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 

This Is Not A Post About Chicago

It all started with a beautiful man.  But don't most things start that way?  An attractive person can change your world.  I grew up on 1980's movies where it's usually a male character who falls in love at first sight with a female character and then spends the rest of the movie pursuing her and having thoughts about nothing but her.  Movies like "Valley Girl" when Randy the punk spotted beautiful valley girl, Julie, on the beach and then crashed the preppie party to meet her. Well, I'm not about to crash any parties, but after seeing Robert Lamm of Chicago on their "Live at Tanglewood" concert video from 1970,  I have been consumed by all things Chicago. 

THE video! "Beginnings" from "Chicago - Live at Tanglewood"

A few months ago in August, I flipped my TV channel remote on the Chicago episode of AXS Channel's "Rock Legends" series. I remembered that my former stepfather gave me his "Chicago IX -  Greatest Hits" album on vinyl when I was a teenager.   This was in the 1980's, and until I'd heard this album, I had no idea that Chicago had a full brass section and a singer with a deep voice.  I was only familiar with their videos showing Peter Cetera as their lead singer, a blonde-haired tenor who sang ballads. It was a pleasant surprise to discover this earlier version of Chicago, and I listened to my "Chicago IX" album regularly.  I was told the singer with the deep voice on my album was Terry Kath who died in the 1970's in a gun accident.  My favorite songs on the album were "Make Me Smile," "Call on Me," "Beginnings," and "Feeling Stronger Everyday." 

My new Chicago bracelet set that I asked an Etsy artist to make for me featuring my favorite Chicago song 

After the AXS episode refreshed my memory of how much I loved those songs, I decided to look on YouTube for Chicago videos. I searched for "Beginnings" and stumbled upon the Tanglewood concert.  At first, I assumed the long-haired man getting ready to sing at the microphone was the deceased Terry Kath.  Basically, I just assumed this because I knew he wasn't Peter Cetera.   But right away, I heard him say, "Terry," while looking to his side and gesturing with his hand, so I said to myself, "Oh. This isn't Terry Kath. BUT THEN WHO IS THIS HANDSOME GUY??!!"  I Googled and found out it was Robert Lamm and that he is still alive and STILL good-looking at age seventy-eight. 

Soon I was watching every single Chicago video and documentary I could find.  Not just to see 1970's Robert Lamm but because Chicago's musicianship speaks to me. Even though I consider myself primarily a novelist, at the core of my heart, I am a musician.  When I was five years old, I begged my parents to let me take piano lessons.  They put me off until I was six because they didn't want to waste money on a piano only to have me change my mind.  I didn't change my mind, and I took lessons until I was sixteen. Then, when I was eighteen, I enrolled at Boston's Berklee College of Music.  Watching live Chicago videos during the Terry Kath years of 1970 through 1977 is like being at Berklee again.  Every night I enjoy sitting with a half glass of Chardonnay or a half bottle of Guinness beer with my headphones on and plugged into YouTube.  I am behind in my podcasts and in editing the 2nd draft of my newest novel because I keep watching and listening to Chicago in the 1970's, and it feels so good.

Pin from my Pinterest Board dedicated solely to Chicago's Robert Lamm

One day last month, I was really angry.  Just from the usual, everyday life's frustrations. So at night, I put the entire "Live at Tanglewood" concert into my headphones yet again. Terry Kath's amazing and busy guitar playing and Danny Seraphine's wild, forceful, drumming helped get everything out of me.  It was cathartic and exactly what I needed.  I was able to sleep peacefully that night.

So why do I keep on watching and listening to Chicago? I believe it is because obsessions allow us to distract our minds from the everyday things that are troubling us. Things like the fact that I have only $10 left in my checking account.  Or when I think about how if I carry my mug of tea down the stairs, I may trip and fall and die like Ivana Trump did while carrying her mug of coffee.  Or if something like that doesn't happen to me, and I live another forty years, is the planet going to be half submerged under water by then?  These days, when I have anxious thoughts, I immediately switch them, and instead, I plug into Chicago.

I know that eventually my fascination with Chicago will dim, but I don't want it to yet because I'm having too much fun. I'm excited I'll get to see Chicago play live when they tour the East Coast in April 2023.  But what would be even better is if one night, Robert Lamm could magically step out of that "Chicago - Live at Tanglewood" YouTube video from out of my laptop the same way Jeff Daniels stepped off the movie theater screen in Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo!"  If that happened, I could remain in a dream fantasy world forever. Surely, this would be the perfect cure for my anxiety.  If only!

My ticket confirmation to see Chicago.  Robert Lamm is in the middle in white pants.

I Dream Of Brooklyn

Last Sunday's episode of HBO "Girls" had everyone confused.  It was a dreamlike episode, unfolding surreally.  We saw Hannah as we never had before.  She wasn't eating Cool Whip out of the container in her small Brooklyn apartment, complaining about her horrible love life.  Instead, she spent two days with a handsome doctor, barbecuing steaks on the patio of his brownstone and taking a sauna in his giant bathroom.  The episode was like a fantasy of what Hannah's life could be in the future if she stopped struggling and earning $40 a day at "Grumpy's Cafe" and instead lived the lavish lifestyle of a doctor's wife in an expensive Brooklyn brownstone.  Hannah was awake, but she was dreaming.

Not too long ago, I had an actual nighttime dream about Brooklyn.  I dreamed that it was an early Saturday morning, and I called up my best childhood friend, Ania, and told her that there was nothing I wanted more in this world than to go to her condo in Brooklyn really early in the morning and hang out together.  The desire in the dream was so strong.

From the time I was 8 until 18, Ania and I were inseparable.  We spent almost every single day together.  She lived on the corner across from my street, so I would call her up and we'd meet outside and hang out all day.  She was always just a phone call away.

The next day after the dream, I e-mailed Ania and asked, "Can we set a date to get together? Like at your house?"  She wrote back, pleased.  "You want to come to Brooklyn? I'd love that."  So we set a date for breakfast.

On the scheduled Saturday morning, my family set out for Brooklyn to have breakfast with Ania's family.  Her husband cooked eggs with salsa and Mexican cheese.  Ania made vodka breakfast cocktails.  My daughter and her son took turns riding his scooter back and forth on the hardwood floors while the rest of us sat on stools and talked all morning.

Last spring, Ania said that she'd often come home from work to find the HBO "Girls" film crew sitting on the front steps of her condo.  They were filming the second season in her neighborhood right in front of her house.  And now Hannah and I were both fantasizing about alternate lives.  Hannah imagined what it would be like to have the material things and lifestyle the doctor had. I fantasized about what it would be like if I could revisit my childhood -- the constant daily steadiness with Ania, playing Connect Four on her front steps at 9:00 in the morning when no one else in our neighborhood was outdoors yet.  This is the fantasy of my alternate life.

But Hannah doesn't really want to go into the future and be settled yet. She'd lose her edge, her writer's restlessness and her need to, in her words, "Feel it all."  I don't really want to go back to my childhood, all that uncertainty and second-guessing.  I finally feel secure with a fierce sense of responsibility.  But sometimes, it's nice to dream with the background setting of a really nice condo or brownstone in Brooklyn.

Why Believing In Santa Claus Is Essential To Your Health

When it came to believing in Santa Claus, I was one of the last holdouts.  There was nothing more exciting than going to bed on Christmas Eve and waking up to find a bunch of wrapped presents under my tree that were delivered by Santa Claus and his reindeer in the middle of the night.  On the big night, we had a tradition in my family where one of my parents or my older brother would read "The Night Before Christmas" as my bedtime story.  The book had a big colorful illustration of Santa right on the cover.  Little did I know that out of the four of us, I was the only one who still actually believed that Santa really would be visiting our house in just a matter of hours exactly as the book said.

When I was in first grade, one of my classmates, Scott, told me that there wasn't any such thing as Santa Claus.  I still remember his exact words:  "You REALLY think that a fat man wearing a red suit who has a long, white beard slides down your chimney in the middle of the night to deliver you presents every Christmas? You REALLY think such a thing is possible?"  It was the middle of December, and I knew that Scott had already been getting one gift every day for several days, all leading up to the big present he would receive on Hanukkah, which didn't seem like a bad deal to me, so obviously, he didn't need to believe in Santa Claus!  He celebrated Hanukkah, and I celebrated Christmas.  Of COURSE there was such a thing as Santa Claus!

When you're a kid, you have many dreams and fantasies of how your life is going to be when you grow up, and there are many things you can believe in if you let your imagination run wild.  When I was a kid, I thought for sure I'd be a famous actress by now, living in a mansion in Hollywood.  Seems like my dream was a near impossible one, but it reminds me of that quote from "Alice in Wonderland's Through The Looking Glass" where Alice laughs at the White Queen, and says, "There's no use trying...one can't believe impossible things." The White Queen disagrees and responds: "I daresay you haven't had much practice...When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."  Even though I no longer desire to be a Hollywood actress, I would like to believe that I got so much practice believing in things when I was a child, that I still haven't completely lost my ability to believe in impossible things.

My friend, Tara, once told me that people who are severely depressed have often lost their ability to fantasize and dream and are no longer able to lose themselves in their imagination, and that this is what ultimately leads many of them into feelings of hopelessness and despair.  It makes sense to me because when things get tough, you need to escape into an imaginary world to allow yourself some much-needed respite. If someone has lost his or her ability to escape, then the world and its problems become too much, and he or she can never escape reality or the pain of unpleasant things.  As we get older and more realistic, it becomes even more important to never lose that ability to fantasize and to believe in "impossible things."

So even if you don't believe in Santa Claus anymore and have decided against "crazy" goals such as moving to Hollywood to become a famous actress, it is still important to believe in some near impossible things, for instance, ideas that you can become "The Thinking Man's Danielle Steel" or that someday you MAY even be able to retire!  Scott will definitely be able to retire.  He is a very successful corporate attorney.  But for his sake and sanity, I REALLY hope he hasn't lost his ability to fantasize.