Shopping---Doctors

I'm now meeting with doctors, hoping to replicate the two, Ob and Internist, I had in LA. It has been a mixed bag, this process of trying to find a doctor that will be the right mixture of cautious and neurotic. In all fairness, both of my doctors in LA became personal acquaintances, if not friends. During the course of the ten or so years, they had seen me through pregnancy, illness, and general bad moods. So, trying to replicate these long ties was a tall order. It's no surprise how disappointing all of this has been thus far, even in this area where I'm surrounded by three large hospitals.

I had started this search by sending out an email to those I know here, those I thought would have been conscientious in their own doctor search. It's funny how irrelevant all of this is when you're in your 20's, but more pressing as you turn 40. I can no longer be cavalier about mammograms, high blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and general health concerns for those who are middle age. I need a doctor, whose bedside manner is amiable, but still neurotic enough to get that extra test done if there is a need for caution. A doctor who is all bedside manner, but lacking in aggression in their attack of whatever ailments, is probably not a doctor for me at this juncture of my life, no matter how much more pleasant a visit would be with such a physician.

I made appointments for all this week, in the hope this doctor issue will be sorted before a crisis occurs. The first appointment went well. I thought him the right fit for the general health concerns most of us face. My next appointment was for an OB, who was part of a large group practice. The person who had recommended her had warned she was 'no nonsense.' I had no idea 'no nonsense' meant zero personality. In fact, her personality, what little there was, bordered on the combative. It was a shock to my system since my OB in LA was someone I had a secret crush on for years. He was the one person who could take a needle-phobe like me into a confident pregnant woman, capable of not passing out every time blood was needed to be drawn. He was the man who delivered my son, making sure my phobias didn't turn an already stressful experience into a whole new dimension of stress.

I left her office, wondering how finding the right doctor was like shopping for anything else in life. The only difference was that you don't get to try on for size most physicians, although such a thing should be allowed. But in our age of health insurance craziness, for those of us fortunate enough to be insured, well, the idea of taking a test run on a doctor is not advised or covered. So, there I was, having wasted an appointment on this person, who was clearly not going to remain my OB.

I was disheartened enough to consider the radical decision to remain with my OB in LA, and jetting in once a year for my annual check ups. I know that is not advisable since, God forbid, I would be quite stuck if there was some complication down the road. And as much as my old doctor adores me, I doubt he would fly 3000 miles to oversee my care. So, off to the boards I go as I search some more for a doctor that will be the appropriate fit for me--no tall order given my phobic nature.

The Village

I still find myself in awe with where I am. Yesterday was just such a day as I found myself down in the Village on my way to visit with a new doctor. I stumbled on to a little street called Washington Mews. The stones of the street were as charming as the carriage houses that lined both sides of this tiny thruway, connecting 5th Avenue to University Place. As much as I love the convenience of new buildings, there is something wildly romantic about living in such an old little cottage, tucked away from the city. I walked through, passing various doors, wondering how, or who, had the good fortune to live inside. I could envision a book-lined wall, a small staircase leading upstairs to a bath and bedroom. It was all I could do to keep from peaking into one of the windows, so desperate to see how others lived in such a charming home.

I love walking in cities, no matter how big or small. There is no way to stumble upon such idyllic places except by walking. Paris, one of the best walking cities, is a place where I am always stopping in mid-stride to stare longingly into one of those Parisian apartment buildings, a big wooden door opening on to such a picturesque courtyard. There's nothing more enticing to a voyeur than a walk at dusk, as lights get turned on inside. You can stand on a street, observing lives unfolding behind glass as bodies walk past windows. Aside from the possibility of discovery, I love the anonymity that walking in cities offers--the feeling of being swallowed up by the streets, bodies, and cars.

I'm finally cutting all ties with my former life as I forge new relationships with doctors here. Each step in establishing a life in a new city takes me just a bit further away from my former life. I feel quieter about all of it now. I am settling into the realities of the day to day life here. Groceries get ordered and delivered, meals prepared, coffees drunk with new friends, all the while taking note of how dramatically different my life is to where it had been a year ago. How my reality today was impossible to fathom, no matter how desperately I wanted it to happen. How things can change in a moment.

I have weaned myself off of movies set in New York. The city is becoming too intimate, too familiar for me to luxuriate in images, usually idealized by others as the perfect city. Now, I have real concerns about buses, subways, and getting my son to school on time, even if the walk is a mere one block.

Brisk Days

The weather has turned and is now 'brisk' a euphemism for cold. I headed to a well-known coat store to prepare for those days when going outside is painful due to cold and wind. A new added difference in my life is the proximity of my cousin, who is more like a younger sister than a cousin. She is blocks, truly a mere few blocks away, so is always on hand to meet for a little shopping, cup of tea, and to drink bottles of wine, which we do when she's over for dinner. This relationship, an extension of the crazy, close, but too close to be viewed as healthy of our mothers, is much like any familial relationship. We love each other, but are also inflicted with the complications of the relationship of our two mothers. It is something both of us cherish despite it all.

This weekend before Halloween was an overdose of this strange holiday, one I've never understood. My son, much like all of his peers, was beyond excited to get dressed as Dracula, his choice, and to attend the Fright Night at his school, sponsored by the PTA. I don't recall so many activities in LA for this one holiday, other than the vans full of trick or treaters that would descent on our little block. It seemed the entire city had activities in celebration of this ghoulish night with parties, trick or treating in the Village, and a Pumpkin Patch in Central Park. Dressed to go out for a night out with my husband, I found myself applying white face make up on my son as I readied him for his sitter and for Fright Night. As I applied the make up, the irony of my brown skinned son getting 'white face,' was one that made me laugh. I know too soon these moments when my son needs me will all be a part of the landscape of memories. The sense of watching and participating is with me every day as he take leaps in growth and maturity. The habit of spelling words I didn't want him to understand has come to a screeching halt as he sounds out letters and is spelling at the most elementary level.

I sometimes wonder if we'd made a mistake only opting for the one child. How different our lives would be if we had the messiness of having another child, either boy or girl, requiring logistical maneuvering, manageable at a sane level with only one. The excuse of living in New York seems selfish as I see families around us, families of four or more. I can already see the acceptance of the solitariness of being an only child in my son as I hear him playing by himself for hours on end, imaginary cities being created as he talks to himself. The product of just such a family makes me more aware than others of what is ahead for my son--the constant tug between craving social interaction and the refuge of solitude.

As they say, too late. The die is cast and he will forever be the only child of this unique union. I'm sure we will, his father and I, be a source of embarrassment and pride.

Los Angelenos Are Crazy

I hate to generalize again, but there you have it. There is no other way to describe the 'characters' I know from that city. My old neighbor, a woman I never shared a meal with when we lived next door, came to the city for a visit. She had phoned a few weeks ago expressing an interest in having lunch. Since she was always personable, I said 'of course.'

The lunch was fine. We sat at the Mercer Kitchen, eating and talking about various topics. I found myself asking lots of questions since my knowledge of her life was not substantiative beyond her career--set designer--and marriage status--single, but dating same person. I asked if she was currently working on a new project to which she replied she was working on two, one of which is a children's book. I thought her response intriguing since she's single, and does not have children. Was it possible she had been a secret aficionado of children's picture books? I know as voraciously as I read, I hadn't glanced a children's book until my son entered our home. So, the fact that a childless, single woman read enough children's books to feel confident to write one was quite intriguing indeed.

Here's where the craziness became apparent. She doesn't read children's books beyond the books she'd read from her childhood. And her book, based on her two dogs as main characters--yes, she's one of those crazy dog people--is a story about the dogs (young children) who are left by their mother with a credit card because she has to get to work, and therefore, doesn't have time to feed her two young children before their first day of school. The kids, being precocious tots, want to eat sushi, so off to Japan they go with the, said, credit card. Instead of green eggs and ham, they eat green sushi. Instead of an American school, presumably to attend Kindergarten, they go to a Japanese school where the learn Japanese. Hmmmm....

Where does one begin? The fact I didn't laugh out loud in her face with incredulity is a sheer feat of restraint on my part. I didn't know how to delicately put it to her that even the most inane kids books are based on reality. The idea of a mother, in our current culture of hyper-parenting, leaving her kids alone with a credit card to feed themselves is beyond implausible. I did try and point out that perhaps there should be a babysitter there to whom the mother leaves the credit card with the instruction to take the kids to whatever restaurant the kids desire. She thought this a very good idea since she hadn't thought of the need for some adult presence in the story. Again, where does one begin? I told her that there are kids in our world who are left alone for whatever reasons, but those parents are usually involved in some institutional system: welfare, child social services. And the fact the mother has the means to leave a credit card probably rules out this possibility.

There is something marvelously adventurous, courageous even, about people getting the gumption to try and do things without previous experience or training. I mean, she is someone who has never, ever written a children's book. And yes, this story may not be the most telling of her capabilities after she wraps her head around how parenting and children work in this 21st century. She may very well be the next Kevin Henkes or Dr. Seuss for all we know. And if not for this gumption to try, well, she may never know whether this little idea of hers, this impulse to try this thing could open her life to an entire new direction. I applaud this spirit, such a part of the mythology of the wild, wild west, something people who are drawn to this part of the world inhabit so completely.

But again, as I sat and listened to her rambling on about the process of writing this book, I couldn't help marveling at how crazy all of it sounded to me, this single childless woman writing children's books. After our thorough discussion of her project, we moved on to other safer topics. As I left her in Soho, I walked away thinking what an interesting afternoon it had been. And how it takes so many kinds of people to make up the world.

City Experienced Through Movies

When I was in LA, a condition I have a hard time categorizing as living since it felt more like treading water, I used to savor and devour any, and all, movies shot in and about New York. No matter how inane, sentimental, absurd, or just plain bad, I would sit through any movie that captured this city on film. You can imagine how rabid I was about watching "Sex and the City," since the city was a character as much as those singletons desperate for love. You know it's bad when I made my husband sit through "Autumn in New York," one of Winona Ryder's last movies, and for good reason if anyone has seen it. And Woody Allen, pre-scandal, was at his most prolific when allowing this city to be the main feature of his movies. I think it interesting that as he gets older, more jaded, and less creatively prescient, he has headed across the pond for inspiration.

When I found life too grim, which could be most days in that sunny environ, I would rent out all the classic titles starting with Woody Allen's "Manhattan," and ending with any of Nora Ephron's films set in this city. The day would be spent aimlessly watching the movie, not for story sake, but simply to absorb the images of this much beloved city. Yes, I have watched "You've Got Mail," more than any sane person should admit to. My husband, who knew the drill too well, asked recently how many times I had watched a certain movie, which happened to be on one of our many movie channels, being watched, yet again. He teased that it must exceed ten, if not hobbling toward 20. I laughed along with him because, well, in my few sane moments, I knew how crazy all of this was. But a part of me realized that all of this living vicariously through film had now come to an end. That I was now living the life I'd imagined for so long. And being me, well, that has created a certain anxiety--much to be expected for those familiar with my particular peculiarities.

I have corresponded with an old neighbor about how the fires have, or have not, affected our old neighborhood. She was full of complaints about the air quality, which on a fire-free day is just on par with Mexico City. I couldn't imagine how bad it must be, and to see no relief in sight to clear out the smoke and ever lingering smog. It was during such days when our son's asthma would kick in with a severity that would require him to stay home from school. The drizzle that made umbrellas a necessity on our morning walk to school felt like a gift from above. The chill in the air feels like it will stay awhile.

My son rarely mentions LA now. He no longer complains about walking everywhere even on those days when it is rainy and gray. This new life is now every day for him, and for the rest of us. We, each of us, is rejuvenated by the changes, the pace of this new city life. My work is going well, or rather, I'm working again after so many years of not. I find the hours between 8:30 and 2:30 passes too quickly as I look up from staring intently at the computer, only to realize it is time to pick up my son. The somnolence of the last five years have come to an end as everything in my life has gained such clarity: my work and my family. Reading, something that offered and continues to offer such solace, is like everything else clearer. I'm no longer reading to escape my world, but reading for all the reasons a writer is supposed to read.

I feel this last half of my life as a writer will be the most productive. There may be another book in me, if not a few more books. I know the blistering pace at which I work will not put me in the category of Joyce Carol Oates, although very few writers are in her league. But I hope and pray I shall not suffer the fate of Harper Lee, who spent the rest of her life trying to write another. God willing.

Fires, Mud Slides, Drought, and Santa Ana

The four seasons of weather in Los Angeles come in cycles, much like the four seasons of Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer. And the current season when leaves turn color, the breeze a bit cooler in most of the country, is when winds come blowing, quite a gust which blows, not cool air, but instead is hot dry wind that had, in an earlier time, blown, creating the dust bowls of the west--what we Angelenos call the Santa Ana. This season's Santa Ana's has been more destructive than telephone lines getting toppled. No, this season's winds in confluence with a drought has made nearly a million people homeless.

I always lamented the lack of seasonal changes in the weather, thinking the balmy, 70 something weather an aberration to the natural way of life. It seemed fitting that we would pay, and pay dearly, for such idyll when everyone else contends with the challenges of weather. So, when it rained in LA, it poured. There were no sprinkles or spotty showers. No, the rain would start as if God had turned the sprinkler on full, and then left it on for more than 30 days. During the one winter when it had rained for more than 30 days straight, I joked to my friends that we should all be building an ark since the floods was sure to follow.

As I sit 3,000 miles away, I find myself watching the news of what's happening over there with concern. I know if the winds carried one little ember to the Santa Monica mountains, well, the city would never be the same from such a catastrophe. I keep imagining the flames engulfing the Palisades, Holmby Hills, Bel Air, and then Beverly Hills, devouring the man made lawns and watered gardens in its path.

The New York Times Sunday magazine had an in depth article about graver concerns facing the Southwest that would make these fires look like a mini-Armageddon. They predict global warming will have the averse affect in this dry, arid region by creating not more rains, as they predict for other regions, but in fact a drought of biblical proportions. This drought along with the population surges would create a world much like, "Mad Max," where people aren't fighting for oil, or so we hope, but are in fact fighting for that natural resource, now a commodity, water. The thing that struck me about this article is that the awareness most of those in power have about this upcoming crisis. Yet, none of them have come out and told the citizenry to conserve water, to stop watering their English gardens, an aberration in the desert. Villaraigosa said something about conserving during the summer months, but it was in correlation to the recent drought, not a warning about the dire situation of the future. Yes, the article may be a bit alarmist, but surely if enough scientists predict such a thing, people should give some consideration to their predictions. But no, I know how most of the people in LA work. They will talk about these fires, which I know are being covered assiduously by Paul Moyers--an idiot who must surely have been the model for William Hurt's character on "Broadcast News"--each bit of the story portentous, tragic. All the daytime shows are probably interrupted as the local news covers the stories, running to each new devastated spot, following the 50 mile an hour winds, each new gust bringing another tragic story to cover.

When Griffith Park was engulfed, friends had called to let us know we could evacuate to their homes. Our home, thankfully, was not in danger, but the fires were close enough for us to not feel any measure of comfort that it was the hillside behind engulfed. Other friends of ours, those closer to the park, had to evacuate, fleeing to various hotels in the city--yes, it was a crisis, but no need for any of us to suffer sitting among so many strangers at a Red Cross center.

We awoke to a gray day, rain imminent, rain that would be welcome for those waiting to see whether fate would spare them, even as those to the left and right of them was not spared. I dropped my son off at school, avoiding the PTA meeting scheduled for this morning. Just as I walked outside, the rain started falling, making me grateful that this precipitation is just a part of the ever-changing weather of this city, this coast.

Writing--Not an Autobiography

All writers write from their life, not about their life, that is unless you are a memoir writer. And memoirs, I've always felt, are some of the best fiction out there on the market. I think writers, when working on something that is supposed to be biographical, will exaggerate for dramatic purposes, not concerned how the obfuscation may alter the situation as it had truly occurred. In contrast, I think fiction writers reveal more of themselves emotionally in their writing, feeling a freedom that the guise of fiction allows.

I don't think a great deal about how much I reveal myself in my work. There can be no censor for any artist to create and writing is a method for me to figure out the truths of my life. It is a way, consciously, to connect the dots that seem to swirl around me. I can't worry about how something I write will, or can, affect those around me, particularly my family. My husband has had to contend with the reality that a portion of our life gets revealed either explicitly in language, or worse, in the emotional tone of how something is written.

I doubt I'd ever want to write a roman a clef, skewering those that I find incomprehensible, or worse, reprehensible. The pettiness of doing something like this has never interested me. And most people I find so loathsome don't deserve the creative efforts and endless hours that a book requires in the creation and in the fine tuning.

I am hard at work on this revision of my novel. As when I had written the original draft of this book some of the passages are incredibly sad and painful. There are times when I've reread or worked hard at a passage that the emotional weight of what's on the page hits me hard and I am sobbing, literally, my face buried in my hands. This book is not a factual rendering of everything in my life, but it is more of an emotional diary of something that I had experienced. It is as if I had stuffed all the pain and grief of my estrangement from my parents into this one book. And perhaps that is why I was able to deal with this incredibly painful situation. True, I wrote this book long after my parents and I had started the process of healing and forgiving. But instead of letting the residue of this painful episode cloud our relationship, I was able to put the grief of this period into a book. It is these 300 some pages that bears the brunt of the emotional morass of the pain that families can inflict upon one another.

When I had finished writing this book, a book my father had encourage me to write, I let him read the first chapter. I waited for his response, unsure how he would respond. I know it must have been painful for him to read those thirty some pages, but he never once discouraged my work. He said it was beautifully written and left it at that. I know when people read this book, they will read is as biography. When in truth, the realities of any writer's life gets fractured in their work. The voice of a writer is where the truth lies. And trying to decipher that is an impossible task, even for the most experienced reader.

I'm now living inside this book, easily distracted by ideas, thoughts, that occur throughout the day. As painful as this book was to write, I now have the distance of time to see what I was able to create from something that may have brought others to their knees, or worse, made them embittered.

Fall From Above

We went to the Vineyard to move in some of our things from storage. As boxes came off the moving truck, each one revealed familiar items I'd forgotten we'd owned. Again, I was struck by how much stuff we'd accumulated in LA, how much of it was meaningless. There were a few items, the Buddha statue from a dear friend which had sat under the oak tree, that brought out a chorus of happy, 'ohs,' as each of us reveled in being reunited with the familiar token. In a strange way, it was like Christmas, but the presents from items you'd had, neglected, or worse, never really noticed.

For us this trip to the Vineyard in October was a first. The island was noticeably quieter, the restaurants--those that were still open--barely full. My son was disappointed to find his favorite pizza and clam strip place shuttered already, the windows newspapered over, chairs on top of tables. There was an air of desolation that was beautiful, such a contrast to the bustle of the summer season. Ocean park was still as inviting, the water as blue. I could imagine the quietude of these months being soothing, an exhale of satisfaction.

The weekend was over too quickly as the small plane climbed up, providing a glorious vista below. I could trace familiar bodies of water, distinguishing towns amidst clusters of trees. I wondered how it was that I knew this island better than any other place in my life. As our planed headed toward Boston, I saw a painterly splashes of reds, a picture reminiscent of a Manet, if he were to pain the scenery from above.

Literary Society--Mumbai

As I'd mentioned before, there is a large East Indian population here in New York and also on the East Coast. Last night I was invited to a book event for an Indian writer--not really fair since she's a writer of Indian descent--whose book, from what I could gather, was a cross between "Devil Wears Prada" but set in the law profession. The evening was attended by all women, 97% East Indian, and 97% attorneys. I had no idea the preponderance of East Indian women going into the law profession. The book, which I didn't buy, was being hawked, albeit, quietly by the writer, who until recently had been a lawyer. See a theme here?

The evening was funny on so many levels, not all of which I can share. What I took away from the night was how similar my experiences were to those of these women. How certain experiences are universal to the immigrant story, particularly for those of us with transnational parents whether from Mumbai or Seoul. For me, the best part of the evening was talking to a publicist with a publishing house, who works on Marilynne Robinson's books, a writer I have read again and again.

It's now been over a month since our arrival. And much has happened, and then, not. Friendships, nascent bonds, are being formed slowly. Despite the number of days I am alone working, the specter of loneliness does not hover overhead. I can't explain why in the social whirl of my life in LA, the loneliness was so acute, an ache that seemed to spread to the point of suffocation. Our son, who still misses his Tia, asks for her less. By year's end, his life in LA will be a mere memory, something he will be unable to recall as easily as he can now.

Cooking as Release

When I'm in the throes of work, that is, the writing is going well, or as well as it can ever go, I like to finish each work day by cooking. There's a tremendous release in doing something tactile. It's not as if my brain has shut down because I've walked away from the computer, au contraire! No, the work never ends, but gets subsumed by the physical actions that cooking requires. There is something quite meditative about working with one's hands. The repetitive act of chopping, dicing, slicing helps unwind the brain, almost as if my mind's been given free reign to venture, to roam. It was while cooking that the idea, the genesis of my book, came to me. Yes, the process of getting from that one moment to the actual writing is as arduous as climbing Mr. Everest, without the Sherpas for help. But one can't sit or be prompted to sit for hours, days, months, years on end without that flash of something, whether an idea, a story, a word, an image, a line.

The creative release, purely physical compared to the writing, that cooking enables is also a wonderful contrast to doing something so cerebral. Of course, the most obvious benefits are the smells, the tastes of a finished product. Perhaps it is this, the physical product that can be created in an hours time, compared to the feeling of never finishing in my real work, that I find so satisfying. Every writer I know suffers from the same feeling that the work can always be improved. Toni Morrison once said that after "The Bluest Eye" came out, she found herself with a copy of her book in a library, rereading, but really reediting as she read her words, standing in an aisle of the library.

When I was writing the first draft of my novel, I would finish each work day of writing--usually 5, 6 hours on a really good day--by going into the kitchen and cooking. There were days when I'd make two entrees because I found the release so enervating. The frenzied cooking is to squelch the free fall that one feels when working on a book. Each chapter, its blank pages taunting you, can be incredibly suffocating, and at times, debilitating. The threat of failure, ever present, is worse when staring you in the face, the cursor blinking.

I am back on a final round of revisions on my novel, this time under deadline, of sorts. The work is going slowly, but I can feel it building. At the end of each day, hours now reduced to 4, I go into the kitchen, crank up the Ipod, and start cooking. Yesterday's menu comprised of a spinach pie and an apple cake.

Before the child, I used to finish work by reading for a few hours before heading into the kitchen. This part of my day has been replaced by swim lessons, now school interviews, and Tae Kwon Do classes. Someday, hopefully not in the distant future, I will reclaim those hours when I could sit and read. That fantasy is right up there with being marooned on an island with Daniel Day Lewis--before he became crazy, but during the period when he shot 'My Beautiful Laundrette'.

Today's work will bring what it will bring as I try and sort out some big issues, and not so big issues with the book. At day's end, the kitchen may emanate smells reminiscent of a Roman Trattoria as I go in and whip up a large bowl of spaghetti carbonara for my family.

The United Nations of Families

My son's birthday was celebrated in D.C. at my in-law's, who delighted in being able to throw him a party for the first time in five years. My mother-in-law, the embodiment of the 'perfect' martyred mother, baked cupcakes, a cake, and then the bonanza--a cake shaped like a Volkswagen car. She invited my husband's cousin and his three kids along with her own first cousin's daughter and her two kids. Their small house soon filled with laughter and talk about people's health in between bites of the fried chicken I had helped fry that morning.

I looked outside, reveling in the perfect fall day, noticing the 6 kids, my son included, playing various destructive games that involved the immolation of an apple tree. What struck me about all of the kids was that each was the product of an interracial marriage. The three from my husband's cousin are half Bolivian, each of them calling me Tia instead of the customary aunt. The other two half Caucasian girls, their father the offspring of a Lutheran minister from Pasadena, California, were precocious in a way I found unsettling. Once you've spent any time with Black families, you quickly realize the color spectrum of Blackness, even among members of the same family. And nothing was more striking about the kids than the various shades of brown.

This color spectrum will play out in how each child will maneuver their identity as a Black American. No doubt for some, being Black will be all encompassing of their racial identity, the result of the roll of the dice of genes. For some of the others, whose hues may be lighter, their hair straighter, they will have to manage to feel their way in a world that is so quick to prejudge based on race. I always believed the world gets murkier when your looks belie your true identity. There is no more tragic figure than the 'mulatto,' able to pass in most situations, having listening to people freely expressing their racial attitudes. Anatole Broyard, a well respected literary critic for the New York Times and writer, who lived his life as a white man, his secret identity a well-known secret in the black community of intellectuals, left behind a legacy of secrets that his children are still trying to sort out. His children learned about his father's subterfuge from their mother upon his death, this cataclysmic secret having his children question every aspect of their father's role in their lives. Such is the murkiness of race and color in this world, even in the 21st century.

My son's cries of frustration, a result of his 'girl' cousins excluding him, soon overtook any of my pensive thoughts about the future of all of these kids. I had to console him, trying to explain that this was only the beginning of a lifetime where women will play some role in his emotional turmoil. Soon enough, the kids had found another object of their focus. And my son, the first time in his five years, got to blow out his candles, surrounded by the many shades of brown faces of one half of his family.

Childhood Accelerated

Everything in our culture feels accelerated from the most mundane to the most esoteric. Communication is now available to us in milliseconds, a call arriving anywhere and anytime. The written correspondence composed on beautiful stationery is now available as quickly as a thought is cogent--the internet. A leisurely meal now means you've lingered at your table, gasp, for more than two hours. As everything gets accelerated, it's only fitting that childhood gets on this speed cycle. Kindergarten is now what first grade used to be for us--those of us north of thirty. Learning to read and write are part of the curriculum in Kindergarten. The days when kids came for half day programs, played some blocks, learned to socialize with peers have been replaced by journal writing, math, discussion of 'feelings,' art, music, and gym. I get tired just thinking about my five year olds full day. Hence, it's only fitting that their games, the intricacies of their games have accelerated. My son, who is a mere five only days ago, discusses at length about the number of children he will have, and who will be caring for them. At five.

A documentary about adolescence, narrated by Samuel Jackson, brought the hyper speed of childhood into light. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen year olds gave candid interviews about their sexual experiences, usually fueled by drinking parties. Drinking parties at twelve. Somehow these sexually-loaded, alcohol-fueled nights felt so adult, in fact, they reminded me of the parties I had attended as a sixteen year old in high school. Children today are experiencing things three years ahead of previous generations. To listen to a twelve year old girl describing how acceptable it was to give 'head' to her boyfriend made my head spin. This troubling trend is all the more disturbing since we, Americans, have made an art of preserving childhood-- compared to the rest of the world. This twelve year old discussing fellatio is a tad bit less disturbing than the nine year old prostitute in Thailand, whose childhood came to an end a long time ago because of poverty. So, compared to the rest of the world where childhood is a commodity for sale, our children do remain innocent longer. Or do they?

This speeding up of life will, I assume, only accelerate. What's next, drinking parties for third graders? If we keep up at this speed, that seems to be the way our world will end up, a bunch of brazen, drunken third graders, discussing fellatio.

As much as I try and preserve our son's childhood, it is a constant battle in a world where at every turn, our culture is aimed at curtailing this brief period of innocence. When we were in LA, our neighbors were taking their two year olds to see the latest animated movie from Pixar or Disney. A movie theater for a two year old. Somehow that didn't feel right to us as a family, considering I didn't see a movie till I was at least 9 or ten. The need to keep our child plugged into the latest cultural fad, dictated by a bunch of animated characters, seemed like a fools errand.

I know each generation says parenting is the hardest job. And it is. But I know the world, our world, is out of control when my parents tell me they'd hate to raise a child today. This same sentiment has been expressed on more than one occasion by a number of older people. I don't what's more challenging: raising a boy or raising a girl.

I wish I'd been able to sleep that night instead of watching with mouth agape at these 'tweens' discussing their worlds. Shock was one emotion, but sadness was what I'd most felt, seeing such young kids sorting out emotions and the intricacies of intimacy and sex, complications adults can barely manage to figure out. Since this generation is on such a fast track, perhaps they will have it all figured out these perplexing questions by the time they reach 40, which in our world won't even be middle age, but what was, in the past, considered to be the 20's.

Phobias

It's no secret I'm riddled with phobias, some which are so acute but are not classified since they are so uniquely my own. Out of those that are classified, there's my aichmophobia, coulrophobia, and ondontophobia. This weekend's trip to D.C., or rather, the suburb of D.C., where my in-laws reside, brought my amaxaphobia to light.

D.C. and Los Angeles are more similar than people realize. Both are one industry towns. And power is the name of the game. Both are cities that can't shake its parochialism, no matter how hard its desperate attempts. And each suffers from the debilitating, mind numbing traffic snares of the urban-suburban sprawl. True, D.C. has a much better public transportation system, but that's not saying much since LA's is a joke. Again, LA is the only city where the bus riders are unionized. They're the only riders in the country, if not the world, where they filed a lawsuit against the MTA, and won.

We arrived at Dulles where we picked up the rental car we were going to use for the weekend. And that's when my anxieties about driving, now cemented into a full-blown phobia during these two months of being car less, came to light. D.C.'s myriad of freeways was what made my husband realize my fear had taken on a new form. This new phobia's not at the stage where I am debilitated, yet. But I can see how this will turn into a big deal in my life, where I will spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out ways to get to places without having to spend much time in a car, particularly on freeways.

It's not fair to blame my phobia on LA. The euphoria of this new found freedom of being 16 and a driver was short lived for me. I was involved in two car wrecks in high school, both where the recklessness of the other drive caused the crash. The sound of metal on metal, the thundering roar of broken glass are sounds hard to shake from one's memory. Each crash was probably the start of a tiny fissure in the youthful immortality and invincibility you feel when behind the wheel of a car. The brand new Jetta, a high school gift from my parents, sat unused while I attended college in D.C. Unlike some of my peers, the thought of living in Chevy Chase or Crystal City where a car was necessary simply didn't enter my mind. I stayed all three years in Foggy Bottom and happily used the zoned cabs of D.C. My junior year in London was an extension of this life where a car was unnecessary to living since I chose London and the University of London instead of any of the other universities outside London.

Yet, my fears hadn't gotten the best of me. I was the woman, fearless enough to whip down I-95 from New Haven to D.C. for quick weekends when I was working at Yale University Press. And the same woman who drove cross country across the expanse of 3000 miles in her new Acura, feeding the cassette player with the mixed tapes of my college life since all the radio stations east of the Mississippi played the honky tonk country of 20 years ago. How this woman morphed into the woman, having a full blown panic attack in the car as my husband maneuvered the traffic of D.C.'s 495, is hard for me to reconcile.

Yes, I'd grown to detest, on a level unlike anything I'd experience, getting behind the wheel for every minute of my life in Los Angeles. And I'd put a ban on freeways at some point. Yes, driving with me to any destination far enough where freeways were a necessity was always interesting, to say the least. And true, I'd had two other car accidents in LA, both where I was the victim--I was at a red light and an old man decided the red light was not red, and the other was, ironically enough, in a cab on a rain-slicked road--. Perhaps it is this sense of control, or the lack of it when you are driving, that has made this new phobia the most acute. It does not help that people view driving as not a primary act, but secondary, if not tertiary to their phone conversation, paper reading, coffee guzzling, and bites of their sandwich.

The paralysis and chest pounding occurs when I'm in a vehicle on those long stretches of road, cars racing at speeds where stopping in time to avoid a crash is impossible, a split second rewriting your life story in ways never envisioned. See, I'm not afraid of dying. But rather, it's the fear of surviving a life altering crash, where you end up debilitated for the rest of your life that makes my hands clammy, my chest tight, my throat closing up. It is this thought, which makes me shrill as I clutch at the hand rail, pleading with my husband to slow down. And in fairness to my dear husband, he does not drive recklessly, no more than any other driver out there. No, my phobia is such that Mother Theresa could be driving the car at the speed of a horse drawn buggy and I would still be screeching at her to slow down.

This weekend's trip has made me think about the rest of my life, and how this phobia will change the way I live my life. I know cars are a necessary evil to our existence. And perhaps living in Manhattan, the easiest city to avoid driving, is not helping me to overcome this phobia, but is in fact making it more acute. When I lived in LA, each car ride was a chore, but I kept my fears in check enough so that I wasn't debilitated by the thought of getting behind the wheel. How could I since I had to drive every single day, every time I needed to get anywhere? But now, my life is such I can avoid cars for many days on end. Strangely enough, I don't feel the panic when in the cab since I've discovered the one way boulevards that cabs travel to be controlled chaos. Yes, my cab could be blind sided by a drunk driver, barreling his or her car through a red light. But I don't let myself think about that too much when I'm sitting in the back of a cab, watching the cityscape passing in a blur outside my window.

Phobias make for an interesting life where you are constantly monitoring your world, your hyper vigilance all in an effort to keep at bay those things that are at the root of your phobia. It can seem, for those blissfully free of phobias, stifling or claustrophobic--a phobia I do have, but not acutely enough since I have no interest in scuba diving or being a magician's assistant. But a fear of cars is one that may be the most challenging. Many therapists over the years have suggested therapies to address my phobias. And I've had no reason to undergo any of these treatments since most of my other phobias are not constant, not in a way a phobia of a car can become. This new one may be the start of me facing down these irrational fears for good. Or not. I may end up the eccentric person who arrives at any destination via train, if available, or plane, or horse drawn buggy whenever possible.

Another School Shooting

Another school shooting, this time in Cleveland, and another one thwarted in suburban Philadelphia, a town not too far from where I grew up. These tragic events, made all the more profoundly tragic because of the age of those involved, should alert us as a culture to examine where and how we are going so very wrong. But instead, we are focused on Brittany Spear's tailspin, culminating in her children, rightfully so, being taken away from her. And whether or not J.Lo is pregnant--which it seems she is, something I learned while standing in line at a market this morning.

Adolescence sucks, period. I don't think any of us don't bear some of the scars from this hormonal, awkward period of our childhood. This fraught age is made all the more impossible if you are a child who stands out, for whatever reason. I can remember one small, bespectacled boy in my school, who was teased mercilessly by boys and girls--I admit I was one of his torturers. As children, we, at least for me, were just relieved to have found someone else as the prey in this game of catch and torture, so that we become, despite what good kids we are underneath, one of the herd who joins in the fracas in making one child's life a complete misery. It's not right, but it is what happens in childhood.

These games of childhood are damaging, but are they any more damaging today than they were 20 or 30 years ago? What's changed in our world that those who are tortured then turn to violence as a way to avenge the years of torment suffered at the hands of other children? I know the boy in my school must have had murderous thoughts about us all, rightfully so. And whether he had voodoo dolls of each of us in his room is up for conjecture. I do know he suffered in silence until he was able to graduate, heading off to college and a life, I hope, that was less painful. I've never attended a high school reunion, and so I have no idea whether he's ever come back to face those of us who had gone out of our way to let him know we thought he was a complete loser--which he wasn't. He was simply odd, which in childhood could spell disaster for any well adjusted child.

The shock we, the news media fueled, as a country expresses each time something like this happens is too soon forgotten as we go on with our lives. As a mother of a boy--most of the shooters are male, and not always Caucasian, as in the case of the Virginia Tech rampage--I can't help but worry about how to make sure my son's adolescent anger, something predetermined, doesn't turn into violence directed at himself or others. Parents of young children are filled with hope and expectation for their child. None of us can imagine our own child turning into a tragic news column. It simply goes beyond our comprehension. Yet, I imagine, each of the parents of those boys, whose lives and deaths are forever connected to a news tag line, never imagined their child's life turning out quite that way, not when their child had been four, five, playing and obsessed with those things four and five year olds fixate.

Yet, each of these lives did take a turn. And how are we not discussing, or thinking, about how we have gotten to this place where a murderous school rampage has occurred at all, but simply has occurred in, yet, another suburban town? Have we become so inured to violence in general that a school shooting in a high school, an age where a child should only be worried about how or when they're going to lose their virginity, their future spread out in front of them with all the possibilities and limitations of every life, is every day?

It sickens me to learn about each of these killers, kids so tormented they saw no way out. I can't imagine the pain experienced by parents and siblings they've left behind, those now left to bear the loss of their son or brother, but also the shame of what they had done. And then my mind wanders to those kids who were there, those who have survived such a horrific event--it is too unbearable to think about kids so young now having the mark of fear, which will surely be the real shadow in their lives and futures.

School Applications

We, my husband and I, are in the process of applying for Kindergarten for our 4, almost five year old. Since he has a late fall birthday, we are of the belief that a boy needs a wee bit, try years, more time to mature compared to their female counterparts. It is still amazing to me most of our world is run by men when I see my son and his cohorts in action. We are, in essence, holding him back a year by having him repeat kindergarten at a new school. Yes, we're part of the annoying trend of parents, who do all they can to insure our child will succeed in a life, something increasingly difficult given the early age at which competition starts. The stigma of being held back is no longer such a big deal as parents, even with kids whose birthdays aren't in fall months, are holding their little ones back--to insure they will succeed, of course.

This application process has been illuminating in the monumental differences of quality and quantity of educational opportunities between New York and Los Angeles. The two cities mirrors one another in certain neuroses of the upwardly mobile class. Everyone is out to insure their progeny can get as many advantages in education and enrichment--to churn out the future titans of business. In our present culture, there is a serious disengagement of upwardly parents from the much thwarted public school system. Los Angeles was, by far, the worst I'd seen of parents having completely abandoned a school system so entirely. Most middle class parents, those not wealthy enough to afford the escalating costs of private schools, found themselves truly in the lurch as the idea of a neighborhood school became another casualty of urban life.

True, Los Angeles suffers from the devastating affects of Prop 13, and the unforeseen surge of the immigration population, whether legal or not. This has created whole swaths of public schools in dire need of so much that the middle class citizenry has decided is not worth putting the effort into changing. With the grim situation of public schools, you would think the private institutions would be competitive with their counterparts throughout the country.

Let's just say that when we were going through the application process for Pre-K programs, there were so few schools that were options. In fact, the one truly noted school--noted as in it is ranked nationally, although not in the top ten or anything--was a school started by psychologists. How this institution became the most prestigious place to send a child still baffles me. This school, overrun with celebrities and the Hollywood elite, is the place that everyone in the city tries to get their little one into. The rest of the schools are supposedly second tier compared to this one school. Whether a child is better off because he or she attends this uber-privileged school is still to be determined. What's ironic is this 'prestigious' school in Los Angeles is not recognized one iota here in New York. If you were to tell people your child had attended this school X, most people look at you with not the faintest glimmer of recognition. It's not as if you had told them your kid had gone to Exeter, Andover, or even Hotchkiss. Even Harvard Westlake, the most difficult school in Los Angeles, is not recognized here. This may have something to do with the East Coast snobbishness about all educational institutions not within their borders, or it may truly be indicative of the gulf in quality between LA and the East Coast.

So, here we go again in New York, a city so vastly different in tone and anxiety in this arena of determining our child's future--as if such a thing was possible. We have applied to ten schools, most with stellar reputations. This large number is what amazes us, that we would have so many options, whittled down from an even larger list. What's also vastly different is the number of good, decent public schools available in the city, if we decided that was the way we should go with our son.

But for an island so small, it is astounding to see so many schools, elementary to colleges and universities here, period. It feels like every other block has another school or university, its banner blowing in the wind. All of the emphasis on schools makes me think there is something real and tangible in how and why Los Angeles differs so greatly from its East Coast counterpart. What is in that Los Angeles water, actually derived from Colorado, that makes education such an afterthought? It makes sense that Villaraigosa is the mayor of Los Angeles, a man who barely finished high school, attended a community college before finally making it to UCLA. His law degree came from an uncredited law school, perhaps explaining why he never passed the bar exam, and is therefore not licensed to practice law. His counterpart in New York, Mayor Bloomberg, has an educational resume far different: Johns Hopkins, Harvard Business School. This isn't to dissect their backgrounds, but really to dissect the citizenry that voted these two people into office. The question, one that begs to be answered, is would either candidate stand a chance if they were to switch cities?

Would the staid, geeky demeanor of Bloomberg be enticing enough for the people of LA to vote him into office? And would the flashy, quick grinning Villaraigosa be enough to get New Yorkers to vote for him as their mayor? An interesting thought, if you think about it.

This hyper-focus on education can be a bit overwhelming. I say this as I head off to my first interview for a potential school for my son. This bit of the process is stressful, making the hours we agonized over our essay for the applications, seem innocuous in comparison.

Nanny New York Style

After much time, we have found a part time babysitter for our son. Unlike his Tia, this woman is not meant to replace me by any means. Instead she helps me to do a bit more work during two afternoons a week since she picks him up from school and takes him to his Tae Kwon Do. This city, haven or home to so many foreigners, is where nannies of every complexion can be witnessed. The West Indian women with the lilt in their words, Indian women, Filipino women, and the Latinas are the caretakers to countless children, rearing kids who may not yet understand the significance of these women to their lives.

This time out, our nanny is not another Latina, but an East Indian Guyanese. When she told me she was Guyanese, I asked how it was there were Indians in Guyana, formerly known as British Guyana, a country, ironically enough, where my husband spent some time as a child. She answered with a smile on her face, "See, my people--Indians, were slaves brought over to Guyana from India." To which, I could only say, "I see." My post-colonial theorist head was already screeching, "Those f**king Brits," but I figured such an outburst would not have helped me in getting this woman to commit to working for us.

A Hindu woman as a nanny is a first for our family. And with a Hindu in your home, there are many considerations. For instance, on the days she is here, I find myself cooking vegetarian meals or meals with chicken or fish. The whole beef brisket thing seems inappropriate since cows are sacred to them.

One forgets how many Indians live on the Eastern seaboard. With the exception of the short block on Pico where Indian shops selling saris indicates a smallish Indian community, New York and the surrounding cities is home to many, many Indians. My school, not exactly a multicultural place, did have a fair number of East Indian kids by the time I reached high school.

My son is adjusting to having this new addition to his life. There is less resistance to her when she arrives at school to pick him up. Last night, he actually asked she not leave. He, being super color conscious, did point out she was "browner" than he. The significance of his sitter being darker is something I don't understand yet. Perhaps some day I will. But most likely not. That is my greatest regret: to never fully understand his experience of being brown in color. And how that colors the way the world deals with you or not.

Beach Towns--Southern California

Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, all towns south of Los Angeles, centered around the fact they are adjacent to the Pacific Ocean. These towns are nondescript, squat--much like all of Southern California, and indistinguishable from one another other than the town markers alerting you to the fact that you have now left Hermosa and are now in Manhattan Beach, that is. With the exception of the grandiose houses built along the waterfront, blocking out the panorama of the Ocean for those who can't afford such beauty, the towns are a string of small store fronts and ugly apartment buildings with names like Windward Court. These names, and the places attached to the names, were places I'd vaguely heard mentioned, but never compelled enough to go visit. That's the irony about Southern California and its beaches.

Despite the azure of the water lapping up to land, this body of water and the towns built around the beaches are uninviting. It might have something to do with the fact that the few truly public beaches are crowded, parking nonexistent, or worse, as expensive as a down payment on a beach property--ha. Or worse, the public beaches are not available to those who weren't lucky enough or crooked enough to have paid off some official to have a home built right on the water's edge, thereby blocking any, and all public access to this public beach. David Geffen being the worst offender of this offensive deed. This division of those with, and those without is a recurrent theme in the culture of California, particularly Southern California. The only silver lining in this inequity is those homes on the water front are subject to all of Mother Nature's fury. And I say, bring that fury on. Let those homes burn, slide, and be crushed with a true Tsunami. Yes, they're worth fantastic sums of money, but again they are built on land that is not rightfully the owners'. Let the homeowners, those complicit souls, deal with this sticky issue with their insurance carriers when trying to collect on their ten million dollar home.

My time back in LA, the city experienced behind the windshield of our compact sedan, only reinforced what I'd always thought and expressed ad nauseum--this city lacks character, and is downright ugly. There is very little real charm to the row upon row of houses, some uglier than others, and strip malls with stores for pet salons--don't get me started--and other businesses that somehow survive the fleeting loyalty of the population. What I'd noticed this time was a film of dust over the sun filled setting. It makes sense that this film of dust would be ever present since this land was once the desert despite the contrary behavior of everyone who lives there. Yes, there are enough trees and flowers, each garden an attempt to replicate regions, gallons and gallons of water wasted to keep the blooms flowering.

Perhaps the offense of the city's ugliness would be tolerable if it didn't also live up to its stereotype of vacuousness culturally, intellectually. Let's start with the Los Angeles Times, the largest paper in the city, a city that is number two in population in the United States. During my five days there, I scoured the paper for real pertinent news. The recent human rights abuses in Myannmar, formerly known as Burma, was never covered. But they did a thorough expose of the uproar of the crazy denizens of Santa Monica, their outrage about ficus trees covered assiduously as one would cover the real life threatening issue of the shortage of health care facilities in this city.

There is some equality among those who have and those who have not in one area. See, if a pandemic were to occur, a highly likely scenario given the city's porous borders, everyone, and I mean everyone, rich, poor, insured, uninsured, will all be f***ed. The dearth of hospitals, a tad bit more relevant than the dearth of public parks, would create a scenario of devastation that no one wants to discuss, other than KPCC. The fifty cent tax hike, which could have offset such a disaster, was voted down by the entire state in the last election. Yes, foresight is what the citizens of that state have in spades. But then, the state's problems, a myriad of them, are a result of its citizenry thinking, deluding themselves into believing they can legislate for the entire population. Prop 13 anyone?

A friend asked me if I missed LA. Hmmm....how can I lie? This question, posed to me on more than one occasion, is answered by a sh*t eating grin on my part, and a gleeful response of, "No!" I know, it is childish and a bit churlish for me to be so happy to have left. Despite the litany of offenses of this place, it was where friends, great friends were made. And yes, I would never go back, but it is a place that is home to some of the dearest in my life. And hence, the conundrum of it all.

LA Whirl

The real reason for our journey to LA was a wedding for one of my husband's LA colleagues. She is normally a very reasonable person, but then the most reasonable woman turns into something quite unreasonable when getting married. Or rather, she turns into a SheBride, the operative word being bride since once the event, a culmination of months and months of planning, ends in a few short hours. Hopefully for the groom's sake, once the bouquet has been tossed and caught by some other hapless singleton, she will return to her former reasonable self. I thought watching the groom and bride seal the deal in that long-held tradition of kissing, 'and so it begins.' See, for all the marrieds out there, the fun truly begins once your lips have touched. But so be it for any of us cynical marrieds to thwart her certainty that married life will be more than she had ever dreamed. Yes, more being the key here.

I know she had spent countless hours planning this event with painstaking details. And since we're in Southern California, she had planned with the reassurance the wedding day would arrive with the sun rising at its usual hour and setting at another expected hour. It seemed Mother Nature had something else in mind as the hundred or so guests shivered in our various states of undress or dress of evening attire. Gale force winds,which felt like a Hurricane on the precipice we were perched, were making the waves of the Pacific resemble a tsunami. The rest of the event like all weddings had normal reasonable people drinking too heavily, the barely edible meal gobbled up in a wine or hard liquor fog.

What struck me about this wedding was the hodge podge of religious symbols the couple along with their Minister had decided upon. There was a reading from Rainer Maria Rilke's, "Letters to a Young Poet," which the officiant erroneously referred to as a poem. Yes, Rilke was a poet, but this little tome, much beloved by those seeking artistic freedom--usually devoured and read as religion for those who are seeking validation to pursue whatever 'artistic' pursuit--was read along with the expected poem from Pablo Neruda, whose poems are all a meditation on love, and St. Paul's Letter to the Corinthians. This non-denominational, religious potpourri was capped off with an American Indian blessing. Neither the bride or groom are Indian, that any of us had ever known. This service is much like most California outdoor weddings where religious symbols are chosen and discarded to fit some homogenized religious smörgåsbord. With that said, this service leaned a bit more toward the Christian half, which I'm assuming was the religious background of both groom and bride. If they were of the truly United Nations approach to religion, I'm sure a Hindu or Sanskrit reading would have been included. But alas, this service's only nod toward the non-traditional--signaling a wee bit of Liberalism for the couple--was that strange Indian blessing.

The flight home was interminably long. When LA was home, the flight Eastward seemed bearable since I was usually thrilled to be heading back. The return flight back to LA never felt long enough since I was usually reluctant to go back after however many days away from the sun soaked city. This time, the flight there felt quite short, but the flight home was another story. Each of us, despite having a good enough time, was anxious to get home. For my son, his impatience had less to do with home as the two suitcases crammed full of birthday toys from his LA friends. The five hours felt like ten. There is that moment when you're trapped on an airplane where you can understand those stories of people losing their sh** on a flight, having to be restrained.

As our driver headed toward the Mid-town tunnel, Manhattan in all its steel glory stood, welcoming us back home after our long journey. I could only think about that indelible image in Woody Allen's "Manhattan" where the city seemed to burst forth from the ground in all its beauty with Gershwin playing in the background. And now, this place full of so much mystery and beauty is our home.

LA Life

My son and I made the five hour journey, both of us kept amused by different things: my son with his portable DVD player, me with a stack of trashy magazines. The flight while long was uneventful, the food now only available by purchase, drinks sparsely doled out during the long flight, the movie something no one had seen or ever wanted to. Air travel, unless you pay for the luxury seats up front, has become completely utilitarian. We landed, the plane descending over a squat structures, which seemed to stretch for miles. My irritation was almost instantaneous upon landing. Yes, the sun was shining, the temperature that mild, temperate 70 something degrees. The baggage claim, notoriously slow, was much faster this time, so our bags were retrieved in a timely fashion. A car was rented, one of those nondescript sedans that is only memorable if in a bright color, and soon we were headed north on the roadways of LA.

Fear is not the apt word to describe how I feel when driving here. It is much more complicated than that, which has been, unfortunately for the readers, exhaustively detailed and chronicled on this blog site. Needless to say, many cars whizzed past us, their annoyance so noticeable in how close they were to our slow moving vehicle when they passed.

My son was beyond excited to see his Tia. And she equally excited. There were phone calls exchanged, plans for pick up as I realized how fruitless it would be to stand in his way of spending time with this woman who had figured so prominently in his little life. My feelings were a bit hurt to see his anxiousness, something I had assumed children only reserved for their mothers and fathers. I know all of this was irrational, but then the emotional avalanche of being here was making me less sanguine about any of this.

My friend, who is graciously putting us up, and I caught up effortlessly. It felt seamless how easily we fell into conversation, as if these last three or so months since I departed was a mere blip. There are many more reunions planned for today. Many more opportunities for me to feel the observer, watching all of it unfold without me really present.

LA Bound Again

We are heading to LA for a wedding and to see friends, who are not yet 'old,' but simply friends. I have a calendar full of coffees, lunches, therapy, and dinners. In the midst of all the social whirl, we are throwing my son his 5th birthday party with friends from his preschool. It has been a trip on our calendar since finding out we were relocating to New York. How I feel about going back is still something I'm contemplating. There's no doubt I'm thrilled to see friends, to catch up, and to see my son happy to have a birthday party attended by friends he's missed.

However, I've not yet nostalgic about the city, its environs, by any means. There hasn't been enough emotional distance or time to eviscerate my general antipathy about this place I had grudgingly called home for so long. Yet, I can't seem to fully remove the tentacles of my former life as I meet friends of friends from LA, the ties between East and West becoming significant for other reasons.

So, we will leave this island, something we haven't done since arriving that early Sunday morning from the Vineyard. A jet plane will take us three hours backwards to a land full of sunshine and palm trees. My son is undoubtedly excited about seeing his Tia, his nanny. She is equally excited, having cleared her calendar for our entire trip. This reunion is sure to be a happy one. Our four days will zoom by, my days spent behind a car wheel, muttering about having to drive once again. Then the day will arrive when we will be picked up my our usual driver to take us back to the airport.

For some of our friends, they will convince themselves our move was merely temporary since we have come back so shortly. For others, they may realize how fruitless such delusions as they say 'goodbye' to us yet again. This farewell will, for me, feel more like the real one since I will know it will be a long while before I head westward again.

The quiet of the phone will again signal the end for most of these relationships. Most of the people in LA will now regard us as another family that had lived there but now live in New York. We, our family, will take a place in the New York mythology, a way for people to grapple with the many symbols of this place so familiar to us through the loving homages of Woody Allen movies, yet so unfamiliar and scary for those that have no intimate experience with it.

I hold my breath now as I ready my son for our long journey back. Sleep, such an elusive thing, has been even more elusive the last four days, an appropriate preparation for the emotional stirrings this trip is having on me. I know all of this will settle into a muted strain as I get our bags, our rental car, and drive to my girlfriend's house for a loving reunion. And a loving reunion it will be with so many. I pray it will be so.

Strand Books---Died and Went to Heaven

I'd been holding back from venturing to Strand Books, knowing it would make me nostalgic for all of my books in storage, and that I would, invariably, end up lugging home more books--a big no, no in this apartment. But living so close to it, this mecca for bibliophiles, the lure finally pushed me to go there holding my breath in anticipation and fear.

Let me say for those not here in the city, the weather has been glorious, which we will undoubtedly pay for in January and February. I scheduled a Mommy Alone time for Saturday by getting a massage at a very nice place by the New School. And then I walked around, still marveling that I'm here--I know, I know, it is an annoying refrain indeed--Union Square, passing Jon Stewart talking to someone while holding his young child. If anyone is now synonymous with the quintessential witty New Yorker, it must surely be Jon Stewart. I walked eastward when I stumbled upon the greatest flea market on Broadway. It is at moments like this that I sigh in sheer happiness. How could it be that this remarkable flea market full of junk I don't need--there was one vintage clothier selling fur wraps at a very good price--would be on the very block as Strand Books? Could life be any more perfect?

Reminiscent of my time in Camden Town, London, I walked up and down gazing into stalls selling Pashmina shawls for $5, African bric a brac, the Gyros stand tantalizing you with wafts of lamb, the stall selling toys made in China, another stall chock full of hand bags of every shape and size, and more food stands. This curious browsing was an effort to stall my entrance into this very large bookstore. But the stalling had to end, so I found myself in front of Strands, starting to pore over the shelves on the sidewalk, selling books for a $1. Yup, cheaper than any cup of coffee in town. There's no point telling anyone I found a few things I had to buy. There was the old collection of John Donne's poems, the Amish cookbook--a fetish of mine, really--an absolutely unblemished old copy of Kate Chopin's "Ethan Frome," and a history book of the precolonial slave trade.

The old cliche says something about 'telling a book by its cover,' when in fact you can tell a great deal by what people read. Whenever I'm in someone's home, the first thing I find myself doing is poring over their book shelves. Quite like music collections, books reveal the quirks, obsessions, and tastes of its reader and listener. Unlike art, which is purchased and displayed for public effect, books and CDs are much more personal, intimate. It's as if you had gone into someone's lingerie drawer and were given free reign to roam about, noticing the discolored panties, the boxers with spots. Nothing warms my heart more than to walk into a house that has a nice, healthy collection of books, obviously read and not purchased for appearances. One has to be very suspect when you see a neatly lined bookcase, all the books in uniform leather bound covers of titles you're certain the purchaser had never read in the original, much less the Cliffs Notes version. It says something about this person, does it not?

If there are no shelves filled with even those pulpy novels you buy on the racks in airports, well, let me stop there. No need to comment further. Reading is so many different things to different people, but the most important aspect of this act is in the use of imagination, of hope, of anticipation when you open a book.

I was once at a friend's, whose bookshelves were full of self-help tomes, and not much else. It was an illuminating moment for me in this long relationship. I had to ponder how it was we were such good friends when she didn't read, it seemed, anything but those self-help books, which were obviously not doing much in curing her of the normal ills of an unhappy person. The state of her shelf made me sad really since she was someone who could do with a dose of imagination, hope, and anticipation.

I had to do the most cursory browsing of the first floor, not able to engage in a thorough inspection of each shelf. See, this new life of leisure I've created for myself meant I had to be home by a certain time to wait for the grocery delivery I had scheduled. But this quick stop at one of my most anticipated places in the city was enticing enough to last till the next time I can go fully armed with time.