Channeling My Inner Starr Quality

Me during the time period Maurice Starr approached me at Tower Records.

Last month, I streamed "The New Edition Story" on Paramount Plus, and it sparked a memory of the time I met Maurice Starr while working at Tower Records Boston in 1990. Starr discovered the 1980's boy band New Edition before he created the astronomically successful New Kids on the Block. When I was in my early teens, I solidly listened to New Edition's first two albums and sang the songs around my house.  One of my favorites had the lines:  "Shake it/Don't break it/It took your mother nine months to make it," and it drove my dad crazy! Seven years later, I was standing at the entrance of Tower, flipping through a Miles Davis biography, when Maurice Starr approached me.  If he had been Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, Ralph, or Mike, I would have recognized him.  But instead, he was their behind-the-scenes producer, and I didn't recognize him at all.  He asked me if I liked Miles Davis, and I said that I didn't know anything about him and that's why I was interested in reading this book.  He also asked me how the Peter Wolf solo album was doing, and I told him whatever I could remember off the top of my head about its sales.  Suddenly a man walked up to me and asked, "Do you know you're talking to a really important guy right now?"  I turned to Maurice and asked, "Who ARE you?!"  He answered, "I'm Maurice Starr,"  to which I exclaimed: "No, you're not!"  So he pulled out his driver's license and showed me.  It had a different name on it, but it also said "a/k/a Maurice Starr," so then I believed him, and his identity was further confirmed to me a few days later when I saw his picture on the cover of one of my free Boston magazines.  Maurice and I chatted a little while longer, and I told him I was a Berklee College of Music student and that I was interested in working as a singer and songwriter.  The next thing I knew, he wrote his phone number down on a little piece of paper and told me to call him.

But I didn't! 

I should have because it was my dream to get a record contract, but I was too shy and scared to go and audition for him.  I was more of a songwriter and instrumentalist and less of an entertainer and performer.  I missed my chance.  A few months later, I saw Maurice Starr  interviewed on MTV.  The interviewer asked him what made him choose to work with certain people over others.  He answered that he noticed a little something special in those people, making them stand out from the rest.  I felt he must have spotted a quality like that in me.  

For years, I regretted not using that little piece of paper to call Maurice Starr.  All I did was Scotch tape it into my notebook journal.  Eventually, I learned to accept that singing and dancing to pop music just wasn't me.  Growing content with our limitations comes easier with age.  It would be tempting to sit around and sulk and ask myself: "Why didn't I jump at the chance? I was in my prime then!"  But what good would that do me now, and what does it really mean to be in our prime anyway?  Everyone constantly says that women over the age of forty are no longer in their "prime," but what if being in our  prime doesn't mean what society tells us it means?  What if having more confidence and self-awareness is what it really means to be in our prime? Maurice Starr noticed something in me when I was in my early twenties, and that special something hasn't gone away.  I may not sing and dance or have a record contract, but I write novels and they fulfill me. The secret to staying in our prime is to channel our own inner "Starr" qualities, and instead of dwelling on what we can't do, we should remind ourselves what we CAN do.  

Lena Dunham's Instagram post on New Year's Eve positively resonated with me. She proposed we forget about making New Year's resolutions because they keep us focused on our failures. Instead, she suggests we: “Give in to who you are and what your actual gifts are, your true powers, and let go of the compare and contrast.”  I think this is good advice.  This year, instead of making more demands on myself to clean the house more and exercise more, how about I just be me?

Me on the Willowbrook Park Carousel in Staten Island - Present Day

Cougars and Jaguars and Stares, OH MY!

 

Me at Coney Island Beach - July 2022

This week, I watched the new Pamela Anderson Netflix documentary, "Pamela: A Love Story." I enjoyed it overall, but knowing that Pamela has gained so much strength and confidence through surviving scandals and bad marriages, I was disappointed to see that she is insecure about her body.  At one point, her mom asks her why she doesn't wear tight fitting clothes anymore, and Pamela answers that it is because nobody wants to see her body anymore.  Later, she comments that people no longer want to see her breasts. The mistaken notion that women are only worth admiring when they're young probably originated in her mind during her heyday of posing nude for "Playboy."  Though I have no qualms about women posing nude, I've always believed that "Playboy" magazine was the wrong venue for it.  After all, "Playboy" was created and controlled by the late Hugh Hefner - a man who forbade his models to wear red lipstick because in the era he grew up in, red lipstick was a statement of strength, boldness, courage, and independence.  Plus, I'm sure he had convinced his models that they are only beautiful when they are youthful.

I'm only a little bit younger than Pamela Anderson, and it stings to know that many women in our age group are hesitant to show off their bodies.  Some people believe that what the years do to women's bodies is distasteful. Yet when women get plastic surgery in an attempt to look youthful, they are criticized even more. Thinking about the vitriol hurled at Madonna after her recent appearance on the Grammys is devastating.  Countless people made hurtful comments about how her face has changed through the overuse of  Botox and plastic surgery.  They say she looks horrible and question why a woman who once had an abundance of self-confidence would now feel so badly about herself that she needs to cave into the pressure to look younger.  I believe that the reason she has decided to remain wrinkle-free is because her business is pop music which is a genre of music listened to by the young. The music she has recorded for decades brings listeners back to the years they first heard the songs, and she wants her look to match how she looked during the time periods of those songs. She prefers the skin on her face to have the smoothness of youth.  

In actuality, not everyone hates Madonna's new look.  Many of her comments on Instagram praise her for looking beautiful.  Everybody has different preferences regarding physical appearances.  For instance, some people prefer thin bodies and others prefer curvy bodies; some love how women look with breast implants, others prefer natural breasts;  some people find mature women more attractive, others prefer youthful women.  Pamela Anderson shouldn't just assume that she is no longer desirable because her looks are now that of a mature woman.  As I said, different people find different looks attractive, and I doubt she gave it a second thought years ago when she had breast implant surgery even though there are many people who prefer natural, smaller breasts. 

Luckily for us, several mature women once celebrated for their beautiful faces in the 1980's are now speaking out on our behalf.  Model, Paulina Porizkova, and actress, Brooke Shields, are working hard to break down the myths that older women are no longer beautiful.  Paulina does this in her new "No Filter" book of essays, and Brooke does this with her website and newsletter "The Beginning is Now."  Whether a woman wants to get plastic surgery to look younger or instead chooses to age naturally is nobody else's business.  The most beautiful asset a woman can have is confidence.  If we still believe we are beautiful, then others will too.  If you've got it, flaunt it, and even if you don't think you've got it, take a chance and flaunt it anyway, and never let anyone make you feel shameful about it. 

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.

The Poem I Wrote As A Love Letter To My Vocal Cords

 

My Dad singing with his cover band "Beach Road" in the 1970's

In April 2016, I wrote a blog entry entitled, "Finally - Dad. (Part 1)."  I said that it was very difficult to write about my dad who died when I was fifteen but that eventually I would write more entries about him.  So here we are, six years later, with Part 2. In Part 1, I wrote about my dad's love of Walt Whitman's poetry and said that he wrote his own version of Whitman's collection of poems, "Leaves of Grass,"  by changing the words and setting the poems to music. Here in Part 2, I would like to share a poem that I wrote years ago, "Lifedream," and the story behind it. 

Even though my dad was a talented songwriter, his true love was singing.  His favorite singer was Teddy Pendergrass whose albums he often played at family gatherings, exclaiming, "Listen how Teddy sings this note! Nobody can sing like Teddy!" This prompted teasing from my aunt who told him, "You talk about him like he's your friend! 'Hey Teddy, let's go outside and play ball!'" My dad loved Pendergrass, but he judged other singers very harshly, and I could never understand why.  They all sounded good to me, and I figured that since they were on TV, they had to be good!  I never had the courage to actually sing in front of my dad.  Instead, I blared albums on my record player and sang along with my favorite singers at the time, Donna Summer and Diana Ross, behind the closed door of my bedroom.  I'll never forget the thrill I had on a car ride with my mom on the way to applepicking when she mentioned that my dad told her he had heard me singing in my room, and if I studied, I had the potential of becoming a really good singer.  My dad didn't throw singing compliments around lightly, so the joy I felt at that moment was monumental.  I immediately enrolled in singing lessons and continued them even after he died.  I knew singing was the closest I could be to him, and it was a way to make him proud of me. When I turned eighteen, I moved to Boston to study singing and songwriting at Berklee College of Music. I needed to know what truly made a singer good or bad.  Otherwise, I feared I'd become one of those singers that my dad would have hated!

College life and living in the dorms were not kind to my voice.  The stuffiness of the dorm rooms exacerbated my allergies, and the beer drinking and late nights roaming the halls screaming and being silly made my voice hoarse.  At one point, I was limited to a three-note range.  My voice teacher recommended an ear, nose and throat specialist to examine my vocal cords.  The diagnosis wasn't good. I had the beginnings of vocal nodules, simply called "nodes," which are benign growths on the vocal cords that develop when people abuse their voices.  The struggle to heal my voice was difficult and depressing. I stopped drinking beer and staying up late.  I stopped singing and screaming in the hallways.   But I kept on writing.  The following poem, "Lifedream," is a metaphorical poem I wrote to my vocal cords, expressing my sadness and disappointment and my fear that my voice would never come back:

"Lifedream"

I will shelter you like a thin sheet of ice./Put you in a tiny box./Preserve you till I'm ready.  

No, I'd never give you up./Never give up skating.

But you and I don't think alike./Never meant to hurt you./And up until the end of time,/I'll never give up skating. 

But maybe I can't save the ice./My body crushed and crumbling through./If I can't live my life on ice,/I'll never love you true.

I will shelter you and hold you tight./Together we will move.

If I fall through this sheet of ice,/My life's dream I will lose.

Slowly, my vocal range came back.  In fact, my voice teacher told me she had never seen anyone overcome vocal damage to the extent that I was able to with no outside medical treatment. But I still felt I would never be able to sing as well as my dad would have wanted me to.  Anytime I had a late night or was run down, my sensitivity to hoarseness acted up.  My voice teacher also told me that my speaking voice was harsh and very different from my singing voice.  She said you must speak the same way that you sing but that trying to speak in a way that wasn't natural to me might change my personality. I didn't want to do that, and eventually, I just decided that if I couldn't sing as well as my dad, there was no use in singing at all.  It all turned out okay though because I'm happy now writing novels.  Plus, it's been beautiful to rediscover my poem and to remember those days when singing was so meaningful to me.

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"

Madonna Is Here To Disturb The Peace

 

Me as a teen, dressed up as Madonna, when I auditioned for a Pepsi commercial

Recent picture of Madonna I have framed on my desk

"Artists are here to disturb the peace." This James Baldwin quote is the theme behind Madonna's new concert/art film, "Madame X."   Many of the late novelist's quotes are visible behind the musicians and dancers as they perform in "Madame X," and Madonna adds one of her own when she says, "We aren't here to be popular, we're here to be free." 

The first time I heard Madonna's music, I was a teenager growing up in Staten Island, New York, and the song "Physical Attraction" came on my bedroom radio.  I thought "Madonna" was an all-female soul group, but then I saw her on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" show and was surprised she was one person!  When Clark asked her what she aspired to, she answered, "I want to rule the world." I thought she sounded arrogant, but it turns out she was right.  Shortly after that, I watched her perform "Like a Virgin" live on the MTV Video Music Awards, and her fame just skyrocked.  Suddenly, girls and teenagers wanted to be Madonna and started dressing up like her. I did this too one time when I auditioned for a Pepsi commercial, hence the top photo in this blog.  I didn't get the commercial, but I did make it past the first round, and it was fun to spend the day dressed as Madonna!

I still have my clipping of Madonna in "Time" magazine - May 27, 1985

A couple of years later, I was off to college.  When I met my college bestie, Lauren, we bonded over the surprising discovery that we both chose to go to Berklee College of Music because "'Til Tuesday" singer/songwriter Aimee Mann went there.  By that point, I thought it wasn't cool to like Madonna anymore.  Instead, Aimee Mann was the type of cool punk-pop singer I wanted to be.  Even so, one night, I admitted to Lauren that I "sort of still liked Madonna."  Lauren said there was nothing wrong with that and told me she liked Madonna too!  I felt at that moment, I was never going to grow out of liking Madonna.  In my mind, she was now officially here to stay.

While still at Berklee, I got a job at Tower Records.  One day, I was stocking one of my sections in the back of the Rock/Pop floor when Madonna's "Vogue" video came on a TV that was above my head. It was the first time I had ever seen it, and I was mesmerized at what a celebration of music and art it was! Sometimes, I still get teary-eyed when I hear "Vogue" because it reminds me of that moment I first saw the video, crouching in the middle of the Tower Records floor.  It takes me back to that time period in my life, living on my own for the first time and working to support myself in my own apartment.  Madonna's music has been with me at many stages of my life, and when an artist has been around for so long, each song jogs a different memory.  

I also saved my article of Madonna in NYC's "Daily News Magazine" - June 2, 1985

Earlier this month, in anticipation of "Madame X," I rewatched Madonna's first concert movie, "Truth or Dare," from 1991. When I later watched "Madame X," I noticed a vast difference between today's Madonna and the Madonna of thirty years ago.  The Madonna of "Madame X" is a wiser Madonna.  It is reflected in her music.  "Truth or Dare" is a concert film filled with pop music, and the lyrics are focused on herself. On the "Madame X" album, her lyrics are socially conscious, and the songs incorporate several different styles of music from different parts of the world. Her song "Batuka" was written in the style of Batuque music which is from Cape Verde and is considered one of its oldest music forms.  Batuque music was created by women and was always played by women.  My favorite part of the "Madame X" film is when she performs her song "Batuka" with an all-female band of drummers ranging in ages from teenagers to older women.  Batuque music was banned by the church because drumming was considered "rebel" music, yet somehow it survived and is still played by women today.  As Madonna says in "Madame X," "Women are powerful." 

There is a joke in the "Truth or Dare" movie that backup singer/dancer Niki Haris makes, saying there will be a Madonna "Like a Virgin" tour in 2025.  Now, we are only four years away from 2025, and Madonna is still touring in her early sixties!  Performers like Madonna and The Rolling Stones are sometimes criticized for still rocking out in their later years.  Even more troubling to some is the fact that Madonna is dating a man thirty-six years younger than she is.  This is another thing she has in common with The Rolling Stones, as singer Mick Jagger has been dating much younger women for many years. Maybe Madonna and Mick Jagger date such young people because they need a partner who matches their amazing energy? 

Madonna proves to us every day that older women are meant to be celebrated instead of being put out to pasture.  I love how the "Madame X" movie begins with a montage of Madonna's sexual moments of controversy throughout her entire career, and at the end of the montage, Madonna says that what is actually the most controversial thing about her is that she stuck around.  

Madonna and her boyfriend, Ahlamalik Williams, celebrating her 62nd birthday in Jamaica (usmagazine.com)

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)