Category Archives: Transitions

Wordlessness, Action, and the Sandy Hook Tipping Point

18 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Transitions

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Wordlessness. Def: When you have no words. When something is so shocking, heartbreaking, and horrific that you are compelled to create a new language to describe it. In Act 3 of Hamlet, Shakespeare advises:

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

But I have no words to describe what happened last Friday in the bucolic little town of Sandy Hook—certainly no words to fit my feelings to the awful action. No words of comfort to those devastated parents and families. No words to try and process the snuffing out of those 20 bright lights…those beautiful, wondrous children. And so I invent a new word. And because I’m still numb, my emotions still so raw, I am dedicating this space on my blog today to the words of others. I want you to read them. Please. And then find the action to suit the word.

And yet I have managed to find some words, haven’t I? The very act of writing this appeal to you has allowed language to do something, even if that something doesn’t feel like all that much right now.

I’m sure I’m not the first one to note that Adam Lanza’s monstrous act is a tipping point for our country—not just with respect to the conversations we need to have about gun legislation, but also with respect to the honest dialogue we must engage in with respect to mental health care. But conversation and dialogue cannot simply be words strung together into sound bytes and position papers. They must—finally, now, at long last—result in action.

We need to suit the action to the word. But what action? My personal goal: an action that will halt the chaotic orbit our society’s been traveling—a galaxy with constellations named Columbine; Aurora; Tucson; Virginia Tech; Oak Creek, Wisconsin; Fort Hood; and Sandy Hook. And so many more.

Here are the thoughts of some GenFab bloggers. Sharon Greenthal, for example, whom I admire and respect, wrote a useful post filled with resources about what you can do to become part of the change we want to see in the world. I encourage you to read these posts. You might not agree with some of them. I don’t necessarily agree with those who say one societal problem is more poisonous than another; I think that both prongs of the devil’s pitchfork need to be blunted. I do, however, want to present you with the various sides and nuances of this issue.

If you are on Twitter, please follow the hashtag #stopitnow. And please add your voice to the collective.

By Sharon Greenthal
“The Sandy Hook Massacre and Gun Control: What You Can Do to Help”

By Darryle Pollack
“Newtown, Old News”

By Lisa Belkin in the Huffington Post:
“Gun Control is a Parenting Issue”

“After Newtown, There is No Place for Parents to Hide”

“Parents of Violent Children Respond to Liza Long’s Essay”

By Lois Alter Mark
“Guns Do Kill People”

By Randi
“Monday Morning After Connecticut”

By Lisa Weldon
“Gun Control Would Not Have Prevented the Senseless Loss at Sandy Hook Elementary”

By After the Kids Leave
“Thoughts on Yet Another Senseless Tragedy”

“Of Guns and Sleeping Elephants”

By Connie MacLeod
“Ten Small Things I Can Do”

By The Fur Files
“Hope for Humanity Rests with the Individual”

By Daily Plate of Crazy
“On Love, On Silence, On Speaking Our Minds”

By Yvonne Condes
“Parents, It’s Up to Us to Stop Gun Violence”

By SoCal Mom
“After Newtown, Holding Them Close”

By Mindy Klapper Trotta
“Searching for a Child, Searching for an Answer”

By Ronna Benjamin of Better After 50
“Countdown to the End of the World”

By Kathy Thompson Combs
“A Call for Action”

By Jo Heroux
“AND NOW WHAT”

By Janie Emaus
“What They Should Have”

By Florinda Lantos Pendley Vasquez
“#stopitnow: Bullet Points—or, Me and a Gun, Revisited

By Ambling and Rambling
“Solve for X”

By Lori Lavender Luz
“Do Something”

By Donna Highfill
“Why I Believe We Are Bigger Than Our Weapons”

By Melissa Lawler
“A Broken Heart”

By Felice Shapiro of Better After 50
“Stop the Killing Now! Click Here”

By Helene Bludman
“When Evil Shadows Good”

By Jane Gassner
“Knowing that No Sense Can Be Made of the Newtown Tragedy”

By Barbara Albright
“At the Park”

By Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post
“Newtown Massacre: What We Don’t Need Is a ‘National Conversation’–We Need Action”

Finally, please contact your congressman. Here’s a link with information on how to do so.

TMSW is Now a Huffington Post Blogger

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by in The Writing Life, Transitions, What's the Buzz?

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MorgueFile Image

MorgueFile Image

Have you heard the news? I’m now a blogger for the Huffington Post!

My essay about how I met John on Match.com appeared this week on what is known in the trade as HP’s “vertical”—HuffPost/50. The first day it ran, I received nearly 600 visits to the blog. Yowza!

This has been quite a year, friends: blogging for Katie Couric’s new show, joining the Viewpoints Blogger Review panel (look for my next report tomorrow!), interviewing Sissy Spacek and Sally Field for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, being named one of the top seven blogs for those over 50 by the Huffington Post, and now this relationship with them.

As always, I couldn’t do it and I wouldn’t be here it if weren’t for you.

If you have a moment, I’d love it if you could visit the HP site and like the article on Facebook, or tweet it, or leave a comment. In the wonderful world of digital publishing, that sort of activity makes a tremendous difference. Thank you in advance for your extra support!

Taking Time Out to Remember Dave Brubeck

06 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by in The Cultured Life, The Musical Life, Transitions

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marci_brubeck_midlifesecondwife

With Dave Brubeck in October 2003, prior to taping a television interview with Cleveland’s WVIZ on the campus of Oberlin College. Photo courtesy of WVIZ-TV.

The world lost an irreplaceable treasure yesterday. The legendary composer and pianist Dave Brubeck, whose singular brand of musicianship and artistry changed the sound of jazz in the 1950s while ushering in an entirely new way to listen to the music, died the day before his  92nd birthday.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet had a sound like no other. Brubeck had studied classical music with French composer Darius Milhaud, and although he and his quartet were often considered integral contributors to the jazz genre known as West Coast “cool,” Geoffrey C. Ward writes in Jazz: A History of America’s Music (the companion book to Ken Burns’ PBS series), that there was “nothing remotely cool” about Brubeck’s playing:

He was a fiery, uncompromising improviser—dissonant, unsentimental, rhythmically daring. … His style was perfectly complemented by the playing of alto saxophonist Paul Desmond: light, lyrical, floating …like the sound, Desmond himself famously said, of a dry martini.

On a wintry March night in 1953, the Dave Brubeck Quartet performed in Oberlin College’s historic Finney Chapel. This alone was remarkable; Oberlin, home of the renowned Oberlin Conservatory of Music, was a bastion of classical music. Jazz? No one studied jazz at the conservatory in those days. Jazz was something kept under wraps and underground. Until Brubeck. And the aftermath was groundbreaking. Ward writes:

The audience—including the conservatory students—responded with ovation after ovation. The concert was recorded, and the album that resulted—Jazz at Oberlin—helped build enthusiasm for Brubeck. He was signed by Columbia, the nation’s biggest label; made another live album, called Jazz Goes to College; and soon found himself the leader of the most popular jazz group in the country.

Fifty years after that historic concert at Oberlin, I had the opportunity to meet Dave Brubeck. He had returned to campus with his current quartet to perform a concert marking the 50th anniversary of Jazz at Oberlin’s release. Because I was in charge of media relations for the conservatory, it was my task to publicize not only the concert—ensuring that every seat in the 1,200 capacity chapel was filled—but also the fact of the iconic jazz master’s return to the scene of his great achievement.

He was gracious and down-to-earth, with a twinkle in his eye and a sincere interest in Oberlin’s students. He generously signed the liner notes to my copy of Jazz at Oberlin. He walked slowly when he went out on stage, but when his fingers hit the keyboard, he was transformed; he played with the vigor and athleticism of a man half his age.

There are dozens of albums in the Dave Brubeck Quartet discography—1959’s Time Out is arguably the most famous and revered, and justifiably so. But my favorite will always be Jazz at Oberlin.

Click here for more information about jazz at Oberlin today, including a history of the development of the jazz studies curriculum.

‘Thank You for Shopping at the Man Store’

03 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by in Love, Midpoints, Relationships and Family Life, Remarriage, Transitions

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JOHN AND SANDY_TheMidlifeSecondWife

This is not “Steve.” To find out who this is, please read the entire post.

Let’s call him Steve. After all, that’s what he called himself on Match.com. And who’s to say if that was his real name?

Steve and I have never met, but he’s the reason I decided to step off the Match.com bus, and for that I owe him my gratitude. Why? Because in the world of online-dating algorithms, where any click, keyword, or action is fraught with significance, stumbling across his profile, which he had the cheek to title “Thank You For Shopping at the Man Store,” ricocheted me onto a fateful course.

It was time for me to renew my six-month subscription on Match.com. Or was it? Steve’s headline was a wake-up call of sorts: If what I was doing was “shopping at the man store,” well, in the words of the immortal Bard: “Yuck.”

Four years of on-again, off-again attempts to meet someone in cyber-land had taken their toll. This was clearly a stupid way to meet people, and I was done. Finished.

That weekend I sent Match my notification that I’d not be renewing, and went about my business.

I had taken a few vacation days from work, and the next day, a Monday, was beautiful and bright outside. I was about to go out for a walk. But the siren call of the inbox lured me from my intended rounds.

I still had a couple of days before my Match profile vanished from public view. Now, with the pressure off, it might be fun to log onto my email and see what new horrors awaited me.

Oh. This one sounds promising. “ArtsandSportsLvr” finds me, “1literary_lady,” interesting. At least that’s what the subject header of the Match email indicates: “You Sparked Someone’s Interest!”

Well what do you know? With just a couple of days left to go on Match, I get a nibble.

I click the link that takes me to the Match website, and click again to see what Match has to say about him.

“He’s a 55-year-old man living in Cleveland, OH.”

Okay, age is fine. Geography, manageable.

“You both fancy felines. Like you, he’s not a smoker. He has a graduate degree.”

An intelligent cat-lover who doesn’t have nicotine stains on his teeth. This just keeps getting better and better.

I click on the link to his profile.

Ah. He’s included a picture. That’s always a good sign. There’s nothing creepier than seeing a faded blue head in silhouette accompanied by a wink (or, sometimes, a leer).

Wait. This is a nice picture. Look at those bright, clear blue eyes! And gosh darn it all, he’s got a dog, too! That is, if he didn’t rent the pup for the picture. (Had I grown cynical? Yes, just a little, around the edges.)

I was aware of the cyber-clock ticking. In a couple of days, I’d be lost to ArtsandSportsLvr forever. I had a decision to make. I could let boy-and-his-dog into my life, or let them trot off into the sunset. And live out the rest of my days with my cats.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and send a reply:

SUBJECT: The artful, sporting life…
From:        customercare@match.com
Date:        Mon, June 8, 2009 10:06 am

Hello, and thank you for your interest.
I must say that from what I read in your profile, we seem to have much in common. You also have a great smile; it suggests a good, kind soul.

My subscription to Match ends this week, and I’m not renewing it.  If you would like to get to know me off-line, as it were, and wish to send me a note, here’s my e-mail address in the real world:

[excised]

Have a wonderful day!

—Marci

I go out for my walk, and when I return, there’s a message waiting for me:

Marci, thanks for sharing your e-mail address.  I would like to continue chatting until you get comfortable enough to plan a get-to-know-you meeting.  I was introduced to the Oberlin concerts at the gazebo last year and enjoyed two of them.  The theater there is a wonderful bargain as well.  I have been told that the art museum is worth the trip and is on my list of to-do’s this summer.

Now you have my e-mail address and feel free to use it.

John

“Go out and make a difference in the world and it will make a world of difference in you.” – JR

I’m intrigued. A guy who includes a quote from himself in his email signature. That could seem pretentious, but this doesn’t strike me that way. I like the philosophy here. Could this be a man who’s not full of himself? An actual nice guy?

After a few more emails, we agree to speak on the phone.

I like his voice.

We set up a meeting at the museum in the town where I live.

That date, our first, lasts seven hours.

Reader, I married him.

I know I had become cynical about online dating toward the end of my tenure, but with success and the passage of time, it’s clear to me that I really had to give the algorithms time to do their work. John and I would never have met without the nudge from our cyber Dolly Gallagher Levi.

I wrote about this experience, and the online dating phenomenon, for the Richmond Times-Dispatch in an article published September 4, 2011. My research included interviews with Amy Canaday of Match.com’s public relations office, and two experts— Mark Brooks, an online dating consultant, and Dr. Robert Epstein, a contributor to Scientific American Mind.

When I interviewed Canaday by email in 2011, she told me that in the previous five years, the fastest-growing demographic for Match.com was the 50-and-older age group.

Unattached boomers? Are you listening?

Readers, this post is part of a GenFab Blog Hop. To begin reading all of the posts on the subject of “How I Met My Significant Other,” please click here.

You Can Take the Girl Out of Ohio …

29 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by in Transitions

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Map of Ohio

Map of Ohio (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

… but you can’t take the girl out of Ohio.

That’s right, folks. After nearly two-and-a-half wonderful years in Richmond, Virginia, my husband and I are returning to the Great State of Ohio—the land where we met and fell in love. The transition has already begun; John has started a terrific new job in the Cleveland/Akron area, and I’m managing operations down here until our townhouse sells and we find a new place to call home. Watch this space for exciting news about house-hunting! house-selling! packing! moving! driving across several states with a dog and a cat in tow! grappling with colder temperatures and honest-to-gosh winters with snow!

Do you have any great moving stories to share? Any great advice? (Any horror stories?) I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below, and you’ll be entered for a special drawing.

Talk to you soon!

From My Home to Yours, Happy Thanksgiving

21 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Relationships and Family Life, Special Events, Transitions, What's the Buzz?

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English: Saying grace before carving the turke...

English: Saying grace before carving the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner in the home of Earle Landis in Neffsville, Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Quite a lot has happened on the home front of late—so much, in fact, that I haven’t had a chance to fully process it all, let alone write about it. But on this Thanksgiving Eve, the most important thing I can share with you right now is to tell you that I’m keenly aware of all that I have to be thankful for this year—my husband’s love and the health of my family foremost. I’m writing this from the home I carry with me in my heart, rather than from our physical home. We’ve traveled again this year—to Ohio again this year—and I’ll have more to share with you about that at a later time. For now, I just want to add one more item to the list of things I’m grateful for: Your readership and support. Knowing that you are there, at the other end of the line, as it were, fills me with joy. Because of you, this little blog has grown beyond my wildest imaginings. A Thanksgiving post that I shared with you last year on this site appears today on Better After 50, a weekly online magazine, curated by Felice Shapiro, that was featured in the Boston Globe last month. So thank you, dear readers. Your support, your visits to this site, make a difference. I wish you and your loved ones a very happy, healthy Thanksgiving.

To Marci, On Your 20th Birthday

05 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by in The Writing Life, Transitions

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Nothing but myself?….My selves.
After so long, this answer.
As if I had always known
I steer the boat in, simply.

— from “Integrity” by Adrienne Rich

Marci, you don’t know me. I’m your 56-year-old self. Or maybe you do know me a little—after all, we’re part of the same person.

There’s so much I wish I could tell you on this, your 20th birthday. I wish I could prepare you for what’s to come. Actually, perhaps you don’t need my help; in retrospect, I—I mean we—handled some of the difficult things quite well. Interestingly, it was often the little things that tripped us up.

Right now you are at cross-purposes with yourself. You are working full-time as a legal secretary when so many others from high school are away at college. In fact, you are working too hard; you’re also putting in a lot of part-time hours at Casual Corner, that new retail store at the mall. I know, I know—the 20% discount is wonderful. And once a fashionista, always a fashionista. But I wish you were in a position to take an extra night class at the community college, instead of working two jobs. I know you need the money; you’re helping our mother, with whom you still live—often at each other’s throats.

It will take you many years to understand why she was so fearful and distrustful of life, and why her fears influenced many of the decisions we would make. Her life will be instructive, though: it will teach you what the poet Adrienne Rich will, in just a few years, call a “wild patience.” You must trust me on this.

You haven’t discovered Adrienne Rich yet, but you will. In fact, I’d advise you to seek her out now—don’t wait until you’re at Oberlin College. Yes, you’ll get there. It will take a while, but you’ll do it.

Right now you’re taking two classes—one in English composition, the other in journalism. You think you want to be a writer. You should hold on more tightly to this dream. I know that if I encourage you to change even the smallest thing about your life—to decide just one thing differently—the course of our lives will change. I’m not sure I want you to do that, because I’m coming from a very good place. There has been more sweet than sour in our lives—it has been a good life. No, what I would like you to do is believe in yourself more.

I remember how your thinking used to go:

Fulfilling, exciting careers are for other people, not for me. It’s useless to dream that I’ll be something more than I am, or do something bigger with my life; I’m destined to live in this town forever.

Marci, if you only knew. Please don’t dismiss your dream. Hold on to it. I cannot lie to you: although your dream will indeed be deferred, your “wild patience” will take you far; it will inspire you to pursue your dream again. You will finish college. You will write. You will also marry, and become a mother to a wonderful baby boy.

You will not remain married, but you will discover a strength you didn’t believe you had by living on your own for the first time in your life. You will have a career you never thought possible. You will meet a new man, fall in love, and marry again.

I don’t know if I should tell you any more—I especially don’t know if I should tell you about the bad things that will happen—the sour that seems to always accompany the sweet. Let me just go back to that idea of a wild patience: it will give you strength. It will fill you with passion and resolve. It will be your salvation.

And don’t worry: I’ll be in the boat with you. We’ll steer it in to shore together.

NOTES: The idea of writing to my 20-year-old self came from Chloe of the Mountain, founder of a wonderful blogging network to which I belong called “Generation Fabulous”  (GenFab for short). Today, GenFab started something known as a “blog hop.” We’re all writing to our younger selves and sharing the collective wisdom. You can read the other posts on this topic by clicking this link.

Marci Rich is not related to the late poet Adrienne Rich.

The Midlife Second Wife on KatieCouric.com and Thoughts on Ping-Pong

23 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Transitions

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Oh hello. It’s me again, the Midlife Second Wife and Celebrity Dog Whisperer. (I promise to explain that designation in an upcoming post.) I wanted to let you know that an edited version of “The ‘L’ Word” has been published on KatieCouric.com as “Learning to Love Again.” If you have the time, I hope you’ll check it out. If you like what you read, by all means join the conversation and leave a comment on the thread. Or share it on your Facebook page or Twitter feed. If you don’t care for it all that much, that’s all right, too. All I ask is that you lift your hands slowly and carefully up from the keyboard. That’s it. Now stand—nice and easy. Turn around. Walk away from the computer. Go fix yourself a snack or something.

Did you have a chance to see the absolutely breathtaking Susan Sarandon on the program? It was a fascinating conversation about relationships and finding love after a divorce or breakup, and covered topics such as commitment, what it’s like for older women to date younger men, and ping-pong. (In addition to being an acting legend, Sarandon is something of an entrepreneuse; she’s co-owner of SPiN— a ping-pong social club in Manhattan with locations in Toronto, Los Angeles, and Milwaukee.)

I’m just glad that all I had to do for the show was be in the audience and send out live tweets. Having me up there playing ping-pong would not have made for good television.

Having seen the program twice now, I’ve come to the conclusion that the ping-pong segment is an apt metaphor for relationships. What do you think?

One final note: the segment featuring Dr. Terri Orbuch, the “Love Doctor,” was bumped in order to preview last night’s presidential debate. As soon as I receive word about a new air date I’ll let you know. If you’re on Twitter, I was live tweeting during the broadcast. You can find the tweets at [hashtag]katie or via my handle, [at]midlife2wife. A couple of my tweets are also featured on the show’s website.

The ‘L’ Word

20 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in Love, Midpoints, Relationships and Family Life, Remarriage, Transitions

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morgueFile image/KConnors photograph

NOTE: KatieCouric.com published an edited version of this post as “Learning to Love Again” on Monday, Oct. 22, 2012.

As many magazine articles, advice columnists, and situation comedies will tell you, it’s tricky being the first person in a relationship to say, “I love you.” Remember George Costanza? George was left holding what Jerry Seinfeld called a “pretty big matzo ball” because he failed to receive the much coveted “I love you return.” But what’s funny on television is actually quite terrifying in real life. It takes a huge leap of faith and nerves of titanium to say the “L” word first.

Take that terror to the tenth power if you’re divorced.

I know whereof I speak. After 26 years of marriage, my first husband and I divorced. Fast-forward six years, and I meet him. You know, The One. But let’s digress a moment, because playing with these numbers has given me an epiphany.

When I met The One, I was one year shy of my seven-year cellular renewal cycle—you know, that “Aha! Moment” your body supposedly has when all of its cells slough away, leaving you with an almost brand-new self. In truth, as Nicholas Wade wrote in a New York Times science article seven years ago, some cells—“the neurons of the cerebral cortex, the inner lens cells of the eye and perhaps the muscle cells of the heart”— remain unchanged. Now that’s what I call something of great constancy. The cellular structures of the brain, the eye, and the heart—three essential components in registering romantic love, if you ask me—remain constant. The cells in the rest of our bodies hit the refresh key, as it were.

Interesting. But the brain, eye, and heart theory didn’t pass the constancy test in my first marriage, I’m sad to say.

Then again, you never know. I like the idea of considering, given multiples of seven, that perhaps anything is possible. Believe me, I have mapped this out. I was married at 21 and divorced at 47. (Okay, so I’m a year or two off.) But everything did seem possible when I met The One, skipping along as I was toward my next seven-year cycle of renewal. The One and I had a lot in common: we made each other laugh, we sang lyrics from the Great American Songbook while cleaning up the kitchen after cooking together, and the attraction we felt toward one another left us in awe.

And then, two-and-a-half months into the relationship, it happened.

I did it. I’m the one who said it. After a hesitant sigh, he replied, as gently as he could, “I’m sorry. I’m just not there yet.”

Talk about your matzo balls. I could have opened a deli.

“Forget it,” I countered hastily. “I shouldn’t have said it. I understand what you’re saying/feeling/thinking.” (I was trying to fill in as many blanks as I could to cover myself.) “It’s all right.”

I wanted to believe that his reaction stemmed from emotional baggage. Our arms were filled with it. His divorce, however, was more recent than mine. I had reached the point where my baggage, as Dr. Terri Orbuch (The Love Doctor) says, could fit in the overhead compartment. Him? Not so much. He needed a skycap.

Or maybe it was something else. Maybe (Heaven forefend!) it was a case of “he’s just not that into you.”

And so he left, leaving me to wonder if I’d blown it. How could I have misread the signals? Everything pointed to love. All of the signs were there: the caring, the fondness, the intimacy, the long, meaningful conversations, the seeming trust, the genuine enjoyment in just being together. If that’s not love, what is?

I decided I wasn’t going to let this get to me. I was happy, he was happy. (He was, wasn’t he?) We had a date for the following evening; in fact, we had several events lined up into the next month. I wasn’t about to bring it up again.

Until one day I did.

“I blank you.”

“What?”

“I said ‘I blank you.’”

“What does that mean?”

“It can mean whatever you’d like it to mean. Fill in the blank. For my part, I know what it means but I’m not telling you. More cake?”

He laughed, and that was that. We were back on an even keel. “I blank you” became a running joke between us. He even started saying it to me.

The weeks flew by. Before I knew it, October was here, the month containing the second most dreaded Hallmark holiday (after Valentine’s Day) for single people: Sweetest Day.

I remember the scene as though it were yesterday. I had cooked dinner, something from my collection of Barefoot Contessa cookbooks. I bought him a maroon hooded Oberlin sweatshirt, not because he went to Oberlin, but because I did. I still lived in that quaint college town, and he loved its cultural vibe as much as I did. I wrapped the gift and bought a card. I presented both to him with a flourish. Here’s the card:

© Marian Heath. Used with permission and slightly altered, as it was the day I gave it to The One. Where would we be without Post-It Notes?

After he finished laughing, he became quiet. He looked at me across the table and said, “Marci, I’m not saying this because it’s Sweetest Day. I don’t “blank” you anymore. That’s silly. I love you.”

There it was. Four months after meeting him on Match.com, he told me he loved me. The matzo ball dissolved.

Four years after that first sweetest day together, we’re still celebrating. We’ve been married for two years. At the risk of tempting fate, by our seventh wedding anniversary, I fully expect the constancy theory to hold—my heart, my head, and my eyes will see what I’m seeing right now: He’s The One.

© Marian Heath. Used with permission.

RELATED:

‘When they Fall, they Fly’

“Outliers of Outloving”

“Secrets Of A Successful Marriage: Marlo Thomas And Phil Donahue”

“Secrets to a Happy Relationship”

 

Where I Come From

14 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Nostalgia, Transitions, What's the Buzz?

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The old Elyria Public Library, Elyria, Ohio

VIOLA:
What country, friends, is this?

CAPTAIN:
This is Illyria, lady.

VIOLA:
And what should I do in Illyria?

What should I do, indeed?

Readers, I come from Elyria, Ohio. When I first ran across this passage from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (Act I, Scene II), as an English literature major at Oberlin College—15 miles (give or take) southwest of Elyria—I smiled to myself. How, I thought, could Shakespeare possibly have known that, in truth, there’s really not that much to do in ‘Illyria.’

Aye, there’s the rub.

Elyria, like so many neighboring towns in Northeast Ohio—including that metropolis to the east, Cleveland—has experienced more than its share of brain drain. Not that I’m such an Einstein, but after my divorce I moved to my alma mater’s eponymous town. I had gone to school at Oberlin and by then had worked at the college for ten years. My diaspora-of-one was not just to save myself a 15-minute commute twice each day; it was to live my life in a community of like-minded people, with steps-away access to internationally renowned concerts and lectures, where I no longer felt as though I were a stranger in a strange land. What a thing to say about one’s hometown! But it was true. I felt I had outgrown Elyria, although in some ways it’s quite possible it was the town that had outgrown me.

I remember when the fine arts were a lively part of life in Elyria. My mother spent—no, volunteered—countless hours selling subscription tickets to the Elyria Community Concert Association. Many backwater towns sponsored similar cultural lifelines, and Elyria was a thriving hub on the circuit. I remember seeing opera legend Leontyne Price, the Vienna Boys’ Choir, Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians, the piano duo of Ferrante and Teicher, and many others artists perform live in the auditorium of Elyria High School. Imagine that: a town without a performing arts center nevertheless brought internationally respected artists to visit.

And I remember taking the bus downtown with my mother, browsing through any number of sweet little shops that sold fashionable clothes to “the smart set,” eating at any number of mom-and-pop restaurants or soda fountains, buying chocolate cupcakes at Gartman’s Bakery. I saw the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night at the old Capital Theater downtown, and bought my 45-records at Wagner’s Appliance Store. I failed to learn how to swim at the Elyria YMCA across from Ely Square. I’ve already shared with you my childhood memory of the old Elyria Public Library, pictured above. All those places are gone. The library, torn down, opened a modern, one-story facility on Washington Avenue, sometime in the late 1960s, as I recall. It’s still there, although now there’s a newer, larger, main library on the west side.

You know that a city is growing when one library isn’t enough to contain all the dreams of its readers.

Elyria was changing, and I was changing with it. All the shopping was now centered at the Midway Mall. If you didn’t drive you had to take a taxi to get there, because the buses had stopped running. All the downtown movie theaters—and at one time there were four—were shuttered. The Community Concert Association folded; people now drove south to Oberlin to satisfy their longing for culture, or north to Lorain County Community College, at the very edge of the city, where a lecture series and a performing arts series were gaining a foothold. (I actually began my college education there, and received an excellent foundation that prepared me well for Oberlin.) The point, however, is that there really wasn’t much of anything left in Elyria except for government offices, banks, and lawyers.

It made sense that as long as I was starting a new life, I might as well give myself a new city in which to start it. Oberlin was an oasis in the corn belt that rimmed the rust belt of Elyria.

I’m indulging in this reverie because today’s Sunday New York Times features a portrait of my hometown on its front page—the first in a five-part series. Dan Barry, a gifted writer and reporter for the New York Times, spent untold hours in Elyria, interviewing residents, business owners, and government officials—including my oldest and dearest friend, a woman who has remained in Elyria her entire life, never, ever giving up on it. She now serves as the city’s Safety-Service Director. Her passion for helping the city’s current administration turn the city around is inspiring. I hope that she—that they—can do it.

P.S. About the diner that serves as the lens through which Dan Barry views Elyria: After my second husband and I got our marriage licenses, in the fancy new justice center across from the square that also figures prominently in Barry’s article, we walked over to Donna’s Diner for lunch. Several members of the ‘Breakfast Club,’ also referenced in the article, were still there, lingering over their coffee. As is often the case with small towns, I knew several of them. I said hello, and introduced to them the man I was about to marry.