Red Shoes Would Be Better

My father played the role of Captain Von Trapp when I was growing up, everything but the high-pitched whistle that would summon the troop of children into formation.

He used to line us up, my older brother, Mark, and Joel, the youngest, and he would perform an inspection of us before we would leave the house. Fingernails clipped and clean? Every hair in place? Ties strait? Shoes shined? First the boys went through the drill and then it came to me.

One day, I was in the line wearing a beautiful blue and white gingham dress with big red buttons. My mother had bought me brand new black patent leather Maryjane shoes and I couldn't stop staring at the shine that came off of them. I had ruffled ankle socks that I remember tugging at until they were straight and even before I came downstairs to model my look for Dad. I twirled around (when it was my turn, of course -- never breaking rank) and waited to hear my Daddy say how pretty I looked. I could tell he loved my dress but there was a pause. I remember the pause to this very day, and then, I was only about 3 years old.

He said, "Very nice, but ... red shoes would be better."

I have often said that if I ever wrote an autobiography it would have the title, "Red Shoes Would Be Better." This single phrase has burned a groove into my life, etching an opinion, spoken or otherwise, about every single thing I do. It hits me first thing every morning, of course, as I face my daily mission of finding the perfect outfit and accessories to introduce to my waiting public each day. But subtly, it is the message that filters through everything and aligns the world according to a standard, only to fail on a detail. This "red shoe" epiphany was the commencement of the global "what's-wrong-with-this-picture" game I have played my entire life.

This perfection-driven insanity has created a world of remodeled freaks of nature, sporting new noses and breasts so that one little thing that is a little "off" will just go away. No job is ever really well-done, there is always something that could have, should have, might have, been done better. All this looping, rewinding, editing, and the like has crippled the world I live in. For years, I was afraid to try something new, because grand failure had to be fatal if you could have a crisis over the wrong colored shoes, after all.

The best thing that ever happened to me (eventually) was having children. The harder I tried to duplicate the Perfection Endeavor I knew from my own childhood, the worse I failed. These creatures got dirty, broke things, and even dressed themselves in play clothes that didn't match! When I got too sick to hold together the details of the perfect little life I was striving to achieve, I found that the world did not end. All that fear was wasted energy.

Once, my husband dressed my toddler to meet me and go out one evening and I discovered that Ben had two different color socks on his feet and no emergency change of clothes in the diaper bag, just in case there was a traumatic occurrence of a Stain. No matching socks?! Somehow, Ben did not lose a moment of joy over that and neither did his Dad. Fortunately for me, I married a man who did not have a whistle to blow or even a remote desire to inspect his children this way. He let them be who they are and I joined into the remedial education course he was teaching back then.

My friend Terry and I were in Shoe Wonderland (DSW) some time ago and I persuaded her to try on a delightful selection of shoes. She got a gorgeous pair of bronze Coach platform shoes made of soft, Italian leather. She also, per my directive, purchased a pair of scarlet-red slingback, wood platform 4" heels. Now, when she puts them on, they are her own "ruby slippers" that give her courage when she goes to speak in public.

A few years ago, I received a gift from some friends in lieu of flowers after surgery. The note attached to the gift card gave me express instructions to use it only for the purchase of some fabulous shoes. It was a substantial gift, and I was delirious as I moved through the Nordstrom shoe department trying on dozens of shoes. And then, by the suggestion of a total stranger, I was handed a box with a pair of shoes he had a hunch I would love/love/love! I tried them on, and they were indeed truly wonderful shoes.

So maybe my father was right after all? They were, after all, red shoes.

Love Notes

My friend, Pam, just emailed me a copy of a treasure she found this week while rummaging through a box of old photos in preparation for her family reunion. She found a handwritten note from my mother. And then we followed with a back-and-forth dialogue about my mother's letters -- her swirly-loopy penmanship and so many, many other details that were uniquely and utterly ... my mom.

My mother was known for writing notes and letters. She had a collection of cards she purchased that could have stocked a few Hallmark stores. They were for almost every occasion -- a few special favorites were the funny Maxine cards, and cards with pictures of cute little girls, Victorian ladies and Springer Spaniels. One thing you could count on if you got a card from Lorrie Frager was a lipstick stamp on the flap of the envelope (and one on the card itself if there was room) and lots of "xxoo's".

In my childhood world I remember those notes popping up everywhere -- sometimes they were tucked into our lunch bags, tacked on the mirror where we dressed every day, on a pile of folded laundry or even under the pillow. Her favorite thing to say was "Have I told you lately that I love you?" (Yes, Mom, you did.)

She scratched out her notes often and in so many different ways I have absolutely no doubt that she did love me -- a lot. What I am reminded of by Pam's discovery today is another expanded (but not surprising) view of how much she loved so many people, and what a mark she made on their hearts by those loopy letters of hers. These little notes keep on popping up in the strangest places and at the most random times. But never a minute too soon and always welcome.

My mother used to wear a Revlon berry-pink shade of frosted lipstick as her standard favorite. After a few applications, the lipstick in the tube was formed into a perfect slant to one side. She applied her lipstick about 50 times a day, I think, and one out of every three of those times, she reminded me to go put some on myself. (God forbid, I might be seen with bare lips!) She'd would blot her lips on a tissue afterward. Often, when rummaging through her bottomless pit of a purse, I would come across quite a collection of these Kiss You Tissues.

Those gorgeous lip marks were her signature "I love yous" at the end of all the little messages she wrote in the 68 short years of her life. Once, a long time ago, I tried to trace her handwriting so I could feel, maybe, what she did when the words came out of her hand. I couldn't pull it off. But now when I compose my own handwritten notes for those I love, I remember the feeling of it all and what it meant. And then, I sign with the loopiest signature possible and leave a lipstick kiss at the bottom, too. Some traditions are definitely worth passing on...

xxoo

Sarah's Lens

Last summer Sarah came to visit and when she left, I was changed forever.

Sarah was 15 years old last summer and came to us, all flushed and full of giggles, to play and sight see on the first California trip of her life. I am reaching way, way back into my brain to access the memory of the days that I was 15 and I wonder if I had that kind of spunk and spirit back then. I am told I did, but these days I get confused between the legends and the truth. And, well, 15 was another life ago.

When I was 15 years old, I was living in East Tennessee on a parcel of farmland which my father had purchased to whisk us away from suburban life. I thought it was punishment to be 45 minutes from a mall or a McDonald's and to be confined in a place so remote you could sing at the top of your lungs and the only creatures to hear you were grazing cows, pecking chickens and lazy horses. Dad had excavated a swimming hole at the bottom of the hill on our rolling acreage and he stocked it with fish. He added a pier to fish from and a sandy "beach" (for effect, the way he did everything). We had a red barn which never housed the horses ... only a ping pong table and some hay, I think. It was sticky-hot in the summer and tiny insects would swarm around in circles in the high grassy areas. And in the summertime, Sarah's dad and his sister, Marjorie, would come to dunk and splash in that pond with the disgustingly slimy bottom made of mud. I have taken pictures of this place with the eyes of my memory and a few very poor quality photographs. They are what remains to mark the spot.

Those muggy summers all came and went and so did a few decades. Along came marriage and mortgages and children and scary sadness all layered on top of each other like some kind of inedible lasagna. Hidden inside those drippy layers were the remnants of all those adolescent summers and the things worth keeping ... that is, until Sarah came to visit.

When your child meets the child of your friends from childhood it is a miracle of sorts. They enforce the need to go back in time and dig into the pile of goo, to clean up and salvage to find the "keepers".

When Sarah came off the plane, hidden in her luggage was the Miracle Lens. In the process of pulling back the curtains to show her California coastlines and tourist haunts, I would stop and look around to see Sarah lagging behind, contorting herself into the strangest poses to snap photographs of things I didn't see and probably never would have cared to capture. She told me this was called "macro photography" and that she loved zooming in to the most infinitesimal details -- a drop of rain on a blade of grass, the wings of an insect, eye lashes, table settings, flooring patterns... and with each discovery she shared by way of the pictures she snapped, I was jarred out of my oblivious trance so that I could really "see" again all the little things right here, right now, which I was missing as I sped up and down the freeway.

Sarah came to town just in time for me. Whatever she brought into my life was contagious. I find myself "doing a Sarah" almost every day now ... stopping to see and explore something normal in the context of my every day traffic patterns. The other day, when I was doing a "Sarah" I actually noticed Zoe sitting in a stream of sunlight and it inspired me to think and blog about it. She tutored me to "see" the pictures and images that flash in front of me every single minute as a diving board which allow me to feel again.

In the year that has passed since Sarah was here, we had our first family wedding and along with it came some very remarkable milestones. But, I don't think I missed a thing, not a single important memory. I have a very full mental website (still clicking away), now capturing the look on my very happy son's face, their casual smiles, her strands of hair blowing in the breeze at the beach, sandy feet, half sipped cups of take out coffee, my husband's hard working hands, my daughter's laugh ... and so on, and so on...

Sarah was like a little muse that dropped in from the sky and sprinkled some kind of potion on all of us that suddenly made life come alive, look brighter, taste sweeter. She probably has absolutely no idea that she inspired a gallery of beautiful things that now travel on a daily exhibition tour with me as I pack up my briefcase and change the view from mother to wife to professional every day ... click, click, click goes my own lens.

Thank you, Sarah.

Falling Petals

I got the news on Saturday morning that Jack Dodd had passed away. He had been fading away for a while now, in and out of rehab hospital centers and at home being cared for by hospice and his family for months. I heard there were flickers of "Jack" that would appear from time to time, but really, the true Jack has not been around for way too long.

If life was a beverage, Jack Dodd would have been Sprite, all light and full of joyous bubbles. He was supposed to be life's eternal Peter Pan, always hearing big band music somewhere in his head. He was a box of crayons on a rainy day, always good for color and splashes of laughter no matter what the occasion. And he certainly didn't care that much about formality ... in a tux, a pair of shorts and Hawaiian shirt or even wheeled in a chair, he was who he was and that was that.

I used to go over and visit his daughters, Juli and Cathie, for years and Jack would ask me to reprise Gilda Radner's "Roseann Roseannadanna" and he would laugh so hard he snorted as if it was the first time he ever heard it. Lord, I wish I could garner that kind of an audience today.

These last years watching his pilot light go out ever so slowly, it was like collecting the fallen petals from the bouquet that just isn't ready to take off the center of the table just yet. Well, the centerpiece is missing and I just can't find the right "something" to put in its place that would be as delightful as it was having Jack in the middle of our lives.

We'll miss ya, Jack.

Julie, Julia & Me

I just came home from seeing the new movie with Merle Streep and Amy Adams called "Julie & Julia", a glimpse at the parallel worlds of Julia Child and a confused young woman who had no idea what to do with her 30-something life. She embarked on a mission to prepare all of Julia Child's culinary masterpieces in the span of a year and write a blog about the process. Throughout the process, she touches on all the normal life-transition emotions, makes a mess of things and then manages to find herself in the process.

There is a scene in the movie where Julie celebrates the end of her mission on a NYC rooftop illuminated by strings of light-bulbs, serving up an eclectic mix of friends. She comes out with the crowning piece of her year's education and efforts. This was the piece she dreaded over the span of her project, the boned duck, and it was prepared to perfection. It even looked like the cookbook picture. The joy was not in that, though. The joy was in her serving it.

My own little string of light bulbs went off. When I, too, am empty and deeply hungry in my soul, it is not just myself that I need to feed. To really feed the hunger is to make a platter full of something to eat and something to share. Single servings just don't satisfy enough.

It made me remember one of my mom's "Rules for Happy Life" which, no surprise, had a food-based theme at the heart of it. She used to say that when preparing a meal, it was best to triple the recipes whenever I could: one third for our own dinner, one third to save a little for tomorrow and a spare third to be ready to share with someone in need. This rule was cardinal when it came to making soup, because someone always needed a little of that, it seemed. It was a kind of plasma enhancer, I now believe. I guess that's why to this day I always make way too much soup. Maybe I just forget to share that other third.

My mother found her bliss in the kitchen. Often she would be deep inside her own thoughts when she chopped away, clanking bowls and pots and pans and slamming cabinet doors. She sang and hummed and I believe that she loved the stirring and blending. I know that most of all, she must have envisioned the looks and sounds of all of us enjoying what she made. It had to be why she was so happy. She was always working, but her passion was serving it. Then she was done.

I am home a lot in my kitchen with Emily and she has begun to show an interest in this food-world, too. I watch her put together a signature panini sandwich and make one for her daddy ... I believe she enjoys the one she didn't eat herself more. I watch her present it to him (or her friends who visit) and wait for the reaction. She doesn't even know it yet, but the gears are turning in her head. I could only hope for her to have a jump start in figuring out that our self-serve world is empty and devoid of soul for a reason and she can skip having to find that out the harder way.

We all need to make room in our life for just a little more whipping, kneading, blending, baking, simmering and such ... and we need the loving human contact that comes with lighting a candle in the middle of the table and enjoying these bites with the ones we love.

It worked for Julia and Julie and it seems to be working for me, too, as a matter of fact.

Zoe and the Beam of Sunlight

I haven't been a dog lover all my life. In fact, if loving dogs paralleled the religious experience some people make it out to be, I might say I spent most of my life as a rather ambivalent agnostic. But then, I once felt that way about having children and we all know how much of a convert I became over that.

Today as I was doing my routine acrobatic runs through the house prepping for work, I looked over into the corner under my mom's baby grand piano that sits in the corner of my living room and there was Zoe, my 3-1/2 year old Peek-a-Poo curled up in a ball in what looked like a 5" beam of sunlight on the floor. I looked around the room and, sure enough, the rest of the floor space was shadowed and gray. She was so happy in that spot you could hear her snoring from the other room.

Later that afternoon, she followed me into another room of the house and did that dog-thing they do where they walk around in circles and then plunk themselves down into a heap of breathing fur. Sure enough, that was the only place in that room where there was a ray of sun, light and warmth. How did she know to do that? Dogs must have a sensor or something. I know she can go from zero to postal in under a millisecond when anyone walks into our yard, even from a seemingly fast-asleep zone. She sniffs around the grass in the front lawn as if she is making a mental note of whose feet were there and who will pay for entering without permission later ... I'm not sure what that's all about, either.

Just the same, this natural search-and-detect function Zoe came equipped with in order to find her happy spot is pretty impressive. I think I used to have one of those myself, once upon a time ago. I could play the "Glad Game" Pollyanna played when she taught the town of Harringtontown how to always look for the good in any person, place or thing.

I forgot that even if the floor I walk on is mostly shadow, there is indeed somewhere a place where the sunlight falls and plenty of room to squeeze myself into it if I want. There are a few things I am going to reeducate myself on, thanks to my curly-haired mentor and companion, Zoe.

Here's what I've come up with so far in compiling a list of "The Zoe Rules to Live By":

1) Love and affection are much more important than food.
2) Food is pretty good, though. (Even if mine is good, I'm going to want some of yours, too.)
3) If you have the urge to play, play.
4) You can sleep anywhere.
5) Even if you smell bad, someone's going to love you.
6) As long as you are lovable, they don't mind picking up after you. Just be careful what you leave behind and where. Look really sorry and pitiful if you realized you messed up, though.
7) When in doubt, wag your tail. Happiness is contagious.
8) Always welcome guests who come to your house.
9) You are not now nor will you ever be, Alpha-Dog. Roll-over and accept it.
10) When it's dark, find the beam of sunshine and stay there. You can always find a happy-place.

Thanks, Zoe.

Katella Deli

You know how it is when you are driving down the road on a perfect summer day and an old song comes on the radio? Suddenly you are "there" -- wherever "there" was when that was playing before -- a road trip, a summer beach day with friends, a romantic walk.

Yesterday, some friends took us out to the Katella Deli. If this was a song, I would have sang it at the top of my lungs. My friend, Marsha, took me first through the bakery side of the deli and showed me all the most wonderful Jewish bakery delights. I have been living in LeanWorld and I tell you, there is nothing like that here. They issue moving violations to anyone with over 2% body fat here in "The O.C." I think the skinny-So-Cal-Stepford-sisters would have an aneurysm to be in the same room with more this collection of butter, sour cream and flaky pastry. Not me, this place deserves its own zip code, like Disneyland.

Part of the thrill of the event was in passing table after table of people dining and looking as thought they were really ENJOYING their meal, actually tasting and, it seemed to me, loving it, too. I haven't seen that look in a dining room in a very long time. What's happened to the dining experience? Everything has been replaced with substitutes -- no sugar, no fat, no caffeine, nothing made by hand that didn't get punched out of a computer assembly line ... everything has been stripped out, especially the fun. Soon, we will have stunt doubles consuming our food for us.

There is a thing about Kosher pickles on the table and a really good Reuben sandwich that makes me taste "home". I wish I hadn't chastised my parents so much for loving a good deli sandwich once in a while. Who knew how few opportunities they were going to have to enjoy it in their suddenly abbreviated life? I really should have lightened up.

Sunday afternoon will be a memory of delightful conversation with old friends in a room rich with people who seemed to be animated and filled up with what's good. I had to take it all in as we meandered through our multi-windowed conversations, speaking over each other to fill in a detail, ask a question or open yet another topic, another bite. I couldn't believe how full I got on so many levels.

I packaged up the other half of the sandwich to eat later at home. Later in the evening, I unwrapped the package, pickle and all, put it on a real plate, and enjoyed every single bite. I think God meant for us to have that joy, and I am glad I did today. I'll lighten up tomorrow.