Not Like the Movies

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Nicki

The carwash brushes swirl the soap back and forth, back and forth across the windshield. The light reflects off the thick bubbles. There’s a faint slap-slap every time the rubber part hits the glass. Hypnotic. Peaceful.

Cut to the Jewish Community Center. Boxes of something are being packed and organized for a food drive, or a fundraiser or a holiday carnival. “Smile, Girls, I’m going to put this on Facebook and tag you all,” the volunteer in charge says.

She’s a writer. She studied Journalism at college and now she’s a stay-at-home-mom with a blog. Most days she’s still in her sweats when her husband comes home at 6pm, because if she stops to actually get dressed it’s all over.

Ever seen the movie Afternoon Delight? It stars Kathryn Hahn as Rachel – the confused, trying-to-figure-it-out, Jewish, writer-mom-volunteer who finds tremendous solace and inner peace at the carwash. Fifteen minutes into the movie I wonder if writer/director Jill Soloway had been spying on me for several months.

That’s what makes great art great – movies, books, songs that imitate life. That viewers, readers and listeners can relate to: Hey, that kinda happened to me! Wow, I felt that way too. I remember a break-up like that. A family Christmas when that exact thing happened. Sneaking out with my best friend… We love those movies. We love feeling that our experiences and feelings are shared by others. It gives us a sense of belonging, of normalcy even, at a time when we felt left out and different.

But there’s something disconcerting about watching my life play out with uncanny accuracy in a movie, Hollywood or otherwise. While it’s comforting to know that others have similar experiences, that I’m (obviously) not the only Journalism grad who didn’t make a real career out of it, it’s unsettling, uncomfortable and really difficult to watch. On a big screen. From the outside looking in, but also from the inside feeling out.

In Afternoon Delight Rachel is trying so hard to figure it out, she invites a down-and-out young stripper to come live with her and her family. Rachel wants to save her. And of course, we can see, this has trouble written all over it. Rachel really has the best intentions, she loves this woman, wants to help her – but her mom-friends don’t like it so much, her husband doesn’t want to like it, her friends’ husbands love it.

Complicated situations, tested relationships, and at the end of this Hollywood movie, Rachel realizes much about herself and her marriage, and she and her husband indeed figure it all out. The End.

book

There are times I wish I could yell “That’s a wrap!” and high-five myself and everyone around me that yeah it’s all perfect, and worked out for the best, and everything’s good, no great! But life is not like the movies. Thank G-d. I may be a frustrated Journalism graduate, who volunteers at the JCC and drives a minivan. But I haven’t brought an exotic dancer home (yet!) and my afternoon delight is usually a cup of tea and 20 minutes with a good book.

Nope – not like the movies. And that’s a good thing.

Not Like the Movies by OPI

This post was written as part of the April A to Z Challenge. To read more of my A to Z posts click here.

Miss Piggy’s Big Number

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Nicki

My knees bear testament to my clumsiness. They both carry faded yet visible remnants of an epic netball game played in Johannesburg in 1991. We lost. Fifty-zero. I don’t think I was the worst player on the team. Just the clumsiest.

Miss Piggy is not clumsy. She is gorgeous and graceful in all her Miss Piggy-ness. And everything she does – from blowing Kermy a kiss to performing on stage – is a Big Number.

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But me… twisted ankles always. Graceless runner. Bumped elbows and bruised hips still, as I move too quickly, thoughtlessly. I went flying on that tarmac-covered netball court decades ago, bruised and scraped my knees so badly my husband will tell you it’s the first thing he noticed about me when he met me a year later. No athletic ability at all. Just clumsy.

A few summers ago, my family discovered the magic of Lake Berryessa in Napa County, California. The most incredible lake I’ve ever seen. Enormous and blue with high ochre-colored banks and tall trees. Mirror-smooth water. The air is hot and dry, the water refreshingly perfect when you first dive in, just enough chill to keep you giggling and happy.

We rented a speedboat, skis, and an inner tube. The kids tubed for hours, faster and slower, we tried to get them to fall off. The laughter bubbled out of their bodies.

And then I decided it was time for my Big Number.

No athletic ability. As clumsy as anything. But I can waterski. I can engage my arms, and weight my thighs, somehow balance on my wobbly angles and actually stay upright for as long as I want. I can glide over that water, cross the wake, and feel faint whispers of (dare I say it) graceful ability.

My uncle taught me how to waterski. At the Vaal River in South Africa – a long, wide, gently flowing river that separates Gauteng province from the Free State. Beautiful weeping willow trees drape the riverbanks and lazy leguaans (a type of lizard) float in the water. It’s one of the most serene, tranquil places I know. And where some of my most favorite childhood memories live: swimming, barbecues, swinging from a rope off the jetty. Long lazy Sundays of laughter and togetherness.

The last time I skied at the Vaal must have been around the time I scarred my knees. It was 20 years before I skied again. Before my Big Number.

Shivering with anticipation and nervousness, I held the rope tight. The boat moved, I lurched and for a second I envisioned a belly-flop. But I tightened my arms, leaned back… and I was skiing! Whispers of graceful ability.

I breathed in the dry California air, crossed the wake, felt the chill spray in my face, and heard my kids’ happy, whooping disbelief that their mom knows how to waterski.

My childhood memories of fun and happiness, of a gentle, patient teacher with the biggest laugh in the world, propel me up and forward on that water. My Big Number.

Miss Piggy’s Big Number by OPI

This post was written as part of the April A to Z Challenge. To read more of my A to Z posts click here.

Fly

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Nicki

photo by Jenn Fox

Fantastic, I thought, as I watched them performing. These kids are fantastic!

It wasn’t just their performances – some of those were definitely less than fantastic. It was their creativity, their confidence, their palpable joy at being on the stage.

I remember feeling that way.

Piedmont High School’s Bird Calling Contest is exactly that: high school students behaving like birds, flapping and chirping and squawking and doing weird things with their throats and their eyes and their hands, on stage, in front of hundreds of people – competing for the prize of best bird call.

The contest has been around for 49 years – it’s received national acclaim as the top three flocks fly to New York City and appear on The Late Show with David Letterman, where they do it all again. This time in front of millions on national TV! It’s pretty fabulous to sit at home in Piedmont and watch kids you know or have seen around town strut their stuff with David Letterman.

But before their west-east migration to NYC and Letterman fame, the wannabe-birds have to prove themselves on stage in the wilds of Piedmont. And they are great. Every last one. They are funny, and talented, and determined. They perform in flights of two or three, and part of their challenge is to present facts about their birds creatively and dramatically. Some are, of course, better than others. Some skits are more artistic, some birds have killer comic timing, others are more imaginative or have feathers to die for. But every single one of them loves being on that stage. I can tell.

photo by Jenn Fox

And I remember that feeling.

I haven’t been on a stage, in a performance, for over 20 years. Probably since I played a hippo(potamus) in Rhodes University’s production of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories: How the Elephant Got its Trunk. Definitely not a role that stretched my acting abilities any which way, but still. It was a play, on a stage, in a theater (a few theaters – we toured it to a bunch of schools in the Eastern Cape), in front of an audience, with costumes and set and crew and cast parties and all the elements that I love about a theater.

At the impressionable age of six, my very first drama teacher ignited in me a passion for the dramatic that burned way beyond the stage of the Piet van der Walt Theater in Pretoria West. I was headed for Broadway. Or Hollywood. Or Rhodes University, Grahamstown. Or sitting in the audience at the Alan Harvey Theater in Piedmont.

The first real play I was in was Carmel Primary’s all-school production of Bible Bonanza – each grade performed a biblical tale from the first grade suns and moons until Moses told Pharaoh “Let my people go” and the Red Sea majestically parted. My third grade class honored heroic Samson – and I played his mother: “No razor shall touch my baby’s head,” my little eight-year-old voice rang out clearly, as I stared into those spotlights, unable to see a single human form but knowing the hall was packed with proud parents and they were all watching me. It was fantastic.

It’s a rush, being on stage. Thrilling and terrifying and awfully amazing. My brain always, always goes blank right before I start speaking – but somehow the words find their way back. And then… lost in the magic. Until it’s over. And there’s applause. And the blood rushes in my ears, and I know I’m smiling the biggest smile ever because even my heart is smiling. Smiling and soaring.

I remember that feeling.

I felt it again while I watched those fabulously feathered friends on the stage at Piedmont High School’s 49^th Annual Bird Calling Contest. The young man who played his guitar and sang like he was at the Bluebird Café, all kinds of charm and charisma at the age of 16. The girls who were a little off-key but so brave, so confident, so happy. The hosts who could give Ryan Seacrest a run for his money, with their impromptu one-liners and perfect timing every time. And the Snowy Egrets and Owls, Goldfinches and Cockatiels who took flight in that theater. I soared with them.

photo by Jenn Fox

Hippo or Athol Fugard or The Crucible or Puck or some crazy sex-crazed character in a play called The Well of Horniness… (stay tuned for W).

Fly.

Fly by OPI
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Fly is my favorite OPI color and is on my toes right now. It is fun and fabulous and lifts me up when I’m looking down.

*This post was written as part of the April A to Z Challenge. To read more of my A to Z posts click here.

Ninety-eight and still has chutzpah!

Posted on March 17, 2014 by Nicki

He can barely see. One eye is completely covered by a cataract, and the other looks pretty blank to me. Those big ears of his do not hear much anymore. He definitely can’t hear me calling him. His bladder has shrunk. Or disappeared altogether. His bones are old and his hair is almost white. So for a 14-year-old he’s in pretty good shape!

Of course, that’s 98 in dog years. Or is it 98 in people years and 14 in dog years? I get confused. All I know is that there’s a multiple of seven involved. And today is his fourteenth birthday. I’m feeling strangely sentimental and emotional about my aging dachshund, whose bark drives me crazy and who is causing way too much unnecessary stress between me and Ryan – it’s that shrinking bladder, the midnight and 3am excursions outside, the high-pitched bark at nothing and everything because the poor creature can’t see much… an aging dachshund is eerily similar to a newborn baby. Been there, done that!

Pretzel was our first.

It was a beautiful spring day much like today when we drove up to Santa Rosa to get him. He was teeny. He fit in my two cupped palms. His mom’s name was Ruby and his dad was Spike – they were all small standard, red, short-haired dachshunds. Just adorable. I don’t remember how we chose Pretzel. But we did. And on the way home he curled up on my lap, tucked his then-short nose and feet in toward each other, all twisty and pretzely. By the time we got back to San Francisco, his name was Pretzel. Perfect.

(Weeks later I discovered there was a children’s book about an extra-long, heroic dachshund named Pretzel, written and illustrated by Margaret and H.A. Rey. Serendipity. We have several copies of that book. It’s one of our favorites. Along with The Halloweiner. And Schnitzel von Krumm.)

Now I’m not a crazy dog-lover. I like dogs. I do love some dogs. I always had a dog growing up, and I think a pet is wonderful to have in a household. They love you unconditionally. To love and take care of them is incredibly fulfilling and heartwarming. They bring life and warmth and fun and gentleness and craziness, and hair, and extra work, and mess and happy licks and wagging tails and lots of walks and special moments of quiet and peace. And before I had kids, and when I was working from home, Pretzel was my life and I may have become a crazy dog-lover – which is easy to do in a crazy, dog-loving city like San Francisco!

I took him to the beach and when his short, little legs couldn’t carry him anymore I scooped him up and bundled him into my fleece. We spent hours in Dolores Park each day, and made friends with every dachshund and chihuahua in the City. He slept in our bed from night one, curled up right next to me or at my feet – and I have not met a dachshund parent anywhere in the US, London, Sydney or South Africa whose dachshund does NOT sleep in their bed. They are bred to burrow, and since they are not running down rabbit holes or hunting badgers in these urban environs, they burrow into sheets and blankets – warmest bed-partners ever. Even Ryan agrees.

Babies in strollers were no competition for jaunty Pretzel on those San Francisco hills. That proud little dachshund could barely strut three feet down Union Street without being stopped and petted and questioned and tickled. My new-mommy friends were not impressed as their bonny, bouncy six-month olds – cute as they were – were blatantly ignored. Want attention? Get a dachshund!

We had fun times, Pretzie and I. He was friendly, and social, high-energy and obedient. He barked a lot when the doorbell rang, and he would pee if he got too excited (doesn’t everybody?) but he quickly became part of the Gilberts, like all pets integrate into their families. On his first Rosh Hashana with us, I hosted a large buffet-style dinner. “Can I give him my leftovers?” asked my sister, one of Pretzel’s biggest fans. “Absolutely not!” I replied. I would make him his own plate of brisket and kugel! By the end of the evening that little belly of his, already mere inches from the ground, was dragging.

My proud Pretzel does not have my undivided attention anymore. During the last twelve years he’s slipped lower and lower on my list of Beating Hearts That Need my Love and Patience. His loud, incessant barking whenever the doorbell rang caused immediate spasms in my jaw as I shushed him because a baby was sleeping. He would steal the kids’ food. He’s been skunked twice – admittedly that’s more my fault than his, but man, what a pain (tomato juice does not help)! His nails need clipping, his teeth need cleaning, he has a weak-ish heart. He is no longer my first. He’s my very, very last.

Of course I still love him. And care for him. He still sleeps in my bed – although he can’t jump up anymore, I have to lift him. I pick him up under his arms just like he’s one of my kids. And I carry him down the stairs – those long spines don’t manage the descent so well over time. He doesn’t bark when the doorbell rings because he can’t hear it – not that it would matter, nobody is taking a nap no more! And he has more people than ever to love him – most notably the youngest. I often find the two of them twisted around each other on the couch, one stroking the other’s ears.

Pretzel cannot see the food that drops on the floor right near his long nose, and he can’t jump up onto my bed – but this morning I came home to discover that nose had found its way high up onto the dining room table and into the gift bags full of hamantashen (cookies I’d baked for the Jewish holiday of Purim). He had helped himself to a few. Now that is chutzpah!

He is 14/98 years old today – and it is clear he is not going anywhere, this doggedly determined dachshund. Till 120 they say in Hebrew, when someone has a birthday. Pretzel, may you live till at least 120: a full, fun life, surrounded by so many who love you.

This is 40?

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Nicki

I was always the youngest. Not at home, at home I was the oldest. But everywhere else I was usually the youngest. The youngest in my grade. The youngest in my ballet or drama class. Because I have the southern hemisphere equivalent of a fall birthday – mid-May.

And half a world and many decades away, where the seasons are turned upside down, and where my birthday is now in the spring, I am still the youngest.

My 40^th birthday is two months away. Thanks to a severe drought and global warming, spring has already sprung in Northern California. So it’ll be early summer by then. The fragrant jasmine will have wilted on their stems, leaving little more than the faintest heady whiff in the breeze.

For a while I was “never turning 40.” As friend after friend – some with two to four kids of their own, and companies to run, with aging parents and mortgages and expiring car leases – made it ‘over the hill’, turned 41 or 43 or 47, I was still in my thirties. In the same pick-up line as they were, rushing kids to ERs just like they were, signing tax returns and home loans and sometimes feeling older than even my older friends whose kids were a few years younger than mine, or who didn’t want to get married just yet.

Almost 40. With responsibilities and people, both big and little, and deadlines and obligations and appointments and a full life of color behind me, and a big blue something ahead… but I’m not excited. I’m scared. Confused. So unsure. So not confident. I wish I was 24. When I knew myself better.

Of course, hindsight is always crisply clear – the view of myself as the self-confident, sure-of-herself young woman starting her life on the foggy hills of San Francisco as Mrs Gilbert is vivid and bright, while the vision of ageing, graying me finally moving to Israel once all my kids are grown is hazy and almost impossible to see. Not just because it’s the future, and who knows what the future holds, but because… is that what I really want to do? Do I want to leave all my kids behind and move to another country without them? Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know. If I stop being a stay-at-home mom now, will I regret it in ten years when they’ve all left (actually it’s 13 years, but who’s counting)? Do I want to write, or act, or teach, or own a boutique or work in a bookstore or WHAT?

I am 60-something days away from the fabulous-not-so-fabulous four oh. Confused. Confuzzled (my mother’s word). Just mixed up.

On a rare rainy day in Sonoma last week, after I declared to my best girlfriends that I knew myself better when I was in my twenties than I do now, I realized that’s not quite true. Or rather, they helped me realize it’s not true. That what I was in my seemingly cool, calm and collected twenties was blissfully oblivious… to me. And I started thinking about the things I do know:

I know that I don’t know. I know that I am confuzzled. I may be less self-assured, less self-confident than ever before – but I have heaps of self-awareness. And then some. Enough to drive me even crazier than I am now, before I make it to 50. Or even 45. Gulp.

I know that it’s more than okay to say “no”. Not to alcohol. Or to cupcakes. But to commitments. To volunteering. To having someone else’s kid over. To attending an event. To anything that is something I do not want to do. Or that will take me away from doing something I really do want to do. People understand. In fact, I think they wish they had said no too.

That sometimes my “greatest accomplishment of the day is making my bed.” This is something my close friend L always says – she is five years calmer, wiser and older than me. She reminds me that I don’t have to do it all – actually, I don’t have to do any. That the all or the nothing is overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be that way. And damn, she’s right about the bed: it does feel all kinds of good to yank those sheets straight, and tuck the loose ends under.

I know that I love meat. And marrow bones.

To cry is to feel. And that is wonderful. I used to keep my tears in, because I didn’t want to face the emotional hot mess they left in their wake. But I’ve discovered how awesome tears are – the relief and release to not have to keep it all together. To feel whenever I want. Even wherever I want. Like in my workout class. Or in the car. Sadness and joy and love and fear and songs and memories.

I don’t get hangovers. Obviously I’m not drinking enough. Goal for my forties: wake up with a hangover.

There’s never an excuse for bad manners. Say hello. Say goodbye. Say please and thank you. Always. Whether you’re four, or 14 or 57. Do not get out my car and slam the door without saying, “Thanks for the ride.” Wish the barmitzvah boy and his parents mazal tov, and if you want something from me, please say please! Manners make people nice people, manners maketh the mensch.

Accept apologies – they are heartfelt, even if they don’t sound like they are.

Skinny jeans can ruin my day as I lie on the floor or wriggle my hips trying to zip them up – they did fit last week. But my sister, and sometimes my brother, saves the day (and this is true for much in my life):

Finally, no matter what artistic brilliance, technologically advanced special effects, incredible animation, outstanding acting, writing or directing we have enjoyed over the last three decades the very best movies are, and always will be, Eighties Movies: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Moonstruck, Indiana Jones, Say Anything. Don’t you order what she’s having? Do you ever put Baby in a corner? Who doesn’t love to cut loose with Kevin and Kenny? Best. Movies. Ever.

I am the last of my friends to turn 40. I’m the youngest. And I feel more confused now than at any other time in my life. Blissfully oblivious, like I was in my twenties, sounds kinda appealing, I admit. But oblivious is really just oblivious – I’m not sure it’s blissful at all.

I’ll take marrow bones, Maverick and no hangover for now.