Always

Dear Ben and Te-Ping,

Happy Wedding Day! So funny to think that you were in first grade, Ben (and I was your mom’s 35-year-old friend) just last week, but here we are. I LOVE weddings, and am really looking forward to yours. It will be bittersweet because you two are headed off to a new life in Hong Kong, but what an exciting future you have ahead of you! 

I’m sure you’ve been getting heaps of advice from all kinds of people about navigating married life, and since you have been together awhile you already know each other very well too. But perhaps no one has touched on the following nuggets of wisdom, so I’d like to pass them along to you.

1)      There will come a day when you may need bifocals. All the better to see each other’s wrinkles. You’ll wonder at the fact that wrinkles are suddenly so attractive. 

2)      There will come a day when one of you will forget the anniversary of the first time you went out for coffee. The other one will still remember, and a tear may be shed. Don’t worry! Eventually, you will both forget, and go on to forgetting where the car is parked, your children’s ages, and where your bifocals are (check top of head). 

3)      If one of you is skilled in a particular area (handwriting, say) and the other is deficient, the skilled person’s abilities will decline over time until it’s chicken scratch for both of you. This is called compatibility.

4)      You are both extremely intelligent, launched on wonderful careers. This means you will often be tired, and perhaps a wee bit cranky. When that happens, you may engage in some barbed badinage: “Why, beloved, after a plethora of admonitions, do you persistently neglect to transport your dish and utensils to the washbasin in the scullery?” Perfectly normal.

5)       You will experience many moments of telepathy, when one of you knows exactly what the other is thinking without uttering a sound. When gazing into each other’s eyes at a romantic dinner out, for example, you will suddenly realize that your loved one is concentrating on the fight at the next table, or figuring the tip. It’s uncanny.

6)      If you have markedly different tastes in, say, movies or music, that’s OK. You’re both entitled to your opinion, as long as you remember that Ben’s is wrong and Te-Ping’s is right.  

7)      There will be good days and bad days, good years and bad years. Married life, like all of life, is a wild rollercoaster ride—but think about it: what’s the fun of riding a rollercoaster alone?

Wishing you a beautiful celebration today, full of joy and laughter. More than that, wishing you the happiness Steve and I have found with each other for the past 35 years, cranky, distracted, stubborn, and forgetful as we both can be. 

So go ahead, climb aboard. Hold onto each other’s hands, and enjoy the ride. 

Love, Elise

BE Double R I GAN Spells Berrigan

I had (as all of us have) two grandpas.

 One, Pop Cunningham (Dad's dad) was something of a wastrel: 8th grade dropout, hard-smoking, hard-drinking, hard-living in general...part owner of a NYC trucking company...at one point in the 1930's, Pop "disappeared" for a couple of years to Chicago (tax problems, apparently). At another point, his kneecaps were broken in a shadowy incident involving money owed. Colorful as a set of 96 Crayolas, Pop was, to me, quite a character, fascinating but pretty unlovable.

Grandpa center, the Bambino to his left

 Enter Pop's polar opposite: Mom's dad, Jack Berrigan. A role model, an inspiration. Fiercely loyal, friend to all he met. The original self-made man. Jack worked his way through college playing minor league baseball for the Bronx Giants. In later years, he had many a tale to tell--he once lost 20 lbs. during an August double-header in St. Louis; by the end of his baseball career he had broken every finger, at least twice. I have a photo of him with Babe Ruth. When he courted my Grandma, Rose Smith, she swore she would never marry a ballplayer (income too uncertain!) So Jack went to Fordham Law School, shortly after graduation partnered with his brother Jimmy in a wild new profession: insurance. For some reason, this plan got the Rose Smith seal of approval, and they wed.  Berrigan and Berrigan Insurance grew to be a most successful NY firm with many prominent clients.

I was only 9 when Grandpa Berrigan died. I have strong memories of him to be sure--cutting roses from his garden for us to take back to Manhattan after a Sunday visit to Larchmont, devising clever ways to baffle the squirrels (the bane of his existence), cheering baseball games on his black-and-white TV, mocking that new-fangled sensation, The Beatles (I wish I had a tape of his "I Wanna Wring Your Neck").

 Grandpa battled asthma all his life, back in a time without inhalers and other sources of relief. He would literally pass out trying to breathe. Indeed, when he died, it was because his heart exploded from his herculean efforts to get oxygen. At his wake and funeral, people from all walks of life, from bigwig executive to the elevator operator, talked about his kindness, his interest in their lives.

So I was proud of my Grandpa. But what sealed the deal were the never-ending reminiscences of his offspring, my mom and uncles. The picture they painted was not of a saint--he was somewhat strict, and Saturday morning chores could last all day long. He was sometimes impatient with my rather wifty mom, his only daughter. He struggled to relate to his son Don, born with Down's syndrome. But they REMEMBERED everything about this man, this towering personality, this sterling character. Even in recent visits, his children, now past the age he was when he died, waxed eloquent about Jack: "a piece of work," but one they adored.

I miss you, Grandpa. They broke the mold when they made you.

Only photo I have of the 4 grandparents, at my first communion (Grandpa Berrigan is on the left)

20 Super Amazing Shoes!

That's one of the cover stories in this month's InStyle magazine--but you already knew that, didn't you?

Six years ago, I would have been all over that headline. What's the latest? I would have feverishly noted: platform, kitten heel, slouchy boot? And I would have hot-footed (sorry) it to the mall to purchase one pair of each. At least.

For roughly 48 years, I had a take-it-or leave it approach to shopping. I never "got" it--the thrill of the hunt, the fun of browsing the racks of Bloomingdales AND Gap AND Ann Taylor, the satisfaction of heading to the parking lot after a big haul, laden with 60% markdown booty. Oh, I'd do my due diligence when gifts needed to be purchased, or when my 15-year-old winter coat finally fell apart. But my heart was never in it. Bargain-seeking was something I endured, not enjoyed.

When I became suddenly riveted by glossy fashion magazines, when the ka-ching of the opening cash register sent my pulse pounding and I planned my week around Macy's One Day Sale--well, I should have known something was wrong. I had, for years, owned three pairs of shoes--sneakers, one pair of heels, flip-flops--and felt my tootsies were set for all contingencies. Now, I had to go out and buy a bi-level shoe rack to accommodate the branch of DSW that had recently opened in my closet.

When does a passion for shopping become a pathology?

When it's new. When it flies in the face of everything you thought you were.

 I remember exactly when I looked up "bipolar" online, and realized, with sinking heart, that "bipolar" was me. Chapter and verse. Every single symptom. Me. I'd been feeling for months like my moods were a runaway freight train: sobs and wild laughter rapidly alternating. At first, I chalked it up to early menopause, but in truth it ran so much deeper than hot flashes, that I knew. I knew.

So it was off to the shrink for talk therapy and oceans of meds. The first months were pretty horrific. Lithium is basically a salt pill. I'd line up water bottles on my bedside table to down throughout the night--and still I thirsted. Seroquel made me do some scary things (have you ever tried to drink a lit candle? Under the influence of Seroquel, I tried). Finally, I found the psychiatrist with the prescription savvy I'd needed so badly. For the past five years, he has been my lifeline, and I have achieved a new normal. Sick, but getting ever better.

Where does all of this leave the Compulsive Shopper? Mall-shy, basically. I treat the latest ULTA circular as porn, and pitch it quickly. I'm back to enduring, not enjoying, the grocery store. I can walk boldly by the Hallmark shop without buying them out of birthday greetings. And yet…

And yet. 20 super amazing shoes! beckon, a siren song covered in red leather.

What can it hurt to try some on?

1994 Dictionary

That was the year we reached critical mass as a family (#5, Julie, was born). My memories of that 12 month span are a bit hazy, the haze induced by not enough caffeine (#5, Julie, wasn't born until December) and entirely too much Raffi. But I do reflect back and recall some of the words that fill my life, now, that didn't exist in their current incarnations, then.

This is what I meant, in 1994, when I said:

Laptop: where the kids went to be cuddled and soothed; rapidly disappearing perch (#5, Julie, was making her fetal presence apparent). "PJ and Rose, you may each have a turn on my laptop, but not both at once."

Facebook: family photo album, chock-full to bursting with shots of our tiny treasures' mugs--sleeping, eating, playing, crying, covered with strained beets, covered with chicken pox, covered with lipstick from Nana's overenthusiastic smooches. "After we get the photos developed at CVS, we can put them in the facebook."

Blog: spit up, and the sound spit up makes when it hits the floor. "If I have to clean up any more blog I think I will scream."

Zip file: Lining them up to secure their snowsuits for a winter outing. "Rose, zip,  PJ, zip, etc."

Twitter: The race of my heart when the older ones began, reliably, to do chores. "Whenever Evan cleans up Julie's blog, I am all a-twitter."

Email: Letters I would write, on paper, and place in envelopes, and stamp, and take to the mailbox: "My sister C got an E (Elise) mail from me last week."

Hard drive: Atlanta to Philly with the whole fam, and the transmission acting up (we were afraid to stop much in case we couldn't start the car again). Add to that two kids blogging. Hard, hard drive.

Cell phone: dragging the cord into a closet (my little cell) so I could hear my caller over the shrieks of my rambunctious offspring.

iphone: What Rosie did at age 3, when she picked up the receiver and dialed my mother (long distance, middle of the day, $$$$). "Mommy, I phone Nana!"

Mac: a type of truck, the feeling of being run over by which I knew well, "When Sheridan woke me up for the 10th time, I felt like I was hit by a Mack truck."

ipad: Part of childproofing. iplug the outlets, ifence off the dining room, ipad the crib with a bumper. They still managed to get hurt.

Julie on Nana's laptop

It is fitting that we spoke with a different vocabulary. It was such a different time in our lives—so exhausting, so happy, so full. I note that every innovation I just wrote down has led to a speeding up of our days, and I have definite mixed emotions about that. I hope someday, when my five become parents, that they’ll take the time to slow down, gather their tiny ones on their laptops, and listen to a little “Baby Beluga” once in awhile.

Nĭ hăo

Why, why, I kick myself, did I not become bi (or tri) lingual back when I had a functioning brain?

For someone who loves to talk as much as I do, it is sheer torture to meet a non-English-speaking person and not be able to communicate! Oh, I put in my years of high school French with the formidable Madame Kohn (I still wake up in a cold sweat after dreams of being called on to read aloud from Balzac). But I was, and remain, truly the Teflon linguist: nouns and verbs slide as easily from my memory as fried eggs from a coated pan. 

Fresh from my failure en français, in college I decided to go German; my new husband was of Teutonic descent.  If I'm ever stranded in Düsseldorf, I'd better be satisfied with getting to the nearest playground (durch den park) for a turn on the monkey bars, because that's the only destination I can reliably articulate. Once, in a fit of I-don't-know-what, I bought some Irish language tapes. Did you know the standard phrase of greeting is "God and Mary be with you?" I am in possession of that useful nugget of information, which will serve me well on the Emerald Isle, where a whopping 1% of the populace still speaks Gaelic. When I took a group of youth from church to Costa Rica, I bought Spanish tapes. From them, I learned: how to order a beer ("uno cerveza, por favor"),which my mission trip kids would never be allowed to do anyway.

I had resigned myself to the life of the lame-o English-speaker, when along came Ya-Jhu.

Sheridan’s girlfriend has been living with us since the fall. She is a native of Taiwan, fluent in her birth language, but also astoundingly adept at ours. Yaj can understand (and make) jokes. She can use very sophisticated adjectives and adverbs, accurately. She fearlessly traverses the perilous landscape of American English. Therefore, when she suggested coaching us in Mandarin, what could we say but yes, please?

How is it going? Well, we’ve had two lessons to date, and both have been rather successful. I can now attest that things are tasty (hăo chī), and I can reference my computer (diàn-nǒw). If they ever start making computers out of chocolate (hăo chī de diàn-nǒw) I am all set. What’s the difference? Why do I feel even somewhat confident that I can become conversant in what is arguably the toughest language on the planet?

The difference is the teacher. We love Ya-Jhu. We would follow her lead if she were teaching us Esperanto, or Tagalog. We want to honor the effort she is making to bridge the linguistic gap. Sheridan is, of course, light years ahead of us in Chinese. But we will catch up, we swear. It's, increasingly, a small world. When we care, really care, we do whatever it takes to connect. Right now, we may be bu hăo (bad). But we will perservere. 

 Hello (nĭ hăo), small world. 

Quitting Time

Captain Hook and Smee

My kids recently expressed sorrow that I finally stopped performing in our children's theatre. For some reason (wonder why?) they’d always enjoyed seeing their mother make a fool of herself onstage, fussing and fuming as the Wicked Queen in Snow White, "flying" and sword fighting as Peter Pan. I've been playing these parts since 1979, when I was a mere slip of a girl, and it wasn't quite such a stretch to imagine me skipping down the Yellow Brick Road.

 When Steve and I were young marrieds, it was just the two of us, hitting the road, and the stage, in hundreds of schools, libraries, recreation centers and theatres all over the Northeast every year. Looking back, I truly don't know how we did it. We averaged 2-3 performances per day, nearly every day, with travel in between. The show went on, through fevers and broken wrists and even pregnancies. I became an expert at concealment, donning ever larger and looser dresses so that the viewers weren't traumatized by the sight of Dorothy, six months along, waddling to Oz. Along the way, we acquired endurance (our record: 5 Pedrolinos in a single day). We developed thick skins, when the kids were either rowdy or--worse--eerily still throughout the show (this often happened in Catholic schools, after Sister Mary Authoritarian warned everyone to be QUIET in her pre-curtain speech. Nothing quite as embarrassing as doing comic pratfalls and making jokes to pin-drop silence). We became flexible, as our venues ranged from huge auditoriums to a tiny space between library bookshelves. We learned to live and work together, 24/7, with a remarkable level of civility, even when my lousy map-reading took us three towns in the wrong direction when we were already late for a gig.

For years now, I have been gradually bowing out of the shows, citing the demands of my other job and my ever-advancing years. Yet I remained the go-to actress when Steve was in a pinch, largely because of my scary-good memory (in the script area only--in all other areas, the memory is scary-bad). With no rehearsal I could (literally) leap into Toad's Escape and sweep into Cinderella, without missing a beat. Little wonder, I guess, that my husband still depended on me to save the theatrical day.  So, through my forties and early fifties, on I trouped. Our young audiences, bless them, never commented on the fact that, clearly, Alice in Wonderland was as almost as old as their grandmas.

Elise and Steve @ Rehoboth Summer Children's Theatre, 1982

Alas, all things must come to an end. I have hung up my crazy costumes for good, and retired my ruby slippers too. I have kissed a large and very important part of my life goodbye. It was a heckuva lot of fun while it lasted. Now it's quitting time.

Knowing when to stop is one of life’s most valuable lessons. I pray, as I grow older, I can recognize all the other quitting times in my future. And make my peace with them.

Photo Op

Put that camera down, please.

No, I mean it.

OK, take my picture, but if you post it online I will kill you.

I have always been photographically challenged. Ask me to snap a pic of you at the beach or, Lord help us, at your wedding reception, and, when I finally figure out how to operate your camera, be prepared to hit the "delete" button because you will NOT look good. I guarantee it. I inevitably catch my victims with mouths hanging open, or blinking, or grimacing. With my digital wizardry, I can transform even a supermodel into a frump.

It's worse when the lens is turned on me. I have one stock expression (smiling) that is tolerable, and so I try to be grinning whenever the paparazzi draw near, even at funerals. Otherwise, the results are most unfortunate: it looks as if I am having a Bad Hair, Face and Body Day.

My sister C thinks she is very un-photogenic.  Therefore, our albums feature everyone BUT Carolyn. She's usually off in a corner with a bag over her head, lest a shot accidentally include her. My mom used to be equally camera-shy, and in truth she was much prettier in person than on film. The sad result, now that Mom's gone, is that we have precious few tangible reminders of her.

On our walls hang very old photos, some dating back to the early 1900s. It was such a different time; picture-taking was a rare event. Decked out in their finest, looking stiff and uncomfortable, Steve's grandparents sit, solemn-faced children on their knees, for a family portrait. My dad, at about nine months old, peeks out of an ornate baby carriage. I'm so glad to have these relics of the past, and when I look at them I imagine myself into their lives.

Tommy Cunningham, 1927

My kids are coming of age at the most visually documented time in history. The digital revolution has made photography ridiculously easy; it's not uncommon for one concert outing to spawn 100 or more cell phone pics ("There's Emily and me in front of the Electric Factory. Now we're making goofy faces. Now we're making goofy faces and pointing at each other," etc. etc.) These images are then loaded onto their computers, where they are added to the hundreds of albums already there.

My daughters make goofy faces

There must be a happy medium, between no pictures and a multitude, a place where my looking silly is OK. A place where C and I can be comfortable, whatever our facial expressions, knowing that the only reactions to our photos that truly matter are those of the people who love us. Looked at through the lens of love, anyone can be beautiful (try it yourself with even unfortunate shots of people special to you—they look fine, don’t they?)

All right, take my picture. I really don’t mind. Someday, my grandchild may see it, and remember me. And come on, C, get in the picture with me. Let’s make goofy faces.

Resolute

Just have a feeling. 2012 is gonna be my year.

I stopped making New Year’s resolutions quite a while ago, when it became clear that, however many times I put them on the list, I was not actually ever going to learn to speak Italian, play chess, or parallel park. My pantry remains a jumble of boxes and jars and cans arranged without  rhyme or reason. My windows remain unwashed and my floors unwaxed. My computer files are organized like a treasure hunt, with “work” folders containing recipes and “home” folders filled with Sunday School lesson plans. On a more personal level, I still have to have the last word in any argument with Steve, I still interrupt entirely too much, I continue to nag the kids. It seems I am, as 2012 dawns, exactly as incompetent and imperfect as I was in 1972.  

So why should this year be any different?

Because THIS year, I will set the bar lower— a good bit lower. 2012 won’t see me clipping coupons and feeding the family for a pittance. It will, however, be the year I will save a whole dime per week by buying the house brand of yogurt at the store instead of the Dannon’s (by next December I can treat the gang to $5.20 worth of fun). I may not—ever—win any Good Housekeeping prize, but I will remember to clean out the lint filter in the dryer, at least once in a while. I won’t put “run a 5K” down in ink anywhere, but I will happily vow to “walk from the house to the car on a regular basis.” I will add “and many more” to all my future Facebook birthday greetings. 

 

In the relationship arena, I will only have the last word in my arguments when I’m right. I will only interrupt if what I have to say is more important. I will only nag the kids when they aren’t doing something they should be doing, or when doing something they shouldn’t. This plan is guaranteed to improve my behavior by at least 1-2 %. At this rate, 100% improvement is a mere 50-100 years away!

I will also pad the list with things I will, reliably, NOT do. This year, I promise:

Not to play, or watch, pro football. Not to vacation on Fiji. Not to skydive or jet ski or go spelunking. I will not win an Academy Award, or a Nobel, or the lottery. No counted cross-stitch for me, or preserving the bounty from my garden (canned gout weed, anyone?) No checking the oil in the car (after 39 years as a driver, I couldn’t even begin to tell you how to do that). 

It’s shaping up to be a great and extremely doable list. I anticipate success upon success. When I toast 2013, I’ll be able to look back with pride on the year when I kept every single one of my New Year’s resolutions.  

And how many people can say that?