Brooke Shields Saves The Day!

My Brooke Shields doll and two of my Brooke books

Do you believe in synchronicity? I do! Actress/Model/Wonderful Person, Brooke Shields, keeps popping up into my life. No, I've never met her in person. It's just that her pictures, books, and social media posts somehow repeatedly make their way into my life at the times I need her most.

Years ago, I dreamed I got a personal, handwritten letter in the mail from Brooke. I have no memory of what it said. Even when I first woke up, I couldn't remember. All I remember is that I woke up extremely upset and disappointed that it was only a dream. The feeling of longing was unmistakable, and it took a while to shake off the depression that she didn't actually write me. I felt sad thinking she never would. But something was going on in the universe that made me feel as though I should pay attention to Brooke.  

Photo from Reddit

The first time I saw Brooke Shields was on the cover of Time Magazine’s “Face of the 1980’s” issue. I was in my dad’s hospital room, a few days after he was diagnosed with cancer on my twelfth birthday. Brooke was almost sixteen, and she looked beautiful and glamorous in a pink dress that had a huge ruffle extending over the top of one shoulder. Looking at Brooke’s picture and reading the article about her model life allowed me to put my attention somewhere else for a moment. Fantasizing about her exciting life made me feel better because I desperately needed an escape, and she brought me comfort. Little did I know then that decades later, Brooke would provide me comfort as I faced other new chapters in my life.

Inspired by Brooke, I asked my mom if I could sign with 'Lil Stars Agency" when I was fourteen years old. This is one of my contact sheets used to choose a pic for my acting portfolio. I landed two extra jobs in two movies. One was as a camper in "Old Enough," and the other was as a student in "No Big Deal" starring Kevin Dillon.

During Brooke's heyday, I had posters of her on my bedroom wall. One was from her "Blue Lagoon" movie which I watched countless times on the only premium movie channel my family had called WHT. The channel streamed from a box which sat on the top of our TV, and the reason why it was our only movie channel is because my town didn't have cable lines yet! I don't have my posters anymore, but I still have a trade paperback book from that time period called "The Brooke Book," and of course, I still have my Brooke Shields doll. I treasure her even though her leg has now fallen out of its socket, held up only by her tights. She also doesn't have shoes anymore which my daughter probably lost when she was a kid.  

As the years rolled by, Brooke never left my mind. I remember her playing Rizzo in "Grease" on Broadway, and I watched every episode of her 1990's TV comedy show, "Suddenly Susan." Then, in the mid 2000's, the connection I felt with her in my dad's hospital room reappeared when she released a book called "Down Came the Rain" about her experience with postpartum depression. The book was released only months before I became a mom myself. I bought it shortly after I gave birth because I too suffered a bad case of postpartum depression. Again, she was there exactly when I needed her.

Photo from Woman's Day

Now, Brooke has a brand new book out called, “Brooke Shields is Not Allowed to Get Old.” It's about her experience of moving from adulthood into older adulthood, and I am amazed at how much I identify with it. Brooke has a largely positive view of getting older and isn't shy about revealing her own personal experiences. She is surprised about the benefits being an older woman brings which nobody tells us about, as I am too. It's as if society WANTS us to be miserable!  Here's a quote from her book's introduction: 

 “What I’ve come to realize – not only from my own lived experience but also from conversations with other women my age – is that these “later” years are all about coming into your own and pivoting in the directions you’ve always wanted to go. You can finally live the life you intended to, because you no longer have to act in accordance with external timelines, something that is part and parcel of being a woman.  I don’t have to get married by this date or have kids by this age or get a certain job before that milestone. My time is my own.”

                                                                 Photo credit - Alex Caley

I agree! We’ve all heard that midlife is supposed to be the end, especially for a woman. We are expected to be depressed about our changing looks and to be filled with regret of having our best years behind us. I would never want to return to my twenties and thirties. It's so freeing to know that I have reached all those milestones. Brooke has a theory of why she, and I, and countless others are finding ourselves to be way happier in this time of our lives than we ever expected to be:

“You start happy, you end happy, and somewhere in the middle things take a big dip. But that dip, for women, comes at age forty. From there, things start looking up! This era of forty-plus really is when things get easier, or maybe it’s just that we feel better equipped, but either way, happiness is on the upswing. For men, research shows, the bottom of the U comes at age fifty. Could it be that the narrative we’ve been fed of the irrelevant fifty-year-old woman is really just a product of men feeling their worst at this time? Might it be that they just assumed we’re bummed out, too, but never took the time to ask?”

 

I found this pic on Google which is of the exact same poster from "The Blue Lagoon" that I had on my bedroom wall!

Brooke has helped create her own hair products designed specifically for the particular needs of older women. These are a couple of her "Commence" products from inside my shower. They smell and work amazing! The pic below is the front and back of the postcard I get along with my Commence hair products packages

Brooke has saved the day for me many times throughout my life, and she's made me realize that women in midlife need each other now more than ever. Brooke even created an online community, originally called "Beginning is Now" and now renamed "Commence," which is a place where we women can share our stories and discuss our thoughts about subjects that only women in their forties, fifties, and sixties can truly understand because we are living this shared experience at the same time. I'm so grateful to Brooke for being so honest about her own personal experiences, opening the door for more of us to share things we may not have the courage to share about ourselves otherwise. I'm going to continue being a part of Brooke's community, and sometimes I wonder if the things we discuss in our women-in-midlife community are some of the things that were in that letter I dreamed about so many years ago?

 

Photo from Pinterest

 

Was He Lucky Or Are We?

 

I was entertaining friends for lunch when late in the visit, we decided to turn on the TV. The footage of Trump being shot was shown over and over again. Once all the details came in, we said, 'this must be the luckiest person to have ever walked this earth.' Then, a week later, President Biden stepped down from the presidential race, and Kamala Harris was the new Democratic candidate-to-be. Suddenly, ALL these joyful people appeared! Within the first 24 hours of President Biden's announcement, $81 million dollars was raised for Harris' campaign - the largest amount of fundraising money ever raised in a 24 hour period. 40,000 new voters registered to vote within the first 48 hours of the emergence of Harris' campaign. Tons of T-shirts of Kamala Harris were printed, and excitement was spread all over social media. Just observing the excessively large numbers of attendees at the Harris-Walz rallies over the past week show how many people have come together. No matter what the outcome of the presidential race, there will remain many, many people bonded together through the Harris-Walz campaign.

Maybe the presidential race was not meant to be determined by one of the candidates being assassinated? Maybe the presidential race was to be determined by a collective need for joy, love, positivity, and democracy? A unity between human beings who were hiding in the shadows of doom and gloom until Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee. Maybe WE are actually the luckiest people in the world because we are meant to stand together in large numbers AGAINST Project 2025 and, in time, to join together as one country as we always were in the past, not two separate countries. I believe all of these happenings were meant to materialize the notion that there truly IS strength in numbers!

"A Little Magic, A Little Kindness" - How I Found My People Through Laura Nyro

Laura Nyro 

Everyone is talking about how amazing Joni Mitchell is because she performed at this year's Grammys at the age of eighty. I agree, but whenever I think of Joni Mitchell, I'm reminded of Laura Nyro, and this makes me sad. In the late 1960's, both Laura and Joni were successful singer/songwriters, and they were major influences on each other. But by the 1970's, Joni's fame and presence in people's minds completely eclipsed Laura's. I appreciate Joni Mitchell's talents, but it is Laura Nyro's music that speaks to me. Joni is more popular, but there are a select few of us who prefer the more primal, soulful and passionate Laura Nyro. 

Laura Nyro was discovered by David Geffen while he was working as a talent agent, a few years before he became a record industry mogul. He quit the talent agency to devote all his time to managing Laura's career. But after releasing a few albums, it was clear that Laura shunned the public life that came with success.  She created music primarily to please herself. She and David Geffen parted ways and sold her song catalog for $4.5 million dollars, each receiving half. The sale allowed David Geffen to start his own record label, and Laura was now free to do anything she wanted. What she wanted to do was "nest," so she bought a house in Connecticut and spent most of her time there raising her new baby son. 

Laura Nyro and David Geffen (from Pinterest)

I first heard of Laura Nyro in an unusual, and somewhat embarrassing, way. I was seventeen and seeing a guy in my neighborhood who I suspected was also seeing another woman in our neighborhood. The first picture I ever saw of Laura Nyro reminded me of this woman. I was obsessed with looking at Laura's picture in my book. I was jealous, but also oddly curious, and eventually I figured, "Since I'm always looking at her picture, why don't I just listen to her music?!"  

My photocopy of the Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock article where I first saw Laura Nyro's picture 

I was never fortunate enough to meet Laura Nyro, but I attended her very rare, live concert at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston, Massachusetts in 1989. Shortly after that, I got married, moved to Canada, and met my new aunt, Rose, who turned out to be a Laura Nyro fan. The first thing she said to me was, "Has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Laura Nyro?" She said she was first introduced to Laura Nyro's music in elementary school. Her teacher, a priest, played Laura's "Eli and the Thirteeth Confession" album in class, pointing out some of the album's spiritual lyrics, such as: "I was walking on God's good side," and "Lucky's taking over and his clover shows. Devil can't get out of hand cause Lucky's taking over and what Lucky says goes." I hadn't considered "Eli" to be a spiritual album, as many of the songs are filled with anger and contain themes of feminism, poverty, and deep, passionate love. "Eli" is a fast-paced, energetic album, with musically complicated rhythms and powerful lyrics. Plus, this is the same album that has the song "The Confession" with the lyrics, "Oh I hate my winsome lover, tell him I've had others at my breast."  I'm doubtful Aunt Rose's teacher played that song in class!

Aunt Rose on the left, and me on the right - first meeting where she said I looked like Laura Nyro

As a newlywed living in Canada, I was nesting too. I listened to a lot of Laura Nyro's music, and since so many of her early songs were about living in New York City, I gained solace in the fact that even though I was homesick, I knew that Laura had also left New York City when she moved to Connecticut and had probably been a bit homesick too.  By this time, I mostly enjoyed the two albums she recorded in Connecticut, "Nesting" and "Smile." She sang about new things I was doing while nesting, like cooking. I often listened to her song, "Midnight Blue," and sang along to the lyrics: "There's smoke in the kitchen, shrimps curled." I watched a lot of Canadian TV, and one day I saw an acapella band called "The Nylons" performing Laura's song "Eli's Coming." Very soon afterward, while working at HMV Music Store in Toronto, Canada, I spotted one of The Nylons' singers, Micah Barnes, shopping for CDs.  I approached him and we chatted for a bit, mostly about Laura's "Nested" and "Smile" albums, agreeing how wonderful yet underrated they are. Meeting another Laura Nyro fan made me feel less alone and more at home in Canada. I imagined it was more special than meeting a Rolling Stones fan or a Joni Mitchell fan because a lot of people are fans of them, but when it comes to Laura Nyro, there are so few of us. I realized I was finding my people.

Laura Nyro (from Google)

In the mid-1990's, I moved back to New York City and worked in Manhattan as a legal secretary. My first boss, Murray, was an attorney who told me he used to have long hair and had attended the famous Woodstock festival in 1969. I was so impressed!  During the three years I worked for him, we had many conversations about music. When I told him how much I loved Laura Nyro, a memory was sparked in him. "I met her once!" he said. He told me that one night, he was hanging out with a friend who was friends with Laura Nyro before she was famous. The friend needed to briefly stop by her apartment in the Bronx, but when she greeted them at the door, she asked them to come inside. She wanted their feedback on a new song she wrote, so she sat at her piano and played it for them. He then asked me if he could borrow a couple of my Laura Nyro CDs. One afternoon, after typing my dictations of his letters by listening to his voice on the tapes he had recorded at home, I told him I heard Laura's music playing in the background. "No you didn't!" he answered shyly, but obviously I did!

Murray often said he and I weren't just boss and secretary, we were also friends. I let him read my "Iggy Gorgess" novel's manuscript over a decade before it was published in book form.  In fact, I changed the very last line of my novel because of his criticism, and I think it is better after taking his advice. Then, in 1998, I was devastated when Murray was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I never thought he would get cancer because he was already forty-six years old, and my experience of losing my dad at age fifteen convinced me that Murray was safe because he had already passed forty-one, the age my dad died of cancer. Murray was admitted to the hospital, and my firm sent me to the record store to buy a bunch of CDs he could listen to in his hospital room because I was the only one who knew exactly what music he liked. I visited him in the hospital and brought the huge pile of CDs I'd bought.  He passed away four years later. 

I stopped listening to Laura's music for several years after that. 

I was reunited with Laura's music through YouTube after I found out she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. Bette Midler gave her a beautiful tribute, saying she was "the very essence of New York City: passionate, romantic, ethereal, eternal."  Her only child, Gil Bianchini, attended the ceremony and accepted her award. Through Laura's music, I learned to never hesitate to embrace the art I love even if it is different from what most people enjoy. Our passions draw us toward the people we are meant to meet, and I've found it's sweeter if that club has only a a handful of members. There are few things in life more beautiful than being bonded together by something rare and eternally special. 

I'm Bewitched

My need for escape is a constant in my life. I think it is for most artistic people. We're more dreamers than doers, and after we've done all the things we absolutely need to do, we spend the rest of our free time indulging in fantasy. In many people's minds, fantasizing sounds like a lazy luxury unless one has an abnormal amount of time to spare. During the pandemic, my escape was watching every single episode of the old black and white TV series, "Perry Mason." It consumed so much of my life that I made Perry the focus of my essay, "How I Survived 2020." After the pandemic, my essay was published and nominated for the Pushcart Prize so, ultimately, I believe my escape wasn't time wasted!

Now three years later, my escape is the classic TV series "Bewitched." It's a TV show starring Elizabeth Montgomery that aired in the late 1960's to early 1970's about an immortal witch named Samantha who marries a mortal human named Darrin. I regularly watched the reruns as a child, but as an adult, the only episode I could remember was one where Endora, Samantha's mom, puts a spell on Darrin that makes his ears grow to an enormous size every time he tells a lie. Recently, one morning, I was changing the channels on my TV and saw two children with weird-painted eyebrows, dressed in peasant clothes, and made to look like "Hansel and Gretel" from the children's story.  Samantha and Darrin's young daughter, Tabitha, has used her witch powers to trade places with Hansel and Gretel by taking them out of the storybook and into her bedroom, then leaving them there to deal with her puzzled parents while she jumps into the book herself. The premise is so funny, and the Hansel and Gretel kids look so goofy, that I started watching Bewitched every morning to have a laugh before I began my workday.

To feed my TV obsessions, I like to shop for things. During my Perry Mason stage, I found a mug for my desk that says, "Life Happens, Perry Helps." For my Bewitched obsession, I bought a cubic zirconia replica of the Pave Heart diamond necklace Samantha wears on the show so that I can wear it as I watch. 

I know it sounds crazy, but I find nothing wrong with having an escape that makes you feel good. Bewitched is a series that promotes positivity. Elizabeth Montgomery had a lot of influence on the show and in how the female characters were represented. Even older women were cast in major roles. Samantha's mother, Endora, played by Agnes Moorehead, appears in all eight seasons as a strong and self-assured woman in her mid sixties and early seventies.  Another older woman, Samantha's Aunt Clara played by actress Marion Lorne, was in her eighties at the time, and her character has boyfriends and she is shown very actively dating men. 

Samantha and her mom, Endora, hanging out in the garden

Another thing I love about Bewitched is that animals are portrayed as sentient beings. On Season 1, Episode 2,  “Ling Ling,” a cat who Samantha puts a spell on to temporarily turn her into a woman, decides she doesn't want to go back to being a cat because, in her words, “I like to be pampered and made a fuss over."  She tells Samantha that if she too had spent her life scrounging around alleys searching for scraps, she'd understand why she doesn't want to go back to being a cat.  She says, "from now on, it will be martinis and sardines all the way.”  On Season 2, Episode 25, "The Horse's Mouth," Samantha sees a horse wandering in the park and wants to know why, so she puts a spell on the horse so that she can talk with him or her.  The horse transforms into a tough, brunette-haired woman who tells Samantha that she just jumped off of a truck to flee her racetrack life because she was being neglected by her trainer and never wins any races.  I love these episodes because they embrace the belief that animals deserve respect and have emotions.

Elizabeth Montgomery was thirty-nine years old during the last season of Bewitched, and over its eight seasons, Samantha's character evolves from a just-married young woman wearing plain, housewife dresses in Season 1 to a freedom-loving woman decked out in short miniskirts and white knee-high socks. Part of this change was obviously influenced by the emerging women's movement and hippie revolution, but I like to think her change in identity has more to do with the fact that when we women approach age forty, we are liberated from a lot of the restrictions we had when we were younger.  We are wiser, confident, carefree, and not bothered and dragged down by the things that used to concern us needlessly. 

Samantha, played by actress Elizabeth Montgomery

Besides entertainment, there is a more important reason why we should have happy obsessions. A friend of mine once told me that a common thread in people who are depressed is that they have lost their ability to fantasize. They can't free themselves from their troubling thoughts and are unable to immerse themselves in another world. Considering this, I say we shouldn't feel guilty about sometimes indulging in fantasies and finding ourselves entranced by other realities.  The ability to escape from our ordinary lives from time to time may even be essential. 

Me and Samantha wearing the Pave Heart 

Barbie - She's Not Who You Think She Is

 

Our Barbie Dreamplane

Barbie Mania has arrived!  The new Barbie movie stars Margot Robbie as a Barbie doll who comes to life.  Although many have dismissed this movie as just another scheme for a large corporation to make money, I have a different take on it. 

The Barbie Doll was invented by a woman named Ruth Handler in 1959.  She named the doll after her young daughter, Barbara.  The very first Barbie doll was not only available as a blonde, she could also by purchased as a brunette, and her clothes were designed by a woman named Charlotte Johnson.  

When I was a kid, I wasn't a huge Barbie doll fan.  I preferred the soft feel of my cuddly, stuffed animals.   But when I was twelve, I suddenly wanted Barbie dolls at a time when most girls are about to give them up.  Maybe I was aware of my teen years approaching and was trying to cling onto the last vestiges of childhood?  

The Barbies I had were the typical ones everybody is familiar with - blonde hair, long legs, and the world's tiniest waist.  These attributes unfortunately reduced Barbie to not much more than an impossibly-proportioned fashion model.  But as an adult shopping for dolls with my daughter, I discovered the "I Can Be" Barbie dolls where Barbie now had a serious profession, such as being a doctor, engineer, or veterinarian.  Plus, while doing research for this blog entry, I was surprised to learn that these "I Can Be" Barbie dolls were not even the first Barbies to have admirable careers. As far back as 1965, one Barbie doll was working as an astronaut!  Apparently, Barbie was meant to be more than just a sex symbol who dated Ken.

Below is my Curvy Barbie Doll.  I put shorts on her.

In March 2018, just in time for International Women's Day, Mattel released their "Role Model" Barbie dolls.  There was as Amelia Earhart Barbie patterned after the famous aviator and a Patti Jenkins Barbie made in honor of the director of the Wonder Woman movies.  During the Covid pandemic of 2020, essential worker Barbies were created to pay homage to the nurses, doctors, and paramedics working on the hospitals' front lines.  As part of their "Thank You Heroes" program, Mattel donated $5 from each doll sold to a foundation set up to help the children of these first responders. 

A few weeks ago, my teenage daughter and I had dinner at the Malibu Barbie Cafe in downtown Manhattan.  As we entered, I saw women and girls of all ages.  Nearly all of us wore something pink or with the Barbie logo on it.  A few different groups of women in their twenties wore hot pink dresses and floor length gowns made of silk or satin.  Later, while eating dinner, I spotted a small group of moms and daughters entering the dining area, and one of the little girls wore a crown that said "Birthday Princess."  It warmed my heart to see so many women and girls decked out in pink and tiaras to commemorate the upcoming movie.  I realized that Barbie is something that unites us not only as we are now but also as the girls we once were.  The celebration of Barbie is something particularly for us.  

Today, Barbie dolls represent women of all races and body types.  My favorite Barbie doll is my Curvy Barbie.  She has realistic body proportions, and I say it's about time. The only Barbie doll missing now is "Mature Woman Barbie."  But she won't be Barbie's grandmother.  Instead, she will be a realistic Barbie who represents women in their forties and beyond.  Her face will have laugh lines and her hair a few gray streaks.  But best of all, she'll be a wiser, bolder, Barbie who will never be afraid to speak her mind no matter how unconventional her opinion may be! 

Me at the Malibu Barbie Cafe - South Street Seaport, NYC - July 2023

Written, Created, Directed, Produced, and Acted by Women

Marie Reuther as Julie in "Kamikaze"

These days, when I need to relax and take time out from writing my novel, I like to stream TV series.  I'm enjoying this but am hoping my novel won't take ten years to finish like "Catcher in the Rye" did for J.D. Salinger.  Then again, if my novel could turn out even one tenth as good as "Catcher in the Rye,"  I'll take it!  As much as I love Holden Caulfield, lately I find myself drawn more towards stories that have female lead characters and scripts written by women.  I find that when women create female characters and write situations and dialogue for them, they portray women a lot closer to how we really are.  I've noticed that female writers are more comfortable with writing their female leads as antiheroes.  This is refreshing, as opposed to being inundated with idealized versions of women or women depicted as martyrs or victims.  It is more like real life.  The below three series are a few of my most recent favorites.  They may not sit well with everyone, but I believe they are truthful to the female experience and portray women as imperfect human beings with life lessons to learn.  

Kamikaze on HBO Max  Favorite Line: "Do what you want."  

At first, I was hesitant to watch "Kamikaze" because of the depressing premise:  An eighteen-year-old girl named Julie gets a text from her dad telling her that his plane is crashing and advising her to "do what you want."  Also on that airplane is her mother and twenty-two-year-old brother, her only sibling.  After the crash, she is so distraught she doesn't get out of bed for three days.  When she does get out of bed, she has one goal which is to die too so she can be with them.  She decides to fly on a different commercial flight every day until one of the flights crashes.  But after a close call, the relieved man sitting next to her tells her that based on statistics, a person would have to fly every single day for twenty-nine years to die in a plane crash.  So she abandons that plan and decides to focus on having fun instead. She continues to live her life recklessly and still has a death wish because she hasn't changed her mind about wanting to die and rejoin her family.  She travels to different countries, setting her eyes on particular guys she wants to have sex with.  She breaks some hearts but who can judge her when she has just endured the unfathomable grief of losing her entire family?  I lost my father as a teenager so I imagine I felt one third of the type of pain she feels, and I also remember some months of not fearing death and of living recklessly.  Spoiler Alert:  At the end of the series, Julie discovers she is pregnant.  She doesn't know which guy out of a possible four is the father, but she ends her death wish, and I believe this is because when her baby is born, she will regain a part of her precious family back.  Julie is portrayed as a daring young woman who decides to take charge of her life.  Even though her choices are destructive, she still has the courage to follow her own path.  The women who created and wrote for this series were not afraid to portray Julie as a female antihero.  

Gypsy on Netflix  Favorite Line: "Nothing's certain, except for whatever's happening right here.  In this moment."

Jean Holloway is a psychotherapist who lives a cushy life with her husband and nine-year-old daughter in the suburbs.  Like Julie in "Kamikaze," she is also living recklessly, but it is not due to having suffered a life-changing loss. Instead, it is because she is depressed at the fact that her lifestyle is not true to her authentic self.  As a young woman, Jean shunned committment but reluctantly settled down because she feared living life alone.  Her mother put this fear into her head.  As a therapist, Jean sets out to help her patients but continually veers off the track as she becomes fascinated by and envious of the people who her patients describe as being toxic in their lives.  Her patients seek therapy to break obsessions with these people, but in turn, Jean becomes obsessed by her patients' descriptions of them because she believes these toxic people are living the types of exciting lives that she wants to live.  She is bored and needs an escape.  She goes on a quest to befriend these people by finding them and introducing herself as Diane Hart, a journalist. Jean is leading a secret, dual life, using an identity she feels is closer to the free spirited woman she used to be.  

Naomi Watts as Jean in "Gypsy"

Blythe Danner as Nancy (Jean's mom) in "Gypsy"

Jean forms new relationships and friendships as Diane Hart, and learns her new friends' secrets by asking her patients questions about them during their therapy sessions with her.  One patient get frustrated, telling Jean he doesn't want to delve deeper into understanding his toxic ex-girlfriend.  Instead, he is trying to get over her.  Jean manipulates her patients and guides them to make changes in their lives that suit her new connections with the people she has met as Diane Hart.  But not everything Jean does is malicious.  She also sets out to do good.  For one of her patients who is a mom struggling in her relationship with her grown daughter, she rewrites a letter that was given to her from the patient's daughter. Jean thinks the letter is too cold so she changes it, mimicking the daughter's handwriting, writing a warmer letter.  When the mom reads the new letter rewritten by Jean, she is comforted and leaves the therapy session happy. Jean also consistently shows love and respect for her own daughter who is misunderstood at school.   My favorite part of this series is Jean's relationship with her own mother, played brilliantly by Gwyneth Paltrow's mom, Blythe Danner.  Jean and her mom have a very strained relationship.  Her mom knows that Jean is manipulative and is destroying other people's lives.  But she is also the only person who knows her secrets and the only one who understands her.  Although we have trouble liking Jean by the end of the series, seeing her mother's unconditional love for her is heartwarming.  "Gypsy" portrays a real and flawed woman who doesn't murder anyone but has a long way to go in working on herself.  I think this is true to life.  Women are usually portrayed on TV and in movies as having had to endure some type of trauma to make them act maliciously, yet Jean has a loving family behind her and has had no trauma. She is just a human who hurts. She's not a victim, and she's not a martyr.  She's a realistic and damaged woman.

Fleabag on Amazon Prime   Favorite Line: "You already know what you're going to do." 

"Fleabag" is not only created and written by a woman, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, but Waller-Bridge also stars in it. "Fleabag" is a comedy, but also sad, as the female lead (only referred to as "Fleabag") is a young woman who feels responsible for the death of her best friend, Boo, who walked into moving traffic to try to get injured so she could get the attention of her philadering boyfriend, but she dies accidentally instead.  Fleabag feels responsible because she turns out to be the one who the boyfriend was unfaithful with, yet Boo didn't know it was Fleabag who slept with him. Fleabag misses Boo terribly, as she was the only person she felt close to because Fleabag is unable to form any other lasting relationships, as she just compulsively sleeps with men as an addiction.  Even though she's sad and lonely and often clashes with her self-absorbed sister, callous stepmother, and emotionally-absent father, Fleabag finds something funny in every situation.  Her sense of humor is her saving grace.  Fleabag also has an eye-opening scene with actress, Kristin Scott Thomas, who co-stars in one episode as a career woman who wants to impart some wisdom about the female experience, and she does so to Fleabag when they go out for a drink together.  She says that women are born in pain.  They have menstrual periods, endure childbirth and sore boobs, and because of this, women have the pain within themselves.  But men, on the other hand, have to create their own pain, and they seek it by finding wars to fight and crises to worry about.  Men have to create their own guilt whereas women are excellent at carrying their guilt all by themselves without ever having to create it or to go out and seek it.  

When Fleabag finally finds love, the man she falls for is a priest.  This is something we can all relate to, as my great-grandfather was a priest who left the priesthood to marry my great-grandmother.  Of course, I'm just kidding when I say that this is relatable to all people (although it is true what I said about my great-grandparents, so it IS relatable to me), but I do believe every woman can find something to relate to when watching TV series where women do the writing because when we women create female characters and stories about women, we are writing for us.

Andrew Scott as The Priest and Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Fleabag in "Fleabag"

Swimming Pools and Me

Me as a teen in my childhood home swimming pool

When I was eight years old, my dad and I sat together in our backyard and watched the workmen dig our grass and dirt to put in a new above-the-ground swimming pool. My mom referred to our pool as a "15 Round" which meant that it measured fifteen feet in diameter.  The outside was blue, and it had straight white panels going down each side with the words "Esther Williams" printed on them. My grandmother told me that Esther Williams was a very famous swimmer who starred in Hollywood movies many years ago.   

Every summer, my best friend, Ania, and I spent most of our time in my pool.  Even though she had an oval, above-the-ground swimming pool in her own backyard, we were always in mine.  A few times, we stayed in so long that our lips turned blue!  We loved being in my swimming pool so much that we never realized we were cold - probably because we were always moving and jumping up and down.  One summer, I spent so much time doing handstands and cartwheels underwater that I came down with an ear infection.  I had to take ear drops and wear earplugs every summer after that.  Sometimes, I pretended I was a mermaid and that my swimming pool was a big tank I lived in while on land. Nothing felt better than being in my swimming pool.

But then I grew up and left home for college in Boston.  While I was away, my mom sold the house.  For many years after that, I had a recurring dream that I returned to my childhood home, and the water in my swimming pool turned green.  I was distraught that the pool was unusable. I figured I dreamed this because shortly before I had left home, our pool water really did turn green.  I hadn't been very good at keeping up with putting in the scoops of chlorine and running the filter.  My dad was the one in charge of our pool, but he passed away when I was fifteen.  In my dreams, as soon as I saw that the water was green, I went on a desperate quest for chlorine. Sometimes, I'd look in my shed and other times I'd try to find a store somewhere, hoping it was still open in the middle of the night.  Eventually, I'd find one, and I'd spend the rest of the dream measuring out the chlorine.  

Illustration from Instagram

I've never had my own pool as an adult, but I always enjoy them whenever I get to swim.  One of my favorites is this wave pool in Pennsylvania.  I didn't know one existed until I went in.  It was the best of both worlds, as my other favorite place in the world is the ocean.  One time, I was staying at a hotel in Nevada, near Las Vegas, and the hotel pool was an inground pool that had the pool water streaming right up onto the concrete floor at your feet as you approached it. I was only in Nevada for a couple of days and had a jam-packed schedule with family who live there so I didn't make time to go into the pool.  Ever since that day,  I STILL regret that I didn't go in, and I swear I will one day go back to that same hotel so I can get into that particular swimming pool! 

Over the years, the swimming pool water in my recurring dreams began to appear clearer and less green. I haven't had one of those dreams in a while.  Sometimes, I miss having a swimming pool to call my own.  I can't have one in my backyard now because my small yard is on a slanted hill which is nearly all rock.  But I guess it would be possible to put in a pool if I hired an expert to check the yard out. I mean, if I can find a store to buy chlorine  in the middle of the night, then I suppose anything is possible!

Esther Williams in 1953 (cinemasips.com)

My Unintentional Evolution To Unique Artist

 

Me at the Walt Whitman Exhibit at New York Public Library, NYC 

When I was in elementary school at P.S. 53, either third or fourth grade, my teacher asked us to analyze the Harry Chapin song, "Flowers are Red."  These were the days before the Internet, and I didn't even ask my parents to help.  Actually, I thought I would have no problem figuring out the meaning of this simple song, so I just read it and analyzed it the way I was sure Chapin meant it.  I forget exactly what I wrote, but I said that the color red symbolizes something, and the color green symbolizes something else, etc.  After the assignments were graded, our teacher presented two essays to the class.  One essay was the correct interpretation of the song, and the other was the one that she said she wanted to show us because it was so creative and unique.  Mine was the creative essay, and I was embarrassed when the teacher read it to the class because I felt like a failure.  I wish I still had that essay today, but I threw it away after class because I didn't want to remember that feeling of not being able to comprehend the assignment the way everyone else was able to.  

At 18, I was a songwriting student at Berklee College of Music, and I resisted following the advice of my teachers who taught us formulas to use while writing. I had already studied piano since I was 6, so I just took to the keys and composed my own way.   At the time, I thought my songs were great.  In total, I have written nearly 100 songs and recorded at least half of these, all between the ages of 16 and 21.  However, years later, when I listened to a CD of several of them, I noticed how similar many of them sound to each other.  Although I utilized different key signatures, I often used the same chord progressions. Still, I think they are catchy. They are sometimes melodic, sometimes dissonant, and they don't sound like anybody else's. I like my art to be unique.  My songs sound like me: upbeat with singing that is slightly off-key. During that same period, I worked at Tower Records in Boston.  One day, a coworker of mine told me about the rock band he just joined, and as he explained their typical "rock band of the moment" style to me, I had a revelation.  Why even bother putting in the work with the band when they weren't creating anything new?  It made no sense to me to make the effort when his band was just going to sound like everybody else's.

In my early twenties, I shifted from writing songs to writing stories because I felt confined by the songwriting format.  I believed the music was more important than the lyrics in songwriting so I focused more on the music, and that made the words of my songs take a backseat.  In turn,  I felt a need to express more and more of my thoughts, but I didn't want wordy songs. My other dilemma was that I couldn't stop rhyming!  The same problem happened in my Women's Writer's Workshop when I wrote rhyming poetry.  My teacher told me people aren't rhyming that much anymore.  Walt Whitman had the opposite problem in his day as the first non-rhyming poet.  He got rejected by publishers and had to publish "Leaves of Grass," his masterpiece, on his own.  That's also what writers who wanted to do something different did in the past: writers like Virginia Woolf and Anais Nin.  Writers still do it today which brings me to mention the independent publishing company, New Pop Lit, run by the very unique and talented writer and publisher, Karl Wenclas.  

New Pop Lit is doing what I've always strived to do which is to create and publish a new type of writing.  Why not invent something new? They keep it clear and relatable.  They don't just mimic what everyone else is doing.  Just like how the MFA creative writing programs grind out identical writers, Berklee can grind out identical songwriters which wasn't the songwriter I wanted to be.  I am proud to have my writing featured in two of New Pop Lit's zeens: "Zeenith" and "Literary Fan Magazine." New Pop Lit's zeens redefine the Literary Journal.  They are "technicolor literary journals" and feature really cool artwork as prominently as their stories, articles, novel excerpts, and poetry. They make literary journals fun to read. They bring uniqueness back to the writing business.  Because what is the point of spending all this time writing if you're just going to sound like everybody else?

You can find unique, original and talented writers and artists featured at NewPopLit.Com and purchase their zeens at NewPopLit.Com/Shop/.

5 Ways To Have Fun During Post-Quarantine Limbo

Remember in January when we referred to 2020 as "The Roaring 20's" so we could feel like our new decade would be as wild and free as the original 1920's? Back in 1920, people were happy that World War I was over, and they celebrated through decadence and carefree living.  But by 1929,  the stock market crashed which facilitated the Great Depression causing many months of fear and anxiety.  Turns out our Roaring 20's were headed in the same direction but instead of it taking a decade to crash and burn, it took us only a few months!

I live in New York City, and these days, our numbers of COVID-19 cases are less than 1% positive among those  tested.  This is an all-time low, considering our number of virus cases had skyrocketed in March, April and May.  We are now partially reopened, and people can be less afraid of going outdoors.  Personally, I feel as though I am in a "Post-Quarantine Limbo." I can't go back to a "life is normal again" routine when such a large portion of our country currently has their hospitals overfilled with Coronavirus patients.  These states didn't follow New York's example of not reopening until the cases were down. They didn't wear masks and participated in large indoor gatherings. Even scarier, some New Yorkers are also guilty of this right now, convinced that our previous high number of cases is a thing of the past. Between my own state's complacency coupled with the reality that people from all over the country will try to travel to New York City this summer, it may be just a matter of time until we New Yorkers have to go back into full quarantine.  Realizing this, I think that before we crash and burn again, why don't we just have a bit of fun during this little reprieve of low infection rate and pleasant (albeit very hot and rainy) summer weather while we can?

Here is a list of 5 things we can enjoy while in Post-Quarantine Limbo:

1.  Visiting Outdoor Markets, Outside Dining and a Limited Amount of Indoor Retail Shopping 

Finally, we can feel safe to do small trips out.  After not leaving my neighborhood for half of March and the entire months of April and May, I was hardly able to contain myself when June rolled around, and I took my first trip back to Stop & Shop!  Home deliveries of food kept me fed during quarantine, but back when I gave up actual meat in the year 2001, I never thought that one day I would also have to give up meat substitutes! I couldn't find any home delivery method to get Morningstar Bacon, Boca Burgers or Amy's Spaghetti and Meatballs, so I was thrilled to load my shopping cart and freezer with all of those again.  Later in June, I shopped and ate at Empire Outlets, an outdoor marketplace near the Staten Island Ferry.  Fantasizing about returning to Empire Outlets kept me sane back in March. I told myself that by July 1st, I'll be outdoors at Empire Outlets, feeling the ocean wind in my hair.  I assured myself: "I WILL shop and eat outside food again!"  So this summer, I plan to make every minute count. I need to just in case by winter, my biggest thrill will again be the fact that my Misfits Box contains those little yellow potatoes that I can cut into quarters and microwave. 

2. Reading Romantic Fiction About Pandemic Heroes

Think of how anxiety-ridden New Yorkers would have been back in March and April if we didn't have our quarantine hero, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (the Luv Gov), to reassure us with daily Coronavirus briefings? Dr. Anthony Fauci's soothing and intelligent words were also there to comfort our souls. So imagine my thrill when I heard about a 1991 romantic novel in which its author, Sally Quinn, based her romantic hero, Dr. Michael Lanzer, on none other than our very own Dr. Fauci!  You too can dig up this old book (I found it on Amazon, but you have to look every day because copies under $40 are few and far between) and enjoy escaping into steamy prose starring one of our quarantine heroes.  Bearing that in mind, why not just write a story yourself?  For instance, CNN host Christopher Cuomo and his frequent guest, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, can also be materialized into dashing romantic characters.  Or, if you're a male, why not write a romantic story about that beautiful brunette reporter who asks Trump the tough questions on CNN?  Just now, I Googled exactly that: "beautiful brunette reporter on CNN who Trump hates," and the first thing that popped up was exactly the name I was trying to remember:  Kaitlan Collins! I believe we should keep up the skill of escaping into our minds through reading and fantasy so our imagination muscles can stay flexed if we have to go into full-time quarantine again.  Nothing and nobody can ever stop us from reading and writing.

 3.  Baking Shih-Tzu Sugar Cookies

Seems like everyone was cooking, baking bread, and making their own pizza dough during quarantine.  Since it's such a healthy and enjoyable habit, I think we should keep this indoor hobby up whether quarantined or not.  I think I'm going to expand to buying cookie cutters in the shape of Shih-Tzus so I can bake sugar cookies from scratch which I haven't done in about two decades.  I'll also continue to utilize my giant box of Bisquick purchased during quarantine because with it, I can make everything from biscuits to muffins to pizza crust.  If there's anything anyone can think of that Bisquick CAN'T be turned into, please comment below and let me know.

4. Laughing at Funny Memes

Keep reading those funny memes because if you don't laugh, you'll cry.

5.   Setting Off or Just Watching Fireworks, 1990's-Style

I'm still hearing fireworks go off nearly every single night, and this 4th of July, they were completely out of control!  It was like the early 1990's again! This year, nobody heeded the usual fireworks warnings to not buy them because they are dangerous and illegal.  But I'm not complaining, as they were truly beautiful to see, and I didn't even have to leave my house!  I marveled at all their beautiful colors from my second floor window.  It's something we can keep on doing even if we get thrust into full-time quarantine again because they are an outdoor activity.  Plus, people will continue to socially distance while using them because who on earth wants to get their face that close to another person's flaming firework?

So while we remain in Post-Quarantine Limbo, let's just continue the fireworks show.  Let's be reckless and decadent in our imaginations and indoor forms of escapism.  But when the fun gets carried outside of our homes, let's just remember we must continue to stay socially distanced and Wear. A. Mask. 

Be Careful What You Wish For

I spent the entire month of January working on a new short story. I edited it and cut it down drastically to adhere to the word count requirements for a submission call.  That meant putting aside the novel I've been writing for the past two years. By February, I knew it was time to get back to the novel, but I always found some reason to procrastinate. I was too exhausted from working all day, or on my days off, I was too agitated from being around people at the grocery store or overly irritated from waiting on a long line at the bank.  I always seemed to need another a break before I had to wake up and do it all over again tomorrow. I told myself: "If I could just have a few weeks home, I could really dive into this novel, make a dent in it, and finish a first draft. I just need a big bulk of time at home." Then, of course, March rolled along, and this wasn't at all what I'd wished for!


I worked my last day in Manhattan on March 16th, and on my walk home from the train station, I realized it would be a long time before I could go into the City again. After reading a few news stories and watching Governor Cuomo's press conferences, I predicted that the earliest I would be back to work was July 1st. This made me sad because I liked being in the City.  I loved eating my lunch in cafes and the hustle and bustle of walking outdoors.  I even enjoyed hurrying around to make the train and ferry connections.  I went to bed feeling awful. But the next morning, I woke up from a dream that I'd met a male stranger (a made-up one I didn't recognize from real life), and in the dream, the chase was so exciting, and I couldn't wait to see how things would unfold.  Then the next night, I had the same dream but with a different mystery man. The third night, same thing, yet another unknown man.  Why was I having pleasant dreams when all the news around me was so tragic, and nearly the entire planet had just been forced into quarantine with terrible fears of this new virus?

Possibly because subconsciously, I was excited about the idea of finally having enough time to do my writing at home. As a natural born introvert, I've always spent most of my time at home.  I crave alone time. I long to write. But even though I was home, the state of the world was tragic and scary, and I found it difficult to concentrate on my novel. I was fortunate enough to be able to earn money from home, and the only thing I feared particularly about being in quarantine was running out of things I needed. Luckily, home deliveries of food and chocolate, non-food essentials and, of course, liquor, kept those fears in check.  So, as long as I stayed home and didn't have to worry about catching the virus, I felt okay.  But many of my friends and people talking about quarantine on TV weren't feeling okay at all. I could understand their continued anxiety and their depression if they were out of work and struggling with money, but many of them were either also working from home or being supported by someone who was.  They just couldn't get used to the idea of being indoors and not being out in the world, but I had adjusted. I tried to figure out why.

My best theory is because as a writer, the joy and satisfaction I feel is not related to being out among other people but rather in challenging myself.  Creative writing is not dependent on crowd interaction.  I think if a person's art is dependent on outside validation and applause, then being quarantined must be extremely difficult.  Another theory is that as an introvert, I gain energy by being indoors whereas extroverts are energized by being outdoors. I believe that my extrovert friends' lack of energy has slowed some of them down into a deep depression.

On a more positive note, judging by what I see on social media and TV, it seems that many people, both artists and non-artists, although somewhat depressed and anxious, are trying to make the best of quarantine by doing things they wouldn't have time for if they were out in the world right now. I'm checking off the same things that they are: I've already made homemade pizza and baked brownies; I've binged new series on Hulu like "Dollface" and "High Fidelity"; I've watched as many indie movies as I can find on Pluto TV; and I regularly watch "Cuomo Prime Time" so I can laugh at the banter between the Cuomo brothers. On weekends, I go for walks in the neighborhood or to the harbor. I've also cut my Shih-Tzu dog's bangs and often hang out with her on the deck when weather permits.

The best part of my quarantine is that I'm finally getting some writing done. I've started a brand new short story and have been working on it nearly every day which is a regularity I could never achieve before the quarantine. I'm entertaining myself and keeping up my writing chops, but I still can't really dive into the novel! I can't make a dent in it, and I haven't gotten close to finishing its first draft. Maybe the key to being comfortable in quarantine is to lower our expectations. I'm not making great progress on the novel, but I have started a new short story that wouldn't exist if I hadn't been put into quarantine.  Overall, the most important thing any of us can do is to try and stay as healthy as possible and do our part to keep others healthy as well.  We won't be indoors forever.  Time always passes much more quickly than we wished it had, and sometimes, we need to be careful of what we wish for.