Living Without Carcinogens

If you want your spirits lifted, check out TEMPLE GRANDIN-HBO 8 sat

For the last 10 days I’ve been in an unusually dark place for me. I’ve always been an optimist. Lately, I just felt licked.

The last time I wrote I was talking about my new boarder’s and my cash flow issues. Francesco has been a bright spot in a sea of bad news. He moved in on Dec. 21st. I had to buy a bed because as the kids, and nannies moved out, the beds went with them to insure no one would come back. It’s not meant to sound as cold as that, but when I say I love my solitude, I really mean it. So the kid took the downstairs room (meant for a housekeeper) and transformed it in a way I never imagined and I’ve been living here 30 years. He took a framed 11×14 picture of my father out of the closet in the room, hung it, put black sheets on the bed and suddenly this “too familiar” room became avant garde. It was like I hired a decorator. At the time, I had another 24 year old kid staying with me. Both of us were in awe of his use of no space. Fran made the tiniest bedroom in the house look big.

Moving on..about a week after Fran moves in I get a call from my older daughter’s husband saying that her father had died. On the heels of my younger daughter’s father dying, we talked about how to broach this to Olivia, my older daughter. More perplexing was that the poor guy had checked into a San Francisco hospital on October 4 and, not wanting to burden anyone, had not given any name in case of an emergency. I didn’t even know you could do that. I thought you had to put someone/anyone down! Cris, O’s husband, was a little afraid to tell me the next bit. Billy, my ex/Olivia’s father, had died 10 days after Gabrielle’s father and we were just finding out on December 29. The poor guy had been sitting on ice for two months while the coroners office tried to find next of kin! At first I was angry, crap, with zabasearch and everything else, it took them over two months to find family? An ambulance had picked him up at the family home…so shit, ask the neighbors. Then I was grateful. They could have cremated him with a bunch of other people. GOD, what a thought!

A few days later, I had to take Gaby to the airport at midnight. She was taking a semester in London and wouldn’t be home for nine months. I felt like I was watching the curtain come down at the last performance of my favorite play. The next day, I decided to clean up her room, which at first made me so sad. With the dogs running around and I had heard Francesco’s car leave (you can hear it for miles-he didn’t realize it’s against the law not to have a muffler!) so I started singing to the dogs. They all have their own theme songs, so I hit the whole repertoire. Cleaning and singing, I suddenly felt a lightness I hadn’t felt in months, so I started to sing with more bravado in the dogs’ imagined accents and patois. My audience adored me-they knew I was putting a show on for them so I started singing , cleaning and dancing with 7 dogs behind me. It all felt so good, I felt a burp coming on, so I let ‘er rip with a couple of farts punctuating my music. With a huge trash bag of junk, I made a trip outside to throw it out, passing Fran’s room. The sliding glass door to the backyard was open and I thought, “That’s weird. He knows to keep everything shut because a dog could end up in his black sheets”. As I went to close it, I noticed Francesco, flush to the wall on his bed. Trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, he looked like a period at the end of the sentence. I asked him how long he’d been there. “The ole time,” (Italians don’t have the “H” sound) he muffled a laugh. THE WHOLE TIME??? “Yes, I especially like it when you sing in your usky voice.” I didn’t have time to think about “the husky voice” which was embarrassing enough, I was worried about the farts! Something he still pretends he didn’t hear…

Over the years of living with these two father’s (because once you have a child with someone you’re stuck with them forever) there are things about them, things said and done that I could bet the house on. So last week when I realized something which had been in place for 20 years for education was suddenly not there when it was really needed and expected, it was like getting a karate chop in the solarplexus that I couldn’t shake.I cried nonstop for 2 days. Francesco’s answer to everything is “MANGIA”. The more I cried, the more sauce he made. I couldn’t eat. I felt like a stupid fucking idiot. I’d let my daughter down.I should have protected her. I’ve never been suicidal-ever. For the first time, I really got it. I felt like everyone would be better off without me. If I could let this happen…a lesson I’d already learned once-I was a real shmo. Part of living without carcinogens is trying to be stress free. Extremely difficult, no matter who you are. I’m great at making lemonades out of lemons, but this was one that I couldn’t spin. I told anyone who knew anything that I was fine, but I wasn’t. Instead of distance making things better, each day got worse.

Until tonight. Tonight, I experienced something that my college friend Pat Resnick talks about alot…how art effects us/changes us. I’m not as eloquent as she is but, simply put, I saw a film  that allowed me to put the travails of my life aside and move on. I could actually feel myself become myself again-my cells changed. Completely unexpected, because I had become an invalid in 10 days time, it took me the whole day to get myself into shape to go. I saw people there that I used to work with who I still care about. I invited an old friend, who works at Playtone, so I couldn’t back out at the last minute. He was blubbering through the last 20 minutes of TEMPLE GRANDIN while I became more joyful/elated with each minute. I was back to being myself.

Please see it. If you have kids (tape it for the young ones to see later), it will empower them. For myself, I’m grateful to writer (director’s) like Christopher Monger (and my Friend Pat R.) for getting me out of my head.

After all this, if I have misspelled the fucking title…

Through his first month in this house, this kid, this boarder has been unruffled over my wailing, sobbing, up all night pacing. I realized, it doesn’t bother him because he has family and we all go through shit. Right?

2 Comments so far
Leave a comment