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The Left Column Everybody seems to have a left hand column these days. Some use it for pictures, some for links, some for pithy sayings. I haven't a clue what I'm going to use the left column for, but I like the look of having one. So we'll all be surprised as I investigate the possibilities... But just to get things started with a fun link for the new year, check out this site. |
IT'S A NEW WORLD I SEE 01 - 01 - 01 It’s the new year. I’ve designed a new look for the journal after all. And I slept in till 6 (I usually wake up around 4). It’s a whole new world. I’m not quite awake as I write this, so I hope you’ll take that into consideration. We spent New Year’s eve quietly, sort of. We went to a party hosted by the psychiatrist that I work for. It’s always an interesting gathering. He and his wife (a state assemblywoman) have been giving this party for as long as we’ve known them--which is nearly 30 years. The people who attend are people our kids were in nursery school with, with whom we worked in the PTA and other organizations. Over the years we’ve all gotten older, and fatter, and greyer. And as I looked around the room, I realized that a lot of these people had become the movers and shakers of Davis. The psychiatrist plays banjo in a kind of bluegrass group and a big part of their party each year is sitting around singing folk songs, hymns and other tunes we’ve known forever. It’s the highlight of the evening and I just love it. At one point there was a duet between the soon-to-be mayor and a former mayor. The former mayor’s husband played the tub bass--an old wash tub, turned upside down, with a stick and string attached to it that gave an amazingly wonderful sound. He’s a guy with a huge bushy beard, wearing a plaid shirt and suspenders and looked like he’d be choosing whether to be on the side of the Hatfields or the McCoys, instead of being a prominent attorney. As for the former mayor, I don’t know her at all, but I remember when someone I do know worked for her and told tales of horror...the woman couldn’t keep a secretary to save her soul and the woman I know left after she’d had a typewriter thrown at her. I smiled as I listened to her singing a beautiful hymn and wondered how many people know how she treats her staff. The room was filled with physicians, none of whom I really know, except by name. I was surprised when someone commented on how well Dr. so-and-so played the piano (because I didn’t realize that it was Dr. So-and-So, someone whose name I know, but whom I’d never actually met). He reminded me of my father and the days when there would be parties at our house, my father always seated at the piano surrounded by people requesting various numbers. He always looked his happiest and most at home when he was playing the piano. Of course after the party was over, he’d be angry that he "had" to play, but when he was playing, it was always fun. The president of the school board and her husband were there last night. These are good friends of ours. They know the pain of losing a child and were the people who were the biggest help to use after David died. They showed up on our doorstep one afternoon and the four of us just stood there, so much unsaid between us. Over the next few months, they were the only people with whom we could really relax. They understood the need to cry...and also to laugh...and the desire to find some "normalcy" again. They helped us get through that awful time. An acting couple arrived. I don’t mean they were acting as a couple, but they were active in community theatre for years. He’s on staff at the University, she specializes in oral histories and has interviewed some of the city historical figurres to create an oral history of the county. Both have performed with the Davis Comic Opera Co. He is a wonderful Gilbert & Sullivan patterman, though I suspect that it’s more difficult for him now with false teeth that give him kind of a permanent whistle. She and I had a meaningful conversation once. People had been after me to write a history of the Comic Opera Co. I had been resisting. I’d already worked with my friend Alison Lewis on two histories of The Lamplighters and felt I’d shot my wad. Also, the emotional connection was never the same for me with DCOC as it had been for The Lamplighters. I was finding it difficult to admit that to people. She and I talked about it at a gathering one night when I was suggesting that she was better qualified to tell the DCOC story. Suddenly she "got it." She looked me in the eye and said .... "you don’t love it, do you?" I admitted that no, I didn’t have the same love for DCOC and would find it difficult to create the same kind of book that we had created for The Lamplighters. I think it was our only real in depth conversation, but I still remember it. At midnight we all stood around holding hands and singing "Auld Lang Syne." There’s always a bit of a tear that come to the eye when you look at the previous years of your life and see where you’ve come from to get where you are--the pleasure and pain, the triumps and tragedies that make you who you are. But then there is the baby new year creeping in, a world full of promise of wonderful things to come. We ended the evening with warm bowls of lobster bisque, a Scottish tradition, and hoppin’ John, a Southern tradition (I passed on the hoppin’ John). And with our bellies full we walked out into the foggy night to come home to face the new year, with all the new experiences that it will bring. Happy New Year to everyone! |
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