Ballet Boy

An old college friend from D.C. stopped over for the night on her way to N.Y.C. to drop off her son at boarding school.  But this was no ordinary boarding school.  Her fifteen-year-old son, Noah, would be living in the Julliard campus’ dorms and studying at the School of the American Ballet (SAB) while taking his academic classes at a Manhattan performing arts school.  Though he was very calm and collected on the outside, he assured us he was extremely nervous and excited on the inside. I asked mother and son how it all began over nachos and burritos. 

“At 9 years old Noah played competitive concert piano, but he also loved to dance in the basement,” Mom said, “and he loved sports, especially baseball. He was already good at sports but I knew that if he was going to also be a good dancer he would need a foundation in ballet training. So I bribed him with permission to play ball after dinner if he took just one ballet class. He agreed. Then I searched for an all boy ballet class taught by a man. It was much further away but I finally found one. He went once and loved it.”

Noah started dancing once a week, then twice. In 5^th grade The Kennedy Center used him when they needed young boys for their performances. “Basically, I found out I was an attention junkie,” Noah said with a smirk, “but I was still a huge Nationals baseball fan as well.” However, his school community wasn’t as open minded about his dual passions. He was bullied, so the decision was to home school in 6^th through 8^th grades. “He was homeschooled so he wouldn’t be brainwashed out of doing what he loved,” said his mother with a smirk looking reminiscent of her son’s. At 12 years old, Noah was dancing 6 days a week, 2-6 hours a day at a top D.C. city ballet school and commuting by himself while excelling in academics and still practicing baseball. And keeping up with his classical piano. I thought how altered our society would be if all the children who happen to know their passion at 12 could attend specialized schools to hone, explore and master their desire.

Noah auditioned for SAB’s summer school program when he turned 13 and was waitlisted. Feeling stifled by leveling at his own ballet school, he nearly quit, but reluctantly continued. I asked, “What do you think made you stand out?” It was a fair question; SAB accepted only 25 new students for the school term this year after holding worldwide auditions. Between bites he said, “I noticed I was bypassing my peers in drive, desire and overall physical ability.” When I asked about physical ability, he said simply, “I was born with straight knees.”

The following summer Noah auditioned again for SAB’s summer program and was accepted. (Feeling certain it was a long shot, his mother didn’t check the website’s acceptance list until 48 hours before the confirmation deadline. She screamed and woke the whole family at 1am when she saw his name.) “Let’s be serious,” Noah said, “when you think of ballet you think of little girls in pink tutus. It makes me mad because it’s so athletic and we work so hard. If people had any idea… I challenge any soccer or football player to go through the training we go through—the strength and balance, the sheer stamina—forget it. No contest.” (He can do 8 pirouettes in a single launch. Try it sometime.)

I asked what he thought would be different from his high school experience from that of a typical public school student. Without hesitation he said, “Public schools hold back kids, restrict them from discovering a passion that might not be what everyone else is doing. When I get to SAB, I’ll be surrounded by people who are as passionate as I am and I won’t be exposed to ignorance and scrutiny, which will free me up to focus and study.” He spoke with maturity and eloquence but his eyes also flashed with an intensity I hadn’t witnessed until now. We paid the check and made our way down the street for dessert. He’d more than earned an ice cream cone.

The next morning we stood in line at the local bagel place to get breakfast sandwiches to go. I recognized a neighbor eating with his daughter and brought my friends over to introduce them. I quickly said to Noah, “I’m so proud of you, is it okay if I tell him?” He hesitated then nodded imperceptibly, which I barely acknowledged before blurting to my neighbor that Noah was headed off to SAB. My friend, a tall athletic looking man wearing a t-shirt with a sports logo smiled wide and reached out his hand to congratulate him. “That’s really cool,” he said, “Congratulations, man, have a great time.” Noah, also wearing sports shorts with a Nationals logo smiled tentatively and shook his hand. “Thanks,” he said then they had a brief chat about the Nationals’ standing this year in the league and made a few jokes about the Orioles.

I walked my girlfriend and her son to their car. On the way Noah said to me, “You know, when you started to tell that man about SAB I was really afraid of what he would say. I never tell anyone at home, especially straight men, that I’m a dancer. I couldn’t believe that he was so cool with it. I still can’t believe it.” I told him that South Orange and Maplewood were not like other towns. I said, “You can be a dancer or a writer, a musician or artist and folks support you. A boy dancing ballet isn’t unusual here. Everyone would be psyched for you.” We said our goodbyes and good lucks, hugged and they drove off.

Later his mother left me a voice message telling me how transformative that moment had been for her son. A straight man had told him that being a ballet dancer was cool and wished him good luck with genuine warmth. She said, “He got in the car and said, ‘I was so scared, Mom, but I realized I’m proud and it’s okay and I can be who I am.’” She said it was good practice for him to be able to tell people. I agree. 95% of the graduates of SAB are hired to dance for the New York City Ballet, arguably the best ballet company in the world. I hope that by living in New York, Noah will grow comfortable enough to say, “I’m a ballet dancer,” far beyond the reaches of Maplewood and South Orange, and be who he is—amazing.

Author's Note: For more information, check out “School of American Ballet – Boys Program” on YouTube.

Middle School

I was a middle school girl once and I survived. Barely. What little I recall of this unsavory phase is that it’s one of the more cutthroat and potentially traumatizing chapters of one’s life. I’ve often joked that if you can get through middle school, the ensuing years will be a cakewalk in comparison. I made it through, but I was scathed all right. I was a girl and girls are stealthy. They can also be calculating, manipulative, cold-blooded and cruel. Boys, I’m told, are another story. I had no brothers, so I have nothing to grasp onto, no memory shred of their experience save for the boys I hung around with and the scant few that I dated. They all seemed to be gliding though on a drama-less landscape, shooting hoops and eating pizza crusts off each other’s plates. That’s all I saw at the surface; from my view there was little strife.

Since then, I’ve learned through late night discussions with countless male friends and by watching Cameron Crowe movies, that boys are devastated by their hormones in middle school—nearly felled by a brutal combination of acne and desire. And now, I must watch my son be tortured similarly as I send him off. I see the heartache on the horizon, the thousand painful slights from girls, the sinking realization of what he’s not good at and embarrassed by. I can just make out the beginnings of the stress of social positioning; birthday party invites not forthcoming, vacant weekends spent in the company of empty hours.

I’m trying not to stress out on his behalf. An older parent, I have the good fortune to have forgotten most of my middle school experience—it was so long ago. I’ve given him a heads up about the swear words he’ll be blasted with in the school hallways. We’ve assigned a point value to the basics 1-5 with ‘crap’ and ‘sucks’ awarded “one pointers” and, well, you can fill in the rest. I’ve hammered the mantra, “Know your audience” at him for years, hoping that when this day would finally come, he would be mindful of who was listening when he, too, tried his hand at the color and occasional wicked delight of swearing. “Remember, you don’t want teachers, play date parents, grandparents or coaches ever hearing you use off-color language.” “Yes, mom.” He’s bored. He tuned me out at “Remember”.

But I continue because I don’t know how to stop. I think that maybe, just maybe, as I speak my words will turn to a gossamer silk, strong and resilient, and wrap themselves around him like a protective burrito, just his head poking out of the top. “And this is when people you know are going to start smoking cigarettes and pot and sneaking beers and trying their hand at kleptomania, and I’m not going to be there. You’re going to have to decide for yourself what kind of kid you’re going to be.” “Yes, mom,” he intones again in the same voice he uses when I ask him to put on a collared shirt for a holiday meal or put his napkin in his lap. He has no idea what he’s in for. And I do, and yet, I’m still sending him. Oh, what vultures lie in wait! Oh, what demons troll in the shadows! Voldemort aint got nothing on middle school. Thank goodness I remember so little.

I don’t even begin to visit the horrors that are girls in middle school. When I ask him what he thinks of girls at this point he replies, “Weird.” When I press him, asking how, he says, “They just giggle all the time and whisper and it’s so boring and dumb.” Right. For about another ten minutes, and then, whammo—he will be all consumed to the extent that he’ll lose his mind texting and his body to goodness knows what else and then the strings that keep us tethered to one another now will fray and break until we are two people living under the same roof, communicating in a one-sided morse code of mumbles and grunts. And then, he’s gone, I’m told until he’s about 26 years old. At which time he’ll be back and tell me all about it, his trip through the rushing rapids of puberty that started in middle school, with me pushing him off in his raft.

I want to hold him and apologize now, before he even gets there, tell him that I’m doing it for his own good and that I love him and know he’ll get through it, hopefully not too scathed, but he would just chalk that up to Mom is a Nutjob, a file already bulging. So, I let his biggest worry be remembering his locker combination for now, and, “I’m scared I won’t have enough time to switch classrooms.” I tell him he’ll do fine as if I’m not making him walk a plank. I tell myself to stop sweeping his hair on his forehead to the side. I remind myself that one of these days will be the last time he holds my hand possibly for a very long time. I hold my breath, I count to three, then I say a little prayer, and send him—to middle school.

Slow Food - Happy Meal

“Mom, can we please go to McDonalds more than like once a year?” “Sure,” I said, “we can go twice a year.” He shot back with, “How about once a month?” I countered with, “How about never?” I’m trying to instill in my son the notion that there is a world of locally run restaurants out there with individual menus and handmade curtains and that we should default to those establishments whenever possible. We should be supporting family owned businesses and eating healthier, possibly locally grown food. He doesn’t buy it; he wants the crappy plastic toy. But he doesn’t ask for much, so on a recent summer road trip up to New Hampshire I pulled into the parking lot of a McDonalds masquerading as a small local diner with its shingled roof and window shutters. My son had fallen deeply asleep so I woke him gently. “Sweetie,” I said, we’re breaking for lunch. I found a little family owned restaurant that supposedly makes a pretty good burger. I think you’ll like it.” His eyes fluttered open but the golden arches didn’t register until we were halfway across the parking lot. Then he threw his arms around me. “Thanks, mom!” “No prob, kid.” It was a happy meal.

Last week, on a seven-hour road trip to the Adirondacks my son knew not to mention fast food and I didn’t either. After forever on the New York Thruway, we wound along two lane roads for hours. It was getting to be dinnertime and the towns were getting smaller and more scantily populated, so when we ended up driving through Minerva, I suggested we turn around and try that place we just passed back there. “Are you sure?” he said. “No, but we’ll never know unless we try,” I said. “Looks friendly enough, right? There are cars in the driveway, which is a good sign, right?” He was dubious, which is his standard setting for all adventures with Mom, but didn’t hesitate.

Sporty’s Iron Duke Saloon was first and foremost a bar, populated with guarded, middle-aged folks who could have been extras in a Dennis Hopper biker movie set at any point between 1977 and 1989. The room itself was a large open barn plan whose walls and peeked ceiling were built with new-seeming blonde varnished wood. Beyond the cluster of bar tables was a pool table and then a single, large, family-style eating table. It had the feel of a roadhouse with lots of room for folks to stand around and, who knows, dance. On every inch of wall space was a tastefully framed photo or movie poster or magazine ad paying homage to the Harley Davidson motorcycle or rider. When the wall space ran out the decorator did what any enthusiast would do and covered the ceiling as well. All of it.

I asked if children were allowed to dine in. “Sure,” a friendly, grey muttonchop-mustached man with close-cropped hair and a black T-shirt and jeans answered, “C’mon in.” He smiled warmly and I blurted out, “This place is amazing!”

“It’s my place,” he said, “I’m Sporty. Welcome. I did it all myself.”

“Wow,” my son said. We sat down at the table and asked what he recommended for dinner. “Have ya had hog wings?”

“No,” I said.

“Oh, you’ve got to have ‘em.”

“Great, done. Plus a cheeseburger, thanks.”

My son and I got up from the table to take a closer look at Sporty’s shrine to Harley Davidson and the biker culture we’d stumbled upon. There was a lot to take in. Magazine ads dated back to the sixties, biker movie posters to the seventies. We spotted photos of a younger Sporty with a full head of thick black hair and a black bushy mustache with his arms around comrades standing in front of state signs reading Welcome to Montana, Arizona and California. There were mannequins showcasing early leather biker wear and a collection of vintage oil cans on a window sill. Along one whole side of the room was a cordoned off area where antique Harleys were parked with tags dangling from their handlebars giving the reader the year, make and model of the bike.

We were taking a selfie in front of one spectacularly patriotic bike, the sort that Evil Kinevil might have ridden, when Sporty walked up. I thought he would ask me not to take photos; I realized in that moment I should have asked first. Or maybe he was here to tell us our food was ready—my stomach was beginning to rumble. But it was neither. He lifted up the chain and offered my son a chance to sit on a bike with the American flag emblazoned across the gas tank. I snapped away as my son smiled then we both thanked him heartily for the privilege. Our food wouldn’t be ready for another fifteen minutes.

We wandered around and kept reading—it was an exhaustive collection. I wondered what folks would think if I ran out of room for art in my house and started to nail thrift store paintings onto the ceilings. A man in a sleeveless black T-shirt wandered over to the internet jukebox and punched in “You Shook Me” and “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.” I peered out the back door and saw a well-tended fire pit. Beyond that twelve or so picnic tables dotted a freshly mowed green lawn. Circling the tables were eight or so individual guest cabins, freshly painted. It was a beautiful, peaceful setting. I imagined what fun it must be here at night.

Our food finally arrived and we bopped to the music as we ate. The cheeseburger and coleslaw were terrific but the hog wings were sublime. Two fist-sized hunks of dark, tender, pork meat nearly fell off our bone handles and we rolled our eyes to the heavens as we chewed. The sky turned lavender out the back door and the grass, lime green. Sporty shook our hands heartily as we said our thank-yous and goodbyes and invited us back for helicopter rides in September. The business card read, “Everybody Always Welcome.” “That was awesome,” my son said as we got back on the road. It hadn’t been fast food, but it was fresh, delicious and well worth the wait. It was truly a very happy meal.

Tap Dancer/Financier

A seventy-nine-year-old man recently asked me to give him tap lessons. He’s known me since I was a child. Of course I said yes. He’s a successful finance manager and grandfather of thirteen. He’s also a fabulous dancer who always gave me a spin around the dance floor at the wedding receptions we attended of mutual friends, his daughter’s among them. He knows I love to dance.

We’ve decided this summer to meet once a week in the morning for 30 minutes in his workshop, between the worktable and the saw table. He sweeps the floor of woodchips and sawdust before I arrive so that the sounds we make with our formal shoes on the floor—we’re not wearing proper tap shoes—will be clearly heard. We have a narrow corridor—about 3’ by 6’—in which to move; the floor is unvarnished wood. The workbench before us has been cleared off so that we have a neat open space to jot our choreography onto the back of the lyric sheets I printed out. Screwdrivers and chisels hang on prongs in the wall. We make up our own shorthand for our tap steps like a stenographer’s vocabulary—fl for flap, sh for shuffle, H for hop and so forth. His wife reads the paper in the next room. The breakfast dishes have long since been cleaned up. The door is kept ajar.

My student wears his brown dress loafers with dark socks pulled to mid-calf and shorts. I wear silver cocktail heels and a cover up over my bathing suit. This is so that we can both easily see our feet. I run through the basics of the tab dancer’s vocabulary, the building blocks of every routine you’ve ever seen in the movies or on TV. My student’s hearing must still be very good because he is able to discern the components of each combination as we review the basics. He repeats after me and gets each step right away; clear hearing is germane to tap. It’s an intricate and nuanced language comprised of only a few letters or moves. Step, stomp, toe, heel, dig. There are others and we scribble them down. I think I’ve remembered them all from my childhood and am too confident to check, preferring instead to feel cocksure.

On our first day we have a short conversation about Bob Hope and Gene Kelly, and how effortlessly they made it look. He tells me a story about his father trying to teach him to dance as a child in the 1940s. I’ve chosen “Tea for Two” as our song to work on, hoping that this is something that he will know well and feel comfortable with. He nods and agrees that that’s a good one. I start simple and try to use the same language each time. I also try to marry the steps with the words to the song as soon as we set the choreography. “Picture you upon my knee…”, I sing. I make up little nick names for the steps we do: the saunter, the clock. I always needed mnemonic devices to help me remember things, always needed to see it done, get up and do it, or push the buttons myself so that whatever I needed to remember would code not only in my brain but in my body. I wonder what kind of learner my student is. I wonder what kind of brain one needs to be excellent at finance and banking, numbers and risk. I wonder how long this extremely successful man has harbored dreams of being an effortless tap dancer. He’s certainly been talking to me about lessons for at least ten years. “Someday” he’s said at least once a summer for as far back as I can remember. But this summer he held me to it. This summer must be different somehow. Tomorrow he turns eighty.

My student sings alongside me as we run the steps again and again. I feel very comfortable singing and dancing alongside him and the forty or so years between us melt away, irrelevant. For a brief moment I picture myself Ginger Rogers to his Fred Astaire. We circle the saw table in the middle of the room—flap-right ball-change, flap-left ball-change—smiling as we say the words aloud until we land back at the start, slightly winded, but laughing. I picture Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in suits, swaying side to side then hop-shuffling with their arms out before them, bent at the elbow as if gently resting on a counter. I remember the steps they did, the easy weight change, the steady shoulders. I recall them turning together, the vents of their suit jackets opening slightly, then finding themselves facing the audience at the same moment, just in time to thwack at their own thighs a few time and end with a clap.

I decide to add the slap/clapping bit to our routine and see his eyes light up as he looks at what’s to come. “Oh, that’ll be good,” he says, but his wife looks in and I know that’s our signal to wrap it up. “We’ll add that next week,” I assure him and he says okay. Something about the way he says it makes me think he’d go on dancing all day if he could. Maybe possibly would have started years ago if he could have. I wonder how many bankers have wished they could tap dance as well as Gene Kelly, and how many dancers have wished they had the financial savvy of bankers. Then I scoop up my lyrics, kiss my student lightly on the cheek and say goodbye until next week.

I Was a Valet Car Parker

Summer jobs are all around me: the kid scooping my ice cream, taking my tickets at the roller coaster, replacing bicycle tires, babysitting. I had similar summer jobs as a teenager: teaching kids’ recreation courses, waitressing, working at a cookie chain, babysitting. My friends worked at the Dairy Queen, landscaped and caddied. At night we snuck around town in the flatbed of pick-up trucks or the back seats of Cameros, slipping through chain link fences and skittering across golf courses under dark, starry skies. Then I went off to college and the summer jobs seemed to get a little more serious—became a shade more strenuous. I’m not sure if someone told me outright or if I just noticed it happening, but maturity was implied. Friends started to commute into the city, intern at banks and non-profits, wear high heels and use the drycleaner. So I upped the ante for myself.

The summer after my college freshman year at college in New York City, I moved in with a girlfriend who had an apartment in Boston and applied for a job at the Four Seasons Hotel right on the Boston Common. I knew banking wasn’t my milieu—I had always been more of a service industry gal, myself—so I filled out an application. There were loads of options in the various departments at a grand hotel: housekeeping, kitchen, dining room, and concierge. There were so many boxes where I could imagine myself working that I checked the majority of them. “That sounds like fun, oh, I could do that.” But the call I received from HR was for the parking department. Would I be interested in parking cars? “Sure,” I replied gamely. I could drive a manual and automatic shift, I hadn’t had any accidents and was confident behind the wheel. What the heck. I got the job.

I was issued a polyester beige tunic-type top with a neru collar, itchy black pants and a little plastic nametag that read my first name only. I was the only woman on the crew. The rest of the nametags read Mohit or Obadu, Micky, Ricky and Juan. We were a motley crew from a panoply of nations but got along famously. Obadu was appointed the boss and would tell us whose turn it was when a car pulled in, and toss us keys for the cars we needed to bring up. Some men balked briefly when I came around the hood of their car with a big smile and my palm out, but they acquiesced and handed me the keys. Only one guy insisted on driving his car down to the carport himself, then later asked for his car, refusing to give me the alarm code so I had to drive his car up from below with the alarm shrieking. George Benson made up for it the following week, though, by letting me drive his Mercedes 6000 series without batting and eye, and Kenny Logins gave me a big smile and a very nice tip. Most folks were kind and generous, and the work was fascinating and fun.

I learned from the doorman, Vincent, how the underbelly of holding cars at the front door worked, and how much tax-free cash he made daily just from keeping track of who’s beamer he should bring up when and which cars he could afford to bury and for how long. His pants and breast pockets were jammed with keys and wads of cash yet he cut a slick figure in his captain’s hat and brass-button coat that went down to his knees. He knew just when to bow and how far to scrape and even though his Southy accent was thick, he held himself high and made everyone feel fancy. Then he would wait a beat or two until the cheap sun-of-a-gun had driven off in his Rolls and unleash a torrent of curse words befitting… a doorman from South Boston.

Soon, I befriended Jamie the bellman. He had light blue eyes that actually twinkled and long blonde eyelashes that nearly trumped his dimples. Jamie told me all about how he could be commissioned—for a price—to acquire a whole host of booty at a hotel guest’s request from cigarettes to prostitutes and a bizarre lot of randomness in between. The Four Seasons was putting up many of the headliners for the summer concert series in the park, so I learned which famous rock stars wore wigs and which used drugs, who was really nice, and who was a jerk. I learned which fake names they gave to register with at the front desk, who made the biggest mess for housekeeping and who skimped at tipping.

Jamie told me all the dirt when we got off our shifts at 11pm and met up for ‘last call’ lobster bisque at our bar up the street. Sometimes we’d sneak back into the hotel afterwards and up into the labyrinth of service elevators and hallways that paralleled the guest hallways, up to secret rooftop alcoves or balconies of vacant suites. When we started to date I often slept over at his apartment on Charles Street. Jamie had a mattress on the floor of a rent controlled apartment that was so besieged by cockroaches, he had poured a little moat-like mound of white cockroach powder onto the floor that circumnavigated all four sides of the bed. I stepped over it to climb under the covers feeling like a giantess from Gulliver’s travels. Somehow I didn’t find this situation repugnant—his place was a much easier stroll through the park to and from work, and I like having a boyfriend—yet I often dreamt of cockroaches.

Nearing Labor Day there was a new hire. She was a tiny dark haired woman from Thailand whose nametag read “Mom”. Jamie and I made her feel welcome because she was so lovely and shy, and also because we loved calling her Mom. Jamie and I broke up the week before I returned to college. I would be going and he was staying. This wasn’t a summer stint for him, but his full-time job. We said a heartbreaking but understanding goodbye and hugged for a while up on the roof. It had been a wonderful, oddly magical summer. At least, I joked through tears, we could find comfort in knowing my spot on the car valet crew was being filled by Mom.

Moving Friend

In a few weeks one of my closest friends is moving to the leftern most third of the United States. If you’re looking a child’s puzzle it’s one of the ones that are big and blocky and really far away. I know this because I’ve driven across country six times and this is no day trip. I also know that physical distance doesn’t factor in always, such as in the case of neighbors who moved 20 minutes away whom I hardly see anymore. There are other, more subtle distances, which can account for space. There are connective tissues, effort’s twine, that may weaken and break allowing friends to float away, drifting off slowly on an ice floe labeled “busy”, everyone waving and getting smaller by the month.

            This friend will be missed. And not only by me. She’s been an inscrutable force in the lives of many, creating parties where none existed, coercing folks to put on a wig or get out on the dance floor, check out a band, or ride a mechanical bull. She’s forged a neighborhood where there might not have been one. And she’s taken in the strays, without judgment or expectation, opening her heart and home to whomever needs a pal or an ear, a drink or a nap, a bowl of cereal or a laugh. I know this generosity of spirit first hand and I can say without exaggeration that it’s changed my life.

            In my experience, I know people who found their friends early and are happy with their choices, so they’ve rolled up the welcome mat and stopped noticing potential. No need to look further. Then there are the folks who stick to their kind, which, out here means other married people. They like nice round numbers and knowing that everyone is spoken for—no loose ends or unpredictability. At the restaurant they want their husbands to have other men to talk man things with and not get into conversation with some wanton unattached woman who upsets the boy-girl ratio at the table. They crave a guarantee.

And finally, there are those who feed on exclusion, little thrills of being on the inside, knowing others didn’t make the cut. These folks find comfort in a fixed roster of friends, inside jokes, and endless references harkening back to earlier social events like a closed circuit. There’s a social currency exchanged between these insiders, whispers and nods, which for some brings a tiny buzz. It’s also predictable, cozy and safe.

            My friend who’s moving is odd in this respect. She’s open to new experiences, delights in them. And if that new experience comes in the form of a recently divorced mom, then great—the more the merrier. “We can always make room.” So she opened up her heart and home to me, scooping me up and taking me along to wherever she was invited that would be appropriate to take, for instance, a house guest. Always, it seemed, she said, “Just come along, they won’t mind,” which spoke volumes to me about her marriage—rock solid—and her friends, also open-hearted, generous people who welcomed a new person, a different face, a fresh point of view.

It felt European to me, this ‘join us’ mentality, or maybe it’s mid-western—she’s from Ohio. This generosity of spirit is certainly more Christian that many of the Christians I know, yet, she’s not religious so I know she doesn’t do it to get points. She couldn’t care less about even numbers and gets no rush from being on the list. I don’t even think her powers of empathy are so finely tuned that she understands implicitly how brutal it can be to get dressed and leave the house alone for the thousandth time, to show up alone, searching for a familiar face, hoping to find someone to sit with. Personally, I don’t think she thinks about what it’s like to live alone in a community full of couples. I think she’s just curious about people. It’s one of the ways she gets her thrills.

So she introduces herself to the guy who butters her bagel, the lady in the bra department, the haggler at the flea market, and stray cats, like me. She wants to know their name then a little bit of their story, not too much, but just enough to make each day a little different from that last. She looks everyone in the eye, and tells it like it is. When she has a party, the plumber comes. I asked her once why she thinks she might be so socially generous, and where she gets it. She shrugged and said that maybe it was her mom. “Everyone was always welcome at my house.”

Thanks to my friend who’s moving, and her mom, I now have a bunch of friends who’ve been coerced into trying me on for size even when they might have had all the friends they needed in the world, people who’ve given me a chance because she told them to. Her friends are my friends, and they don’t care that I’m not half of a couple. I’ll miss that she’s creative, funny and always up for a good time, but the legacy of inclusivity she’s leaving behind is beyond value. In her physical absence, I’ll think of her when I’m at estate sales, order her drink from time to time, and never pass up a theme party. I’ll vow to laugh off the small stuff, let go of the big stuff, and be as openhearted—especially to stray cats—as she was to me. Call it Christian, or generosity of spirit. Call it whatever you want. But call. Scoop someone up and ask them to join you. I’ll do the same.

           

           

Still Smokes

My mom says all the best people smoke

She doesn’t crack a smile because it’s no joke

They’re the last an-ar-chists you see

They’re the most fun at parties, believe you me

(Chorus)    

Still smokes ("Still smokes"). My mom still smokes ("Still smokes")

She sneaks cigarettes to prisoners and teens

And all manner of hoodlum in between

She says, “I’m a smoker, that’s who I am”

“Like it or not, I don’t give a damn.”

(Repeat Chorus)

(Bridge)

Now, I never smoked because it was her thing

Black coffee, cigarettes, and solitaire

White paper napkins blotted saucer-stained rings

As I wrote my name, in the ashtray’s ashes, in script, with a used butt,

Wafting stale cigarette smells, in the air…

(Repeat Chorus)

When you’re at an event and bored out of your mind

She says, “Go find the smokers, ‘cause-they’re-the best kind”

They’ve gotta sense of humor and take no shit

Aint gonna let the government make them quit 

(Repeat Chorus)

I tried to get my mom to quit

Even hid her cartons, she had a fit

I-pleaded, “Mom, yer gonna-die!” then hit the wall

She said, “Relax (take a drag) I’ll outlive you all”

Still smokes ("Still smokes"). She’ll out live us all ("Still smokes") x 3

Summer Nights

When I think of summer, I think of the sky, a saturated blue, the color of blue jays, which is so ridiculously, unapologetically blue that they still look fake to me after all these years—like mechanical chirping toys. Smack in the middle of this image is the sun, a bright clementine orange, or yellow like the button on a daisy, shining it’s very heart out like an optimistic cult evangelist, as if it had any choice, as if it knew how to do anything else. This landscape is replete with billowy spinach green treetops above sturdy brown trunks standing immutable in a lawn of thick grass the color of my lime green shag bedroom rug back in the eighties—I picked it out. It could not look more like a kindergartener’s crayon masterpiece, or a cliché advertisement for an anti-depressant. But this vision is not fake. It actually is what a clear, summer day looks like, astonishing in its simplicity and hackneyed splendor. It’s what honestly jumps to mind. But curiously, why is it always the days I imagine?

Summer nights seem to take a back seat as if they were something I’ll get around to eventually like watering the houseplants or putting the folded laundry away. It’s rare that I’m prodded to visit those thoughts and images but when I do, oh, what joy. Short, greasy dinners with paper napkins crumpled on plastic plates spent under patio umbrellas with popsicle desserts, cherry red tongues and lips the color of snapdragons and poppies, straightening after a daytime beating off bees and heat. A cut out of the bright, white moon—also fake-looking, but there it is—low in the still blue sky, a good hour until sunset but enough time to play one more game of badminton or take a walk on the beach—no need to bring beach chairs, just a tennis ball for tossing or a towel for a quick dip. The evening dims almost abruptly, giving way to spectacular lavenders and greens in the west, juicyfruit-striped magentas and peaches bouncing off ribbons of stratus clouds, causing folks to stop mid-conversation and remark, astonished, “Just look at that sky.” Then, the interruption comes, “Yes, you may play a little longer if you run up and brush your teeth and put on your nightgown”—the feeling of bare feet in the cooling grass, the sight of fireflies hovering drunkenly, too slow to escape, the small excitement of wearing indoor clothes outside.

I remember walking back from family bar-b-ques with my son, sweatshirts on, carrying flashlights and glancing over at the flickering TV’s and quiet kitchens of lit neighbor’s houses, dogs called in for the night. I recall riding a bike to as many parties as I can, avoiding the car at all costs, nesting a bottle of wine or crackers and dip in my front basket. Often times I might wedge my tall sandals into the bike basket, too, and pedal off towards the distant noise and bustle of easy conversation and iPod music, loving the feeling of my bare feet on the rubber pedals, glad that I finally got that long-overdue pedicure and deciding not to care that the breeze will compromise whatever efforts I just made on shooing the humidity out of my hair.

Late night, though, is the prize. Lying in the sand, hoping for shooting stars, knowing without a doubt every second that I must be looking in the wrong corner of the sky and probably missing it, there? Not there, darn. But laughing as if the night might, just this once, stretch out into a twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth hour just for me, so that we can keep talking near the dunes, stretched out, sand working its way into pockets and cuffs, arms warmed by the day’s sunburn, voices quiet and spare. There’s little time before the sky lightens over the horizon, have we covered everything we want to say? Is there anything left to wonder?

I love the negligible sound that my bare feet make on the cement sidewalk, strolling back from the beach, barely a pad, hardly a flap, on tip-toes sometimes for no reason. I turn my head in the direction of a rousing ping-pong game in someone’s garage, or of friends conversing on their bikes, side-by-side under streetlamps, riding at a steady clip unaware of how their voices carry in the night, no-handed. No rush. I thrill at the defiance—even if no one cares or notices—of climbing into bed without washing off my feet, sure, I brushed them off with the damp towel hanging on the railing from this afternoon’s swim, not yet dry. And who cares if I didn’t get off all the little white bits that cling to the skin, tiny pieces of shell—clam or crab, hermit or horseshoe. Who cares? I think. It’s “Summer Rules” in every possible way. I’m fine with the straw-like quality of my hair, damp from the waves’ spray, lending my pillow a salty scent, a little sticky. I can shampoo tomorrow, change my sheets the day after that. Who cares, again.

I read a few pages of a trashy novel before drifting off to the rolling beat of the cicadas. The steady hum of the day-trippers’ engines slow to an intermittent swish; someone home later than usual, or up insanely early, hell-bent on missing the next day’s traffic. In between cars, if the wind is still and before the birds awaken, sometimes, very seldom, but sometimes, I can make out the waves crashing, or hear a morning alarm clock going off in the middle distance, just as I’m falling asleep and the sun is breaking. Only in summer does the night last so magically and impossibly long.

Only in summer.

Paris Lately

Have you been to Paris lately? Don’t worry if you haven’t. It’s still there. Nothing’s changed. City of Lights. And bridges and crepes. And those woven plastic café chairs and waiters who are slightly more friendly than they were twenty odd years ago. Honestly, there have been only one or two notable changes to the activity roster that I’ve noticed since I lived there for my junior year in college, after I first visited with my French class in high school. There’s also a fascinating public art installation phenomenon, which we stumbled upon. The rest is exactly the same. Exactly. It’s sort of astonishing how little changes.

My son and I were just there for Spring Break. We had a grand time. I could write this piece and sprinkle French words throughout it but you’d think I was a pretentious pain in the neck. Not so much if I’d gone to Mexico and sprinkled Spanish. Or Miami. There’s something about Paris that gets everyone’s hackles up, it’s funny. Tell folks you’re going to California or Florida and they say, “Have a good time!” Tell them you’re going to Paris and they say, “Ohh, Paris. Well, la di da” as if it’s some fancy private club. But it’s not. It’s open to the public. And like Bergdorf’s, anyone can go and just browse. You don’t have to shop along the Champs Elysee or stay in fine hotels. There are dumps in Paris, too. It’s cheaper than Disney and you don’t have to be a young couple in love, or a high school kid on a French class trip. You just have to give yourself permission to go.

I choose our travel destinations by the food they serve since I’m traveling with a kid. I don’t want to spend an iota of time hearing complaints about the weird food while I’m on vacation. Needing a rest from all the walking and time spent in yet another museum I can negotiate, but not meals. A full-bellied kid is a complacent kid. I didn’t think I could go wrong with crepes and gelati and French fries galore and I was right. The mass transit is also superb and the entire city upstairs and down, inside and out is clean as can be and safe, as long as you stick to the obvious, which we mostly did.

You name the cliché Parisian highlight and we did it—bateau mouche ride, Sacre Coeur, Musee d’Orsay: check, check, check, plus umpteen more. Though the line at Notre Dame was too long as was the Eiffel Tower’s. But we were happy to toss a tennis ball in the park just below it’s shadow and play a little two square in the plaza in front of the cathedral. I told him he can always visit when he returns one day. Both icons will be there and it’s good to leave something left undone. He nodded and asked to keep playing. As long as we have a tennis ball, there is fun to be had for this boy, a welcome break from the onslaught of cultural enrichment. I never travel without one.

We did have a few new and unusual pleasures along the way. There was the recently opened museum for non-European art and culture—the Quay Branly—that we checked out, very cool. And there was the chic new Marais district that’s blossomed out of the old Jewish quarter since I was there last. We also picnicked and played hide-and-seek in the exquisite Pere la Chaise cemetery and visited the modest yet incredibly comprehensive Musee du Chocolat. We stumbled upon a year old initiative, Les Berges, along the banks of the Siene, which offers free badminton, tetherball, a climbing wall and tabletop games to all who wander up. There was also the astonishing pedestrian bridge behind Notre Dame, which is has been completely covered with ordinary padlocks—thousands of them—inscribed with the names of couples, families and friends from all over the world, who have locked these mementos to the railing of the bridge, or to another padlock. Their brushed brass glistens a dull golden hue from afar, but up close, the locks crowd the railing 5 inches deep, top to bottom and on both sides. One wonders if the bridge will be able to sustain the unexpected weight—and if this charming new tradition was started by a savvy locksmith or hardware store salesman.

The French, bless their arrogant little hearts, are not as crushingly and boarder-line hilariously rude as they used to be. Someone must have wrapped them on the knuckles and told them to shape up or else lose their bread and beurre—wups, slipped—tourists. They are everywhere in Paris, from all over. It’s a constant barrage for Parisians, so it’s a real treat when they make you feel special, as one waiter did for us. It was a simple thing, really. On our third night returning to the same St. Michel café after dinner and a long day of walking and looking, we settled into our favorite sidewalk table in the second row. I sat where a shaft of the day’s last twenty minutes of clear, waning sunlight warmed my face. My son eagerly reached for the Kindle, then dug in, oblivious. Before I could order our usual, the same waiter caught my eye and made a swift pointing gesture to our table with a knowing smirk. I smiled and said, “Oui.” In a moment he returned with our usual order of a panache—beer and lemon soda mixed—and a lemon soda for my son, served each time, curiously, with a long spoon.

I forgot to ask about the long spoon in the tall soda glass. I’m sure he would have responded kindly. I’ll have to remember to ask what it’s for when I return.

Sometimes

(part A- snapping)

Sometimes a nap, is really just a nap

You’re not depressed.  You don’t have cancer.

It doesn’t mean, you’re lazy or a hack.

Sometimes a nap is just a nap.

(part B)

Sometimes a sneeze, is really just a sneeze

You’re not sick.  Don’t have the flu.

Your soul’s not exiting, your body through your nose

So make some noise, let it out, it’s just a sneeze.

(part A)

Sometimes when you, get stuck behind a school bus,

On your way to work, it doesn’t mean take off the day.

It’s not an omen or a harbinger of ruin.

Sometime’s a bus is just a bus.

(part C)

Not everything has to mean something

Sometimes it doesn’t mean a thing,

There’s no hidden message, no secret signifier

It’s just teaching youoooo to push throuuuugh

(part A- key change)

Sometimes the waitress, brings you the wrong dish

It doesn’t mean-- she’s out to get you.

Sometimes a kiss is just a friendly kiss

It means helloooo, hello-hello, it means nothing more than helloooo

It’s nice to see you.

(instrumental)

(part C)

Not everything has to mean something

Sometimes it doesn’t mean a thing,

Life’s just unfolding-- doom’s not in disguise

So get wiiiiiiiiiiiiiise and wipe your eyeeeeeeees

Buck up kid and wipe your eyes

(part A - snapping)

Sometimes a nap, is really just a nap

You’re not depressed.  You don’t have cancer.

You’ve just hit a wall and could use a little shuteye.

Sometimes a nap is just a nap.

Last Bit of Winter

Spring has sprung. Or has it. Just kidding. It totally has and I have tiny white lantern snowdrops in my garden to prove it. But this is not a gardening story. Nay, the garden will have to wait. Until what? Well, since you asked I will tell you, but the answer is goofball at best. I would tell you it must be true because I read it in a book and not on the internet, but really it sounds more like Monty Python-penned myth than anything else. I have a slim volume on olde timey gardening lore, which explains the farmer’s foolproof method for telling when it’s planting time. You should probably pronounce time, “tahm”, in your head if this story is going to feel at all legit. And when I say farmers, think men in overalls and straw hats looking like eager background extras in a local cast production of Oklahoma. So, these farmers would wait until nighttime, drop their trousers and sit bare-arsed on the ground. If the ground was cold to the buttocks’ touch, then it wasn’t planting time yet. However, if that very farmer could drop his trousers and sit comfortably upon the warm earth, then, yes, it was time. Makes absolute sense to me. No, I haven’t tried it.

But, never say never—pun intended. I have other fish to fry. Like how I’m going to empty out the 30 gallon garbage can in my garbage hutch that’s filled with water. Seems the hutch lid was left up by a kindly waste management employee and it rained. A lot. Water filled all the way up to the very top then froze. So now it’s too heavy to lift up and out and can’t be tipped over—no room. I will have to lean over and down into the hutch, head first, and bail out the water now that it’s no longer frozen, trying not to lose my balance and fall, head first, into my garbage can like some cartoon. Come to think of it, I should probably have a spotter. At least it didn’t freeze with a bag of garbage encased in ice. That would be something.

Meanwhile, my son said goodbye to the snow the other day, or what was left of the white snow. He knelt down in our yard, patted it and kissed it goodbye. “See ya,” he said, “it was really fun having you around and I liked how you made everything so bright and cool looking. Plus the sledding was awesome.” I said, “Don’t forget the snow days,” and he said, “Oh, right,” and thanked the snow gods for all the luxurious time away from school. Then he picked up a piece and added it to the plastic cup in our freezer of snow left over from two winters ago. It’s melted a few times when the fridge has gone out, but still counts as snow in my book.

My guilty pleasure this spring will consist of seeing how long it takes the gigunda mountains of filthy snow at all the vast parking lots to melt. Will there still be tiny sooty vestiges of our wintry wonderland left at the end of April? Beginning of May? Some of those piles are mountainous and I imagine teen snowboarders in T-shirts sneaking out at night to hop on their boards one more time in the temperate Springtime air. I also love seeing what’s been buried under those piles all winter. Bits of trash, broken shovels, deflated balls, frozen in time like dinosaur fossils trapped in amber. There are only a scant few weekends left of quiet before the leaf blowers resume their aural assault and the garden explodes, begging for attention. I think I’ll spend them wrapping up indoor projects, picking up errant trash off the street, bailing out my garbage can and watching the black snow unceremoniously disappear.

Iditarod Lady

            I joke about Jersey Girls. You know, the scary ones with big hair and “extra Jerz” who talk tough and are always looking for a fight. I wouldn’t want to meet up with one in a dark alley, but I would want one on my team for dodge ball, or, say, if I were competing in the Iditarod, which I am not, nor will I ever, and this is why.

            I met an Iditarod competitor recently at family resort weekend in the Poconos. Besides ice-skating, laser tag and ping-pong, one could take a dog sled ride, so we went, en masse, to meet the Dog Sled Lady. She had twelve dogs harnessed next to a little shed on the edge of a field. She introduced herself as Kim, and couldn’t have been friendlier. We said hello to the dogs—thinner than I would have thought, turns out they’re bread with greyhounds for speed—then she ushered us inside to tell us her story.

            “My dogs are my family,” Kim said and we all nodded in complete agreement. Growing up in Blairstown, NJ, she bread dogs all her life and never gave away a litter. She worked towards running the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race for ten years, raising $50,000. The race began in 1974 originally to celebrate the famous diphtheria serum run in 1925 that saved children’s lives and to bring awareness to a dwindling sled dog culture, which was being replaced by the snowmobile. Though more people have summated Mt. Everest than have competed in the Iditarod, Kim qualified in 2009, becoming the first person from New Jersey to do so. But not the first woman, there have been lots of those.

            The Iditarod—named for the river, ghost town and race checkpoint-- runs 1,100 miles and takes at least 8 days to race from Anchorage to Nome, sometimes a lot longer. Each dog sled team must begin with 16 dogs and finish with at least six. If dogs become ill or injured they are retired by a team of vets waiting to check the dogs at every checkpoint. Team leaders run the dogs 6 hours then rest them 6 hours. While the dogs sleep at checkpoints, the team leaders pick up the supply drops, spread out hay and blankets for the dogs, prepare their meals, build a fire, set up their own tents, cook their food, eat their meals, try to sleep for at least 2-4 hours, then pack up, clean up, harness the dogs, put on all their booties, and continue on their way. In 20 - 40 degree below zero weather—five layers of clothing on the bottom and nine on top. Or was it the other way around? It didn’t matter. She lost me at 20 below.

            I was taking in all of this information—sort of—nodding my head along with my son, nieces, and the rest of my family. My mother was silently and hilariously aghast as Kim spoke. I could tell what she was thinking: “No siree. Not on your life.” I had to agree. It all seemed to make sense in the same way that bungee jumping makes sense to me—not my cup of tea, but I understood why it would be to some. But still, wow. I raised my hand, “So how many people on each team?” I asked. “One,” Kim answered. “Right,” I said, “Okay, one at a time on the sled, got it. But how many people were on your team? You know, sleeping in shifts, following along side in a snowmobile, waiting at checkpoints or whatever?” “Just me,” she said. “It’s a single person race. In fact, if you accept even so much as a hot cup of coffee from any non-official during the race you’re disqualified.”

            “Wait, what?” I thought. You’re what? All alone? For a week and a half until however long it takes to finish? (30 days for some last place finishers). The look on my face gave her clear delight. “I lost 30 pounds in 10 days,” she said with an impish grin. Woa. I realized that the wind seeping in the little cracks on my cheeks between my goggles and facemask alone would have prevented me from even getting out of New Jersey. I would have had to forego my own food to make room for more toe warmers. Then there were the charging moose, avalanches and blizzards to consider. Nope, not me.

            Kim finished up her story as we stood mesmerized. There was a blizzard and one of her dogs caught hypothermia. Faced with the decision to continue the trail, or travel with her dog by helicopter to the vet hospital, she dropped out of the race. Her dog made it. Now she’s saving up again for her next race. We smiled and thanked her, bought her children’s book based on her story, then she led us outside to take us on our rides. The dogs barked as we approached, clearly excited for the chance to run again. Taking turns sitting and standing on the back of the sled, it was a smooth ride without bumps or potholes. Very calm, completely relaxing. I enjoyed it immensely. Then I remembered the blizzards and the 40 below, the standing for 6 hours at a stretch then 2 hours of sleep a night for weeks. The terrifying solitude and concern for injured dogs. I watched the dog’s shadows on the clean white snow ahead of me dance. I looked at the sun through the trees and thought of the incredible sunsets and breathtaking panorama.

            The dogs slowed as we pulled in. It was my mother’s turn for a ride. “Not me,” I thought, “but I may have just met the bravest woman I am ever likely to meet face to face: Kim Darst.” Certainly the bravest from New Jersey.

The Red Balloon

            Student teaching has been heaven so far. It offers all the enjoyment, fostering and connection to the students without the responsibility of lesson planning, curriculum oversight and the very real burden of statewide testing and district paperwork. But that will change. As I am given more to do this semester, my blithe ride on my mentor or co-operating teacher’s coattails will evolve into the very real demands of being a teacher until, by then end of my final student teaching semester, the responsibility will be mine-all-mine. And the weight of twenty-six little worlds will be on my shoulders. But for now, I am still the student, and it’s pure delight.

            I was placed in a second grade classroom in a public school a few towns away but much like our own here. It’s an inclusion classroom as they will all be one day and the term will have faded away into oblivion.  We teach, accommodate and modify for all manner of learners, because it’s slowly dawning on us as a nation that we do not all learn the same way. Recently, after snack, the lights were dimmed and my ‘co-op’ put on a movie. It was “The Red Balloon”, the original version in muted, sepia-like tones, except for the bright red balloon. And the little girl’s blue balloon—remember her? I hadn’t recalled there being so little dialogue—I had the book as a child—but what dialogue there is, was in French.

            The children were transfixed. Even D, with his cognitive and impulse control challenges sat and watched, mesmerized by the rich images, lush music, and the boy’s adventures. Eventually, the students began to comment aloud and point and giggle at the balloon’s hijinx. Then they had questions. Why is the boy carrying a briefcase? I told them that children carried satchels before there were wheeled book bags and knapsacks. Why are the grownups so mean to the balloon? I sighed. I wanted to say, “Well, kids, this was Paris in the fifties—a time and place populated with adults not known for whimsy,” but I didn’t. They asked why the boy was allowed to walk to school by himself. I laughed out loud. “Children were more independent then,” I said, “they were encouraged to explore their neighborhoods after school as long as they were home for supper.” Then, instinctually, I stopped answering directly and only led them to the answers they were seeking. I coaxed them to imagine what the boy must be saying to the balloon, to imagine what words would have been spoken between them. I asked them the questions. Then I listened as the children created story dialogue for them selves. I led them inside the boy’s world then let go of their hands.

            My co-op was generous to let me have this back and forth with her students as the movie continued. She allowed me to guide them without stopping, editing or adding to what I was saying. I was grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to become a member of the democratic classroom community she’d spent all year carefully creating. I was excited for the chance to tie in what they were watching with the themes they would be exploring in language arts—themes that included narrative story telling, fairytale, fiction, characters, and a sense of place and drama. I encouraged them to notice how music can change the viewer’s mood.

            As the movie neared its heartbreaking conclusion I worried the students might feel the devastation I remembered feeling as a child. Those bullies had upset me so; even their eyes were cruel. I prepared myself for their tears, but the children were all just fine. They were content that the boy was ultimately happy as he reached for the strings of Paris’ myriad balloons and gathered them into a tangled jumble. Perhaps my presence had something to do with the safety they felt as he floated away unmoored. But it’s probably hubris on my part. Kids have seen it all by second grade.           

            The movie ended and my co-op told her students to sit on the rug and close their eyes. She stepped outside into the hall and brought in two large bags of inflated red balloons—twenty-six in all. She gestured for me to take a bag and release the red balloons so that they would cascade down over the children. They opened their eyes as the balloons bounced and filled the room; squeals filled the air. For the children who learn sensorially, emotionally or visually, here was a chance to claim this experience for them selves, to forge their own relationship with a red balloon, to own a story and make it personal. D hugged his to his chest while the boys with ADHD were given full license to bounced theirs atop their heads and slap them into the air. The group learners immediately discussed what to name their balloons, while the solitary learners felt comfortable moving away from the larger group and exploring the possibilities quietly and alone. Everyone was fully present. No one felt shamed, left out or behind.

            It was a moment of pure joy watching these learners internalize on their own terms, then create their own connections to the little French boy’s story the way they chose fit. It was fantastic to see them up out of their chairs and not simply drawing a picture of a red balloon or filling out some worksheet silently at their desks. It was a simple thing but so imaginative on the teacher’s part, to think of a way to imprint a story on a group of children, in a way that makes most sense to them. It was quite magical, I must say, watching the children so full of glee—almost as magical as the story itself.

Enigma

(Verse- Latin)

You veered my way leaned in close.  Our chit-chat touched on morose

Thought out of the box, for an orthodox.  Then you grinned-- Uh, huh

Described you mom’s roast chicken.  I noticed my pulse quicken

Walked me to my car, complained I parked too far.  Then made a joke-- Uh, huh

Are you facetious, or are you serious, or are you kidding or are you both?

(Chorus- Country)

You’re an enigma, wrapped in a Jew

I’m on the outside looking in-- I don’t know what to do

You’re always busy with your sisters, tethered to your mother

Cut the chord, or find another

You called me late, cooed my name.  Confiscated my game.

Said you come around, after sun down.  Then you grinned-- Uh, huh

Your texts today were cunning.  Our repartee’s no-less-than stunning

But you’re slip’ry, keep taunting me.  Can’t nail you down-- Nuh, uh

(Bridge – Country)

I’m totally wrong for you.  You’re apropos for me

Funny and kind.  In that keppie a sharp mind

Our morning was unusual.  But the day was sublime

I’m no baleboostah for you.  You’re apropos for me

But I can’t navigate, our differences of fate

We could start all over.  But I think it’s too late.

(Instrumental)

I’ve lost the shape of your face.  Your pale skin seems out of place

Your fading voice, was not my choice.  Your hard G’s gone-- Uh, huh

You said you liked my moxie.  But-your-commitment’s to-your orth-o-doxy.

I miss our long chats, your black winter hats.  Your dimpled smile-- Uh, huh

You’re so facetious, or are you serious, or were you kidding or are you both?

(repeat chorus – last line x 2)