  I think -- that might be a good film to revisit.  

Besse Smith

past two posts reside on www.jazzrman.blogspot.com

The latest is titled -- oh I've already done it -- Besse Smith

How it was

Occupy Wall Street:

Afraid this morning that this whole, astonishing, peacable and peaceful act of social protest might come to a crashing end this morning. In a little more than an hour, Bloomberg's orders will be put into effect -- such stupid orders. Dragging out the hundreds, maybe thousands! of people doing nothing more than voicing a much needed message of conscience, awareness, dare I say it -- love.

Below some impressions of my first and I hope not my last visit to Zuccotti Park. It should have been posted a week ago, but my pics won't load for some reason. So, pictureless!

I went down to Liberty Park (amazingly, that really was its name) also known as Zuccotti Square this past Wednesday and wandered around just to take it all in. It was my first visit, and there was a lot to take in. Just a few impressions for now, with a few of my pics below. You can’t avoid the feeling of an open air encampment, mounds of sleeping bags, a huge blue tarp, sleeping heads poking out here and there. There’s a (large) library, a place you can get food. It’s a village. Artists, some with easels, some with black magic markers and pages of thick paper, scrawling on the pavement. I was handed a sign by James De laVega (I’ve learned later he’s a hipster muralist and street artist) The Game of Capitalism Breeds Dishonest Men it read. I joined in a march heading uptown, proudly holding up my message.

The folks who were running OWS are astonishingly polite. It – the good manners -- takes you aback. I’m of the generation that marched, shouting angrily, veins popping in the neck, fists raised. No veins could be seen anywhere. While I was snapping pictures I inadvertently strayed into a group of people who had started a slow, quiet group “walk” (I wouldn’t call it a march) around the park, chanting a slogan, calmly. I was standing like a boulder in a stream and I needed to be nudged aside. Someone told me, with a tinge of impatience “can you move please?” He then came back to me to explain why it was he had to ask me to do this. He actually did this. In the middle of a political demonstration.

This isn’t a minor characteristic. It’s telling of what this carefully crafted movement wants to convey. And they’re distinguishing themselves as decidedly mature, neat, and together.

The people’s mic – the mechanism and the messages. ‘Lovely’ Sounds dated, but something like that is the way you’ve got to describe it. The people’s mic is how they (whoever they are. A small group of Canadians I’ve heard started this and helped put in place the tone and method) have chosen to amplify the short speeches which are given on the Broadway (Eastern) edge of the park, where there’s a slightly lower amphitheater effect. At around 4:00, they called a halt to the bongo drumming and sporadic, undulating dancing of a few, and get us prepped for the expected arrival of the union faction. (Will it be a lasting, contributing faction? If so, I think OWS will definitely not be able to be ignored) Tens of thousands of union delegates from the SEIU, TWU, District 37, CUNY, NYU, The New School and others were massing from all parts of lower Manhattan and were expected to join together at this spot. We were getting our instructions. The way they told us about it, about how proper we needed to be, how we needed to make room, and move back, how we had to welcome them, etc. was all made clear in short succinct sentences that were repeated by concentric circles of us, participants, stretching all the way to the back to Trinity Place (the Western edge of the park). There was a church like, call and response feel to it, which turned into a concentric giggle when said organizer said – “Don’t fuck it up.” The group of people surrounding him repeated dutifully, ‘don’t fuck it up,” and the message travelled back. Then a young woman mounted something that enabled her to be taller than all of us, the huge orange arms of DeSuvero’s sculpture soaring above her head, and talked about how this was all in partnership with the Arab Spring. I thought at the moment -- what she’s saying, it isn’t a metaphor, it’s an answer, a huge people’s mic, stretching from Manhattan to Cairo, a rippled shout to those in Egypt wanting freedom, telling them, at that moment, that thousands of people across North America, wanting something as yet unnamed have linked arms with them. She said, ‘the people in Egypt. They have it much worse than we do. However bad it gets here, they have a very very difficult situation…” I had to head uptown to work, and I had to wrench myself away.

A new shoot, a new blog

I just returned from New Orleans and St. Bernard, my first trip since last August. Almost a full year. And I haven't recovered. Yeah, there was the insufferable heat. ( I'll never forget what that felt like, heat index in the three digits, every day, the minute the sun the hoisted itself into the sky until well after nightfall) Mama Sue is not well at all, and what tore me up was that she seemed not to care. Sue, whose irreverent, Southern humor has warmed and astonished, shocked and delighted me for the past five years, is succumbing to something very dark, where conversing is beside the point. Where tending a garden is irrelevant.

Sue is a large part of my film, whose title, Mama Sue's Garden, alludes to her changing, fantasy garden. It was never all "real," but intermingled silk flowers, glass stems, cherubs and shards recovered from Katrina with palms and climbing vines. It was a curiosity shop-garden and a world.

I've long ago crossed the line that some friends say I should never have crossed. I've stepped from behind the camera to hold hands and join forces with the people I"ve been shooting. I"d love to start a conversation among other doc filmmakers about this. Are most documentarians full of " scruples" about this? Anyway, I'm all about blurred boundaries. I can hold a camera one minute and talk about revitalizing the soil with buckwheat and sunflowers (can you imagine that shot if that happens?!) the next. So I've crossed over into a garden rally-er. They've got the land. (For more details, scroll back through this blog) They've got a name -- Garden of H.O.P.E. Sue suggested the name, attached for a while to a scrappy group of volunteers, which she says stands for Helping Other People with Everything.

But this blog has become too -- um, all over the place. My few readers must be exhausted. St. Bernard, filmmaking, Mama Sue's Garden, Nicaragua, the flu, Prospect Park, Spanish lessons and Alan, my brother who has autism and some other disabilities. So I decided, why not make some partitions and start another blog, one devoted just to Alan, and his just started music sessions while this one will chronicle the progress towards completing a documentary where the end is really still an unknown.

Alan, who doesn't speak, who seems to inhabit another reality, has, at 60, started music *therapy.* I put it in asterisks, as I don't like the oxymoron-ish feel of that. How can music be anything BUT therapy? Alan drums like a jazzer, his music therapist said. What a wonderful thing to be -- a jazzer. Anyway, he does sound like a seasoned jazz drummer, taking the baton and crashing it down on the cymbal like an almost in-control madman. Does it four or five times and then stops, a wistful, far away look coming over him. So, the blog will be called Jazzrman.blogspot.com/

Where is the Family?

In response to a harrowing article on the front page of the Sunday New York Times, about three weeks ago, I wrote the following op-ed to the Times. It wasn't printed, or you can be sure you all would have heard! Funny, though, I didn't notice any op-eds in reponse to this very disturbing article (Abuse and Impunity at New York Group Homes, March 13, 2011). And although it was described as the first in a multi-part series, no other articles on the subject have appeared. Somebody on the editorial staff it seems has been doing a lot of "killing" of reportage. I wonder why. Anyway, below, to the small audience of my blog, you'll find what I had written.

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When we would pull up to the grounds of Letchworth Village, one of the large state-run institutions for the developmentally disabled in NY State that in its heyday housed up to 5,000 developmentally disabled men, women boys and girls, we felt like guests at another planet. We were there to pick up my brother and take him out for a drive, but as we signed our names in a large black ledger, no one gave us more than a nod, and we weren’t allowed into the day room, from which the strangest howls and moans emanated, nor the back room where Alan, my brother, slept. Alan would be led by the hand out to the waiting room, usually fitted out in a natty checked suit. (I’ve learned since then those nice clothes were kept aside for visits. Inside the day room, Alan’s worn and generic clothing was frequently covered in feces). But, oddly, we were all dismayed when we learned that Letchworth Village was closing.

My brother, who is now 60, is what they then called profoundly retarded and autistic. He has never spoken a word. When he’s upset he’ll raise his arms and flap his hands wildly.

My parents knew about the abuses. Rivera’s reports on network TV in the early 70’s included Letchworth Village along with Willowbrook. But they, along with the vast majority of parents, objected strenuously to the institutions’ closing, in large part because they feared that there would be poor oversight out in the community.

We were far luckier than the consumers described in the Times article (Abuse and Impunity at New York Group Homes). Alan’s IRA is an airy, light filled home, with a highly competent staff. Alan resides for most of the evening in a large soft armchair, waiting for a hearty home cooked meal. He has learned to smile.

But one line in the piece stood ut for me. “In many cases, the developmentally disabled do not have families actively involved in their lives.”

There are complicated reasons for a parent or sibling to not visit their family member. But one of the less discussed realities is that there’s an uncomfortable relationship between the family member and the staff in these State run group homes. You do a sort of “dance,” as a fellow sibling described it. And this is actually a very large problem, affecting the welfare of our disabled family members.

The one thing that stayed the same was that we still tiptoed around the staff that cared for my brother. We gauged what they wanted from us was – nothing. We were not expected to intervene in any significant way with our family member’s care. My parents accepted this without question. It was only after my father died, and I became Alan’s Legal Guardian that I began to question the status quo.

The issue that ultimately forced me to upend my learned acquiescence felt like a holdover from the institution – namely the persistent use of psychotropic drugs. Without any evidence of a behavior problem, other than a loud vocal “tic,” or involuntary repetitive sound, Alan was on at least three of these, some of them so strong they’re used typically on people with schizophrenia. And, indeed, Alan’s diagnosis was rewritten to include mental illness, so that the drugs could be prescribed. I would sometimes show up to take Alan out for a drive and, indeed, found him excessively groggy.

I swiftly learned it was not easy to budge the meds. I spoke to everyone -- the team leader, the team psychologist, the head psychiatrist of the DDSO, and the director of the DDSO, only to have my request for a trial reduction flatly denied. The reason I was given was that Alan would become too loud. (When I wrote Albany, I was promised an investigation, but soon they stopped returning my calls.)

Finally, a no-nonsense administrator told me that, as Legal Guardian, I had the authority to refuse permission for these types of medications. In other words, I could terminate them just for the asking. Every last drug was eliminated over time, without any negative effect on Alan’s behavior. Even his team now agrees that Alan is a calmer and happier individual.

However, as I write this, I’m experiencing a bit of those old, inherited anxieties -- will speaking out incite staff members to “take it out” on Alan? I know better of course. I now have a reasonably good relationship with Alan’s team. They’ll read this and groan and then we’ll move on.

But for more than two years I stopped attending the yearly review meetings, and no one seemed concerned. I know now that the team should have been worried. Having a family member present at meetings and in their family member’s life is essential.

If people are now wondering what some of the answers are, I suggest that State IRAs actively encourage family members to engage in their child’s or sibling’s life. Family should be made to understand what’s at stake, and that, indeed, they have a precious responsibility. The laws which govern guardianship should be understood by everyone and spelled out clearly for staff and family alike. Perhaps, as they do in non-State run facilities, relatives of all the residents of a house can have the opportunity to meet one another. I think longingly of the private group homes that routinely facilitate family barbecues and parties. These aren’t feel good luxuries. These gatherings are essential to bringing into play the critical, and keenly observant eyes of a family member. Only when you have that kind of oversight, will abuses of all kinds end. Firing the largest abusers is only the beginning of the solution.

For more information on my brother, Alan, and his history, you can see some pictures and clips from the film, Without Apology, a documentary I made about him. www.withoutapology.com

missed appointment

So now – after Donna played the recorder for my brother, and he clearly was delighted by it -- I can still see Alan swaying like a drunken sailor in this posh restaurant in downtown Nyack, where we went to celebrate his 60^th Bday -- I”m looking for a music therapist for him. I have no doubt that music therapy is what he must have. The first new thing I've learned about Alan, aside from his insane love of eating out, is that he loves music.

The compilation CD I had going in the car as we headed down to Nyack to meet up with a candidate for the music therapist job includes this very torchy song and -- great surprise to me – Alan grinned when this young singer from the bayous, Amanda Shaw, growled this come hither motif. Alan grinned. Was it possible that he caught the sexual innuendo of the music?. I should have pulled the car onto the shoulder. I don’t think I could have been more surprised than I was right at that moment, sitting next to my 60 year old brother, who's never spoken a word, and who seems supremely a-sexual.

Anyway, the other thing going on, while I was getting over the notion of Alan, my wild and wooly brother, having a universal response, was that I had “invited” my mother to this meeting with the music therapist, taking care to carefully go through the few items of hers that I’ve kept. And I had selected a shiny black bangle with a gold clasp. It’s understated and classy, and completely incompatible with the corduroy jeans and boots I was wearing. It would go more with a black cocktail dress. But I was, I realized, with a … jolt, dressing for my mother! She liked it when I dressed up (it’s not in my nature) and put on makeup. So there we were -- Alan next to me in the front seat, grooving to Amanda Shaw, and me, with a turtle neck that wasn’t stretched out, mascara, her dressy black bangle around my wrist.

And that makes me wonder – was I in some way doing this entire thing as much for my mother as for Alan? Was I trying to make it up to her somehow, help heal the wound that never would heal? And – also, endlessly endlessly, even after her death, working to find my way into her heart?

We stood for half an hour in a small off- the- street foyer that led into an apartment building, every so often, trolling the block looking for someone who looked as though he were looking for someone, and calling his number, to learn that he was nowhere. But I knew immediately that the music therapist had forgotten our appointment.

So Alan and I went and had pizza and then went to a café and shared a dessert. On a side street, I found a thrift shop, and while Alan sat in a wooden chair, far more patiently than Al, my husband, ever would have done, I browsed through a huge pile of stuff. (I would never even suggest to Al going into a thrift store after lunch.) But Alan, I’m pretty sure would have sat in that wooden chair for hours, gazing at the hundreds of cups and saucers and sweaters that surrounded him. Again, I had this sense of Alan as this mature person, and at that moment, a charming and endearing person as well.

lost in translation

While studying Spanish at the Mariposa Spanish school I was a good student and I did in fact learn a little Spanish. I showed up with my notebook and pen every morning and dutifully copied down new vocabulary words and tense structures until I"d filled pages and at night before turning out my light I'd peer at the new words and examples and recite them in one quick attempt to commit them to memory.

But after I've long since forgotten how to conjugate irregular past tense verbs, I won't have forgotten (don't begin to name the tense that just flew by!) one of my conversation teachers, who -- like all my instructors there -- easily bridged the distance between us, getting down to real stuff pretty quickly and easily.

On day two, Raul, let's call him, asked what the last present that my husband gave me was. How that came up, dunno. I thought back. Was it my birthday present -- a top from my favorite catalog, presented in its original mail order wrapping? It was beautiful. Don't get me wrong! But I didn't mention the top for some reason, and said something about how travelling to Nicaragua was a joint present to one another. Raul smiled. And what about you I asked? "I give her grapes sometimes, or apples." I think I said "oh." And Raul looked a little embarrassed suddenly, saying "we don't have a lot of money." My "oh" wasn't, of course, about the modesty of his gift. I didn't know how to express how beautiful I thought a gift of grapes was. How sensual to buy a piece of fruit for your wife. How flattered she must have felt! But though we were both speaking English (this would have taxed the limits of my Spanish) I couldn't express it without then sounding like I was making a big deal out of it, which would make it seem like I didn't really mean it. So I said nothing. And that little missed bit of communication was probably the one regret I had during our trip.

apprender espanol

I get a little distracted while I'm learning Spanish. Interesting things are happening all around us. As I mentioned in the last post, there's lots of animal life, and I can get lost watching a chicken settle into a small self-made trough in the dirt to lay an egg. There are also ducks waddling about, a half dozen dogs, white-faced monkeys, humming birds everywhere, large yellow birds high in the trees called Grees, squawking parrots and men working, doing stuff I can't quite identify. I'm like a six year old. What are they doing, Davixia? Que estan haciendo? (Yeah! Took me more than a year to be able to write that)

Under the thatched palapa roof that covers our small outdoor classroom, for five mornings this week, Davixia, my conversation instructor, and I go about discussing -- whatever. Like two friends, we have no structure to our conversation, although that is mostly my doing. I'm a recalcitrant student. I want to know about an odd, unrelated assortment of things. But one morning I agree to look at the book she's brought -- of old sepia photographs of Nicaragua ca. 1900. Men with puffed out chests, probably medals pinned to them, and large mustaches who I try to place. Only two possibilities I assume. With the Americanos, or fighting them. Nicaragua I believe, after skimming a few books on the subject, has fought against invading Americanos more than any other country in the world. (I ran this by Al, my resident historian (and husband). Nicaragua must have been invaded more than anywhere? He says 'no' Mexico takes the honor. I ask the table of lunch diners who've become my dear friends by now, and one of them counters, no not Nicaragua. Haiti takes the role of the most invaded-by-U.S. country. Someone else mutters -- Cuba)

I don't really care who the mustachioed man is. But drawing from late night reading -- Salman Rushdie's The Jaguar Smile (a fascinating, meandering writer's travelogue which I pulled off a shelf in the very well stocked library) I suddenly want to know about how land was reapportioned after the Sandinistas' victory (1979) I was in my 20's at that time, and remember how my hometown, Brooklyn, became a sister city to a small city in Nicaragua near the coast whose name I don't remember. We'd send stuff down (What on earth did we send? I think it was whatever we got the word was needed) via a member of our small group, who was perfectly bilingual, and very strong, as he needed to be for this mission of riding in trucks and unloading dozens of boxes, and who would describe his trip when he returned home. I remember him saying how beautiful Nicaragua is. I think, condescendingly I'm sure, that the younger people (kids in their 20s and 30s) staying here at La Mariposa Spanish School don't have a clue! We were campesinos! Revolutionarios! Rushdie writes about farmers who came down to offer help -- tractors, help repairing tractors, seeds, and not least, solidaridad. Nicaragua holds the romance of a country that stood up to the bully, magnificently, with guns, song, bravado, and as I learned through Rushdie, with reams of poetry. I may have known, but by now I've forgotten, that Ortega and half the founding council were poets.

I ask Davixia, who's not yet 20, about this history. What happened to the land, I want to know. On a trip up to Managua, we see people toiling in the fields. I hope that it's their land. I fear the worst, that they're tenant farmers and earn meager wages. Davixia tells me that some of the poor campesinos did receive land, which was taken from los ricos (the rich landowners). Rushdie says no. No land was seized. Land was abandoned, though, as the Contratistas fled the country for Miami. I ask my young teacher, who had signed on to teach me English, not history, I realized. I am being unfair. But I ask anyway, in broken Spanish -- Did they work the land collectively? Were there re-education campaigns? Was there an ideology? D seems unsure, and I sense underneath, a little uncomfortable.

Davixia is only 20 and she seems not only vague about her country's history, but far more interested in talking about things much more close at hand. And to her gratitude, I'm sure, we move on to another topic. She asks, will I continue to study Spanish when I'm home? I ask - What is she studying at la universidad (English) And I tell her about my neighbor -- who's from Puerto Rico - whose bright pink lipstick somehow distracts me from speaking Spanish to her in the hallways. Que colore? The same color as your bright pink shoes! Como tus zapatas! We both giggle helplessly.

So, it seems I'm by myself on the subject, but I want to know -- what has happened not only with land reform (the answer to my queries regarding collectives still are answered only partially.) but the whole Sandinista -- thing. I learn from an afternoon's lecture on Post-revolutionary Nica history that the first thing that the elected-with-CIA-assistance President Violette Chamorro did upon assuming office was pave some new roads and sell and rip up the railroad system, and, oh, buy up all the guns. Not a railroad car in the country now. I'm sure that any support for the small, stuggling but very idealistic communal farms up in the north was pretty well squelched by the Chamorro team.

photo (left): Paulette after a new delivery of laying hens.

The question that lingers after all these questions on this tragic past is - what kind of high school history instruction did Davixia receive? Is the Sandinista movement and its victory told? Do they still sing their songs? What about the role of Reagan and the illegal arms deals? (Let alone the drugs for cash deals.) Under another palapa roof, monkeys hopping around in the background, Paulette fills us in on these not quite forgotten transactions.

Equally importantly, how much of this history are the kids in the US in high school classes today being taught?

On our sightseeing trip to Managua, our guide, Berman (photo at right), also the Spanish instruction coordinator, a licensed veterinarian who can dance La Salsa like nobody's business, who'd fought with the Sandinistas, sticks a CD in the audio console of our camionette, and out pours an hour of vintage Sandinista revolutionary songs. Some of it sounds generic, but the a capella songs are heart stoppingly forceful and plaintive. (I found and bought the CDs in the Managua airport) Berman drives us past the modest street in downtown Managua where ( the re-elected) President Ortega lives, informing us, "he chooses not to live in the President's palace." Berman wears this proud, somewhat mischevious grin.

monkey feet

Learning a language. Al and I have set off for Nicaragua for the second year running to attempt to improve our Spanish, and I confess, to get away from the New York winter. We're in the same place as last year -- La Mariposa Spanish school. Great place! Paulette Goudge conceived of it, and built the eco-compatible building and grounds. What I hadn't realized last year was that our shower water somehow finds its way into large cisterns in the lush grounds which in turn are are used to water the plants. She asks that we use environmentally friendly shampoo and soap. So we're nicely entwined w/ our plant friends. I pored over the label on my beloved hair conditioner. Paulette has rescued all of the animals that live here, including a large cage of white faced monkeys. (They were bound for the U.S. on some nefarious mission. They're not released into the wild for their own safety, not being native to this region.) As I was standing by them this morning, chatting with some other guests, one of them -- the monkeys that is -- put its foot in my cup of mint tea and then sucked it dry, looking avidly at what was left in my cup. Of course I obliged, and this wiley monkey managed to drink it down completely using a combination of hands, feet and tail. Proceeds from the school and inn go to support many worthy projects in the community, which is very very poor. Paulette informs us that some of our neighbors live on less than $2/ day.

I haven't gotten down to convey what it feels like to study Spanish here. I can't seem to do it, really talk about what it feels like in my case to learn Spanish, not till I describe the afternoon I spent last week at a local afterschool program. I'd collected toys, games and stuffed animals from friends and neighbors (who were incredibly generous. More teddy bears than I'd thought existed in Brooklyn) to bring down to the small school that serves toddlers in the a.m. and older kids in the afternoon.

We arrived at the afterschool program at around two. One of the interns, Allison, who had signed up to spend six months here, was my guide and companion. (Allison, reading, in photo)

It's completely voluntary. The kids come if and when they feel like it. The school is simple, white-washed with these amazing cartoon characters painted on the outside walls -- I snapped a picture of a fox who looks like he's about to sell you land in Florida as well a wolf perched on a roof top. The interior is strung with paper decorations, and all kinds of things. The place in its entirety looks as though it's ready for a party.

But no one was there. Then, as if a gang of children were staking us out, they suddenly appeared. From out of nowhere, our small room filled with about a dozen boys and girls -- from mabye 5 - 13. And they took these tiny brightly painted chairs and sat down and began to read, some on their own (the boys). Girls clustered around to hear Cenicienta. Not what I, the feminist from New York, thought I would have chosen. But for some reason I had chosen it. Perusing a shelf of Spanish language books in Barnes and Noble, I'd bought it because of its beautiful illustrations and also because it had an English translation at the bottom of each page. I should have realized that the young girls of the village of Santiago (not a paved road, not a car in sight. chickens and goats in the front yard) were intimate with the story. They nodded and smiled shyly as I began and went all the way to the Prince finding the girl who'd worn the 'cristal' slipper to the ball.

I've been informed that all State funding for Santiago's after-school program has dried up and since then, Paulette has directed some of the profits from La Mariposa Spanish School towards the one teacher's salary.

Luba

It's been cold lately in Brooklyn. And in the 100 year old creaking apartment building I live in that's means the start up of a "difficult" steam heat system. Which means moments of sauna like blasts from the pipes, alternating with cool, and withholding radiators. All of us who live here are in a constant state of negotiations -- with these radiators, the windows, our fellow apartment dwellers, the super (poor Nick!) and building manager, who is always on vacation. And lately, I've added my medicine cabinet, in an attempt to quell all the cold symptoms I've developed.

The best advice I've received for this tiresome cold -- which everyone it seems has just come through or informs me that "yeah, it's going around" -- comes from Luba, a new friend, of sorts. I met Luba, while walking my dogs -- Violet and Princess Jo -- in Prospect Park the other day. I'm pretty sure that Luba comes from some part of the former Soviet Union because of the exercises she was performing when I saw her which reminded me of old films I"ve seen about Communist Youth Movement. (Luba could have been a child during the 50's) They're very energetic, what we used to call calisthenics and seem to require a lot of grunting, audible breathing, and occasionally spitting. Luba's style conflicted with my t'ai chi and on this first day we were together, sharing one of the park's rustic wooden platforms (which overlooks the most private, even exotic section of the 'lull water,' a stream engineered by the Olmstead crew a hundred fifty + years ago) I wasn't sure I ever wanted to be in the same vicinity as this heaving, stretching, bending woman again.

But on another day, a few weeks later, when approaching this same platform, there she was (I groaned to myself) doing toe touches -- 95 or so a minute -- and as I came near, she beamed. I coughed. My Russian friend frowned and without any of the social niceties of "hello" or anything, offered advice, and I have to confess, it was the most charming advice I've yet received for this problem. It involved mashing a large quantity of garlic. Her English is still a work in progress. I had to interpret. "You take the garlic and oil. Then you jump (mix?) with the oil. And then you compress, she said haltingly -- on your chest, and sleep. Sleep the whole night." Luba nodded. "You breathe it in (she demonstrated, sniffing deeply while grimacing and smiling simultaneously) and in the morning, you see, you feel great."

Luba also advises breathing in warm salt water through one nostril and expelling it through the other. "Start with water the same temperature as your body and then the next time, use cooler, room temperature."

I'm positive that both of these would keep me "innoculated" against these regular, dry heat colds. As soon as I get the courage to test them.

And then Luba returned to twisting from the waist, elbows held high, leaning over the railing occasionally to spit. I settled into my slow, far less strenuous I Chuan exercises. I think Luba inwardly was wondering why I bother.

And for all of this, I love Prospect Park, and can't see living anywhere that wouldn't let me get to it in less than a ten minute walk.

Alan's Birthday Party

This past Sunday we celebrated Alan's birthday (as you may know if you read the post from the previous week) And an interesting time was had by all.

Just the facts ma'am. Al and I picked Alan up at his group home in Rockland County 11 ish Sunday morning. It had been a while, I'm chagrined to say, since I'd visited my brother, and a very long time since I"d come by on a Sunday morning. For whatever reason, I didn't recognize a single staff member. I was guessing turnover, though. Turnover is high at every level. I'm pretty sure that the hourly wage barely tops the minimum. The service-providing organizations have long lobbied the state for pay increases, and I've signed many a letter. Now that the State is cutting back ruthlessly on every front, there's no hope that working at a group home for the developmentally disabled will provide a living wage. Even Alan's service coordinator, who oversees more than 300 cases, works a second job. So, the folks on duty didn't know who I was, and opened the door a bit reluctantly.

This was going to be a short one and I'm off on a tirade about the pay scale for direct care staff. I will master the blogger's haiku one of these days. But not tonight...We asked that Alan be dressed for the cool weather we were about to take him out into. Another peeve. How they dress my brother. They dress him as though he were a child, or an invalid. On this point, I'm all in favor of treating him like the 60 year old man that he had just become! He knows how to put his arms in the coat sleeves, and if given instructions, can probably zip himself up. Never happens. They coddle him, bundling him into his winter jacket, taking one arm and inserting it into the sleeve, then the other, then zipping up the front, straightening the coat for five minutes, and finally pulling his wool cap over his ears. I can't bear it.

But I'm his sister, not his parent, and I reminded myself of that when I brought him to the car (not by the hand!) And once in, as promised, I got the CD player powered up. We had time only for Thelonoius, a beautiful old album that I've listened to, without complaint, on and off for months. No, for over a year now. I can't take it out of the player. Alan, who doesn't speak, or rather only speaks in his own private language of sounds, grunts, squeals, and occasionally alarming shouts and bellows grew silent. He frowned a bit, and sucked his cheeks in, as Sweet and Lovely gave way to Crepescule with Nellie. What was he concentrating on, I wondered and I think I began to frown a bit, wondering.

We reached our destination, The Hudson House, a wonderful eatery on Main Street in Nyack (Henry Hudson, no kidding, is the proprietor), and an extra two thumbs up because they didn't bat an eye at the awkward man whose head angles off in a direction opposite to his body and his feet at another angle still, pulling me into the dining room with a very firm grasp. They seated us at a corner table that was very nicely tucked away.

And then, Alan's noises grew in volume and increased in frequency and I thought sure that heads would start to turn. And it crossed my mind that we should eat and run, or maybe just run. But they didn't turn -- the heads. Alan's service coordinator was there, completely cool, and my cousin and his wife arrived and sat down and took stock each in their own way, but very quietly. Cousin Stanley I think was working to ignore the noisy man in our midst, chatting Al up about work. Donna, Stan's wife, smiled quietly and started to ask questions.

Donna, who has worked over the years with kids with all kinds of developmental and emotional problems was thinking that there had to be a solution. While I was getting myself into a bit of a dither, she was thinking hard. It seemed to all click for her when I mentioned what a nice drive we'd had coming over, listening to Monk on the CD player and how calm Alan seemed. She said, as though she'd had a week to think it over, that she would play the recorder for him. And she was apologetic about not having an alto recorder, but only a soprano, and before I could question her on any of it, she's pulls her coat on and is out the door. Five minutes later, D is sitting across the table, playing some delightful Renaissance melody (Donna is part of an amateur renaissance musical group)

Alan began to sway with a huge motion in time to this incredibly sweet music and most gratifyingly, his noises becamse single deep notes punctuating the concert, few and far between.

I realize that after writing last week about Wolfgang Fasser, this saintly music therapist in Italy, who was profiled lovingly in the film, In the Garden of Sounds, that life did imitate life. Donna had picked up the idea that music can reach and communicate with people who don't have speech, people like Alan. We had (by we, my family and even to some extent his current caregivers) written my brother off. 'You can't communicate with him' was and really still is the message. But D showed the same wisdom as Wolfgang Fasser. Donna was heroic at the Hudson House that Sunday morning, for which I feel so much ----- awe. And gratitude.

We all joked a bit. Was the dining room delighted with the concert? It was both old and very avant garde, I mused, not really caring too much what they thought, and watching as Alan, swaying, sounding off occasionally polished off a plate of chicken salad in record time, tossing a good portion down his shirt. And the Tellemann played on.

(tanleyS inormed me that one of the people dining that morning came over to our table to thank us for the music)

p.s. If you'd like to learn more about Alan's story, you can check out the website about the film I made about him, and us. www.withoutapology.com

Alan

When my father was dying, and in a state of semi - cogency, that is to say, he spoke in surreal sentences that had very little sense of who he was in the here and now, but which had everything to do with the truth, said, when I asked about Alan, "Alan is everywhere."

If you'd known my father you'd have been amazed at that pronouncement. Throughout his life, he denied Alan's existence. He would be at an event, like an award ceremony, called the Alan Richard Hamovitch award ceremony, and wouldn't say that yes, he knew Alan. (!) I was at his side when this happened and was stunned by the silence on this very important person in his life.

Alan was his son -- and my only sibling. And Alan is what used to be called profoundly retarded. I'm honestly not sure what the PC expression for Alan's "problem" is. Intellectually challenged? A man with autism? A man with developmental disabilities (no, that's not used any more)

I don't mind if someone were to call him retarded. It really is a case of a rose smelling as sweet It don't matter. Alan's disabilities trump any concern of mine for what he's called. Alan is incapable of speaking, understanding anything abstract, holding a job, having a relationship, counting change....

Well, how do I know, if he doesn't speak? Truth is, I don't. I've been uneasy this past many years, wondering how much he might understand if someone were to talk with him, take him to places he loves, play him music that calms him down and makes a smile play on his face. Uneasy because he lives in a place that doesn't give him the things he loves to do. But then, I can't be too hard on them. I don't ask often enough, I don't think, 'what should I be doing this weekend?' I'm really ashamed to say that I don't visit him nearly enough.

So this Sunday, I'm going to treat him to everything I know that delights him, because it's his birthday. I've never celebrated his birthday with him. On Alan's 60th, I'm doing all of it. Inviting some cousins, his Service Coordinator, without whom I don't know what I'd do, Al, of course, and we're going out for brunch at a swanky restaurant in downtown Nyack. We're going to play Motown and the Beatles and Sam Cooke on our way over. (I know he's my brother when I notice him grow quiet and give these musicians his rapt attention.) And then we're going to pig out. Another way I know we're related? Alan loves to eat out. I mean, he gets so overjoyed, he will sometimes refuse to leave a place. Really! I once had to call for help. What's wrong, they said at his house. We're at an Indian restaurant, we're done eating, and he won't get up. It was like calling 911. We'll be right over, they said.

The noises Alan makes aren't those that you hear in an English sentence. They're made with different parts of the throat and mouth. And they're rich, they have timber. As well as clicks and smacks, and a fabulous range within a matter of a second. It can be startling if you're not expecting it, which is why we hardly ever -- no never -- took Alan out to eat when he was growing up. And I have to be honest, I'm a little uneasy. This is a really nice place. I don't think these glissandos of excitement will be ignored, which is what I want. The best place for ignoring Alan is Starbucks. I wanted to kiss the woman at the table next to ours when she sat down, drank her drink, and pulled out school work. You are amazing! I wanted to shout. I should be hardened, but I tense up, when people turn around in their chairs to look at us. I hate the feelings I assume they're experiencing -- like pity, or even support. Just. Don't. Look. (this is partly my problem. I know)

Saw a film at the Margaret Mead Film Festival last Sunday called "In the Garden of Sounds," about an artist, a sound artist, named Wolfgang Fasser, who devotes himself to people like my brother. Using instruments that he made or designed, as well as recorded forest sounds and bird calls, that he's gathered on his tromps into the countryside (he's completely blind, btw), he transforms the lives of these boys and girls -- none of whom, except one, has the ability to speak. These kids adore Wolfgang.

I think Alan would love Wolfgang too, who like Alan, is supremely gentle, and kind, and unlike almost anyone I know, is incredibly full of playfulness. He's devised a massage table of sorts, that's strung like a harp (underneath) and a wall of different sized cymbals. HIs art is play, his play is art. It's what we all aspire to, I suppose. Allen Ginsberg said, re making art, "why do it if it isn't fun?"

My one main sadness is that the people who work now with Alan don't look hard for what they could do to give Alan fun. They're earnest, they're competent, they take great care that he doesn't do anything that might endanger his safety -- and in my HO, they suffocate him. They -- his staff, his team -- look at me like I'm the Mad Woman from Brooklyn when I harp on this, the need for "fun" or something of interest to do, but I can't imagine anything more important.

So, for his birthday, I'm maybe going to have someone make a very long, one-stringed instrument, that will vibrate into a single deep rich basso profundo note. Or maybe a huge brass cymbal, that we'll hang on the rec room wall. (rec room used very loosely). Or a collection of CDs. Not sure yet.

Will try to have the presence of mind to record this birthday. But Alan may be singing, and I hope that I'll be laughing and I might forget.

For more images of Alan, you can visit the website devoted to the film I made about him, and us. www.withoutapology.com

an unusual birthday present

Sometimes I think about giving an assignment to a roomful of compliant, eager and creative writing students. Funny thing is, I don't teach writing, and never did. And though I write, and am even dabbling in fiction now (for children -- and boy is that hard) I'm not a writer. But these thoughts of providing an assignment, and oh, 'you have two weeks in which to complete it' have been arising. Go figure.

This week's assignment? The best birthday present you ever received.

My birthday rolled around (fortunately) this past Thursday. I share a bday with Julia Roberts and the Statue of Liberty, and my cousin Eric, and I'm sure a few million other people.

This one, though, the thing I was delighted to receive was an unlimited supply of horse manure. Horse shit you ask? You wanted horse shit? Well, not specifically. Other things -- like a free day of plowing, or a perimeter fence for an acre -- would have been equally satisfying. I speak, as you may know, if you've read back a few posts, about the garden I'm assisting, or more accurately, fretting constantly about, down in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. Myself, along with three others, who are natives (I am not, which is a bit of a problem. I'm in in NYC, which is very far indeed from Southern Louisiana in more ways than one) started it, back now two years ago. Mr. Lynn Dean, a wealthy and very big-hearted man, leased us the land at no cost, for ten renewable years. August, our master gardener, called excitedly. The owner of a small group of race horses (race horses? In St. B? I've learned to love St. Bernard, but more for its generous, gregarious, gentle, well, not always gentle, people who are NOT the race-horse set, I assure you) wants to help the garden, and is willing to truck over as much manure as we need. His voice over the phone was urgent, excited, delighted. But the horse farm owner was a bit concerned about dropping off a truckload of manure right next to the Cornerstone Church, a former trade school in a tin shed, which sits on the corner of this acre. She wanted the Pastor's phone number so she could give him a heads up right before delivery.

I worry about the pastor, and the neighbors. Will they be as excited as August and me about this gift? Anyway, like Scarlet O'Hara, decided to worry about it later. I caught the fever. Horse manure! An unlimited supply. Free! It didn't come right on my birthday, but the conversation occurred a few days before and you know -- birthdays are really a cloud around the date. Al jokes plaintively that my birthdays go on for about a month, though this isn't so.

A load of horse manure is one of the things we need to get going on this little patch of green, what is destined to be an organic semi-urban farm down there, nestled between St. Bernard and Plaqueminnes Parish, just South of the Lower 9th and New Orleans. It's hard by the Mississippi, and when you look up -- I imagine this scene -- from weeding a patch of beans, you'll see the turrets of big cargo ships slowly gliding down or up river.

The skies down there are quite beautiful. So you'll also see the billowing clouds in a field of pale blue. Above the turrets. The earth is dark and dense (Mississippi mud pie wasn't named idly) and nutritionally very poor. So once we spread the manure, we need to plow it under and turn over the soil, and crumble it a little, integrating the fertilizer. August has told me all this. I confess, I am a farming neophyte. I've grown a patch of beans, cukes, tomatoes, like everyone else, but really in the most unprofessional way. I marvel at cumcumbers' agressiveness, how they leap their boundaires and march towards the carrots. But how to control bugs, thwart voles, irrigate in the dry dry months of this past summer -- I really don't know.

Back to St. Bernard. We received a gift of organic seeds from our friend, Lorna, who moved from Tennesse to help a variety of neighborhoods begin to farm, or garden, on top of straw bales. Post BP oil spill, post Katrina, she figured, people would be needing good cheap food. Anyway, they, the straw bales never arrived, as they were supposed to, from the Midwest. The promise of donated shipping never materialized. But Lorna left us dozens of packets of seeds. Everything we'll need for at least a year. I guess that's another wonderful present. Thanks, Lorna!

So, that's the assignment for this week. What has been your best BDay present?

p.s. My resolve to post here every week, with pictures, interesting musings, has been broken as you can see. I'm deep into editing Mama Sue's Garden and anyone who has edited anything will know that it doesn't leave much head space for much else. Kathryn and I are plowing ahead - pun unintended! - step by step through a recent moment in the history of three individuals, one of them August, and the others, Mama Sue and Lettie Lee. These two projects are intertwined though. I fervently hope that the film gets an audience. It has been at least three years of my life so far. But then, that its fortunes will fertilize the garden.

visiting Thich Nhat Hanh's Monastery

I didn't mean to segue into a film review, after only a sentence about the Blue Cliff Monastery, so at a moment when I should be transcribing tapes for an editing session, I'm returning here, for a very brief second post.

A week ago, exactly, I went there -- out of need. I confess. NYC housing woes, which can be bitter, necessitated I find a place where I could be anonymous where the atmosphere would be right for getting out of my head.

So I fled to the Blue Cliff Monastery last Sunday, hoping that a roomful of shaved, cool heads, simply meditating, or simply being, or being simply, would help to calm my own overheated brain. They were there, as I'd imagind! Speaking in heavily accented English, this group of robed monastery leaders was calm, devoted, purposeful, un-neurotic, and seemingly un-troubled. There were young monks too, maybe 10 years old, but as seemingly calm as the rest.

I see that deep mauve I described whenever I think of them -- as all the monks were swathed in long layers of mauve. And as I'd hoped they would be, deep beneath the mauve robes and ritual, chimes and schedule, they were caring. The last came through the minute I walked into this very spacious empty hall. The first words I heard were from Thich N Hanh himself (on CD) In halting, accented phrases, that I at first had to strain to make out, they seemed to be mind reading. In other words, they hit their mark.

"If you're angry towards someone

[yes?! I'm listening]

that's not good for you! It's not good for them! It's not healthy! His voice was emphatic. Though I had just raced through the doors, a good half hour late, I was caught up in what he was saying, as though I'd run into an invisible net.

[So?]

You should start thinking about lighter, more joyful things.

[yeah?]

So I did try. I recall it was much easier said than done. But slowly, like lifting a very heavy box, I tried to shift, just a little, my thinking onto more 'joyful things.' I can't begin to remember what these thoughts were, or if I was even the tiniest bit successful.

We were given a snack after this lengthy talk, which I had begun to focus on almost exclusively having run out of the apartment at 7, with little to eat, and raced up the thruway, trying to access googlemap on my smart phone. I don't think snack thoughts counted as "happy thoughts" though. Then, the most charming part of the day -- our calm, organized caring leaders handed out little yellow song books and we stood in a circle in the crisp fall air and all sang. This is what we sang.

I like the flowers I love the daffodils I like the mountains I love the rolling hills I like the fireside When the lights are high  bom di ada, bom di ada, bom di ada, bom bom di ada, bom di ada, bom di ada, bom  I like the flowers I love the daffodils I like the mountains I love the rolling hills I like the fireside When the lights are low

Picture four or so demure and organized, super-competent Vietnamese monks -- along with us, a divers group of visitors -- getting into "bom diada, bom di ada, bom diada , bom...

I went to a monastery

I went to Thich Nhat Hanh's monastery last weekend and was uplifted by the simplicity of the monks in their long mauve robes -- whoever picked the color of their robes is to be commended. But the spirit doesn't move me to comment on it all today. (Though simplicity and Being Here Now? Heartily recommend them.)

Don't want to write about this Monastery though becuz. The dreaded New Yorker's curse -- housing woes -- has befallen us, and until we see our way through it, I will be a curmudgeonly New Yorker -- grumpy, mindlessly eating, doing all the self-defeating things one does when the world isn't going the way you're sure it should. Can't say that mindlessly eating is all that bad, though....

But I can recommend a wonderful wonderful documentary, which is just making its way into the theaters nationwide (in the U.S), having finished its New York run, literally, last night. I suffered a parking ticket in order to get to the last screening of said run. The film is Budrus, about a non-violent protest by a Palestinian village (Budrus) against the punishing route of the dividing wall. (You know, the tall security wall Israel is constructing, which in many cases is encroaching on Palestinian farms? This process no matter how you look at it makes no sense. What purpose is there in cutting into land, appropriating it, when there's literally no reason to? No settlers were going to land there, no bases set up. It looked like nothing other than a land grab I'm afraid. And I'm not a flaming radical, just in favor of basic human rights. OK, here goes. I wasn't going to post at all today, and here I am discussing my views on the Middle East? Keeping a blog is a lot like life. Ya never know.

My idea of a protest for Middle East sanity is to set up a lemonade stand, raising quarters to send to Palestinians who aren't getting their day in court to secure a housing permit. I would like to see children raise money for their lawyers the same way they have been admirably raising money for the refugess of Darfur. Raising $100 in quarters and sending a check in an envelope to some reputable non-profit organization. This matter is a civil rights matter -- I mean, it's really very basic. Simply allowing someone to use their own land the way they choose. Talk about housing woes. I have no business comparing our situation with that of the palestinians, I know. Here I am with our mortgage paid on a leafy block of Brooklyn. But, that said. (Just kidding. I sound like a Daily Show skit) But why won't the friggin' co-op board grant us their approval!??? We're just like the Palestinians on the West Bank --

But the film. Back to the incredible film. Budrus was shot by multiple people -- anyone, actually who happened to be there as the bulldozers roared in and soldiers with guns appeared, and smoke grenades were flung about and a small agricultural village was gradually occupied, anyone who and had a camera, a cell phone, whatever and started recording the events that transpired, pitched in to tell the story that became this film. So, this included the residents of Budrus -- women too which when you see the film, you'll see why this was such a big deal. The women went out to face the Israeli soldiers FIRST, and that was very key. And it included a host of international supporters, and Israeli soldiers who shot video and turned it over to the filmmakers, and Israeli citizens sympathetic to the townspeople of Budrus, of course Palestinians, Hamas folk professing nonviolence and even :-) the film crew of Budrus

It's a Gandhian story of civil rights prevailing. It's lions lying down with lambs like you wouldn't believe. David vs. Goliath retold. It's a must see!

Notes from the Ground

As promised, notes from a trip out to Patchogue on Saturday, organized by our local "chapter" of OFA, Organizing For America. If that sounds so unexciting, so "establishment" so - - and you're saying instead, what's next - - now that Obama's in, and by the way, not all that great. If you're thinking that, really, get over it. OFA, Obama's people, are doing god's work. If you were to ask me, what's the most important thing a citizen of the USA could be doing right now, at this very minute, I'd say ' canvassing for the progressive candidate in your vicinity.' I say this knowing full well what a pain it is doing this -- walking up to doors of strangers, wondering whether there'll be an old man in an undershirt, or a woman screaming, attempting to get a restraining order on her "old man," a police car idling at the curb. Or a German woman whose husband was a veteran.... (We came across all three) It's a little nerve wracking, I"ll be the first to admit it. I can't go up to someone I don't know at a party of a friend, so wandering around a neighborhood I've never been to, 50 miles from home, that predictably votes Republican, makes you swallow hard.

But it is what's necessary. Really really necessary if you want to keep the House and Senate in at least moderate hands. If you want to keep the incumbants in and give right wing opponents a real run for their money, so that they know who their constituents REALLY are.

So we disembarked at Patchogue, and were given our candidate's buttons and (literally) our marching orders. We split up, each small group of two or three to a volunteer local driver. Our driver had a talking GPS so we didn't get too lost, as we tooled through the suburban streets out to Mastic Beach, a neighborhood of mostly converted beach houses (we were a spit away from the ocean, but no, we couldn't go canvass there. Those homes were mostly second homes.)

So we were making our way confidently, more or less. Until we were let off, when I felt very "lost," looking up at the flag of the tea-party -- a large yellow banner with a 'Don't Tread on Me' inscription -- flying on a high pole below the colonial flag, i.e. thirteen stars in a circle. Oh boy. Where am I? The GPS lady didn't warn me about this. Our list skipped over this house, stopping at about every fifth house on Alder, and leading us, in a kind of scavenger hunt, to a series of small, and middle-sized homes -- some terribly derelict, overgrown yards and some clipped painted and polished. I wished that dogs could vote, because most of the time they were the only ones home.

Al is the shmoozer. We'd been told on our last canvassing trip -- which was for Obama in '08, down to Wilkes-Barre, Pa. -- that all those graphs and charts, statistics and prognoses you'd been dutifully studying? Throw them out. People vote on character, not programs. My guess is that if I looked inward, I'd find out that it was true of me too. I swooned for Obama after reading Dreams for My Father. If you remember, there was not a single word in there about his plans to give every American health care. But I tended to forget that fact and maybe out of nervousness would launch into a little spiel about the fact that Tim Bishop had voted for the Stimulus Bill (millions of jobs, well a couple hundred thousand? But whose fault was that?! Had Obama been given the money he actually wanted... At least I didn't say a word about any of this. Many people seemed to be completely befuddled. In this case it wasn't the economy stupid) I'd add brightly 'and Bishop voted for the Health Care Bill!' which most likely was shooting my candidate in the foot. Al knew not to go there. Forget about the Health Care Bill. When the elderly unshaved man in the undershirt opened the door to say he was watching The Public Enemy an old James Cagney movie, Al was in his element. Ten minutes later, the two of them were still talking like old geezers, now at a little table on the porch, while Mr. Undershirt was filling out his voter registration form. By the time he was done, he looked up and said, the health care thing. I don't understand why people are against it. (whew)

Al went beyond dedicated. While a woman in all stages of dishevelment was ranting to a police officer, she took a breath to inform us that she couldn't talk, she was trying to deal with a problem with her "old man." Can I leave some literature for you, Al said hopefully. She shot him a please-don't-hang-around-here-a-second-longer look. Al carefully folded the pages of the literature so they'd fit behind her screen door.

A young African American woman, trying desparately to keep her toddler from galloping down the middle of the street brightened visibly when we told her that Bishop voted for all of Obama's programs. Inbetween racing after Junior and admonishing her older child, who wasn't holding onto his young brother very tightly, she flashed a smile when she heard the date of the election. November 2nd? That's the day after my birthday!

Below you'll read the message that was in my 'mailbox' this morning, from Jeanne, our 'Organizing for America' organizer. We're going to take her up on her request for at least one more day of canvassing. We want to give our new ally a nice birthday present.

Dear Friends,
Thank you again for coming out on to canvass on Saturday. Together with our Long Island colleagues, we knocked on a total of 748 doors, talked to 208 voters, and found 110 who were positive about voting for Bishop. As we discussed on the train, the real issue in this race is going to be turnout. Bishop is looking good among registered voters, but his numbers are precarious when you look only at likely voters. The advantage of getting canvassers out every weekend is that we get people to feel personally engaged (and obligated -- statistically, people are more likely to turn out to vote if they've told another person they would).

So with that in mind, I hope you'll be able to come out again on one of the upcoming canvassing trips. We're trying to get as many people as possible canvassing this coming weekend, the 16th and 17th, because the LIRR is undergoing major construction on the weekend of the 23rd/24th, so we may not be able to get many people out that weekend. And of course, we'll be making a big push on the final four days, Oct. 30-Nov. 2.

Hope to see you again soon!

Turning

. Someone once wrote that the way to make life more interesting is to "turn" from your routine as you went through your day. "Turn." Why that word I wonder? I don't know. But by 'turn,' he meant something as simple as taking a new route home from work or to and from the store or walking the dog. I thought, as I read this, 'this is the secret to life? ya gotta be kidding' But what he was getting at was that you'd see new things, you wouldn't be traveling on automatic pilot. And that this was important. Crazy thing is, he was right. Or at least it felt right last Friday. In the early evening, as I was lurching downtown on the 'F' train, I thought about calling Al (significant other) and asking if he'd like to see a movie that was playing uptown. Since you can't use your cell on the subway, I had to get out at the next stop to make a call the old fashioned way, and that stop happened to be Delancy Street, the heart of the Lower East Side, and the region of New York City that implies to anyone who's been to New York, and "turned" from the usual tourist sites, or read certain novels, the old, Turn -of -the -Twentieth Century, ethnic, Italian and Jewish (in particular) immigrant experience. I'm not sure why they picked Delancey to be decorated in original, and enormous mosaics, devoted to the sea no less, when so many of the other subway stops are grimy, even filthy, with loose or missing tiles, but somehow it happened. Ahh, I've done a little digging, literally as I was writing this. The entire collection -- on the downtown side -- is called "Shad Crossing" and it was completed by artist Ming Fay in 2004. And it's not an odd choice of theme after all. It does relate to the immigrant destination that this area used to be, as shad fish swim upstream in the spring, and so represent the tens of thousands of immigrants who travelled the ocean back 100 years or so, to make New York City their new home. I guess using a pay phone was another moment of "turning." As I dropped a quarter into the phone, I was already feeling as though I'd entered a time warp, I was already enjoying myself. And although Al had no interest in getting into the train and travelling a half hour to the theater, as soon as I hung up, I went up to the wave of tiny blues and aquas, grays, greens, whites you see here, and examined it for its minute, and incredible detail.

It was a good as a movie.

Lunch with Mary McHugh

This week, it's Mary, my dear and truly wondrous friend, Mary. It's hard not to mention that she had her 80th birthday a couple of years ago. That's NOT what makes her wondrous. But maybe you can't escape that insignificant fact, in light of the fact that every week Mary takes herself off to the Bryant Park Grill -- after reading great literature into a tape recorder for the blind, -- for a splendiferous lunch. Following which she takes a whirl on the the old restored Bryant Park Carousel. Every week! Mary has made numerous little "performance" videos -- one about her experimentation with hats (she wore a coquettish black hat with a veil to her gynecologist some years back just to see what he would say. As you'd expect, he didn't say a thing.) And does millions of tap dancing performances which she posts on Youtube (type in Mary McHugh). Mary has great legs. Mary is also a writer, and whenever we get together she's effusing about her latest idea or telling me about the upcoming publication of one of her books of Mary (hilarious) advice. They're small books that could literally fit in your pocket with titles like Eat This! 365 Reasons to Stop Dieting or, my favorite, How Not to be a Little Old Lady.

I joined Mary for lunch last week (she had come from reading Camus -- in French -- into the tape recorder) and after the usual light chatting that you do when you meet up with a friend you haven't seen in many months, we got down to a hard kernel of common personal truth, that at the moment took my breath away.

Mary and I (and millions of others) share being "Special Siblings," which is also the title of one of Mary's books. Special siblings refers to having a sibling with an 'intellectual disability,' what used to be called a developmental disability, and before that, terms which are no longer considered politically correct. (no comment) Mary's light blue eyes fixed on me and she said, in a voice that is so light, almost frothy -- 'the really bad thing was that we had to be good. I was so good!' 'Yes!' I said, meaning it from the bottom of my heart. Amazingly, that was the worst part of it all. It's still a problem, of course. Mary and I also shared the common fate of having had our siblings institutionalized. Perhaps that's why being "good" in ways that are so hard to describe and name, even to ourselves, may have stood out for us as the central problem, while kids today who have "special sibs" deal with much more concrete difficulties, or, anyway, different problems.

(If my parents could read this, they'd laugh hysterically. I think they thought I was plenty bad. And I probably was) But Mary and I knew what we meant. It was a moment of perfect understanding about a core part of ourselves. I didn't hear a thing other than Mary, or see anything other than her face. It was that kind of moment. So time stood still for a split second and then we went on with lunch. Mary chatted with all the servers, and everyone else who worked at the restaurant. She knew them all by name, and knew what book, or album, or trip they were working on. And then we shared a dessert and polished it all off with a ride on the carousel.

until next time,

Susan

filmmaker/sibling

Without Apology, a film I made about my brother

One~eyedCat productions