My 2017

I've thought about what I want to do this coming year.  I tend to organize my plans as I always have:

1. Eat
2. Ponder
3. Linger
4. Add to my list
5. list more list things
6. move item to tomorrow's list

But I want so much for it to be this:




I'd like to wake up every day and carry the whole jumbled list with me, like Pig Pen

but not as dusty,
and without the bass.

I want this year to learn how to carry everything I want at the same time. All together.  Not one-a-day like vitamins.

I'm not good at that. I love a lined notebook.

I'll still probably make lists.
I'll still probably move things to tomorrow.
I'll still probably kill the tomatoes and the flowers.

This is why it scares me

I was maybe ten. I remember I'd just heard about the Holocaust and was now stirring it slowly in my mind. I remember asking at dinner.  How did he get to be in power? How did people decide on him? People chose him because they'd been living without. Times were hard. He promised them a better life. More food on the table. More jobs, he promised.  And over time, he told them the reason they didn't have the life they wanted was because of the Jews. And he could help them with that, he'd said.

The Jews were the reason life was bad. The Jews had all the money, he'd said.  They ran the banks. They had all the wealth.  Without them, life would be better.

I stared at my dinner. I remember I asked them Did you know? Did you know what he was doing? They said they had heard rumors. Stories. But no one knew really until after the War.

I remember telling them, Well I wouldn't let that happen. I would have told on him, or some sort of anger a ten year old has. At him. At my parents.

Never again, they say.  I think it used to be a promise. Now I think it's just hopeful.

Children don't know that deadly waves retreating from the beach roar back to shore over time.  Or they know in the way we all do by learning in school. This happened then to people who were around before we knew them so we really only need to know it for a test.  Not because they were real. Not because we can imagine them. Not because it can happen again.

I've seen images showing tour buses headed to Auschwitz and school groups touring the camp. There was laughter as the young kids walked through the gas chambers. I was angry watching. I wouldn't have laughed. I wouldn't even have smiled. But people my children's age stood in the very place where murders happened and were as far removed in that place as we all become from slavery, from devastation, from war.  The human part of the story can't even be captured once the survivors die.

So here I am now a week away from an election where someone has made promises without care, without thought, without plan, who encourages hatred and ignites its fuse. Just 70 years have passed and we are here again. Who will be asking Did you know? I will have known. I will have.  And yet what more can I do than share my fear?  What more can I wish for than that people around me will hear me?

I'll leave without knowing

It's in the middle of the night I realize
I will go without knowing
how red streaks are made in the sky
at sunset
or how the meteors know to rain
twice a year
across the blackness.
I will leave with only the love of watching them,
but with no answers,
and I will be a wisp of memory
to those who follow,
as ones are to me
who came before brown pages
of photo albums
and lived moments all their own.
Remembered in liked to's and loved when's
at best
like my great grandmother is to me.
A woman who crocheted,
who served candied fruit peel in a tin,
who had ten children, some who died,
who wore glasses with black frames.
No childhood,
no adulthood but as I knew her when I was six,
no trips or moments of her own.
I will be remembered then,
or not,
like her mother,
or hers,
who lived sometime
somewhere
and stared at the sky unknowing,
while red blazes hung in the clouds
at sunset,
and the Perseids shot across the sky at night.

Florida Through My Years - Part IV: 1982

When I turned 18

my grandmother died.

We’d said goodbye in Maine that summer
after dinner at a Mexican restaurant.
She was leaving the next day to drive to Florida.

She gave me a hug that was a little out of the ordinary,

and said I love you, which was very out of the ordinary,

and she died of a heart attack

a few later

in a hospital in White Plains

on her way to Florida.

I wasn’t sure about going to Florida 

that winter vacation from college.

Nothing about Florida mattered without my grandmother.

Nothing about Florida belonged to my grandfather.

Nothing was made or cooked or baked or taken care of

by him.

He seemed lost,

and I was alone.

My mother lived in her own fog.

I’d gone from talking with her regularly

to talking with her hardly at all that semester.

She just didn't think to call me very often.

I went.

There were no hermits in the cookie tin,
there was no pale chicken,
there was no food in the refrigerator
except for a bag of Lenders bagels
and a container of skim milk.
There were foil pans in the freezer
covered with more foil and marked with directions on how to bake them.
My mother had cooked for him when she'd been here.
So had a few of the neighbors who were left.
There were new neighbors next door.
Mrs. Warshauer had moved,
Mr. Warshauer had died.
Mrs. Levine still lived in the next building
but she was as hard of hearing as my grandfather
so they didn't talk much
since it was tiring to yell.

My grandfather ate cornflakes in the kitchen

sitting at the glass table,

when he remembered to eat.

I made his bed every morning,

I drove to the store for groceries

and we made our way

through meals somehow.

He and my grandmother never seemed to love each other,

but he missed her as if they had.

When I was 18, I didn’t know him well.

He’d always take two weeks each year to visit Maine,

and I’d see him for a week in Florida

during dinner

or during our drives from the furniture store,

And he’d sign the cards my grandmother sent me

on my birthday

and we’d call each other then since

our birthdays were only two days apart.

He had taught me how to play gin,
he knew how to flip a spoon into a glass
and blow smoke rings from his pipe,

but he didn’t know how to make a home.

Florida was empty without my grandma.

All that talk that had happened

around tables with meals and baked things and

jello molds and phone calls and people at the door

stopped.

I opened her dresser drawers

and found the few things left there
that were hers

and touched them and smelled them.

The gold wire coin purse,

the  opera glasses in a worn leather case,

the few handkerchiefs,
a shell bracelet I'd bought for her in Bar Harbor,

the satin sachet that barely smelled of powder or lavender.

I wore her soft cotton white bathrobe,

I painted my nails with her red polish.

My grandfather slept late every morning.
He'd lie on his side with his hand on his forehead
and breathed loudly
what have I done what have I done?
what will I do what will I do?

While he slept ,

I went to the pool to read

and to listen to the chatter of busy people around me,
heard where they would go after their doctor appointments,
heard where they'd been for dinner the night before,
the kaleidoscope colors dancing in my closed eyelids,

the mockingbirds cheep cheeping.

I swam to cool off

and dried myself of on the long towel

my grandmother had bought me just for the pool.

At night my grandfather sat in his chair

and watched TV turned up so loud.
He rested his elbow on the armrest
and propped his head up with his hand.

He spoke so little

to me,
he never smiled.

And in the morning, I reached into the cabinet
where the fat lady smiled from the door,
and poured him his cornflakes
before heading outside
and slithering into the pool
like a seal at the aquarium.
Grandma, watch me.

Florida Through My Years - Part III: 1977-1981

I started to like lying next to the pool

more than being in it,

and could come out to the pool by myself
since I was actually a lifeguard,

and didn’t have to wait for Grandma.

So that had changed.

I started to wear my mother's Bain de Soleil for the St. Tropez tan
instead of No-Ad
since it smelled so good,
but my mother would only let me use a little. Don't waste it.
It's expensive.

I still hated afternoons when we’d shop at Burdines

or drive to Miami to meet mom’s friend Rhoda

or drive to lunch.

I hated the air conditioning that made me feel clammy

and I had to stick my head between my knees.

I hated missing the sun so I couldn’t get a tan

and held my arms up to the car windows as we drove.
I hated visiting my Aunt Ethel who didn't like me
or Aunt Sara and Uncle Sam who had nothing to do at their place
and I still wasn't allowed out to the beach or to their pool.

Deena stopped coming to Florida,

or went to a different school with a different vacation schedule,

and a guy with curly blond hair

started working for the apartment complex

so I needed to stay closer to home

and be more available.

His name was Rick.

Yesterday I got a burn. I left a note on curly hair’s motorcycle. His name is Rick.  He has a toucan shirt. He has eyes the color of the ocean. They sparkle when the sun hits them. He lives 6 miles away from here.  He’s never seen snow.  He hates crabs, he loves lobster, and in the letter I wrote that he must get 1,000,00 fan letters and he said it was his first.  He said my letter wasn’t silly! What a great day! It finally paid off to make a fool of myself. He said tomorrow was his day off. I just pray that he’ll come tomorrow anyway. I just have to keep writing in my journal until he passes or else it will look like I’m waiting for him.  

Which I am.

In the late afternoons I drove to Fort Lauderdale
with my new license in my grandparents' car
and picked up my grandfather from his job in the furniture store. 
He would get into the car and loosen his pastel tie, and put his elbow on the windowsill,
the warm air ruffled his white hair and he ran his hand through it.
He never seemed to mind that I had all the windows down.
We didn't talk.
He looked tired after his day selling sofas and bureaus.
At night we ate supper at the table
and I played gin with my grandfather or sometimes spite and malice with my grandmother or 6-11 with my mother and grandmother if there was a fourth person to play.

I started to sit on the steps outside my grandparent's apartment
pretending it was a normal place to sit,
on concrete steps with no chair
at an old people's apartment building.
But a cute guy had moved in with the Warshauers next door.
Their nephew.
This guy next door started talking to me. He winked and smiled at me, he said that my freckles were cute. I hate it when anyone else says that but it seemed nice when he said it.
I wanted to be there when he came home from his job.
He couldn't miss me, he'd have to step right over me.

Hi.
Hi. How's it going?
Good.

My grandparents and my parents were not happy
when I'd sit on the steps.
Come inside. That's no place for you to sit.
I like the warm afternoon sun, I'd shout back
through the kitchen door they'd left open so they could watch me
and be sure I wasn't being a total embarrassment.
That's no way to act. Come inside.

We have 3 1/2 more days here. I'm sitting out on the diving board at 6:30 just thinking. Underneath my feet are bubbles from the warm water that jets out from the pipes. I try to pop them but they pop out too quickly. Today was a great day boy-wise. First of all two boys from Toronto kept talking to me. One tried to keep pushing me into the water. They aren't very good looking but the're nice.

My grandmother took me to bingo on Tuesday nights in the recreation building.
I 29.
N 47.
B 4. And after! They yelled back.
I never won.

Most afternoons my grandmother stayed in the kitchen
when she wasn't outside knitting.

There wasn't a lot I wanted to eat at my grandparents' house.

She baked hermits for my brother, thinking he loved them.

They were filled with raisins and molasses and

smelled of the tin they were kept in.

He didn't like them but never knew how he could tell her.

She also baked mandel bread that just tasted like a rock hard cookie

without sugar.

I wanted oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

but she didn’t bake those.

Grandma kept brandied fruit in a brown glass jar on the kitchen counter.
It was fruit that had to be fed
like pet fish.
Or stirred.

My grandmother would drive it to Maine for the summer, and she and my mother would take turns taking care of it. 
Then my grandmother would drive it back to Florida.
I never ate it.

She had a picture from a magazine taped to the inside of her food pantry

of a fat lady with no clothes.

My grandmother always started diets on Mondays

and said she used the picture to remind herself why.

I have 6 hours left here.  This morning I came out at 8 and read by the pool and who should come down but friendly Rick. I took a picture of him and he gave me his address without me having to ask! He said he would write! The rest of my time today will be spent doing nothing.  I packed last night. Yesterday Rick did come but only to pick up some people to drive them Miami.  I’ m going to miss him so much! I just found out that he’s only 19! I can’t believe it and I never will.  He looks at least 25.  I told him that.  He said that’s what everyone says.  This book is getting too messy.  From now on it will be nice and neat.  I told Rick how I hated being asked the same questions over and over again. He laughed.  He’s cleaning out the garbage cans right now.   When I left, he kissed me goodbye.  He is so nice!

Florida Through My Years - Part II: 1970-1976

Hallandale was where we went now

every year

for our vacation in the winter.

We flew,

and we did the same things

every time.

We drove from the airport to

my grandparents’ apartment,

I shoved my clothes into the bottom drawer,

and then I begged to go to the pool.

The Tropical Sun was always there,

the afternoons were always spent wishing for time in the pool,

the nighttimes were spent in air conditioning

with the windows closed.

I couldn’t smell Florida

or hear the tree frogs,

and Lulu told us
she wanted to be called Grandma.

One year

my mother brought me to Florida

when it wasn’t vacation.

I had to bring my homework with me.

Math.

And I couldn’t go in the pool until I’d done my homework.

Every morning.

I couldn’t do math when I was at school,

and I couldn’t do it when I wasn’t at school.

And my mother couldn’t do math.

She sat with me every morning at a table covered by an umbrella by the pool

and watched over me while I did something in my math book

that I didn’t understand

and she couldn’t help with.

The mockingbirds chee cheed and yip yipped in the fir trees,

the tiny lizards skittered across the pool deck.

I filled in boxes with a pencil, until

I could go in the pool.

One year
my brother and I flew down to Florida

by ourselves.

We swam and played shuffleboard and he slept on the screened porch, 

and we found a coconut on the sidewalk

that had fallen from a palm tree

and we dropped it

over and over again

from the second floor of our grandparents’ apartment building

onto the driveway
until it cracked open.
It had ants in it.

One year
my grandmother treated my brother and a new Florida friend

to a day at Disney World

that had just opened

and they went for the day while I stayed in Hallandale,

and they came back and told about the Presidents Hall

and the Haunted House and It’s a Small World and the parade,

and I’d gone swimming at the pool alone,

and missed my brother.

One year 
my grandmother knew I wished I could go to Disney World

and she woke me up at three in the morning

and we took a bus to Orlando,

just the two of us.
The bus had curtains that closed

and windows that opened,

and we rode through orange groves.

I could smell the blossoms
through the windows.

We went to the Haunted Mansion and the Hall of Presidents

and sang It’s a Small World  because there was no way not to,

and hummed it to each other on the bus ride home

in the late afternoon.

My grandmother with her sore knee

took me on the longest

and best

day trip I’d ever been on.

One year 
I flew down with my parents and

they left me with my grandmother

and went off somewhere else.

I slept in the sleep sofa
and my grandmother and I watched The Waltons

while she knit

and I ate chocolate ice cream I’d stirred into cold pudding,

and the tree frogs sang

because she left the door open to the screen porch.

Goodnight, Johnboy,

Goodnight, grandma lady.

One year 
my grandmother made a friend for me.
This is Deena. Her grandmother lives over there.
She’d be a nice friend,

she whispered loudly.

The only things we knew we had in common were

school vacation and

we were girls

and we were 10.

She’d come into the pool

if I begged,

and if she didn’t have hives.

Usually, when she wasn’t at the pool,

it was because she was soaking in an oatmeal bath.

Is Deena coming to the pool?

I’d ask her grandmother.

Not today,

she has hives.

Hives.

Please come in the pool, Deena,

it’s so boring by myself.

Can’t, just finished a bath.

I have hives.

But when she didn’t,

we had tea parties at the bottom of the pool

and practiced our handstands.

We even found a boy to play with

who was our age and

who had eyes the same color as the ocean

out Aunt Sara’s and Uncle Sam's apartment window, and

who had a little brother who liked to run after him.

When we weren't swimming
we ran through all the buildings

in my grandparents’ apartment complex,

peering around corners

like boys like to do,

after hidden secrets and adventures

we didn’t understand

but played,

until someone said we were wild

and shouldn’t

and told our grandmothers.

One year 
Nettie Meyers’ three granddaughters came

and sat on the lawn

where no one ever sat

since there were shez longs everywhere

and the grass was itchy and had lizards.

But they sat there

with their legs folded to their sides

like I’d learned to do in ballet class,

so I sat too

and hoped they’d want to swim with me,

or that they’d notice me.

But they had each other,

and I was shy.

Every year

at night,
we’d meet my grandparents’ friends for dinner

at their country clubs

and I'd hope to ride with
Aunt Sara and Uncle Sam 
who would pick us up

in their Cadillac

that had windows that went down

by pushing a button

(I wasn't allowed to push

because the air conditioning was on
and you're letting in the hot air),

and ashtrays on the armrest

with lighters in them

that glowed red

to light cigarettes
if you pushed them down
(I wasn't allowed to push them down
you'll get a burn).

At the country club
I was too cold

because of the air conditioning

and my sunburn.

I wore a cardigan draped over my shoulders and held together at the neck

by a gold beaded chain 
Grandma gave me,

made especially
to hold cardigan sweaters together

on old people

without having to put my arms through the sleeves.

Dinners out took so long

and I had to stay at the table
with no bathroom to entertain myself
since I had to please stay at the table
so I wouldn't get lost,

and finally

my mother and grandma and all the other ladies

would take out their lipstick from their pocketbooks

and put it on

at the table,

a few smudges of red lines

and some smushing together of their lips

and some dabbing away with tissues

and looking at themselves

in the tiny mirrors

that clipped on to their lipstick tubes

and then I knew
we could go.

My grandfather stood up first
every time

and said Alright? Are we ready?

Yup! I popped up out of my seat

like a slice of toast

from the toaster.

Every year
at the end of Hallandale,
we drove back to the airport,
my tote bag filled with shells
and dead seahorses,
hugged my grandparents goodbye,
see you in summer,
and flew back
to where there was snow,
and math,
and no pool.