VoicesAdmin

An American in Mourning

by

by Pat Fortunato

Gershwin and grief do not mix.

The first thing they should tell you in grief groups is that you should never, ever, go to a romantic musical while you’re in mourning. And of all the musicals in the world, the worst (because it’s the best) has to be An American in Paris.

Little did I know.

A short time after I became a widow, a good friend suggested we go to dinner and a play. I hadn’t the energy to make reservations or get tickets myself, nor the heart to say no. And since she did all the planning, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Perhaps I should have.

Dinner was fine and the show was delightful: all those songs by George and Ira Gershwin, that singing, that dancing, those sets. But, ah my friends, and oh my foes, it was not a lovely night. The show was sooooo romantic. And I had just lost my love.

Cue the tears.

I cried a little (surreptitiously, I like to think) through “’S Wonderful,” “Who Cares,” and even “The Man I Love” (Gulp). But then. The last song was “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.” That did it.

I’m not ashamed of crying, but it does make some people uncomfortable. In fact, I read recently that nothing is as embarrassing as another person’s sorrow, and I’m usually able to control myself in public. But this time I was out of control. I didn’t just cry, I wept. Convulsive sobbing, tears splashing down my face and into my scarf, and perhaps onto the seat, staining it forever with my grief, which is a pretty romantic notion in itself. I couldn’t stop, not even when the song was over.

If my friend was rattled, she didn’t show it. She put her arm around me until the curtain fell, when she could whisk me out of the theater and into a cab. She rode home with me even though I live downtown and she’s an uptown girl and didn’t say a word as I wept all the way.

When we got to my building, the doorman, who figured something was wrong (they’re very perceptive that way), helped me out and walked me, still bawling, to the elevator. He asked if I was okay, although clearly I was not, and I blurted out through my blubbering, “I just saw a really wonderful play.”

Safely in my apartment, where I could weep and wail to my heart’s content, I stood for a moment inside the door, and suddenly stopped crying. Because at that very moment something occurred to me—something actually funny. Something about the doorman.

“What is this woman like,” the poor guy must be thinking, “when she sees a really bad play?

Indeed.

I cried often in the coming months, but not in public, at least not like that. And over six years later, things have gotten better. How much better? Well, that’s another story.

By the way, if you’re grieving —or lovelorn—or even if you’ve just had a really bad blind date—don’t even think about seeing any revival of An American in Paris. But if you must, take my advice and bring along a friend. And plenty of Kleenex.

After working as a writer, editor, and publisher, I formed my own company in 1984, optimistically naming it Mega Books. When I sold the company and retired, I started a blog called I Can’t Believe I’m Not Bitter, and now do everything I can to stay that way—including being a member of LP2.

 

Only You

by

by Lisa Cristal

Smokey ruffled his somewhat luxuriant hair and pondered how it had come to this. Damn, he still felt the honey sugar high from his bender.

Last night at the bar was probably his lowest point. Some cute little cub had come over and started to flirt.

“I’ve always wondered what was in those picnic baskets you steal,” she cooed.

“I’m not that two-bit thief, Yogi Bear.” He knew he wasn’t aging well but surely he didn’t have the paunch of Yogi and a collection of ugly ties and hats. In his opinion, Yogi gave all bears a bad name.

“But you look so familiar. Who are you?”

He cleared his throat and looked deeply into her lovely brown eyes, “Only you,” he growled.

“Does that help?”

“I’m not sure that it does,” she admitted.

He pulled himself up to his full height. “How’s this? Only YOU can prevent forest fires!”

“OMG,” she tittered. “You’re Smokey the Bear. Wait until I tell my mom! My dad used to be so jealous of you. She would stop everything she was doing and run to the TV when your PSAs were on. In fact, about ten years ago my father told my mother that their marriage was much better now that you stopped appearing on TV. What have you been doing with yourself?”

It was as if she smacked him with a dead salmon. That’s when he left the bar. In the privacy of his own home he cracked open the honey jar and licked it all down.

But by the next morning he had an epiphany. He knew that global warming created dried-out forests ready to incinerate. Maybe he could secretly start a few “controlled” burns and then run in to help fight the fires. That would make him relevant again. A hero by tomorrow!

Unfortunately, the next day some campers looking to videotape bears in the wild quietly followed him into the woods. They watched him light some kindling and blow it in the direction of the water-starved forest. Using their stun guns they captured Smokey and turned him over to the authorities with the video evidence.

Smokey found himself in the jail cell with his nemesis, Yogi. The guard opened the cell door. Before leaving Yogi turned to Smokey. “Boo Boo paid my bail.  Stealing picnic baskets is one thing but burning down a forest to get attention is another.  I’m still smarter than the average bear.”

In her prior life as a trademark attorney Lisa Cristal only wrote non-fiction. The members of Writing Workshop helped her enjoy writing fiction and this assignment was writing fan fiction. 

 

 

European v. U.S. Medical Care—a Case Study

by

by Robert Chan

In the year 2 B.C. (before COVID-19), while on vacation in Florence, I tripped on the way back from the bathroom and cracked my head open on the corner of a desk. It being 2 A.M. and not wanting to disturb my wife, Amy, I wrapped a towel around my forehead and returned to bed. At daybreak, unsettled by my dilated, different-sized pupils and the blood soaked towel, sheets, and pillows; my wife insisted that I seek medical attention. I declined; it would heal on its own, I didn’t want to miss the Pitti Palace, didn’t speak Italian, and wasn’t comfortable with becoming ensnared in a foreign system of medical care.

The hotel concierge told us that the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale would treat me free of charge, but it being early on the Sunday before Christmas, I’d receive more attentive treatment at a nearby private clinic—from which he would undoubtedly be receiving a kickback. I opted for the SSN. After giving my choice her usual consideration, Amy accompanied me to the private clinic.

On seeing the Palladian mansion surrounded by a lush garden, my eyes rolled back replaced by dollar, or rather Euro, signs.

Not having mastered the American technique of keeping patients waiting until they lose their patience, a doctor appeared in a few minutes. After examining me, he recommended a CAT scan and plastic surgery. A troupe of €s danced Busby-Berkeley-like before my eyes. Also, I didn’t want to lose a day or two of my vacation. So, I told him that, since the bleeding had stopped, a Band-Aid and a Tylenol would be sufficient. He responded like a judge after hearing Giuliani present a case of voter fraud, and Amy denied my appeal.

While the doctor roused a plastic surgeon from his Sunday morning repose, a technician administered the CAT scan that confirmed I was as hardheaded as I was hardhearted. Shortly thereafter, the surgeon arrived, perhaps lured by the scent of money. After explaining in clear English that, if I wanted to avoid a disfiguring Tony-Montana-like facial scar, I’d need an astronomical number of tiny stiches. With the Euro-meter spinning at warp speed, I felt like a foreigner getting into a cab on 59th Street and being taken to Grand Central by way of Pennsylvania. In any event, he preceded with such competence that my scar is barely visible.

Blessedly, what would have taken a couple days in the good ole U.S. of A had been expertly performed in three hours from beginning to end, but that only reduced the time until I’d have to confront the bill. What was the limit on my American Express Card? Did Italy have debtors’ prisons?

Knowing that our medical insurance wouldn’t cover foreign treatments, Amy had gotten us limited coverage via travel insurance. She’d already contacted them and been told that they would only cover what they deemed reasonable and necessary, insurance-speak for they’d pay bupkis.

As I approached the business office, I felt my heart beating quick and shallow at the base of my throat. Perhaps they’d have the courtesy to offer me a blindfold and a cigarette.

They presented me with the bill.

I looked.

I gasped in disbelief. My concussion must have been worse than I thought. I blinked several times and looked again, but number didn’t change. Then it hit me like a grand piano falling from a billionaire’s penthouse—it must be an Italian custom to leave out the final two zeros.

“Is this correct?” My voice trilled up like a high school nerd asking out the girl of his dreams.

“Si signore.”

“But 356 Euros, that’s like 425 dollars.”

“Si, I think so.”

A few weeks later I received, from Fly-By-Night Insurance Co. Inc., a check for $998. Accustomed to U.S. medicine, their computer program couldn’t pay less than that for a CAT scan and plastic surgery without decomposing into a puff of smoke and a mass of undifferentiated 0s and 1s.

The moral: We don’t know how bad we have it.

Robert N. Chan is a semi-retired litigator (Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in) and author of 10 published novels–see www.robertnchan.com. This piece was written for the IRP Writers’ Workshop expertly coordinated by Charles Troob and Leslie Bedford.

 

 

Tea Ceremony

by

by Leslie Bedford

The room is silent. Our hostess, Sumiko, tucks the hem of her kimono under her bent knees. In front of her on the tatami are the utensils laid out for tea ceremony: a small ceramic tea bowl, a larger container for water; a lacquered tea canister, and a bamboo dipper, scoop and whisk.  Resting her left palm, fingers extended together, against her thigh, she reaches out with her right hand to ladle hot water from a large black pot into the tea bowl, swirling it briefly around before emptying it into the large container. Then, unfolding a red silk cloth from her obi, sash, she wipes the bowl two times. Once she has poured fresh water into the warmed bowl, she opens the lacquered canister to scoop out a measure of powdered tea and add it to the water.  Holding the bowl in one hand and the whisk in the other, and rhythmically tapping it on the rim of the bowl, she whips the tea into a green foam. Throughout, she holds herself still, her hands moving in choreographed, economical gestures, her eyes focused on each task.

It is our first tea ceremony and we are poorly prepared. But Sumiko, a long-time student of tea and other traditional arts, has promised to teach us what to do. We have taken off the house slippers she lent us to duck down into the entrance to the chashitsu, tearoom, positioning ourselves on the tatami, our legs folded under our thighs, our buttocks back against our feet. In front of us is the tokonoma; on this afternoon in early February, this alcove holds a tall white vase with a few artful branches of plum blossom and a hanging scroll with calligraphic Chinese characters brushed down its surface. Our hostess suggests we pause to admire it.

Sumiko nods to my husband to go first. She turns the bowl in both her hands until the more beautiful front side faces him and places it down on the tatami. He picks it up with both hands, turns the front away from himself and takes two or three short sips. Then she repeats the same series of steps and offers the bowl to me. The tea tastes very bitter.

The serene and silent flow of ritualized movements puts us in a meditative trance.  We are in a space without time or connection to everyday life. But this tranquil moment comes to an abrupt end with the appearance of two, small, lacquered dishes of cookies.  These are not the tasteless but exquisite sweets—perhaps tinted pink in subtle homage to the plum blossoms—we were expecting to accompany the tea. Instead, they are the lumpy, slightly burned, homemade chocolate chip cookies we’d made in the kitchen of the Catholic girls’ school up the hill from our apartment. We’d brought them as a hostess gift to Sumiko.  I gasp and then stifle an embarrassed giggle.

It would be some time before I learned that despite all its forbidding rules, tea ceremony is, at heart, simply about serving a guest a bowl of tea. The chocolate chip cookies belonged there as much as we did.

Leslie Bedford currently co-coordinates the Writing Workshop study group. Her professional life was spent working in, consulting to and teaching about museums.  This piece is part of a series called Tokyo Madeleine she wrote about the years she and her family spent living in Japan.

 

Great Explorations

by

by Tom Ashley  

My great-grandfather, Sir James Benston, was born in Mansfield, Ohio, on May 12, 1865, the penultimate day of the American Civil War. He was an engineering graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was the inventor of many navigational aircraft and automotive instruments. His electrical navigation devices would save many sailors’ lives. His invention of shatterproof glass was universally accepted by airplane and automotive manufacturers. He owned substantial stakes in Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors. By the age of forty he was a wealthy man.

Those were days of great adventure and exploration in both the United States and Europe.  His prowess made him so well known that he came to the attention of Sir Ernest Shackleton, resulting in an invitation to join the team of the legendary Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917). He was the only American in the fifty-four-man crew. He was also the eldest by four years.

The story of his ship, The Endurance, has been a well-told tale for over a century, but my grandfather gave me further insight into his father’s psyche and how, for over eight hundred days, he feared each would be his last. However, my great grandfather survived and was knighted by George V and returned to Detroit, his wife, two sons and his business. He was shattered by his experiences and began to sell off all of his companies. He realized he had a larger calling. He convinced Henry Ford and the powers behind General Motors, Albert Sloan and Charles Kettering, to donate millions toward the cure of the devastating diseases of cancer and cardiac arrest. These automotive giants’ names now appear on two of the world’s greatest innovative research organizations. My grandfather and his brother lived comfortably but not extravagantly. They served on the boards of both charities until their deaths. My great- grandfather donated his entire estate to the study of disease. He died peacefully at age ninety-four on my seventh birthday, April 1, 1957.

As a boy I dreamed about walking in my great-grandfather’s footsteps. I’d see polar bears, I’d live in an igloo with Eskimos, I’d spear fish for dinner. Cold weather wouldn’t faze me. After all, I’d survived the forceful, dank Detroit winters in my seven or eight years. Shackleton’s Antarctic venture was voraciously covered in the then age of great exploration – essentially a failure on one hand – that had left three dozen men stranded on the ice for over two years. But for a young boy to be directly related to one of these men was awesomely important, and I too would head off into this world of adventure.

I dreamed of returning home and telling my friends stories of sailing the great oceans, meeting indigenous peoples, mushing my team of huskies through ice floes and of all my difficult but satisfying exploits. I’d be given a key to the city and be on the front pages of the Detroit Free Press, the Detroit Times, and the Detroit News. I would even be called to Washington to meet Ike at The White House. Maybe later I’d take my team to the North Pole and be the first person to do both expeditions and return to even further acclaim.

But I’ve abandoned those visions and now dream of having a vodka martini on the patio at the Ritz Carlton in Malibu, overlooking scantily clad sun bathers gracefully draping themselves by the Pacific Ocean.

I came to love writing fifteen years ago when I joined the writing workshop at the IRP. It became a learning and bonding experience.  Thoughtful critiquing led me to expand on memoir and fantasy, and the talents of others has proved a great source of inspiration.

 

A Slight Misunderstanding

by

by Tom Ashley

(Based on an Overheard Conversation While Waiting for my Appointment at Sy Sperling’s Hair Club for Men)

“In defense of myself, I did NOT say you look fat! All I said was you look like you put on a LITTLE weight. I mean big deal, who cares!”

xx“indecipherable response”

“If you would let me complete my thoughts –  you NEEDED to put on a few pounds.”

xx“indecipherable response”

“Don’t you remember when we went to The Met a few years ago? And we were looking at the Rubens? Well THOSE were larger women and I told you then how they looked sexy … and beautiful, too! Remember?”

xx“indecipherable response “

“Well, I DO! CALM DOWN, CALM DOWN, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE! Look, we’ve ALL gained a couple of pounds over the years. Well, even I HAVE, though not that many. I think there’s just a bit more of you to love.”

xx“indecipherable response”

“You don’t feel that way? A couple of extra pounds can help to smooth some wrinkles on a person’s face. It can make you seem even prettier. I hardly notice anymore.”

xx“louder indecipherable response”

“Are you getting angry with me? I meant this as a compliment. You BARELY had any wrinkles and as far as I’m concerned, you have NONE now!”

xx“even louder indecipherable response”

“HOLD ON! HOLD ON! As a matter of fact, just the other day I told someone your face, as far as I was concerned, showed NO SIGNS of aging. And you don’t even use Botox.”

xx“further indecipherable response “

“I think you’re taking this entirely the wrong way. Look, thirty per cent of the country is obese. And I certainly don’t consider YOU, of all people, OBESE!”

Pause.

“Hello, hello? Are you there? Hello?”

I came to love writing fifteen years ago when I joined the writing workshop at the IRP. It became a learning and bonding experience.  Thoughtful critiquing led me to expand on memoir and fantasy, and the talent of others has proved a great source of inspiration.

 

 

 

Saturday Night Fever

by

by Judith Meyerowitz

Trapped in a Groundhog flick
I open the window to change the frame,
watching the march of the food delivery fairies.
Not to be upstaged, doormen fashionably dressed in blue gloves and matching masks.

Chirp/Boom street birds’ tweets alternate with car rap bass
Can the virus travel on sound waves?

Shut the window
just in time for Cuomo’s chats
Need to hear his covid stats
Now down

Do I shoot up lysol or wait for chloroquine hallucinations?
In my altered state, I smile like June Cleaver and prepare another meal

GeeBees!!#
Why does the virus look like a disco ball?
I count pink and red
fuzzies before sleep,
Wuzzie all about?
 

Judith has taken several writing and poetry study groups since joining and is a member of an ongoing poetry group. She thanks Voices and all those coordinators for their encouragement and support. 

A Day in the Life: Spring 2020

by

by Jennifer Ross

7:00 a.m.
Joyful bird chorus
Bright bursts of blooms busting out
This heartbreaking spring

12:00 noon
On my daily walk
Masked figures pass, no smiles
Silent, empty streets

7:00 p.m.
Neighbors go outside
Clap, bang on our sounding bowl
Thanking our heroes

Coda, Spring 2021

Slowly we emerge
Drinking in smiling faces
Shoots of hope in hearts

Jenny Ross is from Cape Town, South Africa and taught English in high school and college.  She lived in Jerusalem, then Ann Arbor, Michigan, but has happily called New York City home since 1989 and although she loves traveling, doesn’t plan to move again. She is excited to see Voices.

Chapelle du Rosaire, Vence

by

To Henri Matisse

by Mireya Perez Bustillo

Where a clarity favors
royal palms over wedding cake buildings
he meditated on light

Here he wanted to draw the light
of the sea, the space, the mimosa
with bits of glass he colored
ripples to dance on white marble
a water moving to the sun
not knowing he could make a solid liquid
wanting only the light

Mireya Perez-Bustillo writes poetry and fiction in Spanish and English. Her poetry appears in MOM’s EGG; Caribbean Review; Americas Review; Dinner with the Muse, IRP Voices, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press,2020), a Latina coming-of-age story, is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.

Gallery View

by

by Mary Padilla
 

A moment in time
and space
–  frozen  –
as in Zoom,
suspended.
–  Leave and Return  –
They have to let you in.
You are in the Waiting Room.
What is on the other side
of that door?
Doors are virtual these days,
and apocryphal.

But the link is still there for 30 days.
There is no end time.
What does Time mean now?
It should be what keeps everything
from happening at once.
But what about
the parallel universes
we inhabit,
where we click
from one reality
to the next
and back again –
or not.

Everything happens
at once there,
except that there is
no single there.
but rather,
three-ringed circuses,
the net of Indra,
the many-stringed
multiverse.

And where are we in all this?
Are we in this?
If outside, where?
Given a place to stand,
could we move it?
What if there is
no place to stand?
And what would it mean
to move?

If nothing is fixed,
what then is our perspective?
That of the omniscent narrator?
Of the fish eye immersed
in a medium it can’t fathom?
And of what significance this?
If we can sense only
what we are primed to experience,
then we cannot perceive
what we do not expect.

Sensations are feelings.
We will not feel
what we cannot know.
Oblivious to the rest,
we each live now
in a world
of our own creation,
socially distant
in a fundamental way,
and alone.
What would it mean
to connect?
 

Since coming to the LP2 several years ago, Mary has been trying new things, like applying the economy of the poetic form to expressing what can be more felt than understood.