On the Majesty of Mountains

It is hard to fathom the mountains. And that they move, slowly, without notice. But that's what happens. And it's humbling.

I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, with the Catalina mountains out my bedroom window, looming large beyond the foothills. Now, in Brooklyn, I am in the shadow of The City. It can be so daunting, what man can build with his own hands, how possible it is to be so productive, the proof right there in the awesome bridges and towering buildings, in all manner of high-speed transportation.



And, so, I return, as often a I can, to the mountains. And I am humbled, once again. I remember there are forces far greater than any of us. And it is strangely soothing. There is only so much I am responsible for.

In Joshua Tree, where I've come with my family, strange twisted Yucca brevifolia dot the desert landscape, sprouting up amidst the scrubby brush, in amongst the eery rock formations. They are apocalyptic to be sure, these "plutonic intrusions", signs of inevitable irrepressible change.

The geologic explanation for these impressive sculptural piles hurts my brain, some chemical combination of molten lava, arid climate and rains that occurred 100 million years or so ago. If only dragonflies could talk, the stories they'd tell.

As my children scurry along the rocks, rendered against their largess like ants, like characters from
Land of the Lost, I find my heart race. It is only a matter of time.

And in that moment I am forced to forget all the worries back home, to forget that I brought the wrong shoes, or that the wheel came off one of our rolling bags. Everything else falls away besides gratitude and the realization that to walk on this great Earth for even a little while is a gift, a spectacular gift we can not take for granted.

Plates shift, fault lines spread slightly and we are not in charge. But we can try, in our own small way, to recognize beauty and maintain it, to build bridges where we can, between places and people. We can walk with wonder through deserts and forests and the fine cities built by man's own capable
hands and we can stop to say thank you to the Powers that be, to the great and merciful forces that make it possible.

Resolved: Try

It is Jan. 2, 1:42. The resolutions are still not made.

I am inspired and annoyed by the many aphorisms littering my desk.

A wrinkled fortune cookie paper suggests, "Be the labor great or small...Do it well or not at all!"

Yes. Thanks. Next...

A set of cards I've kept around forever offers up in bold black: "DANCE as though no one is watching you, LOVE as though you have never been hurt before, SING as though no one can hear you..."

Good. Great. Will do.

If I search around, I will find so many pieces of paper that attempt to help me be my best self. Then, of course, there are many packages of gold stars that mock me, unopened ones with large, medium and small and many, many opened ones with only smalls left.

Is this the year I'll finally try kick-boxing? Should I go back to Bikram? I think I might have some sessions left. Running leaves me cold, but could it be The Thing that gives me the discipline I need to get back at that yet-unfinished novel?

There are many therapists' numbers among the pile of cards I've collected, a bill for one along with the insurance form unfilled out. Who is the Other Insured? Is that me, the patient?

Day 2 of the year and I am still hopeful, optimistic if only a bit confused.

What do I really want if I could have it this year, lucky 2013??

I put the question to a barista friend, what his resolutions were, and he just shook his head.

"I know you...you want me to talk about myself, and I don't want to talk about myself."

I love a challenge. I forced the issue and made him think about it aloud.

"I need to come up with something I can do every day...Running, no, that's stupid. I won't do it."

"I know," I agreed. "You have to actually be able to do it, otherwise you set yourself up for failure. You really have to believe...all those people who do the marathon, they have to believe in the end goal, that it will really do something for them."

He looked alert suddenly.

"Maybe I will do the marathon..."

I laughed. "Maybe you just need the bigger goal to make the running seem worth it..."

"Maybe," he said.

It is early days, luckily. We have time to decide what the year has in store, what we want it to be. I do want to do what I choose to do well, I want to dance, love and sing to the very best of my ability. I guess the thing I need to do is try.

What do you want to try??

Tis the Season...to Smile

Tis the season.

Tis the season to give, but where do you start and with who and is it ever enough?

Tis the season to receive, but do They even know you or care and is it ever enough?

Tis the season, if you're not careful, to be very, very bitter. Let's not, shall we?

I haven't written in a long while, and not because I haven't given out stars.

I have met and recognized the most amazing people every day, wherever I go. There is too much to say about how much people inspire me, so sometimes I get overwhelmed and don't say anything at all. But, before even my New Year's resolution to be better kicks in, I will note a few stories that stand out.

There was striking Sue Stirling, the beautiful makeup artist who worked magic on my eyes at the Mac counter at Macy's in Chicago's Water Tower.

She is a star and deserved a big gold one if ever anyone did for her kind understanding and prowess making people beautiful.

There was Sandy, on the subway, who hoped to get the train doors to close by sheer will.

"Do you have powers?" I asked, when he voiced aloud the command in his brain: "Please close NOW!"

He laughed. "Well, thank you, you've right-sized me..." he said.

We talked for the next 15 minutes about the control we have over our attitudes, whether toward being late (which I was too) or over bigger decisions in our life, like buying a home and actually enjoying it.

I didn't locate my stars before Sandy got off the train in a rush, but I gave him one in spirit.

There is Alex from the Cafe Colombe, the inspiring capitalist who buys up the coveted hoodies and hats from Supreme on Lafayette and sells them for a premium to the guys in the back of the line who didn't get up early enough.

He understood people, including the "line leader" boys he watches over and advises every week.

With a shine of thrill in his eyes, he described the Supreme brand and what it represents better than any high-priced marketing shop I ever interviewed in my days at Ad Age:

"It's rambunctious, aggressive, reckless...it's adolescence in its purest form."

I want Alex to run for political office. He understands human nature, the difference between need and desire. He dismissed my idea of gold stars for trying.

"You just have to DO," he said.

Of course, I agree, but I have sympathy--empathy even--for the inability we have sometimes to do even the things we greatly desire, when we don't NEED to.

Tis the season to give away love and understanding, whether it be a greeting card, a gold star or simply a smile and a little stupid phrase like, "Have a great day!"

That we can all do.

How to Help a Neighbor in Need

She was well dressed, maybe 50-something, with a lovely coat and shoes and an artsy tote. She took her coffee to go and commented on how happy she was to be warm, and inside someplace cozy, inside Colson Patisserie in Park Slope.

"I have no place to go," she said, more matter-of-factly than one might expect, except now, after Sandy. "I'm staying with a friend until Friday and then..." she trailed off. "Then, I don't know."

The young barista looked uncomfortable, so I stepped in.

"Where do you live?" I asked, cognizant suddenly that the question was a loaded one, the tense all wrong. Where did you live?

"Red Hook," she said, turning to face me at my corner table. I just nodded. I'd not been there since the devastation, just heard tell of the wreckage 10 minutes away. I'd just seen pictures, donated money to help, as if it were New Orleans or some further foreign land.

"What do they say, about getting back in?" I asked, hopeful that there was some promise of hope.

She shook her head. "They don't say anything. No one has any information. I live in housing, and the building manager just tells me, when I ask, to go away."

"FEMA?" I asked. "Could you go to a shelter?"

She nodded no. "I just couldn't. All those cots, all those people together..."

It struck me, then. The horror of sudden homelessness, her horror.

"And the money..." she said, shaking her head, unbelieving herself. "It's running out."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I wish I had some information to give you, something..."

She laughed. "It's not for you to say you're sorry, to have information..."

"I should though," I said. "I should know, be able to do something."

Without even thinking, I reached into my bag. I felt so useless, I had to do something.

"Here," I said, standing up from where I'd been sitting, eating a bowl of soup. I handed her a $20. "Take this."

It was the wrong thing, I knew it immediately. Tears started to form in her eyes.

"No!" she said. "Give it to charity, give it to someone..." She stopped herself. She was the one in need.

I felt sick, but I pushed forward. It was too late not to have this conversation, not to face the sad reality of the situation, mine and hers, have and have not.

"Please," I said, "We need to help each other, we need to be able to ask each other directly for help," I said. "I'm just giving money to organizations that help people in trouble, like you. We're neighbors, why can't we ask each other directly for help when we need it? We're going to have to learn to do that."

"Here," she said, anxious to rid herself of her feelings of helplessness, desperate to suddenly. She reached for my bowl on the table, to clear it. "Let me help you..."

"No," I said. I took the bowl and put it on the counter. I felt afterward that I should have let her take it, let her be useful.

"It'll be fine," I said, as I turned to her. Then, it occurred to me: Maybe it wouldn't be, certainly not right away. Maybe, after Friday, she'd have nowhere to go.

"Let me give you my number," I said, grabbing the pen off the counter, pulling a receipt out of my wallet.

I put my name and number down, my e-mail. I thought maybe I should just give her my address, in case she had no phone, no Internet. She could know a place that would take her in, a stranger and a strange place, but someplace.

She took the paper willingly, unlike the $20.

"Thank you," she said, gratitude in her eyes. "I'm Devorah."

"I'm Stephanie," I said.

We walked out of the cafe together. She was headed across the street, to the library.

"Thank goodness it reopened," I said.

She nodded, "Yes," she said. "I feel almost normal there."

"Good-bye," I said. "Good luck, stay warm."

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you very much."

I didn't even give Devorah a gold star. It just didn't seem like nearly enough.  

The Great Susan Fox

I remember meeting Susan Fox in Prospect Park. I'd just moved to Park Slope with my one-year-old son, and was taking a walk down toward the dog pond when a bright-eyed blonde introduced herself and took down my information for a new parents group she was starting, Park Slope Parents. I remember signing up at work and immediately cancelling when my inbox become inundated with information and requests and news.

Somehow, over the last decade, Susan has continued to build a network of amazing Park Slope parents, people who have the power to collaborate to do anything, if only they could be coordinated and given direction.

Susan is that amazing director. Her ability to deftly manage a neighborhood of managers was never in better evidence than this past week. When devastation struck our city by the powerful storm called Sandy, Susan's strong voice rang out simple directives on what we, the fortunate, able-bodied, monied mass of Park Slopers, needed to do to help. The Old Stone House became a hub last weekend, a physical manifestation of the virtual network she has run for so long, that I only recently had the nerve to sign up for again.

As I sit paralyzed by the magnitude of help needed in our city, overwhelmed by guilt and not sure how to do my bit, I am so grateful to that beautiful blonde light that emanates from my amazing neighbor and inspires me to do what I can.

I placed a gold star on Susan as she managed the teams of volunteers at the Old Stone house. She deserves so many more, for always trying, never giving up, for helping so many every day in so very many ways.

Cafe Faith

I stumbled upon Two Moon Art House & Cafe while waiting for my oil to be changed across the crowded expanse of Fourth Ave.

It seemed like a casual place, with a man painting a red wall along the back. The lovely girl who served me had a bright smile and nearly forgot to charge me for my Americano. The money seemed an afterthought. It almost felt like I shouldn't pay,  like I was more a guest in a private home. It felt good, comfortable, easy.

I picked up a flyer about an "Americana Passover." With just a glance, I knew. It was an attempt at creating The New Religion, the meaningful one, the alternative to the customs we grew up with that seemed hollow, the one that would give those of us searchers the community we were searching for.

As I clutched the flyer, I shared a look with the bright-smiled girl, a mutual understanding: we were in the same boat.

"Are you Jewish?" I asked, imagining she was a defector from my same group, looking for some new twist on old traditions.

She shook her head no.

"I was raised Catholic by atheist parents." She shrugged. I laughed.

"Hmmm...faith is tough," I said, in sympathy with her and with her parents, trying to give their child something they couldn't buy themselves. It would be so much easier, wouldn't it?

I looked around and gestured to the space, "Is this place yours?"

"Yes," she said, nodding. "I'm one of the owners."

I'd figured, having heard her address the painter and someone who walked in to talk about practicing for a show. From the look of it, Two Moon housed a little bit of everything from music to films to food and wine, even a new religio-political movement called Organs of State that was behind the Americana Passover to inspire like-minded engaged people to gather around food.

Their slogan, "Come Dine and Remake America" was hopeful and proactive, a seeming solution in itself unlike so many other modern movements.

"I'm impressed with what you've done here," I said. "It looks like you've already created a azzeo, community."

"Thank you!" she said, "We're trying..."

"I can see that," I said, and handed Joyce Pisarello a star. She and her co-owner, Danielle Mazzeo, are filling their space with artists and actors and thinkers and doers. They are creating faith in the most modern way: cafe-style.

Kristian Orozco- Trying to Raise Boys

 

I sat down with Kristian Orozco to gain some insights on raising my crazy 9- and 11-year-old boys, and he put it to me straight, albeit sympathetically.

"The difficulties we have with our children often stem from our own personal 'lacks and gaps,'" he said.

I laughed. I'd come to this conclusion myself, although I hated to admit it. I'm not consistent, I love to live on the fly, I hate to set limits for myself, I hate to sit still...the list of my flaws that show up in my children go on and on.

With his organization, The Boyhood Project (www.theboyhoodproject.com), Kristian hopes to foster an environment in which people can "raise emotionally intelligent boys to transform the world."

Emotional intelligence starts, of course, with parents' recognition and admission of our own contributions to the home environment.

Kristian says clearly, with great sympathy in his eyes, "We have to realize that our own emotional shortcomings make up our parenthology. Sometimes we don't realize that  a child's behavior is a reflection of our own belief system."

The Boyhood Project is all about creating what Kristian calls a "center column" between the strict, punishing ways of the last generation and the often too-permissive ways of today's parents.

"Where did we get the crazy idea that to get kids to do better, we have to make them feel bad?" Instead of just praising kids, which makes them dependant on your approval, he suggests we stop hovering and controlling our children and "start letting them know they are accountable for their own success."

Parents taking responsibility is the first step toward raising kids who take responsibility.

"It's hard," Kristian said, again looking at me with big, sympathetic eyes. "But we have to try."

Gold star to Kristian for trying and for helping others, including me, do the same.

A New McCarthyism

What I saw in Andrew McCarthy's eyes and the set of his mouth many decades ago in Class is what shone through last night, as he read from his new memoir, The Longest Way Home.

 

Listening to Mr. McCarthy and, later, in the middle of the night, reading the words he put down for the ages, it was clear he possesses that most rare thing, the thing that separates true artists from others: a vulnerability and an openness, a strange twisted lack of fear about expressing one's fear of relationship.

 

I giggled as he spoke, bold and slightly sheepish as usual, about coming to terms with the paradox of loneliness even in the midst of love, his book's main theme, downstairs at McNally Jackson on Prince St. I was as unabashed looking deep into his eyes as I had been looking at them on so many screens as a teenager.

 

I came clean in the Q&A: "I loved you in all your movies," I said. "There was something so different about you, something that came through, which is why I guess you got so many roles." I asked him how he chose, how he knew how to act like himself, like the person he said he'd found when he first played the Artful Dodger from Oliver in a school production at 14.

 

He balked slightly at the question, offhandedly pegging his too-early success on a series of actions over which he had little control.

 

"We all really stumble through..." he said. "We don't choose our stories so much as our stories choose us." But still, he acknowledged, staring upward in thought, "When I look back at those movies, I can see it: the essence of me was so unguarded."

 

The ability to let down one's guard with others and still maintain one's sense of self requires an intense effort of the kind Mr. McCarthy has travelled the world alone to try to figure and put forth. It is not easy, as he shows, to open one's heart wide and let in the people who can take us the places we want to go.

 

"Fleeting connections that that may seem unimportant and transient at the time can have a huge affect on one's life," he said.

 

I felt vindicated and happy by the evening, by finally being able to figure what it was that had drawn me to Mr. McCarthy all those years ago. I handed him a big gold star as he penned his name illegibly inside my copy of his first book, his tale of "One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down."

 

He smiled that sexy sideways smile and put it on his belt. "My daughter will be excited I got a gold star," he said, with clear love in his eyes, unguarded as usual. With such honesty, it is clear that this Brat Pack heartthrob will most certainly succeed in his great second act as a writer.    



Small Business, Large Hearts

When I walked in to the LLL Deli on Love Lane in Mattituck, New York, I was hopeful. I wanted a turkey and swiss sandwich, just like I'd make myself at home if I'd had the time and energy.

Handwritten signs promised I could get just that: simple tasty affordable food in exchange for cash. Tina and Kevin Langer open their doors Monday through Friday at 5:30 a.m. It made sense, then, the sign that made me laugh:

Good Morning...Let the Stress Begin!

"I like your sign," I told Tina with a smile.

She just shook her head slowly. "It's like that, every day. You get up, and you're just not ready for a while."

"But then it gets better?" I asked hopefully.

"Yep," she said with a slight affirmative nod as she spread mayonnaise on my roll. "It does. You wake up."

There were pictures on the wall, many of the day USA Network's Royal Pains was being filmed out front.

"It's supposed to be set in The Hamptons, but..." Tina and I both laughed. The North Fork, where we were standing, is the far less fancy and expensive of the peninsulas that jut out from the East End of Long Island.  

"They had a catering truck, but some of 'em were nice, like the main guy, he'd come in and buy food from us," Tina said.

I smiled. I'd met the "main guy"-Mark Feuerstein-once. He went to school with my husband at the "tony" Dalton school. He is one of those gracious successful people. They exist here in New York as they exist everywhere. It is nice to hear tales of people from different places and different circumstances seeing through to one another.

The Langers were lovely. They made me a great sandwich and I gave them cash--and gold stars.

New Beginning

Every year at this time it is the same: I have to remember anew what I forgot. I have to remind myself to remind myself of all the things I learned before, all that I figured in great moments of epiphany. I am a writer so as to record all those thoughts that seem so crucial when they arrive. But then I cannot quite put my finger on where I might have written The Answers, in which notebook, in what computer file. I must figure and write them anew, these musings on what might be The Way, or at least My Way. I must not be embarrassed that I am attempting to determine this thing called Life every day as if for the very first time.

As the warm air grows cool, and the birds practice their flight skills for long journeys elsewhere, I am charged again with how to move forward in good mental and physical health, how to help my family and friends and neighbors do the same. The lazy restful days of summer are a distant memory, replaced by schedules and homework and grand schemes for projects that (cross your fingers) might actually see the light of day. It gets harder and harder to jump out of warm covers into the chill dark mornings and rev up for what needs to be done. But then I hear the birds, so alive and singing their repetitive songs, and I am shamed into rising to search for my own proverbial worm, to try in whatever ways come to me, in whatever ways I can.

I tell myself:

This is the year that I will reward my own valiant efforts, no matter what the outcome. 

This is the year that I will reward others' valiant efforts, no matter what the outcome. 

This is the year in which I vow to judge myself and others less harshly, the one where I will learn to pay attention and appreciate and expect the best, but not be angry and disappointed if the best is not achieved as I'd imagined. 

This is the year I will attempt to place a shiny gold star in as many people's hands as possible to remind them that trying hard is all they can do, and that it is enough. 

Thank you for all your love and kindness and patience. Remember anew every day to reward yourself and others for trying.

Having Faith in Faith

Her name was Faith.

"I love that," I said, and I do love the name. It is such a hopeful name, in this case, Faith's mother is also Faith, and waited until her fifth of five children to share the blessing.

This particular Faith offered up her thoughts, very grounded thoughts, on the ridiculous realities of the neighborhood we live, things like the bedbug scare and the storm. 

"It was great to see people in New York have to walk single file because of the snow, have to be patient," she said with a sneaky smile.

I laughed in agreement. "So true," I said, "I'd almost think Bloomberg planned it if I didn't know better," I said, quoting me back to me as I often do now that I write a column, write various articles based solely on what I think. Scary.

Just like with the bedbugs or the snow, things often out of our control, Faith is a believer in moving through things, moving forward, letting go of expectations.

"Uch," she said of buying expensive sunglasses, very expensive anything, "then, of course you lose it right away or something happens." She shook her head no, in vehement agreement with herself, the best possible person one can agree with.

I gave Faith a gold star for her great attitude, for her deep, smiling engagement in the conversation. Maybe it's all in a name after all.

Save My Washing Machine, Save Me

Roger is a saviour. The laundry had been piled up for a week, just awaiting the expertise (and hose) of a guy like him, one of several upbeat super-helpful repairmen deployed by Lenny of Len's Appliance Service that have come in to our home and restored order and orderliness. Granted, it took them a few days for the part to come in and I had to be flexible in accordance with their busy schedule, but they were patient and so was I.

"I need you, now!" I'd joked to Lenny, the owner over the phone.

 "I love you, but..." he'd said. The "but" in this case totally negated the love. There were so many other women, truly desperate housewives, he couldn't even pretend to differentiate us. It was first come first served with Len.

"I had a boyfriend named Lenny in high school..." I told him, as if he cared, as if this would make him schedule the belt getting put in my washer any faster. It's always worth a try.

It reminded me of my days soliciting grocery buyers over the phone all across the country to ferret out the latest package-goods marketing secrets. One of them, a hilarious man I adored in upstate New York, was always on the money when it was my time of the month, the first to guess I was pregnant with my second.

When Roger finally arrived with the part, the stench in my place was beginning to grow a little fermented.

"You must be very popular," I said to Roger, giddy when he closed the lid on my newly fixed washer and carefully wiped the machine with a cloth to remove the smudges he'd placed there.

"People do tend to appreciate me," he said with a big happy-with-his-job smile. "Actually, sometimes, it's like it was the first time someone was ever nice to them. I make them feel comfortable in their own home, like I'm not sure they normally are."

Roger was proud of his efforts and rightly so. He was sure to tell me he didn't set the prices. Better to separate yourself from the bill if you want to be popular and appreciated. Smart man, Roger. And for this I gave him a big gold star.

Watching the Dragonflies

She sat down next to me and I noticed her earrings right away: dragonflies.

"I love your earrings," I said. "I love dragonflies."

Caroline smiled. "Thanks," she said, putting her hands up to touch the silver dangling dragonflies, as if she had to feel to remember them.

We talked about dragonflies' amazing fortitude, their resistance and ability to adapt to their environment. They are growing large, lately, I've noticed, the past few summers, and flying further afield from water than they once did as the climate changes, as they need to change. I have seen dragonflies in Midtown, by MOMA. They do seem rather artistic...

"Animals and plants are doing strange things lately, stratifying away from each other," Caroline noted, citing something she'd read. "We have to watch nature to see what it's doing, but as humans there is this confluence of wanting to invent and like water, wanting to find the easiest route."

Of course, Caroline and I agreed, we have to work together and with nature, as nothing survives alone. But despite any greater designs, such cooperation is not always the direction things go. Interdependence has a price and it is, of course, independence. It is a conundrum, then, whether it is best to choose collaboration or to go it alone.

Sitting side by side in the cafe, new friends, we both are rooting for communal efforts but, Caroline said, somewhat resignedly, "Making the choice to do right for yourself is survival in its perfect form."

If history is any indication, we seem, like the dragonflies, to bow and duck around in time, with the wind, to find the "best" way forward in various states of solitude and dependence.

"Either way, we are destined to make mistakes," Caroline said, getting up and acknowledging that our brief passionate discussion to try to figure things simply by watching dragonflies was not going to end in an answer.

I laughed as I gave her her gold star, for trying. "We're about as effective as Dr. Seuss's Whos screaming as loud as they could into the wind..." I said. "But at least we're trying to pay attention!"  

Revolution Required, In Fashion and...

Chet piped up to defend me at Parco yesterday when sassy barista, Jeremy, questioned my being given an assignment to cover fashion, albeit men's fashion.

"You, fashion?" Jeremy laughed.

"Hey, just because you only ever see me in Spandex..." I said.

Chet, sitting next to me, sort of, came to my rescue, offering up, "Miuccia Prada often looks very bad..."

Hmmm, was he defending me? "Um, thanks? I think?" I said.

We talked about fashion a bit then, Chet and I, about how the people in the biz, the trend-setters, often set the trends slightly by accident, because they just don't care to follow the rules.

"I think it must be so funny for people to put some strange thing together on a whim, just by instinct, and then have all kinds of people copy it," I said.

Handlebar mustaches, for example, are all of a sudden slightly common. 

"You could pull off some funky facial hair..." I suggested to my new friend.

Chet nodded. "But only if I had a big ring through my lip, and that wouldn't fly in my office, as a government wonk."

"I don't know," I said, "sometimes when we break the rules, people follow. They want someone to lead them, to take charge and change things. Like in Revolutionary Road, when he decides to screw what he thought he should do and just went for it, he got a big promotion. That happens all the time."

As it was, I noticed Chet himself looked very dapper.

"I needed to dress up today...I just had to do it," he said. 

It was a freezing day in early February, Parco visitors were mostly running behind. Getting out of bed is hard this time of year.

"I'm with you," I said, "sometimes you just have do it, dress yourself up to make it happen."

"You gotta look the part..." Chet agreed.

He couldn't decide where to put his gold star, maybe on his red tie? In the end, he put it straight on his chest, just above the pocket of his natty suit. It suited Chet, the star.

With a wave and a flourish, a gracious thank you to Jeremy for his delicious mushroom quiche, Chet was out. We shall meet again, I'm sure.  

Trying to Be Communal

Jessica joined me on the bench yesterday as I sat doing door-duty at my children's Hebrew school. I am a half-hearted Hebrew school parent at best, which is why I volunteered for the easy duty, to assuage some of my Jewish guilt.

Jessica, likewise, was stuck, waiting, so we began to chat as friendly people are wont to do. Before too long, as can happen easily in Park Slope, the conversation turned to the Park Slope Food Co-Op and whether or not I was a member...I am, somewhat abashedly, somewhat ashamedly, not.

"I just can't handle another responsibility, another organization that needs something from me that I probably won't be able to give, especially when it comes to my groceries," I explained.

Jessica, like so many others before her, like those who have tried to get me to join The Landmark Group, tried hard to convince me.

"It's only 2 1/2 hours a month..." she said, "and it's a guaranteed 20% mark-up over cost, where other stores are like 100%."

She made a good case, I'll give her that, especially as my convenient just-across-the-street shopping at 150% mark-up Union Market is putting me in serious debt.

I am tempted but I know myself too well. If I get involved, if I just walk in the door to try out the low-cost fruits and veggies on offer, I'd be tempted to put in more time, to get more involved than necessary. I'd think so much about what I could do for the co-op but don't necessarily want to that I'd probably fail to even meet the required time. Worry, worry would be all I would give my fellow cooperators. And that's not fair.

Jessica, a clearly sensitive woman, a sign-language interpreter and dancer, looked at me with big, understanding eyes.

"There are so many communities to be part of, it's true," she said.

"Exactly," I said, as the other Hebrew school parents, none of whom I know, walked in to claim their kids. "And it's so easy to become Jack the Joiner, part of many communities but really part of none."

I gave a gold star to Jessica  for trying herself to be part of many communities and for understanding that I, in my own way, am trying too.

Snowy Appreciation

It is easy to take others' hard work for granted.

As we walked easily yesterday down our sidewalk with sleds, snow piled high on top of parked cars, I said out loud, "Wow, aren't we fancy?" Here we hadn't lifted a finger and, yet, voila! Despite a foot or so of snow, there was a clear clean path out our door and leading, it seemed, straight to our destination.

It then occurred to me: our being "fancy" was someone else's really fucking hard work!

As we came around the corner, the dry cleaner was there with his shovel, the sweet man who knows us by name (not that I know his, I'm terrible.)

"Great job, thank you very much for shoveling on our behalf!" I said, handing him a gold star. I wanted to take his picture but he waved me off.

"Very shy..." he said.

I understood and didn't pull a paparazzi move. I gave him his space. I think that's why I never ask him his name. Strangely, I get shy around shy people. I feel guilty being my very verbose self around them. It feels like I am actually inflicting torture.

We had a great time sledding. I say we, but it was mostly the kids, with mommy chatting up all and sundry (even the shy ones.)

Snow days in Park Slope, if the sledding is good, offer a rare opportunity for an outdoor party on the high hill behind the Picnic House in Prospect Park. All the fun parents are there, the more fearless, the ones who can stomach watching their progeny fly fast over the ridges created by many sledders, often straight into other sledders. Collective groans could be heard all around at the amazing headlong crashes.

Picking up provisions for lunch afterward, just some quick fixins at the deli, an older woman I've seen around, always looking to chat, came in to ask the Yemeni deli guy if he wanted anything for lunch.

"I'm goin' to Smiley's," she said, invoking the name of the local pizza parlor, "ya want anythin'?"

She looked at me then. "I do everything for everyone around here," she said, adding, only slightly in jest, "No one does anythin' for me."

I love these moments, when I can reach into my bag and do something for someone who feels needy, quickly and easily.

"Here," I said, handing her a star, "now you've been recognized for your good deeds..."

Tears came to her eyes. "Really," she said, "I have a heart too..."

Taking people for granted is so easy, especially those who like doing for others, who do it with relish, like this nice lady. My gold stars help remind me to reach out to these people, that they need it even if they're too shy to ask. What reminds you?

A Visit from Kamel

Kamel Boudjemil came to stay on my couch as a gift from my young French friend Felix, who joyfully lodged in our third bedroom for six months as he worked at Human Rights Watch last fall, before he high-tailed it to Beirut to put his Arabic lessons to the test. I had asked for some of the crepes Felix is making at a creperie, back in Paris after a tour in Yemen and before he heads to Syria. Or, I'd said, "you can send someone to make me crepes..."

Kamel did not make crepes and I felt too guilty to take him up on his offer to make Quiche Lorraine though he brought us a delicious bottle of French wine and a book of Babar in French for the kids. Next visit he'll make us the quiche.

It was a joy to host Kamel, who was relegated to the couch since Lisa, a poet from New Jersey, currently resides in the extra room. A political science major at Sciences Po in Paris, he offered up great wisdom on the Middle East regions he understands well and offered up, for me, as Felix had, some great hope that the next generation will figure all this out, that we will somehow come to some peace simply because our future politicians, like Kamel and Felix, will not think to do otherwise.

I gave Kamel a big gold star, which he placed in the middle of the red felt square he had attached to his hat, the remnants of a friend's slightly Marxist club. Who knows what -isms, if any, will work. He left New York with a lot of memories and a bag full of great American books including George Orwell's Animal Farm, Charles Bukowski's Women  and some Woody Allen. We talked, hopefully, of doing an international book club over Skype. I would love it.

These cultural exchanges are crucial for understanding others, for finding a way to appreciate one anothers' practices instead of hating them, to, ideally, finding peace. My fingers are crossed that my young brilliant friends will work fast, saving regions like Beirut from falling, again, into ruin.

Maybe Somebody

"No offense," a nice gentleman told me recently, "you're impressive, but you're nobody."

I laughed. I tried to look on the bright side. Impressive was a nice compliment, no matter that it was followed by the huge insult, the huge insult that is both true and untrue.

Of course, I'm somebody. The way The Doors were somebodies before their band took off, before photographer Henry Diltz took the photo above and the one of the group in the window of The Morrison Hotel, a famous photo for which the cool Soho gallery he co-founded is named. I visited there today to find inspiration, and gave the friendly staff gold stars.

We are all somebodies. Only in hindsight can there be a line between when "somebody" still somewhat inconspicuous becomes a "Somebody" people have heard of and even speak of in common parlance. John Dos Passos captures this idea well in his U.S.A. trilogy, which follows a variety of people's stories at the turn of the century, regular people like a boy who liked to build whose name was Frank Lloyd Wright.

Photographers are gamblers of a sort, gambling that their subjects might rise to fame and fortune and, with them, the value of the photograph taken of them, the quick flash of a moment back in time.

"Are you going to be famous?" Isak Tiner, the photographer I met in a cafe and hired to take my photo for this blog asked before he trained his camera on me.

I laughed then, just like I did at the man who said I was nobody. "Maybe," I said, "one never knows."

He smiled big at me as I sat down on the subway across from him.

I laughed. "It's my hair, isn't it?" I said. "You're smiling at me because of my hair..."

James Tapuano, I would come to know in our fast 15-minute friendship, does not shy away from the truth.

"Yes, it's fun, very charming," he said of my Princess Leia look ("an OLD Princess Leia," according to my own young truth-teller, Eli).

I have noted recently that the two silly buns sticking out from either side of my head give off the impression that I am a slightly-touched person, someone free and childlike and non-judgmental. Who would I be to judge? The style makes people, like James, smile and feel friendly. It's a good thing, like a gold star in a hairstyle.

James, it turns out, is a construction worker/sage. When I told him I was a writer, I wrote sometimes about parenting, he told me he was a father of two, and a grandfather of two.

"I started young," he said apologetically.

"Maybe that's a good thing," I said.

He perked up, like maybe he hadn't done the wrong thing. "I was a kid along with them...it was hard to separate and be the parent," he said.

"That's great, you have to be a kid with them I think, then they trust you. I always wonder, otherwise, what the dividing line is, when you're the disciplarian parent and then, all of sudden, you want to have a friendly relationship with them."

"That's true, that's true," he said. "But I didn't know anything..."

I laughed. "Does anybody, at any age? Please. At least you didn't feel like you should know anything...you probably let yourself off the hook. I think that's the problem with parenting, we don't know exactly what we want to achieve, we have no objective."

James sat up and leaned forward eagerly. "Exactly! How do you get to a place when you don't know where it is?"

I asked the difficult question. "Do you have a good relationship with your kids?"

He paused, long paused, and I started to retract but then he spoke.

"As far as love and communication, yes. Was I the best father? No." He laughed. "It was more like, 'this is my life as a cowboy, watch me. I'll be the sacrificial lamb so you can learn what not to do.'"

I gave James a gold star and my card and told him to keep in touch. I hope he does. I could use some cowboy advice, some real truths about what it takes sometimes to make things work. Construction workers know best what it really takes to build things.

Forging the Best Path: Trisha Mulligan

Sometimes it's just easier to do the easy thing, even when you know it's not the answer.

Trisha Mulligan knows this well. She is an  herbalist and a gardener (Terra Flora Botanicals) who watches the pharmaceutical industry thrive because it is too hard for people to make changes they know are necessary, changes that require their own discipline and hard work.

Of course, like all of us, Trisha, a mother of two under 5, sometimes takes short cuts that derail her for a time, easy ways out. For example, she is considering, after a long marriage, finally exchanging her Irish surname (the last in her family's line of Mulligans) for her musician husband Tony Garnier's more famous one.

"Uch," she says over coffee and quiche at Parco. "I volunteer so much at my kids' schools, and it's just so challenging to have a different name than they do!"

Smart people know that sometimes you have to be flexible. What works for a time may not always work. We have to pay attention and, sometimes, make a change. A gardener knows that as well as anybody. Change is a constant among the plant world.

Trisha is great, dynamic and strong, which is why I wasn't at all surprised when she slapped her gold star right smack dab in the middle of her forehead. She is forging ahead with a new garden at the public school where she volunteers for her oldest, and making plenty of adjustments in her own life--temporary or permanent--in an effort to find the best path. Not the easiest path always, mind you, not the primrose path, but the real, honest, down-and-dirty route that might work best for her and her family.