My year has been a good one: we are happy and healthy, our financial situation is stable, and there have been no huge/negative upheavals in anyone’s life. We are all good.

I leave this year with a comment recently made by my almost 82-year-old mother.

Eighty-two is a long time to be alive. She was born before the Great Depression to a family that eventually had eight children and no bathtub, she went to work at the age of 16 and didn’t stop until she was 67, she lost a husband to death and a child to drugs and mental instability, but she had this to say:

“Why shouldn’t we people who are comfortable try to make the lives of others a little more comfortable, too?”

For many, the world is harsh, unforgiving, and a grinding slog, both here in the US and in the rest of the world. For many, there is no reprieve. Comfort does not exist.

Unless…

One planet. Many nations. One species.

Blood is the same color, no matter the vein through which it flows.

Mothers want a safe and happy environment in which their children can thrive, regardless of whether that means putting malaria-preventing mosquito netting around the baby’s crib or sending them to that tennis camp in Florida.

Fathers want to bring stability and continuity to their families, whether it’s being able to move them out of a mud hut into a cinder-block house or a weekly paycheck that covers both groceries and healthcare.

Comfort is relative.

Don’t feel bad if you are comfortable, but don’t pretend that others aren’t.

Give something that may make someone else comfortable.

Give your time, give your money, give your clothes, give your books, give your…whatever.

Doing so won’t make you less comfortable.

You may never know what comfort your giving may bring to strangers.

And one day, you may just be that stranger.

And one day, somebody else’s 10 bucks may be just enough to help you to a better, more comfortable life.

2010, last day.

So give to the people who give to the people and animals.

The world can only be a better place if we do.

+++++++++++++

Some ideas (click on the logos):

The Humane Society of the United States seeks a humane and sustainable world for all animals—a world that will also benefit people. We are America’s mainstream force against cruelty, exploitation and neglect, as well as the most trusted voice extolling the human-animal bond.

The Fistula Foundation is dedicated to restoring health and dignity to women injured in childbirth through support of the programs of the Hamlin Fistula Hospitals in Ethiopia and in other impoverished countries, both now and in the future.

Farm Sanctuary works to protect farm animals from cruelty, inspire change in the way society views and treats farm animals, and promote compassionate vegan living.

The Home for Little Wanders’ mission is to ensure the healthy behavioral, emotional, social and educational development of children and families living in at-risk circumstances.

Rosie’s Place is a sanctuary for poor and homeless women, offers emergency and long-term assistance to women who have nowhere else to turn.

We didn't tie a bow around it, but we did put it in a box.

For you, for me, for everyone.

It's a very nice box, though.

And the present is its newly opened Art of the Americas wing.

And what's in it is fabulous!

Five thousand pieces of art on four floors, all from, uh, us. Just the Americas, old and new, South and North, big and small, in fifty-three galleries that make so much sense your brain says to you “Of course! This was always meant to be with that.”

One Big, Beautiful Box

The new wing, the culmination of a 10-year-long effort and a more-than $500 million fundraising campaign, is not glommed onto or smashed into the original building; it feels delicately nudged into place, like the docking of a space ship. Turns out, for “seismic reasons” (I am not making that up) it is actually a separate building, joined oh so gently at certain spots to the other building.

A little bit more…a little bit more…hold it…perfect!

You enter the new wing through the Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard, a huge space filled with…space. It actually feels filled with space, not all empty and void-like (I hate that).

For the spatially challenged, this is a very very large space

Its walls of glass provide views into the garden and the wings of the original building, not to mention all that sunlight.

Am I outside looking in, or inside looking out?

It was designed to become “a new social space for Boston,” as Malcolm Rogers, Director of the Museum, has said about it. The acoustics are great, the space is beautiful.

"Welcome to the wide open space of the Prairie, ma'am." "You're still in Boston, Steve."

Arty-pants

It’s almost hard to belive that there are 5,000 pieces of art on display, so well planned is the building and the layout.

“Fifty-three galleries” sound like a lot—too much, almost—but it isn’t.

You know how the traditional idea of museum display is seems to be one big room after another in an endless and (let’s be honest) tedious procession to the horizon? Well, this ain’t that.

These are small(ish) rooms laid out around a longer room or two, and the space and placement of the pieces makes it a pleasure to wander about and through the wing without making you think, “Please dear GAWD when will we get to the last picture.”

This is more, “Oo, lookit that! And that! And that!”

The galleries are multi-art-istic, in that they show paintings and sculptures and woodworking and silversmithing and other things that the Museum considers artistically worthy. Why have just Singleton Copley’s famous painting of Paul Revere when you can also have Paul Revere’s famous bowl?

You know, I DID do a good job on that bowl. Now about this teapot…

If you can show a mahogany sideboard, why not show a room-that-could’ve-have-that-sideboard-in-it, too? Two-dimentional and three-dimentional art in the same place, in the same space, complementing and enhancing one another. Balancing and rounding out what the visitor sees, kind of like a “Oh, I get it,” moment.

Now THIS is a room with a view!

Peter, Paul, and Mary. And Trevor, and Susan, and Mario, and Inez…oh, and Ralph, too

One of the things the MFA does very well is making itself feel like anybody can walk into it and enjoy itself.

As someone who had no art in her house growing up that couldn’t be gotten at Sears—and who’s father would “conduct” his record of Grofé’s “Grand Canyon Suite” with her mother’s knitting needles—I am greatly appreciative that the MFA took the time to label each of the five-thousand pieces with a label that actually tells you something about what you’re looking at. (And just one fella was responsible for them all.)

Whatever you think this is about, it isn't. (Click the label to find out.)

The four floors present Americas art more or less in chrono order, from pre-Columbian unbelievableness to late-20th century coolness.

Start at the bottom, work your way up to the top, then stop at the Café in the Courtyard for quick refreshment.

Walk through any door and find yourself some fabulous art

All in all, the MFA’s Art of the America’s new wing is a major step forward in museum-ing. The wing itself is larger than most mid-size museums, and takes a fresh approach to the art of looking at things.

And you won’t feel like a dope even if this is your first/umpteenth time looking at them.

A storyteller by any other name is…a curator

So there you are, possessor of more than 15,000 pieces of us, all of it having value, but even with 133,000+ square feet of new exhibition space, you only have enough space to show 5,000 of them.

How do you decide what you show and what you don’t, and how do you show what you show in a way that tells the story(s) of what you’re showing?

My guess is, you talk a lot amongst yourselves. You put things up and you take things down. You sleep on it many a night. And finally, it gets decided.

That’s a lot of decision-making. And they did a great job.

Take a look at the behind the scenes decision-making process with the Wing’s “Behind the Scenes” rooms, both online and “behind” the galleries at the wing.

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo…

My own Dramitis Personæ

Below are three things that made me stop. Granted, most of the things made me stop, but these things made me stop full stop.

Georgie Porgie Puddin’ and…Wow

Being an actual native Bostonian, there are things I know that apparently others don’t:

• Benjamin Franklin was a Bostonian (he didn’t get to Philadelphia until he was 17);
• John Adams defended the British soldiers involved in The Boston Massacre when it went to trial; and
• George Washington really did sleep here, in Longfellow’s House (when it was the Continental Army’s headquarters, I mean).

Since we were here when he was here, it’s not too much of a stretch for the MFA to have assembled a few important paintings that show him being himself (well, the himself we think he was).

And we’ve got one whopping lollapalooza of a painting of him being himself, The Passage of the Delaware by Thomas Sully, so big it needed its own wall.

Of COURSE this is a true-to-life depiction. George Washington was 18 feet tall. Everybody knows this.

And adorning the adjoining walls are the just-as-famous-only-smaller portraits of the very fine fellow, kind of a mini George-town, if you will.

(And if you would like to see the Boston Globe’s video highlight of this getting hung, here you go.)

Dusk still falls exactly like this

Trust me: there is no mouse pad, no canvas tote, no coffee mug, that can remotely show you what Childe Hassam’s Boston Common at Twilight actually looks like.

Wait, that's Tremont Street? Not Beacon? Huh.

Even if you get this close and personal to the painting in a photo, you still won’t see it.

You know the rule, girls: when the gaslights come on, we have to go home

The actual sun is actually setting in this painting. Really.

They had to come from somewhere

This happens every time.

You bring a kid to the museum and s/he starts to get antsy because s/he can’t touch anything and it’s just stoopid pictures on stoopid walls.

And then you show her/him this:

Mummy likes ME best

And then you put it into context (“This was painted way before even Granma was born”).

And then you point out that the two vases in the painting are the exact same two vases standing on either side of the painting.

And s/he actually stands still. For a second.

But this painting is not in my cast of characters.

No.

It’s this one:

Yes, from my loins

Their mother.

A nifty little bit of trivia:

Mrs. Edward Darley Boit by John Singer Sargent was given to the MFA by the littlest girl in the painting.

When she was 85 years old.

In 1963.

One reason you will be glad the Wing of the Americas has opened

There are close to a gazillion thirty Sargent items on display. In this one room.

Fishy-fishy-fish

When one glimpses this through the opening to the gallery:

What the…?

One immediately knows it’s a Tiffany, even if one only knows his style by the knockoff lamps available in ubiquity. But this, this is so much more, Tiffany-iac, that its impossible to walk away from this and think that that $149.99 lamp in that catalog will suffice.

The colors are just stop-and-stareable. Really, you will just stop and stare. And then you will move closer, and look at the different glass, and wonder at the fact that there’s so many different shades of greeny-yellow and yellowy-green. And then you will marvel at the way the MFA positioned the lighting to make it glow.

Wait a second…

And then you will notice the fish bowl.

This stained glass window has the stained glass goldfish swimming around in a fish bowl.

Gobsmacked. It’s an Irish word, slang really, that means astounded. And that’s what Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Parakeets with Gold Fish Bowl will make you.

You will sound both cultured and worldly when you say, “Tiffany’s gold fish bowl stained glass at the MFA left me utterly gobsmacked.”

Another reason you will be glad the Wing of the Americas has opened

Prior to the opening of AOTAW, Parakeets with Gold Fish Bowl was not on view.

Not. On. View.

MFA: “Most Fabulous Art”

The Art of the Americas Wing at the MFA is…something for all of us.

It is NOT a snooty only-the-people-who-contributed-are-allowed space.

It is NOT a sniffy if-you-don’t-already-know-what-you’re-looking-at-you-shouldn’t-be-looking-at-it locale.

It IS a place where everyone can come, and maybe see something that touches them, or maybe just feel glad that we are all part of the same species that can create such work.

The famous and well-known, the obscure and the off-beat, the pieces in the Wing are pieces of us. All of us.

Just walk in that once-again-opened front door, take a right at the visitors desk, and…be in the Americas.

Cool stuff

There are two online resources that are terrific for getting to know the Wing (click on the images to access).

The first is the Art of the Americas Wing section of the MFA’s website:

And the second is the “The MFA Takes Wing” online supplement of the Boston Globe:

Say, you don't make anything that goes with flip-flops, do you?

And if you were amongst the ladies of stratospheric means, you would want Arnold Scaasi to come up with it.

This old thing? Really darling, you're too too much of a flatterer...

Mr. Scaasi has spent the last 55 years (retired now, alas) making some of the most technically dazzling, stunningly luxurious outfits ever worn by women of wealth, and more than 100 of those outfits have been donated to the MFA. The Scaasi: American Couturier exhibit showcases 28 of these, worn by just four of his clients, and all I can say is, what clients! what clothes!

Honestly, who matches coat linings with dresses anymore?

Scaasi (which is Issacs—his actual last name—spelled backwards) was successful from the get-go, and his oeuvre was custom designed/made items that required 65 separate measurements to get them right.

Oh yes, we're sisters. The Scaasi sisters.

His clients loved him and how he made them look, and many became friends. And with friends like actress Arlene Francis, nightclub owner’s wife Joetta  Norban, super-uber rich Gayfryd Steinberg, and Barbara Streisand, could you possibly have enemies?

Babs, you so deserved that Oscar! And your tushie looked very cute in this.

I have named his style splash-wear, as in “Wow, you would have to splash out a lot of money for that dress.”

Cost of material: over $1,300 per yard. Amount of material: yards and yards.

The 28 pieces in this exhibit are sumptuous and event-specific. These are not things you would don to pop into the market for milk, baloney, and peanut butter. These are things that announce, “I am here. And I am here.”

That Scaasi's a genius--half of my dress is made out of plastic!

The wonderful thing about this exhibit is how close you can get to the clothes. You can get this close:

Not a stitch out of place.

But you can also stand back and get a frisson of the breadth and detail produced by Scaasi.

Oh, is that the caviar?

The clothing in this exhibit are examples of fine workmanship and attention to detail. Each and every piece is beautifully designed, the fabrics expertly chosen and pared, and the sewing top-notch.

All this beading is lovely, but the dress weighs about 22 pounds.

Even if you aren’t the daughter of a self-taught seamstress—a seamstress who once hand-sewed seventeen yards of lace to her god-daughter’s wedding dress—the Scaasi exhibit at the MFA will knock your socks off.

As usual, the curators at the MFA have done a fabulous job of creating a cohesive, approachable exhibit. It’s like walking into a live Vogue photo spread.

Scaasi: American Couturier

Saturday, September 25, 2010 – Sunday, June 19, 2011

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Avenue of the Arts
465 Huntington Avenue
Avenue of the Arts
Boston, Massachusetts 02115-5523
617-267-9300
TTY: 617-267-9703

Photography courtesy of Wan Chi Lau

No, it's not a piece of paper stuck over her head, it's FASHION.

Put your best dress on, Martha, because you are going to want to go.

Wait, I'm almost ready!

Dorian Leigh, hat by Paulette, Paris studio, August 1949
Photograph Richard Avedon
© The Richard Avedon Foundation

Having grown up when I grew up (meaning that when I was in high school you were not properly attired until you had applied four shades of eye shadow and three shades of eye liner, wore sequins and tottered about in stilettos—yes, to first period Chemistry), what you wore defined who you were. Or rather, what you wore described who you hoped others would think you were.

And that’s what what we wear is about, isn’t it? Who you are, who you want to be thought of as, who you aspire to become. I still have evening gowns in my closet that I don on occasion (meaning, it’s Saturday morning and I’m the only one in the house), just to make sure I could still be “that” person if I need to/want to.

Mr. Avedon defined the look of fashion advertising, the look that people wanted to have for themselves. His photography gave movement and energy and joy, even, to clothing ads.

Wouldn't I look lovely in those…

Prior to his arrival (at the age of 21 with the sale of one photograph to Bonwit Teller’s for $7.50) photography of clothing was very practical, mostly in the form of studio-based front/back/side static poses.

Avedon took his models outside, in real surroundings (or made-to-look-real surroundings). The models were photographed twirling, primping, laughing. Good lord, these models could be actual people, doing actual people things! Caused quite a stir.

The fashionable way to jump a puddle

Avedon came to fashion photography just after the war. Harper’s Bazaar sent him to Paris to do some editorial fashion shots. Paris after the war was bombed out, and its people worn out. So much destruction to such a beautiful city, its culture and fashion dampened by four-and-a-half years of Nazi occupation, with shortages of everything from shoes to tires to milk.

Avedon’s images were images of hope, images that expressed the idea that women could once again look lovely and that Paris could once again be “The City of Lights.”

Twirling is not just for little girls…

And that was Avedon’s thing, as it were; expressing the idea that women were beautiful and loved wearing fashion. He captured how women enjoyed wearing clothes, as expressed in this image:

Enchenté, darling

Avedon worked continuously, and anticipated and embraced the changing ideas in the fashion world, from the opulent ‘50’s:

I get pouty when there's no champagne

To the “Youth Quake” of the ‘60’s:

Nothing like a fashion shoot with no clothes in it…

After long stints with Harper’s and Vogue, Avedon moved into more portraiture and advertising work. This exhibit, however, focuses exclusively on his fashion portfolio, and it’s a pleasure to meander through it, stopping at images that, well, make you stop. It’s almost hard to remember that fashion photography was his job, and he got paid to show off the clothes. His images make you want to be that person, not just wear what she’s wearing.

The quality of the images is stunning, but the exhibit doesn’t shy away from showing you the backroom, as it were.

Ya cut it here, ya slice it here, and we've got ourselves a good picture…

The design of the exhibition is very enjoyable. I highly suggest reading the wall text to garner a sense of the work and the time.

Darling, it's not paper, it's FASHION.

Okay, it might be paper. But just a little bit.

He was on assignment for The New Yorker when he died, doing what he loved doing right up to the end.

Thanks, man.

Avedon Fashion 1944-2000 is a traveling exhibit, organized by the International Center of Photography (ICP) with the cooperation of The Richard Avedon Foundation. It is at the MFA until January 17, 2011, and is free with admission to the museum.

Far and Away

My first encounter with the World Cup was in Ireland circa 1990, where I was living at the time.

Wait, I thought all roads lead to Rome...

I was trying to find myself a bedsit (a.k.a. a studio  apartment), and one afternoon I left work early in order to wander the streets of Ranelagh in search of one (at least the one listed in the paper).

This place looks nice...

I noticed that I was the only creature moving in the entirety of the neighborhood. Not a person, not a dog, not a car was in motion. I was the only articulatedly living thing as far as the eye could see. Not having been in Ranelagh before it gave me a creepy feeling, and it got me to thinking that I didn’t want to live in that part of town if that’s what it was going to be like.

Someone in the office had mentioned “the World Cup” that morning but that was an inconsequential sporting event in which I like most Americans had no interest.

Whilst walking down a very pleasant street lined with handsome brick townhouses and tidy front yards and half-open windows (all with lace curtains), an ungodly roar shattered the silence, out of nowhere from everywhere.

I thought  it was an explosion at the power station, possibly an earthquake.

It had to be one of those two things. What else could obliterate the silence with such a sustained, ear-splitting din?

Turns out, it was the Packie Bonner save in penalties during the Romania match (here).

Me Ma'll murther me if I don't make this save

Practically every single person in the country was in a pub (or a living room) watching the match on the telly, or  in the office (or on the bus) listening to it on somebody’s radio, and when Packie saved the country’s hopes, everyone’s voice was raised in relief, disbelief, and thrill-dom.

Living in a small country when their national team is doing well in an international event is like being part of a tribe. A big, happy, on-the-same-page tribe. Everybody knew what was going on, everybody had something to say, everybody was excited.

The Irish Chamber of Commerce even had tips on how to deal with the inevitable “sickies” that would be called in on the day following a match, to wit; just deal with it, wouldja, when was the last time we’ve done so well?

That game, and that night

On the night Ireland lost to Italy in the quarter-final, my then-fella and I went out because, well, it was kind of sad being just the two of us in the living room with the tv.

We drove…somewhere, and when we crested the hill, I saw a sight that exposed the pit of my stomach to a primal fear I don’t believe I’ve felt since.

We were at a stoplight, and at one corner of the crossroads was a pub, and literally hundreds of people were pouring out of it onto the sidewalk and flowing into the street, shouting, jumping, drunk.

The bus on the opposite side of the lights couldn’t move for the mob. It was like a big yellow caterpillar being o’er-swarmed by ants.

The car in front of us was instantly engulfed by the pubgoers. A bunch of males yanked opened both doors, and pulled the elderly driver and his elderly wife from the car.

A young guy, a big guy, had the wife. He was tall and youthful and strong, and she was tiny and white haired and slightly stooped.

He grabbed her around the waist. You could see his huge paw on the small of her back.

He grasped one of her hands in his and lifted it into the air. He was so tall she couldn’t look up into his face.

And then…

…he started dancing with her. A gentle, old-fashioned waltz. Everybody laughed, including the lady. He deftly twirled her around a few times, and deposited her next to her husband.

The husband had immediately been taken over by the crowd, which I could now see were, um gideons (as in giddy). He was theirs, and they were his.

Everybody was absorbed into this swirling mass of happiness. He was smiling, they were smiling, and everybody was singing that year’s football song, “Olé, olé-olé-olé, olé, o-olé!”

And then they started on some auld sod song, and everybody, everybody, started waltzing with each other. Pandemonium, delirium, Ireland-onium, it was hard to know what it was.

“What the hell?” I practically shouted to my fella (we were still in the car). “You guys lost. Lost! And you’re singing!”

“We haven’t lost,” he said with a twinkle, “we’ve gotten further in this World Cup than in any other. We got to the quarter-finals! And we lost to Italy! One of the best teams in the world! The lads did well to have gotten so far, and we’re proud of them.”

An Actual Black of Dublin

When “the lads” returned from the World Cup, on the same day that recently-released-from-prison Nelson Mandela came to Dublin to personally thank the Irish Anti-Apartheid movement (and this is what he said), thousands and thousands (including me) were in the City Center.

"We are all members of the human family"

We waited outside Leinster House for the great Mandela himself to arrive. He gave a wonderful, powerfully moving speech. Before he got to the end of it, one of his entourage whispered something to him. Mandela cleared his throat and said, “The boys have just touched down at the airport, so I’ll stop now.”

The crowd gave him a thunderous cheer, then we pivoted en masse and ran down to O’Connell Street to find places along the parade route.

Nelson! Nelson! C'mon, I saved you a spot!

News people estimated that half of the country was in Dublin that day.

Half of the country.

And it was a joyous, joyous day.

Closer to home

When the World Cup came to America in 1994, the place I was working at was in the town of Foxboro and wouldn’t you know it, the Foxboro stadium where the Patriots play was chosen as one of the venues.

And, they were looking for volunteers.

"Yes ma'am, they'll be playing soccer. Yes ma'am, right here in the USA."

I was part of the credentials tent. Everybody, every body, needed to get badged: the players, the camera guys, the hot dog vendors, the security crew. And they all came through our tent. Hand over your paper work, and if you’re in the computer, you get to get a color-coded photo ID, developed with Polaroid and HP, so that the camera sent the image directly to the printer which printed everything out in one laminated go.

Believe me, this was cool high-tech-ness in 1994.

The Nigerian team came by just to come by, all handsome and African in their beautiful robes, passing out Nigerian football pins and telling us how happy they were to be in America and playing in the World Cup.

"A better future for Nigeria through football"

Talk about making everybody’s day, these guys were nothing but happiness.

So this one guy shows up…

A lone Japanese fella, standing in my line. I thought his face would split open from the smile.

He bows.

I bow.

I say something along the lines of welcome-to-Foxboro-do-you-have-your-paperwork.

He bows.

I bow.

He does not give me his paperwork.

“Do you have your paperwork?” I say with a smile.

“I frah Toe-keough,” he says back, the smile reaching almost his ears.

“Welcome to America.”

“I come foh Whorcup!”

“The World Cup. Yes, here it is.”

“I frah Toe-keough. I come foh Whorcup!”

More bowing, more smiling, one phone call to the translation tent.

Turns out he was a reporter, from Tokyo, here to cover the World Cup, and he was early (press credentialing wasn’t scheduled until the following week).

But he didn’t care. The Whorcup was going to be here, and so here he was.

A happier man I did not see for that entire event.

So the American says…

All of the above, my dear American friends who think soccer is lame, is what the World Cup is all about.

And the interesting thing about this year’s World Cup, the one that’s going on right now, is that it seems moderately to fairly good that we might have an outside chance of maybe possibly winning it on a fluke.

But then again, so does everybody else.

In addition to fielding a soccer team this year, the US is putting forth its unbeaten seven-legged race squad as well as its formidable hippity-hoppity roster

1. I wasn’t good enough;
2. Me being me was a pain in the ass to others;
3. My intelligence was something to be embarrassed about;
4. I didn’t know anything that was important;
5. I could be anything I wanted to be, as long as it was what he wanted me to be;
6. Whatever I wanted to do, I didn’t have what it took to do it.

When he died, I burst into tears, I was so relieved.

Him.

He’s been dead a long time, but I don’t off the top of my head remember exactly how long.

He was not an evil man, or even a bad man. He was just…a crappy father.

It’s possible he was also a mediocre husband, but that is not for me to say.

My father was stunted by his upbringing, I know that. He had that almost stereotypically cold, hard, Irish Catholic mother who had too many children and was mean to every one of them. The first time she ever told my father she loved him was when he was shipping out for World War II.

When my father used to defend his mother (“She gave us a roof over our heads, a warm bed to sleep in, and three meals a day”), I would counter with the broken elbow story (when he was ten she went to hit him with “an iron fry skillet” and he put his arm up to protect his head and she bashed him in the elbow; the records at the old Boston City Hospital say that he fell down the stairs).

He was a grown-up man in his late thirties when I came along, about 15 months after my sister.

Me.

My sister was a nightmare, and I suspect that dealing with her wore him out for me.

My single greatest memory of my childhood is just constantly being in the way.

My other memory was feeling that I was not enough to “make up” for my sister.

I was clever, I was the president of the choir and the captain of the (junior varsity) volleyball team. I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke, I didn’t swear, I didn’t go around with a bad crowd, I read a lot. I did the dishes every night after supper.

And yet…

My father so done with being a parent that he just wanted to be left alone. Don’t call and ask for a ride from the bus station because you missed the hourly bus by two minutes, either walk home or wait for the next one. Don’t have any crisis of confidence because I really can’t take the time to buck you up. I’m not going to go to yet another of your concerts because the game is on, even if you are singing Mozart in a church. And don’t, under any circumstances, challenge me, because I can be meaner and nastier as a parent than anybody thinks I can be and can rip every rug right out from underneath you.

I learned to not engage with my father, because the outcome was almost never a positive. He made me very, very self-doubtful, and I preferred to find things and people that weren’t so damaging to my…self.

So, I kind of grew up on my own, a little funky, a little dorky, but damn if my friends didn’t get into ivy-league schools and those “small ivy” New England colleges that make for such great front-of-the-brochure images. Hell, I even got into one (for a while…).

It took a long time to start the process of getting him out of my head. Therapy was instrumental, as was allowing myself to have a relationship with a really wonderful guy who never sees me as my father did. Getting a glimpse of how other people see me (oh-my-gosh-you’re-wonderful!) has gone a long way to reducing my father’s voice to a very small one, and not one that I have to listen to any more.

And today is…

If you have a great relationship with your father, today will be a day to recognize and celebrate that. I can see how today is a good thing for that.

There are people who will be going to graves today, and tidying up a bit, and possibly having a bit of a chat with the man under the marker. There might be tears and sadness that he’s gone, whether it’s been one year or fifty.

There are others who feel the weight of family pressure to pretend that their father is not a drunk, doesn’t womanize, doesn’t take advantage of others, and is actually a good and decent person. Today will be a hard day for them.

But then there will be people who will only recognize the day because of the Sunday circulars, people who have (or had) a father that they have put from their lives because they couldn’t let him be in it any more.

If you’re in that latter group, it can take a long time to (learn to) be okay with that. It’s all about letting go of what you think you’re supposed to have, and just having what you have, with less judgment about it.

I am who I am because of what I’ve had.

What I had was a hugely negative father who was disappointed in the person that I was.

I lived for a long time believing what he believed about me.

But I don’t now.

Happy Father’s Day.

Jus’ sayin’.

We still miss you, Buff

Getting a Kitten for a Cat

One of the things we realized about Buffy was that she didn’t want/need a feline companion, but of course we only realized that after we got Buffy a feline companion, a lovely little fella named Eliot.

In spite of Buffy being entirely non-interactive with him, Eliot remained affable and happy, even though he spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get Buffy to play with him.

Don't tell Buffy, but our butts are touching

In hindsight, we understand that we handled the introduction of the two cats rather badly—we rushed it, and Buffy wasn’t ready. But gosh Eliot was so cute, and why wouldn’t my cats be mutually affectionate and snuggle up together?

Apparently, there’s a process involved in making that happen, and we did not follow the process.

And even if you do follow the process, there’s no guarantee that you will have cute-cat-calendar companionship.

Getting Another Kitten for Another Cat

When it was time to make a teeny tiny addition named Milo to the household, we knew we had to go more slowly with the introduction, even though one of the reasons we wanted a kitten was because Eliot seemed so friendly and, well, big-brother like.

When we brought Milo home,

Me…ow?

Eliot was on his perimeter patrol of the yard, so they didn’t meet.

I wonder…who else lives here

We helped Milo get acclimated to his “Sanctuary Room” (aka my office), where he would live until all interactive feline emotions and interactions were, as they say, good (which in cat parlance is completely pejorative). Such a tiny thing, Milo, the room seemed very large, and so quiet—  no cat/human siblings crying/shouting/gobbling up all the food. He tumbled about for a bit (“Huh, it seems I have four legs…”) then curled up and went to sleep.

Just…so…tired

Milo had a very very loud cry when he woke up and found himself alone in the big room (So loud! So tiny!), By this time Eliot had returned from his duties and was curled up on the back of the couch in MSPG’s office. An interesting thing about cats, they might look like they are in the deepest, most undisturbable sleep but when something attracts their sleeping attention, it’s like they were always awake.

A Meeting of the…Cries

Immediately Eliot went to the closed door of the Sanctuary Room and sniffed and scratched. Then he made a loud and uncharacteristic sound, a cross between a cry and a command. Who knows, really what cats are saying…

Eliot’s vocalization stopped Milo’s crying. I have decided to think that when Milo heard Eliot he realized he wasn’t all alone, but again, we’re talking cat-ification, of which I know nothing.

Eliot stared at the door,

then ran downstairs.

So much for our presumed alpha cat.

A word about how we found Milo

Milo Suetonius Barney MacFarquarson and his five siblings were born in a car.

A very nice young mother and her young children living in a third-floor walk up took in the kittens and the mother, even though the very nice young mother was not the owner of the car.

The very nice young mother believes that the mother cat used to live with people, as it was very good with all the humans living in the home, and was house-trained

Having an extra seven mouths to feed, even if they are small cat mouths, is something that I imagine stretches this family’s resources, but  you can’t put a price on goodness.

Maybe it’s because I played Winston Churchill in 8th grade, but my only thought when I heard that was, “You are the head of the United Nations, dude, step up to the plate with strong leadership and determination to succeed, or step aside.”

Because good lord, if the United Nations is “overwhelmed” by what’s happened in Haiti, why even bother trying?

I was five-going-on-six when you were murdered.

I was a little white girl living in a nice working-to-middle-class seacoast neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts.

I can’t say I remember anything about your murder, although growing up three murders were never far from anyone’s recall. First President Kennedy, then you, then the President’s brother Robert.

I remember understanding that John Kennedy was killed because he was president, and Robert Kennedy was killed because he wanted to be president.

And you were killed because you were black.

In my seacoast community, the one where Mr. Boudreau from up the street would go out clamming on the flats at low tide, nobody was black, although I think back then the nomenclature was “negro.”

So in a way, Martin, you were the first black person I ever knew.

When I went to camp the summer after fourth grade, there was a black girl in my cabin, although I didn’t recognize her as black. Her name was Charlotte, and she had freckles, but you didn’t see the freckles right away because her skin was almost as dark as her freckles. Until I met her I thought only Irish people had freckles. Charlotte was very pretty, I thought.

I used to watch “Soul Train” because I liked the music and the kids on it were older than me and looked cool and danced great. I didn’t realize everybody on “Soul Train” was black until my father pointed out that everybody was black on “Soul Train.”  Then I realized that everybody was black.

I grew up with a father who was not racist but prejudiced. He once told me, “You can date anyone you want, but don’t bring home a black man.” He also wouldn’t allow one of my closest high school friends into the house “because he’s a faggot and I don’t want him sittin’ on my toilet seat.”

I got invited to the Honor Roll Dance of a private boys school junior year. One of his friends asked one of my friends to the dance as well, and the four of us went together. On the way home we got lost because the dance was in Boston and I only knew how to get back to Quincy on the T, so at two o’clock in the morning four white kids in prom clothes driving a gold LTD down Blue Hill Avenue were scared witless because Blue Hill Avenue was “where black people live.”

During the summer after high school my best friend and I went to see an Eddie Murphy movie way over at the movie theater in Somerville. A bunch of still-in-high-school girls sat behind us. When the movie started, one of them said, “Eddie Murphy is really good looking–for a niggah.” They all snorted with laughter.

When I set out on my own, I lived in a wonderful apartment in Dorchester near the Ashmont T. I worked in Foxboro at the time and so every morning I had to drive down that Blue Hill Avenue to get to Interstate 95. For a month I was petrified while driving down Blue Hill Avenue, because I grew up in a house that differentiated between the races, and because I grew up at a time when the news was full of scary scary pictures of really angry people doing mean and hurtful things to people of the other race. I was convinced that I was the only white person driving down Blue Hill Avenue, and every day I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles went white. Because I knew “this is where black people live,” I was petrified that something might happen to me.

Then after that month, after nothing happened to me, I took a breath, and looked around. And I saw them. All the black people. The little girls with the many braids and the brightly colored barrettes, standing at the bus stop clutching a lunch box in one hand and daddy’s hand in the other. And the dads stood at those bus stops with their little girls as hundreds of cars drove past, not embarrassed, not annoyed, just being dads.

Until about five months ago I was the only white person in the condo complex I live in now. I had been living here for maybe three years when it dawned on me that I was the only white person in it. Pat lived next to us for a while, with her mother, and her two sons, and her daughter and her daughter’s two daughters. Since we shared a wall, we introduced ourselves. Pat invited me in to see her place. It was very clean and very nice. She wanted to get my opinion of her new bedroom furnishings, whether I thought as she did that her new bedspread was too large. It was a beautiful bedspread, kind of Venetian style with gold and purple swirls. It was, as she thought, too big. She didn’t have the sales slip anymore, and bought it at a store that I buy things at. I said, “Well, you still have the tags on it, you can still bring it back.” She said, “A black woman? Bring back a bedspread with no sales slip? You white, girl, you white.” Then we both laughed.

She had two teenage sons. They were black teenage males, which is why they were sullen and didn’t talk to me. And then I stopped looking at them the way the media presented them and just looked at them the way they were, and saw that they were only teenage males, and that’s why they were sullen and didn’t talk to me. They weren’t tough guys at all, and one I’m pretty sure was gay.

About four years ago I struck up a lovely, albeit whispered, conversation with a a New Yorker  in the Relaxation Lounge of the Elemis Spa at Mohegan Sun. She was black, I was white, she was from New York, I am from Boston, we both didn’t win the World Series the year before. Her 23 year-old daughter, a Marine sergeant, had just came back from a seven-month tour of duty (in you know where…), and this woman admitted to me that she couldn’t really remember any of the last seven months.

Martin, I’m telling you all this because maybe if they hadn’t killed you all those years ago, things would’ve been different. Had your peaceful but insistent tactics of standing up for yourself and what you believe in been able to continue (the United States of America and freedom and equality for all of its people), maybe they would have diffused the ignorance between the whites and the blacks, and maybe the anger and fear stemming from that ignorance wouldn’t have been so angry and fearful, or lasted so long.

The America that you wanted, that dream that you had, the one that was “deeply rooted in the American dream,” is still a tantalizing vision, one that maybe we have started to see for ourselves, but is still sadly distant.

And that’s why I’m sorry they killed you.