Miriam Feder

Enjoy the food, the drink, a few presents and most importantly–one another.

“Tomorrow you can see Diana’s new piece.” Diana lives next door to my hostess and she’s a Liturgical Choreographer, whatever that means. Delightful—a free dance performance in Manhatten.

On Sunday morning I head off on foot through Central Park to the Church where the performance will start at ten. Ten a.m. seems an odd time for a dance performance.

The wind is especially wicked, whipping my unsuspecting flesh through my gloves and past my lungs. Although I’m in my twenties, I’m gasping and teary-eyed. Mind you, I’m no winter wimp. In college, I walked that evil bridge across the Mississippi many many January Minnesota nights. My Chicago mile-to-school-up-hill-both-ways stories are in mothballs for future grandchildren. Cold weather in Manhattan is different, though—it’s windier and lonelier.

I’m wearing just about everything I brought to New York. The duck-hunter’s ugly down vest is poochyand brown long before either were fashionable. The black wool coat weighs me down and twists around my legs in the wind. I might as well have left my jeans and long underwear at home for all the good they do me.

Central Park is empty. I endure it and don’t see a person until I’m heading south on Park Avenue. He’s a mid fifties sort of guy in a black-diamond mink coat walking a well-dressed Airdale. Steam rises from both of them; I am invisible. That’s ok, I’m relieved to be walking measurable blocks alongside buildings. I can think about my destination rather than Jack London endings.

Oh I noticed that mink coat, all right. And the gracious buildings and classy cars. Sexy ladies from the eighties, hunh? I wonder if this might not be a fancier affair than I contemplated?

It’s Sunday morning, two weeks before Christmas. Am I heading toward a church service? Is this some special sort of day? I bet it is. Suddenly I notice a swarm of limousines at a large building in the next block.

I’d never go to my own religious services dressed anything like this, even if it wasn’t a special holiday season-sort of day. But here I am and it’s too cold to walk away. Besides, it’s all about the dance.

The limos and taxis discharge snow white winter suits, ermine collars, cashmere, sparkling hats, and pearls. The rabble wears mink. What was I thinking?

I get caught in the swirl of entry into the gracious old church building and head toward the front. I haven’t come this far not to see the choreography. I skip the first couple of rows in case there is some special obligation. I get a good view from a third-row seat.

My ermine-trimmed neighbor and I exchange greetings. Everything matches. It’s warm.

Oh to be one of those people who sit wrapped-up in her coat. But in my world it was rude and unwise to stay coated indoors. Too bad, I almost could have passed. The panels of black Forstmann wool are by far the best part of my outfit and my raggy jeaned legs would be mostly hidden. But now that I’ve stopped throwing my body against the wind my cheeks sting hot, hands turn red and I might pass out. The coat comes off and I stuff the vest under a pew.

I am the lost last-decade hippy chick, au too naturelle. Maybe there is something remotely charming in the ragamuffin’s struggle through the cold to worship. And, for all its ermine, a congregation that has half-nude modern dancers and a string quartet on its alter in 1978 must be fairly enlightened.

Enlightened perhaps, but my neighbor is also intent on seeing that I sing my way through the service. Her pointer thrusts into my hymnal for the many follow-on verses of O Little Town of Bethlehem.

“Gratitude.” Yes, I’m grateful for the heat and that there’s no confusing kneeler or footrest. “Collection plate.” If I could have parted with money, I would have taken a cab. But smiles abound and I’ve settled into my role as the Crampet’s older headstrong girl.

Finally it’s time for the dance—my excuse for exposing these lovely people to me. I recall nothing. Some thirty years later, it’s my sense of ignorance and surprise, the warmth of the space and the tolerance of my neighbors—the true spirit of Christmas all around me—that I remember.

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is giv’n
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heav’n.

What is Chanukah all about? Chanukah, my children, Chanukah is the festival of socks. Each year the great Bubbe comes to the foot of each child’s bed and takes a sniff.

“Och, gotenyu. What a smell. I can tell you need new socks, you little stinker.”

And so, all over the world, at Chanukah, children get socks to replace the old worn out and stinky ones from last Chanukah. So now you know! Now we understand our non-Jewish neighbors, who always like to borrow our traditions and adjust them just a bit, come to hang their stockings by the hearth. Their Great Bubbe goes in drag and has a yen for fireplaces. Do we have fireplaces? No. Who would chop the wood? Who would make the fire? But it’s good for the Goyim. So socks connect us all with a sense of the warmth of the season.

Chocolate, my children, we celebrate Chanukah to appreciate how good the world is when there are eight days in a row of chocolate at our table. We have chocolates to share, to give and most importantly to eat. We even have chocolate to drink-noch. We make chocolate into money and gamble for it with our dreidels. If we are very lucky we get many Gimmels. Gimmels are for great—a great miracle happened here. Of course I’m right—I just won all the chocolate. Ante up so I can spin again before my dreidel cools off.

And why is chocolate so important? It’s the most delicious thing of all. It is rich and warm. It can be wrapped in beautiful paper and please the eye, even the eye of a grumpy Shin spinner. It gives you energy. It’s energy and hope that make you spin again and again and eventually you might get at least a Hay and split the pot. Chocolate makes you sweet on the inside, which makes you sweet on the outside which makes the world sweet.

Nuts kinder, nuts. This is what we want on Chanukah. The earth has given us nuts of the season and we use these to play and play with our dreidel. Nuts of all kinds, with their pretty little wooden homes. Round mahogany homes for filberts, thin crowded pecan shells crammed with sweetness. Stout comfortable walnut shells so that walnuts may play Chanukah games before they serve as Charoseth next Pesach and even dark crinkly homes for Brazil nuts, full of oil, like our beloved lamp.

Oh but you must think I am silly to forget the star of the whole show, quietly waiting in the dark for me to notice—our humble and most-dear Chanukah friend—the potato. The potato gives it’s all for Chanukah, allowing it’s pale flesh to be shredded, and stirred with eggs and onion and ladled into hot grease, flipped on it’s back, splashed with sour cream or applesauce (ok, you can have both) chewed and swallowed and maybe even some day soon, digested. This gentle giant promises all year long, reminding us how much we love Chanukah for the excuse to make latkes, for the better excuse to eat latkes, and for all the oil we can consume with each latke. And this, this little potato, really this is the secret of Chanukah. How the perfectly ordinary, so common among us, shines with greatness in the lights of hope, happiness, family, food and song.

What? You say Chanukah is not the potato, not the nuts, not the chocolate, not the warm snuggly socks? You’ve got to be kidding. Not even the beautiful menorah all bright with her warm candles? Songs—are you sad because I forgot the wonderful Chanukah songs where everyone knows the first two lines and hums the rest slightly out of tune? Is that what you think?

Oh, no. You think it’s us? Me, and the children, and our friends, and the guy I work with, and my neighbor, all gathered around the menorah while I look for the matches, turn down the soup that’s boiling over, flip the latkes one last time and finally make the brocha. You think that’s what Chanukah’s all about? Well, maybe you’re right.

 

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In Big Words I’m exploring some simple words we all know that seem to get bigger and bigger as my understanding and perspective shifts. This reminiscence is about my Father–fortunately a big character in my life.

As I tossed about restlessly, I could almost see him. For an instant, he broke free of that snapshot I carry in my head–the rounded 65-year old body, fixed with the bemused-and-perhaps disapproving look, about to burst into a hearty laugh from his barrel chest, followed by a cough or two and a gasp. I tried to morph his image back into the younger man he must have been when his arms would catch me, racing to his knees.  Daddy traveled so much, he was always like a special guest in the house. But he loved being a Daddy.  You could tell.

He performed the Friday night blessings in a heartfelt tenor that discouraged joining in—although he wanted participation. At 40 he began his athletic career by risking his apple-shaped body on thin blades of steel, braving the too, too cold and the smelly relief of the warming hut, so I would have someone to skate with. It was an invigorating shared misery. He always smelled salty after these adventures.

By the half-in half-out drifts of morning, I did see him, sense him. I called to him, a little fearful, as usual. I felt unsure of the world and afraid of his disapproval most of all.

Sylvan was a little surprised to find what a conventional life he led. He always acted as if he knew different worlds and could have walked through any of them comfortably. He seemed part Sam Spade, part Enrico Caruso.  He idolized FDR and always mistrusted the establishment. People trusted him with their money and family problems and he helped.

He was rocked out of his small town ethnic America by the call to war: a war against fascism; a war against genocide aimed at his own people.  He left the claustrophobia of the old neighborhood and was thrown in with other young men of every stripe, people he never would have met in ordinary times.  He was Father to some, brother to others. He shipped overseas and was taken in by a grateful British housewife. He was commissioned In North Africa to buy supplies in French. He saw death, he knew women. He came home from war a pacifist.

I wish I had the day to day stories. “What did you really DO in the War, Daddy.” But instead I often rolled my eyes and whined “Dad” when the tales would begin their cycle again.

If he had lived longer, would I have gotten to know him better?  Would I sit still for the repetitive stories, ask the probing questions, complete the pictures I stoppedgathering almost 20 years ago?  Or would I be annoyed at his slowness and frailty, at the obstinacy and routines of old men.  Would I have continued to be too rushed by the crush between generations to note the gifts of either one?

When I watched my mother slip into dementia, I would sometimes think “What would HE think about her.” I’d be embarrassed for her as I’d picture him there before us, critical as always. Then I’d remember—who is he to criticize her; he went and died. Where does he get off rolling his bulging eyes, judging her absent mind?

Sometimes I wonder why I had to run so hard away from my parents.  Sometimes I’m in their clutches still…. I’m grateful for their wisdom and for the strange weave that they made in me.

 

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Thanks for a big brown bird, soft and crunchy stuffing, sweet yams, a tart cranberry relish and ample bottles of wine. Thanks for a fresh green salad and don’t mind if I skip the smashed potatoes, rolls and that baked broccoli-cheese traditional. Who would notice?

Thanks for bringing this group together year upon year, through marriages, visiting parents, babies, toddlers, widowed mothers, t’weens, divorces, rearrangements, and— for some time now— only one Grandma left. Maybe sometime we’ll be the grandmas. Will that add to or take away? Yes, well, don’t anyone hold their breath.Thanks for all the spills, the misses, and fine nights of charades.

This is what my Thanksgivings have looked like for most of thirty years. A tight and cozy table at a friend’s house with once-a-year linen and platters upon platters. It must have been a whole year between each one of these food-a-thons, but I’m surprised they add up so high.

Thanks for good fortune in our own lives. We’re fortunate that our sadnesses have been transitory: real but not chronic. Long suffering has stayed distant from this table. Death has come only for the older ones.  We’ve come to know that’s not always the case and so we’ve grown so very grateful.

Our children…they already grew up so fast. Now that we see the rate of spin, we know their lives will fly right by at an increasing rate. We know that the next ten years might have some harsh surprises for them—for us. No rush, no rush—but no slowing it down.

Take a few moments before dessert. Take a basket, choose teams and try to recollect the movies ofthe year, the book titles nobody read and the songs that separate the generations.  Let me hold onto this enormous good and gather in all the smells and tastes, the warmth and the story, the hopes, the disappointments and the familiar smiles. Let me taste them like another course, no matter how full I am. Four and twenty lifetimes baked in a pie. Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

 

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I’m looking for a “special object.” What makes something stand out as special?  My eye floats across my surfaces.  I live in a high-stuff environment, much to the dismay of my inner monk. My objects have objects. There are small delicate family treasures, like crystal, china and stone. Then there are gifts from dear ones or things I’ve collected traveling. Things might be interesting, beautiful, occasionally valuable, inspiring, and maybe even tender. But what object has meaning?

Should it be something I purchased or something that was gifted or handed down? Are items from the past more meaningful or should it be something very now?  There are other variables: breakage; repair; connection; guilt; luxury; resentment.

Maybe it’s something I made myself in a moment of inspiration or creative therapy. Quickly my brain starts it’s muttering: that should have been finished better; see where the glaze pulled away?  I needed to allow more time between processes. The comments remind me I should be more careful, more attentive. I should try it again, learn from my mistakes, become a better craftsman and then I’d have the object free from doubt.

But the next time I’m creating I become distracted in a different direction being brand new yet again. Again—always—I invent as the clay is drying in my hands. Quick.  Yes, it would have been relatively easy to follow the plan and make the dinner predictable and fine, the file complete, the display transforming. How much would it take to melt away the tiny flaws and show mastery? Would that take a different me?

I don’t have the soul of a perfectionist although sometimes have the soul—or perhaps the soul-lessness—of a critic. Sometimes I can be that mind that looks for imperfection behind every trace—the cat who seeks reward for bringing a lifeless bird through the kitchen door for Mistress. Critic wants to protect, but instead she prevents.

“A precious object,” I remind myself. My eye lights on a small stuffed hedgehog.  Some years ago it pulled me into the zoo gift shop, where I quickly surveyed the entire stock. I sorted keenly and bought the very best three, anxious to spread these treasures to my little family.

When I bring my eyes to the little fleck of fabric woodsiness, I smile inside. There’s no weight of regret, criticism, disappointment, death or imperfection. There’s a bit of silliness and anachronism, perhaps, but its cuteness has withstood the test.

But is this THE object?  I think of Morgan and Rhubarb, my worn, over-loved stuffed animals from childhood. They came to my adult home a dozen years ago, tucked away in a family bureau. I rarely take them out of their plastic bag.

Instead, quite convinced, I pick a stone bear fetish from New Mexico. Perhaps I’m cheating—this is an object of obvious power. Or perhaps that’s exactly what I’m looking for. I share the coolness, smoothness, healing and power of the bear. By holding it, by using it, I derive its power. Sitting on the shelf it has none.  It becomes a special object in my hands. Maybe its special-ness is not in my hands alone, but in my hands the tiny stone bear has power.

 

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Alone is a common way to be when you’re an only child. So common I stopped noticing that other people were usually in groups. So common I didn’t bother to learn how to share myself with others. Physical needs, those could be dispatched in hot-blooded bedrooms and backseats. Social needs were fulfilled in parties and communal living. But day to day walking and working through life nobody seemed to notice me—even me.

I wouldn’t call myself a loner. I’ve always had gatherings on my calendar, different pockets of people, new friends to make, old friends to catch up on. But I’m just fine alone—even in a movie theater—that most forbidding of lone adventures.

I’ve walked the streets of small towns, big cities, beaches, exotic continents, parks and neighborhoods, all alone. I’ve made most decisions big and small alone. I’ve trod the hardest trails alone: a father’s death; a mother’s deterioration; divorce; a child’s debilitating illness; job loss; career dissatisfaction. I barely knew to call on anyone. I kept partners and friends at the periphery. There has always been an invisible barrier that I unknowingly establish. Some came closer and then spun out. Some couldn’t stand the demands, the not-knowing, the shifting priorities these trials set up for me. Some would have been there for me had I let them. And some did get through to me and took a bit of the strain from my tired bones.

I lived well-loved with my parents for eighteen years. I spent thirty years as part of one couple or another. People might not have noticed how alone I was. Coupling can be so isolating. At its worst, it steals the generous mantle of solitude and replaces it with missed opportunity. And it looks to all the world like you have a partner. In those unconnected hours face to face with my partner, drenched in the ice-water of failed intimacy alone became loneliness.

When embrace is worm-eaten, when the arms belongs to the preoccupied or self-important, when he can see only his own reflection in the pool, when the hand gropes for the brittle or the habitual, it warps the strong dependable muscles of the body’s right side. The crust around that right shoulder, thigh and calf, becomes slightly soggy—rancid in the promising chords of camaraderie. Then, if some of the weight—the unearthly weight of sadness, the gonging weight of concern, the black weight of doubt, the sharp stones of anxiety—shifts, the softened side collapses, endangering both of us, sprained and sprawling atop the original hardship. So dissolution accompanies a child’s illness. So death warps life. But alone, standing on two strong legs… Well, the feet may wear, the shoulders ache, the breath rasp, but the slow stride uphill can continue, almost indefinitely.

Alone may not have learned how to ask, or how to share the burden, the questions or the uncertainty. Alone is used to marshaling, not unburdening. She dares not risk collapse too often. And too, alone is the child of alone. Generations have not asked, have not confided, have marshaled.

Alone has its own problems, to be sure. But self-reliance isn’t among them. Alone comes through—sometimes without asking all the right questions, sometimes based on incorrect assumptions, sometimes not as good as it could have been, but the tasks get done, the feet are re-bandaged, the shopworn heart is revived with bygone balms and blossoming boughs. Alone.

I’m posting early to help celebrate Oregon’s Day of Culture. I’m not talking about high culture, or low, but rather that trickle of heritage we all carry around like our own little petri dish.  What is it?

Culture is that second skin, laid down so close to mosquito bites and freckles I didn’t even see it. Isn’t this how everybody makes soup, sets the table, welcomes the end of the week and tucks away to dreamland?  Well at Ellen’s the soup had dill. Mike’s Mom cried when we sang. Gina had Christmas. 

They rubbed my second skin with the liniment of literature: stories of stories the way my parents heard them; parts forgotten; untranslated; skipped or stopped; with belly laughs at punch lines that were never uttered. Well, everybody knew that old story—didn’t they?  

My Grandmother’s story left out different parts than Amy’s Grandfather telling. Practice paraded through ears, eyes and nostrils in cramped kitchens and mahogany halls. Orders and legions of never written mandates governed what dress to wear, who to greet and how—poked and prodded by grudges, invasions, and insinuations.

Perhaps those traditions were carefully embroidered on my cuticle, binding in biology, melody, and cadence, bathing each cell from womb-time. Each cell dies; each cell is born. The shield reinforces and reinvents, supports and censors.

There’s tension skin against skin: shushing breaths; whirring of earth beneath my feet; the heat,  cold, and indescribable smell of fall-turned leaves. The names that came, the reasons, the tastes that joined those season-smells. Where did I get that? How did it happen to me before I even knew?

It’s in there still, no matter what else crowds in or purges out. It’s in there, in charge, singing in the corners of my mind, spinning out minor chords and faded doilies.  It’s as inadvertent and essential to me as it always has been: step, by song, by soup bowl, by belly laugh.

 

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In Print

 

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One day my brain took a vacation. Or was it borrowed by aliens? Very frightening–especially for the friend who took care of me. In Print.>

 

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Couldn’t we just take the love and leave the nagging.  In Print

 

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