This June I’ll be 84.
The things I remember.
Small, unimportant things.
Not my young mother’s funeral but the card table she’d open up in the living room because we didn’t have a dining table or dining room.
Not a husband’s proposal but the shock that someone wanted to marry me.
Not childbirth but a daughter’s kindergarten dress.
Not my college graduation but Cathy saying to Heathcliff in the movie Wuthering Heights: “Heathcliff, make the world stop right here. Make everything stop and stand still and never move again. Make the moors never change and you and I never change.”
I have memories of times when my older sister and I were children. We shared a bedroom and when we’d fight (what in the world could we have been fighting over?), I’d tear down the pictures of Frank Sinatra she’d cut out of movie magazines and taped on the wall over her bed. And then she’d scratch my arm with her long Revlon red finger nails. I wonder if she’d remember that. But her memories died with her.
I remember making believe I had to go to the bathroom during Latin translation in high school so the teacher wouldn’t call on me.
I remember a pair of red T-strap shoes I always wanted but never got.
I remember my father played a harmonica, rolled his own cigarettes, and took me to Loew’s State Theater to see the Harvest Moon Ballroom Dancers stage show and a movie.
I remember my father walking around in our railroad flat apartment in his boxer underwear while my mother yelled at him, “Jack, put pants on. You have daughters.”
But I can’t remember what my father looked like. I never saw him again after I was 12. Somebody sent me a picture of him and me at somebody’s wedding.
I didn’t know which man he was.
I remember trying to figure out how to kiss by kissing my hand but I don’t remember my first boyfriend kiss. I remember my first night of love at the Dartmouth Winter Carnival and how I still didn’t know who did what.
I don’t know why such unimportant things stay in my memory when times I wish I could remember are gone.
I’m lucky to be 84 and reasonably healthy. But I wonder why I’m so old and why those I’ve loved died so young. The more you love someone, the more joy—and sorrow—they bring to you.
I’m making new memories—there are grandkids to watch grow and a good marriage of love and friendship.
But many desires have gone. I don’t want to travel, or need a fancy pocketbook, or to be a blonde or to be Botoxed.
I like to write my thoughts to you in a blog. Sometimes funny, sometime melancholy, like this one. And I like to hear from you. It keeps me in touch with a world I hardly know anymore.
Before I go to sleep at night I think about all the things I want to do the next day—but the next morning I don’t feel like doing anything—and that’s okay.
Once I thought I could solve just about any problem and I usually could. Now I known that I can’t. That’s hard to accept. But I do.
Once I was the center of my children’s world.
That ended a long time ago.
Once I needed things. I don’t anymore.
I don’t even need everybody to like me
I hope to use my time to be more truthful, kinder and more understanding of others.
Maybe I’ll turn up in somebody else’s good memories.
You’re just a button click away and I’d love to hear from you.
About your world, your family, your joys and frustrations, growing up, growing older, even recipes– even though I stopped cooking–by request–years ago.
Goodbye until next time…
Hope your day turns out as well as I hope
(but doubt) mine will,
Gingy (Ilene)
Happy birthday month! You are still a baby. My mother turns 87 in July and she just started working out with a trainer. I told her she might want to take some ibuprofen but she said no — she only takes that for her back pain, which is why she started with the trainer in first place. Just dropped our middle child off at college yesterday and she called sobbing tonight. My son kept my stomach in knots seven years ago — miserable texts in middle of night when we dropped him off.
When my parents dropped me off, I never looked back. I loved it from the first moments. After my daughter’s call, all I can wonder is what was wrong with me or what was wrong with my parents? But your wonderful post reminded me that this too shall pass. In a blink. Just pray that girl stays in school.
I just heard your story on Writers Almanac. Actually my husband-friend heard it first, as I was having a nightmare about losing my him in a deadened stairwell. I awoke to the distant sound of Garrison’s voice. I couldn’t hear the words, only the whistle he makes when he articulates some S’s, and considered canceling my subscription to the program because of it.
Hearing my footfalls on the steps my husband called up the stairs that today’s episode had been written for me. I groaned within: please no more whistling s’s before coffee.
I am horribly close to 63 and in 8 school days will retire, for a second time, from a field I have loved. I have been hoping to release the characters that are bumping into each other in my mind asking to be set to paper but I admitted to my friend-husband yesterday that I think I have been harboring a pipe dream: who will really care to read what I write?
I am grateful this morning for men with whistling S’s, for being able to awake from bad dreams, for a husband with his finger on the replay button, ready to cast a vision for me, and for you, who launched your papered words, not in spite of decades, but because if them. Thank you so much.
I have so many happy and sad memories. I remember my 4th birthday but any presents – only great cake. When I was 16, my father called police because it was beyond curfew. I met policeman in the street as I was walking home from friend’s house. I was mortified. I will write more if this goes through as it never does. You have a gift and I want it. I think your mind is like a sponge and soaks up everything. What comes out is pure joy for us to read.
I always look at the glass as half full even though at times it was empty. I remember that 18 year old girl and I still see you as her. What a moving blog! It touched my spirit and my inner being. I am so glad you are in my life.
Life in money terms:
Yesterday is a “cancelled check”
Tomorrow is a “ promissory note”
TODAY IS ALL THE CASH YOU HAVE
You are my hero Gingy!!! Long life…..good health….and good karma always to you!!
Your NC Gingy loves youLots of Love, Holly
Always a treat to read but this one is especially endearing.
Recently mine was the privilege to fulfill my dear 90-yr-old friend’s request to visit his old homestead and parents’ grave sites in the PA Hills. Standing there with him as he talked with his loved ones, it occurred to me that we’re really all here accompanying each other home.
Here’s to you, your 84th and beyond, dear Ilene! You’ll always loom large in my memory – for as long as it lasts!
Gingy,
I have already written down my past memories so that I can remember them as I age. I still have more to add to my Lifestory.
I just returned from visiting with my childhood friend who lives in Berkeley,CA with her husband. We made some new memories together as well as we laughed, cried and listened to one another. We met at the Jersey shore and we have remained close by writing cards and emails and Facebook. We both had beach cottages and would see each other in the summer. Now we both live in CA.
Life has twists and turns but true friendships never end.
I never had red ruby slippers but I did have Dr. Scholls wooden buckled shoes.
They were so comfortable but not to run in during the summer months.
Glad you have this blog and glad we still keep in touch. Age is just a number!
You will always be Fabulous.
Peace,
Arlyne
Ilene, I love your blog!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY…and many more in the best of health. Age is only a number…B.S., it is THE number that is under our skin, on our mind, and in our tired bones and muscles!
Testing 1 2 3
… I remember my first night of love at the Dartmouth Winter Carnival and how I still didn’t know who did what.
Gingy Beckerman didn’t know THAT? It doesn’t sound right to me, all he less because I well remember and will never forget who did what to whom. Still, this latest blog may be her best ever.
Hi Gingy – Your comments remind me of the opening paragraphs of Zora Neale Hurston’s THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD:
“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.
Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.”
And also of the closing lines of “Lucinda Matlock” from Edgar Lee Masters’ SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY:
“What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you —
It takes life to love Life.”
Thank you, Gingy, for sharing with us the memories of your life in your books and in your blogs. Your heart and your mind are more generous than you realize.
My what a wonder you are…..
i could talk to you for hours and ask all kinds of questions…
that im amazed i never asked..I cherish you and Dora more and more.
You surely turn up in so many of my good memories.
And the people who are gone…? how lucky that we have those memories of them.
The good news is that we can still talk to them. Sometimes they don’t answer, but maybe that’s okay–we figure things out anyway.
xxx
p.s My sister used to scratch me. She managed to do it without even the Revlon red nails.
p.p.s. Were those red shoes Papagallo, by any chance?
Inspired, thoughtful, funny, always a terrific read.
You lost your own parents so young but you have been a wonderful parent to your children and grandchildren. I have many memories, happy ones, such as getting dressed in my beautiful fairy tale wedding gown. Then, after a long and good life together, the day that Sol told me that he had just been diagnosed with cancer stands out vividly in my mind. My whole life changed in an instant. However, now I am happy again.
Do you remember us going to the dances at the (92nd St. ‘Y’ and meeting Carl and Eddie?
Do you remember the Christmas eve parties at my house?
Do you remember us going to the Capezio store upstairs on Broadway to buy red shoes?
Do you remember me telling you that you looked like Daisy, Babbie’s dog?
Do you remember when you first did blonde streaks and I hated it.
Do you remember when we went to Choate?
Do you remember how beautiful we both were?
And how dopey!
Love forever, me
This bittersweet truth-telling piece is really beautiful, Ilene. And you’re not alone. What I really miss are memories of lost loved ones’ voices.
Sad, funny, poignant and relatable. Just like life!
Always a treat to read. Thank you!
This: The more you love someone, the more joy—and sorrow—they bring to you.
In the midst of joy we don’t even imagine the sorrow that will inevitably come.
When it arrives, it’s hard to remember the joy…
Now that I’m trying to remember something, I can’t remember one thing. I have lots of resentments that pop into my head. Old, old ones. Would rather they go away already. I remember my son, two years old, with blond curls lit by the sun, and me thinking, I’ll always remember this moment. I remember things that are archived in photos. I remember going on the roof at work with Gary to smoke a joint, and me being too shy to look at him. And our first date, to a museum, my hands were sweating, and I didn’t want to hold hands, but he said he liked it, that I was alive. I remember my first big paycheck for being an artist, showing it to my father and him being so proud. I remember Griffin before we knew about autism. Thanks for your memories and for jogging mine. Love you.
Ilene,
This is so touching and funny and right on. You captured what’s going on in my heart and soul. As always.
“Maybe I’ll turn up in somebody else’s good memories.”
You’ve been turning up in my good memories and moments since we met. Will miss you at my play reading. I’m going to email you right now.
Love, Nancy
This resonates. And being 20 years behind you, it inspires. Thank you.