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?

My Shiny Teeth and Me

That silly little song keeps running through my head, and I know why. It’s time for another Seyfried tooth adventure.

Don't know that I have the right to write any missive about molars and incisors. My five kids (I'm ducking so you don't hit me) have never needed braces. Never darkened an orthodontist's door. Not a huge surprise--Steve and I were braceless as well, back in the day. The money we saved on retainers alone...well, where is it? Ah, it's in the magic world of make-believe where the money we saved when they stopped wearing diapers dwells!

My toothsome memories include the totally unfair distribution of cavities. The first three kids never had a single one for years and years--Sheridan still hasn't gotten one. The two little ones, Julie in particular, possessed first baby, then permanent, teeth which were perpetually riddled with holes. Their diet was exemplary--very little sugar. No soda. They brushed faithfully. Sheridan, in contrast, went through a long stretch (literally) of chewing gum 24/7--the sugary kind. He also favored sweetened cereal, and never met a bowl of ice cream he didn't LOVE. One day, during our post-exam consult with our dentist, Dr. Mayer showed us the X-rays, first of Sher, then of Jules. Cavity score: big bro: 0, little sis: 8!!!! "Sheridan," he commented, "Do you know what the word 'irony' means?"

Evan and Rose (Rose especially) tended to lose their teeth—lose their lost teeth, that is. On the school bus, at recess, in a plate of spaghetti and meatballs at Rizzo’s restaurant. Dentina the Tooth Fairy always came through anyway, even when they’d swallowed the evidence. Julie lost two teeth within one minute, while eating a crusty piece of bread. I think she was afraid she’d just keep spitting them out until she was all gums.

My Five Favorite Grins

On Wednesday, PJ and his four wisdom teeth parted company.  He had had a toothache for awhile, and the dentist had warned us that this day was coming, so we were prepped with ibuprophen and strawberry smoothies. I recall my own, emergency wisdom teeth removal (at PJ's exact age, 20). I was acting in a play in Birmingham, Alabama, and had to pick an oral surgeon from the phone book. I remember being in a decent amount of pain for days after the procedure. PJ's recovery has been rather more rapid, glad to say. He was even up to a somewhat chewy dinner last night. Pieg had another tooth pulled in early childhood, actually a third front tooth. He'd taken a tumble and his mouth hit a table, just as the two main teeth were coming in; the root split, creating an extra. We're hoping this is his final extraction, as he actually has a rather nice smile and it would be a shame to keep plucking his pearly whites.

The number of toothbrushes in the upstairs bathroom cup has shrunk markedly. But my memories of those five little grins linger on, and always will.

Fraidy Cat

To say I am easily spooked, would be like saying Itzhak Perlman plays little violin ditties well: the understatement of the century.  I never progressed beyond age five in the bravery department. My one and only horror movie, The Exorcist, was attended just because I was dating Steve—a crowd was going to the midnight show and I didn't want to wimp out. Luckily, in the darkness, no one could tell my eyes were shut and my ears plugged.

The Screamer

As you can imagine, I made the ideal parent. Every stomach bug was the plague, every fever, meningitis. When baby Sheridan slept too little, Evan too much, Rosie not at all; when toddler PJ chose screaming over speaking, and newborn Julie failed to respond to sound as much as I felt she should, something was always capital W Wrong. I'm surprised Dr. Lockman didn't add a nuisance charge to the Seyfried bill for all my extra calls and questions over the years.

The kids’ teens gave me ample opportunities to be fearful. Sher, at 18, moved downtown to an apartment, solo (Curtis did not have dorms). I tried not to think of the peril he undoubtedly put himself in, but thought of little else. One night, late, he called to "chat."  I enjoyed our phone visit at first. When conversational topics ran out, and we were looping back to The Weather, Take Two, and still he talked...something was capital W Wrong! Finally, he said, "I just turned my key in the lock, Mom, I'm home. There were two weird guys walking behind me all the way from the train station, and I felt safer talking to you." "Oh, honey…" I began, horrified. "OK bye," he hung up, next stop Dreamland. I, of course, was awake all night.

Rose and some of the sinister people of Thailand

When Rosie went to Thailand as a high school junior, my fears for her general well-being were legion. Rose tried to calm me with her description of Chiang Rai as totally safe, and the Thai people as gentle and completely non-violent--but I wasn't buying it. She came home at last, with nothing but the most wonderful stories of her year in Asia.

You'd think after that, I might lighten up a tad when she decided on college in Boston. Not a chance. Just before her departure, I sought out mace or something similar. I was surprised to find that the likeliest local spot to purchase was a nearby gun shop. I crept in, looking quite the opposite of a seasoned firearms buff, and asked the clerk if they carried pepper spray. His immediate response? "Where is your daughter going to college?" Wow, how did he know?

Needless to say, I don't think Rosie carried the pepper spray once. She has never agreed with my vision of the world as a Dark and Frightening Place--and neither have the other kids.

How much of life is perception? Why is my perception often skewed in a negative direction?

When will I stop being so scared?

Best Birthday Ever

When I was a little girl, I hated the fact that my birthday falls three days before Christmas. I never had a party; the grownups were too distracted setting up our Charlie Brown tree (then sweeping up the broken ornaments as it toppled over yet again). Very often, I'd get a combo gift (Merry/Happy) and few cards arrived in our house that weren't Yuletide greetings.

 As I grew older, I came to rather enjoy the placement of the day. The festive atmosphere, the carols, the cookies, all added to the fun of advancing to the next age. I loved getting little presents from the kids that had been purchased at the elementary school holiday gift shop: the "I love Mom" pen, guaranteed not to run out of ink for 15 minutes; the "Mom's the Best" dinner bell (useful for calling everyone in from the fields for chow); the "World's #1 Mom" coffee mug (not advised, I learned, for hot liquids).

 Then came the milestones (35! 40!) that I dreaded. Who, honestly, WANTS to turn 50? Maybe if we didn't mention it, I hoped, it wouldn't be true. I'd tell myself "It's only a number," in which case, I chose the number 21. Didn't work.

 Once my chickies started leaving the nest, I only wanted one thing for my birthday: everyone home together. Much easier wished for than done.

Gathering even a majority of Seyfried children in one spot requires ridiculous logistics. The last time all five were at home at the same time was Labor Day, 2009.  Since that happy afternoon, group visits of any sort have been like math problems: Sheridan + PJ + Julie-Rose-Evan; Rose+Evan-PJ-Julie-Sheridan; etc. There were always people missing from the equation. While seeing any combination was fabulous, of course, I still longed for the day we'd all be reunited.

 Evan's Navy schedule has always been the wild card. This year, he requested Christmas leave, and got it. Maybe, at long last, the full complement of Seyfrieds would celebrate together.

 As the December days went by, it was starting to look actually possible. They would all be in one place for my birthday, and Sheridan decided that a holiday Seyfried concert at church was in order.

Fast-forward to Thursday, "B'day Me!" (as my Dad used to write on the family calendar every year--now there was a man who loved his birthday).

At 4:30 PM, I got my birthday gift. Rosie walked in the door, and I had my five children, under one roof.

They put on a great concert that night, but it was hard for me to focus on the music. I was just busy delighting in the sight of the Seyfried family. Together at last.

We have no idea when our next reunion will be. Evan heads back to Pearl Harbor; the others will scatter to school and jobs and their busy lives. But if I live to be 100, I think Dec. 22, 2011 will still rank as The Best Birthday Ever.