FROM MY MOUTH TO YOUR EARS

Dear Friends, I have been a lazy slob in regards to keeping up a letter of communication.  But we all can grow and own our responsibilties....honest...you gotta believe me....really!  Here it is a year and half post due.  Please let me know what you think.

Singing in (attempted) Harmony

Oh yes, we like to feed one another.

When simple spoken words cannot represent the heighten emotion of a moment, you simply must sing.  Alas, how many of us were told by a parent or sibling while  pursuing this passion at home or on a car trip "Mouth the words, will ya."

Here in Marblehead, Valerie Peterson, a music teaching in the area schools, soloist, and choir director, has given her talents, time, and heart to a gaggle of musical misfits every Monday night and we call ourselves Calla Lilly.   When my friend, the remarkable Roz Epstien (pianist, tap dancer, gardener, artist, and lover of the arts) invited me to join her in attending, I was hesitant. I can sing, primarily in an Ethel Merman mode, but have no ear.  Singing in a chorus requires more ear than voice.

Every year when we go down to the Atlantic Ocean on second night of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) to throw our sins away (in the form of old bread into the moving waters...the gulls love this tradition and have looked into conversion) there are two sins, that annually, ritually, pathetically, reemerge for exorcism. One is gluttony.  Once, in '74,  I wasn't hungry for 20 minutes and thought I'd conquered the compulsion to eat........ constantly.  The other is harder to define simply, but basically has to do with putting more of others and less of myself in shared space.  I want and need to be a better listener.  What could be a better exercise in this practice than singing in harmony and community with others? 

I was terrified.  When playing Goldie, years ago, in Fiddler on the Roof, I was so bad at harmonizing three lousy notes at the end of "Do You Love Me" that the director had us sing them in unison.  Everyone would know immediately that I was a choral fraud, but as Lucy Stone used to say "This is not a world to sit down and whimper in."  I joined, and to my utter joy came to understand that only a few women in this group of about 35 were 'singers.'  The majority of us simply loved to sing and Valerie Peterson, who will be nominated for sainthood, felt strongly that this should be the only criteria for joining. 

Every week we come. We hear about one another's lives, our successes, challenges, work. Then Valerie comes and hands out the music.  We groan at it's intricacies, close harmonies, or high notes.  She smiles and reminds us that we have sung much more difficult pieces in the past. Are we seeing this correctly? The time exchange changes 3 times!  She grins and says it adds to the drama of the music.  We all claim colds and sore throats, and she hits a chord and warms us up, putting our voices right in the center of our bodies, and our bodies close to one another.  She reminds us to sing over the notes.  She shows us how to loosen our jaws. She gets excited by odd harmonies and has us listen before trying them.  Despite her best attempts we sometimes cannot hear how certain music should sound and she dashes it from our repertoire.  Most significantly, she never and I mean never gets angry with us.  We ask the same question about rehearsal time adnauseam.  Some of us are perpetually late.  Some of us (uhum, the clearing of a voice), are off pitch.  Some of us don't rest at the rest and you can hear a single voice when silence should measure a moment.  She calmly reminds us of what this particular piec of music requires and helps us build the tools to fulfill it's promise.

Phyllis keeps our books and organizes the music.  Lynda sends out e-mails.  Rayleen plays piano. We have a 'singing celebration' for the public every spring and throw ourselves an outrageous holiday party every December.  Pam and Holly and most recently Phyllis have offered to help me with Bridging Lives, a peer mentoring program I run in town.  Elaine (our alto ringer) comes to cook with us at the salem mission every 4th thursday, Claire, organizes public poetry readings. One woman is a spiritual counselor, another has a business helping you pack up your house or organize your office, another teaches tennis, and one bikes across Europe with her husband. Each of these women is different, but so very alive. They are athletic, couch potatoes, Republicans, Democrats, Anarchists,apolitical, literary, artistic, domestic, entrepreneurial.  

Valerie (after a decade) needed to move on this year.  She will bless others with her gifts and we, well we love making music and have found the well seasoned, earthy, eminently skilled Betty Lautner to lead us. Going into my 5th year I am listening more, hearing more, sounding more like a member a of a collective ensemble.  I can hear music on the radio and play with harmonies that sometimes actually work.  Most blessedly I am a member of a community of women who find common ground in our love of putting notes together, weaving them in and out of one another's, floating on the air we gently expel.  Possibly, just possibly, Palestinian and Jew, Hindu and Muslim,
Gays and the LDS Church, should stop talking and start singing...together.

I AM SO OFFENDED!
There has most recently been a fascinating exchange on the LANES (League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling) list serve: LANES-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU

A number of folks, quite poetically,  were celebrating the election of Barak Obama to the Presidency, when a missive came up that those who supported the Republican candidate might be feeling marginalized by these missives.  Being our indisputably 'nice' selves, folks quickly agreed that 'politics' don't belong on the listserve or should be marked OT for off topic so that those not interested, or potentially offended, can merely delete them.  Then a few people started to rethink the issues and wondered if indeed these celebrations weren't our stories and did indeed belong within the community.  Possibly the question we should be asking is: Can we celebrate our beliefs without offending someone who holds a different one?

For decades I have heard this phrase repeated again and again:
"I am so offended by that."
 
As storytellers our work is like a Rorschach test.  If a telling evokes a  passionate response from someone, chances are that the material has ignited a part of them that is unresolved.  This part might feel heard or loved or vindicated or vulnerable or angry or hurt. Whatever the feeling the story brought up on the big screen of their life, you are the messenger, and those feelings will often be transferred to you.  You suddenly have someone hugging you with words of thanks or steam coming out of their ears and threats to disbar you from the profession.  (Thank-goodness we have no single standard bearing and testing organization.)

Telling a tale that validates is a joy, but what to do when an angry  steamroller is headed in your direction? If you have truly developed a story so that you understand why you tell it, know the journey you want to lead folks on, have shaped the imagery to guide the passage, and left them on a new shore, then you have done your job.  Or have you?  It is at this interval we look at our work and ask 'was it responsible storytelling?' Alas, from 30 years of doing this work, I still make the mistake of forgetting that stories, like our lives, are culture bound.  If I inadvertently offend the values and beliefs of the culture i am telling within, then kiss taking people on any journey goodbye.  Their gates of perception have slammed shut. I have screwed up so many times that I consider myself a near expert on this issue.  No matter how much truth of feeling and authentic, resonant, detail emanates from your tale you can't, as an outsider;
-Make fun of how slow southerners are in front southerners
-Tell of the joys of self chosen single parenting to a Mormon audience
-Joke about how the fanatic right wing has taken over the legislature to Judges
They will become offended, and rightfully so. I blew a missile over their right flank and the responses have ranged from a refusal to pay me to rather frightening 'fan' letters such as this one:
 
 You are clearly, an angry lesbian. I pity you for that.  Please, let your anger fester and boil within yourself in the future.

We are really not interested.

John

P.S.  Saw your silver haired "friend" on the courthouse steps.Oh my gawd!!!???!!!

I needed to take more time to get to know who my listeners were. There is always a safe path to the same material. If I can ease them from where they are into a new window of perception without causing them to gasp for moral breath, then I'm doing my job.  This skill only comes with an understanding of the culture and building a safe bridge from it to a new place.

This done, if someone is still "offended by that," then you know you have hit a vulnerable hot button in them.  At this point, a red faced, enraged and offended human: 
A: Demands their their money back.
B: Threatens to write letters about your moral turpitude to every publication in a 300 mile radius.
C: Dedicates their life to getting your host fired from the sponsoring institution.
D: All the above

There was the man who made an angry bee line for me after my telling of Esau my Son at the National Festival a couple years ago.  It's a tale about raising a child who looks nothing like you and eventually accepting their lead into their strengths.  It ends with some of his letters from his US Marine Corps post in Iraq.
Man: That simply is not true.
ME: What?
Man: Many nations in the Middle East love the United States.
(Here is where I should have nodded sagely, agreed, and reminded him that what he heard was just one Marine's letter to his mother.)
ME:  Which ones?
Man: Israel........Jordon......
(His breath was coming in fast, and as a student of human behavior, it was clear that this would not be a discussion.  I'd hit a hot button in him, and so..)
 ME:  I hear you.  Thank-you for that information.

Faced with having triggered this person, what could I do? The minute someone feels attacked, their gates of perception close and they build strong walls of defense.  That goes for both sides of the conflict! My guess is, outside of apologizing for causing them misery, there is little you can do while they are in an intense state of being. (OK, you could use EMDR,  a quick technique to help someone process trauma, but they might not appreciate it).  Most of us do not aim to traumatize our listeners, but we have no idea what will stimulate unresolved tsuris*  

Possibly after a little time and space, during which we can re center ourselves, there will be room for communication. Could we ask, without attitude or expectation "Why were you offended?"  It is the discussion that follows this question that might lead us to:
A: Alter our work because of a greater understanding of how our story interacts with their culture.
B: Understand how and why it negatively impacted this person.

How will the answer to B influence future tellings? Are there other avenues to travel?  Let's have a dialogue sharing our thoughts, ideas, and experiences.
 
As for our listserve, in the service of telling all our stories, and in the hopes that we will not identify one opinion as right or another as wrong, i hope we continue to share our political passions.  Taking them out of our discussions would be like removing a kidney!

*Tsuris;  The Yiddish word for misery.

Goodbye Mom  11/08

Helen Edith Gruskin (1924-2008), my mommy, died this year.  She had many jewels in her crown.  Alas, I never felt I was not among them. To say that my mother and I had a problematic relationship would be like saying that that my squash plants suffer from a few vine borers, or our auto and energy industries are a little on the Neanderthal side, or that plastics might be dangerous....OK, so you get it. Please, this isn't a confessional, just the facts.

She never had a hair out of place on her beautiful face. One could infrequently pierce the thick, natty, jungle that hung constantly over my eyes. She kept house with the precision of a Marine Sergeant.  My room was a dark cave of disheveled demons into which she refused to set a foot.
She could have been French in her almost religious belief in form over function.  Both looked lumpy on me.  "You could be such a pretty a girl if you took off some weight, combed your hair right, took off some weight, stood up straight, took off some weight....."  From this tormented landscape of failures it was hard to see the fruits she bore, but, we all grow up.
(sort of...mostly...try to!)
As an adult it's clear that I was no prize. From ritually escaping the crib to swinging on the chandelier, to running away from home at the age of 8 to  refusing to shave off adolescent body hair, to joining the Pgh. Radical Anarchist Lesbian Collective, she would just shake her head and mutter 'she's going through a stage.' Actually, if it weren't for parents there would be homeless adolescents roaming the roadways and parks of America acting as professional, but homeless, provocateurs. 
                                                 *
Living, for mom, had simply becomes too difficult.  I know we will all come to this point where death is a friend. She had brain tumors.  When you negotiate with the big G for an exit strategy this is a good choice.  She simply slept more and more each day, had almost no discomfort and was gone within 5 weeks of the diagnosis. That was the physical journey.
                                                *
At 68 and 69 when my folks had simultaneous medical emergencies I offered:
"Mom, you know that you and dad can always come live with me."
"You're kidding right? The way you live........ Over my dead body."
And unlike the time my sister challenged me to lick the tether ball pole in sub zero weather, I did not take the bait and start defending my now 4 decades of reformed housekeeping skills. No, I  just let it go.......and started researching senior retirement centers surrounded by wide alligator infested moats.
                                      *
My mother was the queen of charm and beauty. Though never heavy she was on an eternal diet that started every Monday and included copious amount of cottage cheese that would get caught between her teeth. She believed in the gospel of ladies magazines and thus we lived a life of clear balance:  recipe/diet, recipe/diet, recipe/diet.  She was born to schmooze. Our friends and neighbors were always welcomed into our home and shared meals, play times, sleep overs were the rule rather than the exception.  She could make low content, non threatening conversation with anyone. Actually, she was found talking to wall once, and after 10 minutes the wall asked for her number so they could stay in touch. Alas, I took after my opinionated, husky, dominating dad.
                                        *
This past winter, she was in rehab. for a broken hip. When I went to help resettle her back at home with dad and she said, in the same sentence, "Darling, you look wonderful, and I  really like your hair cut."
I should have known then and there that something was playing foul with her brain. But, I assumed it was simply her abating senses of sight, sound, and smell, the ravages of aging, that were making her more appreciative of my charms. On the 2nd day there I took her for an eye appointment.  Still in her wheel chair and quite sleepy most of the time, we dressed.
"Mom, do you want to wear the green pants suit?"
"What honey?'
"The green pants suit?"
"I can't hear you."
"Mom!  (her hearing had been diminishing during the last decade but was now at an all time low)  The neighbors, the gardener, and a few people in Philadelphia knew she was wearing a green pants suit to her eye appointment.
"Aren't you going to comb your hair?"
"Mom it is combed. This is how i wear it."  And she simply shook her head sadly. "It actually looked good the other day." As if to mutter: The Sox finally won a World Series.
I got her some fruit and cottage cheese for breakfast.
"This is lovely.  Don't forget to rinse the dishes.  One time you left something in my blender...."
"I know and it took you two weeks to clean it out."
"I hope you've learned how to keep a house."
Don't lick the pole I coached myself.  After all she put up with you burning bras, dropping out of college and having a child out of wedlock! This is what family does.
"Ma, i'm such a grade A house keeper now, you can come live with me."
"Are you kidding, stay with you, over my dead....."
"I know ma.  Let's get a move on."
On the way she nodded off, then chatted about her friends in Pittsburgh, and then about the new fashion, nodded off, chatted then about a recipe my brother had tried for their friends......Mainly though, she kept falling asleep.
 
The brain tumors were not diagnosed for another week.
On the phone:
"Doctor, something's not right.  She's sleeping all the time."
"She looked fine when we discharged her from the rehab. center the other day."
"She doesn't look fine now.  She doesn't usually sleep this much.'
"She is recuperating."
"She didn't sleep this much in rehab.  Could she be over medicated?"
"Possibly, get me a list...."
Of course when you have 5 different doctors all prescribing various medications...it's a miracle she hadn't exploded!

On the phone, again:
"Doctor, she looks worse than the other day.  Now she's sleeping 20 hours a day."
"She looked fine when I discharged her.....'
It was deja vu all over again, and the doctor had to be bludgeoned into seeing her within a week of her last visit. It probably wasn't covered by medicare. By the time of this appointment I had to leave and sister #2 moved in.  Like most modern American families we are all over the country and the folks are ensconced in what we lovingly refer to as G-d's Waiting Room, Florida.
 
Once the doctor finally saw her, he said that her lung cancer from 6 years before had matasticized into her brain and tumors were spreading there quickly.

As the inventor of the paternalism my dad's first declaration was:
"We're not going to tell her.  Why does she need to know?  It'll just upset her."

Sisters 1,2, and 3 all thought this insane, and we were determined that she should be offered the opportunity to wrestle with her mortality. As it turned out, it's not all that easy. How do you look into the eyes of the woman who gave you life and tell her something she does not want to hear. She never liked bad news. She'd responded to all family tragedies the same way; "We won't talk it."   So, sister #2 came up with the brilliant idea of letting her semi-competent doctor do it.  

She chased him down and dragged him to her room.  In those sonorous tones that you must learn in Rabbi, Minister, Priest and Doctor school, he explained her condition, talked about tumors, and that it was 'terminal' and asked if she had any questions.  She nodded throughout and made little noises of acknowledgment to keep him talking. When done, he asked if she had any questions. She smiled sweetly, said 'no,' and thanked him.  Once he left, since doctors were gods and not to be bothered, she turned to sister #2 and said "honey I couldn't understand or hear a word he said. What on earth was he talking about?"  Would you be willing, in a voice so loud that bystanders in Philadelphia would know that the woman who wore a green pants suit to the eye doctor was now dying of brain tumors?

So #2 chickened out. We brought mom back to her home & with the support of hospice, her family, constantly visiting friends, and a wonderful home health aide, we assumed she'd ask or figure it out. True to the ladies magazine protocol by which she lived her life, she never outright asked "Am I dying?"  But only 'when am I going to get better?' Even when one of us would explain that she wasn't going to get better because the tumors were just going to keep growing until.... "That's enough of that" she'd interrupt, and she remained faithful to her own philosophy: "If you have nothing nice to say then don't say anything at all."  For all our high falutin' educated, self realized attitudes, about this, Dad turned out to be right.

We sisters took turns staying.* As the tumors pressed on her brain, she slept more and more, but they also knocked out her inhibitors.  The first thing that went was that lifelong ritual of starting the diet on Monday. Though slowed down by deteriorating motor skills the woman began eating like a hungry wolf, complimenting all that was put before her but mostly enjoying, relishing, delighting in, her all time favorite, dark fudge with nuts.  This thing she'd always denied herself except in miniscule dabs, now took the place of lunch and snacks. Eating chunk after chunk, she'd hum that deep satisfied hum of the pleasured.  Go mom!

She thanked us deeply for every small act, fetching a glass of water, helping her to the toilet, fixing a meal.  As the world began dim she enjoyed holding our hands.  One day a hospice worker came by, and you could only describe this guy as young and hot, a shining star in our hazy sky. He came in and mom's eyes slowly opened. She focused, pulled herself up, offered her most radiant smile, and in the first sentence she'd uttered all day asked "What can i do for you young man?"  Chocolates and handsome men, she knew what was important. One day on a stroll around the courtyard of their apt, complex we ran into a woman from her building.  She lit up, sat more erect in the wheel chair, and though she was speaking very little by this point, said in a clear voice "How nice to see you. You look wonderful."  She remained her essentially herself through the end.

Mom passed peacefully from this world in the middle of the night 8 months ago.  There was a standing room only funeral, and we each spoke about what a welcoming home she'd created for friends and neighbors. As people came to sit shiva with us at the apartment I found myself chatting easily about her with folks i'd never met, nibbling away at the fudge, and that night, in the mirror, I noticed cottage cheese stuck in teeth. The next day it was decided that I should hold on to her ashes until the family could reassemble in our home h town and distribute them in the Allegheny River.  Hey mom, guess who's house you're going to live in?
It will be a honor to have you.
(in loving memory)

*side note: Sister #3 is a professional medical ethicist working at a medical school in Texas.  They had an 'end of life' specialist come to address them.  "There is only one reliable variable that will determine the quality of your end-of life care..."  People sat on the edges of their chairs,  posing answers in their heads that ranged from how much money you controlled, to your theological belief systems.  His answer was succinct "How many daughters you have."  Mom had 3 of us.  She's be OK)

THE KID

For those of you who have followed my son's growth from the over parented, squirt gun totting toddler to the football and paint ball gun totting adolescent to the young man in the Marine Corps uniform, you might want an update.  Solomon H. Black is presently a senior at UMass, Amherst.  For a kid who spent copious amounts of time during his public school life in the vice principal's offices and studied for 30 minutes (total) during his high school years he's done himself and his family proud.  Solomon has been a Dean's List student just about every semester.  He works in the Dean of Students office helping other discharged veterans figure out how to navigate the terrain of university life, works as a bouncer a few nights a week at a local watering hole (gotta keep up those Marine Corps skills), and is serving as an RA this year.  When he pops home for a visit, he asks "Hey mom, need anything done?" In these unpredictable times he has already been offered a job for next year with the U.S. State Department, and will move down to Washington in the fall.  This is what my people call nauches from the kinder, joy from the child.

 BLESSINGS
Even though, after reviewing the graphs of CO2 consumption and the resulting, surely catastrophic devastation we have wrought our planet, the economic depression our nation is in, and the fact that we are still killing folks and being killed in two illegal wars in the middle east, I had a great fall. 
Irony is the driving force of the universe. This is called mastering the big picture-little picture approach to life.  The big picture is grim, but since we have to function in our lives, look for the smaller blessings, challenges, and joys that offer themselves on a daily basis. So, here are a few:
Jane Sullivan, a pioneer of creative producing, has begun a theatrical storytelling series in Atlanta, Georgia.  Houselights will raise the storytelling bar for Atlanta and it's environs.  That Fading Scent: A Seditious Comedy About Women and Aging was her second production in what we all hope will be a long and fruitful run.

Speaking of That Fading Scent, after three years of playing, shaping, and beating the bugger, it finally works.  That's about how long it takes me to shape a new, major, piece.  The inimitable Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo  and Nancy Wang produced the show as part of their Eth Noh Tec, Salon You're On series in San Francisco.  It was presented at  Liz Bartlow Breslin's Celtic Knot in Evanston, Ill , played in an edited version at the National Storytelling Festival's Midnight Cabaret, and has been running to enthusiastic audiences at The Griffen Theatre in Salem MA.  There are two more runs booked for January 15, 16, 17,  and March 12, 13, 14 2009.  For more info, go to;
http://www.storiesalive.com/repertoire/scent_about.html
About the Griffen Theater: http://www.griffentheatre.com
Tickets $20 To purchase: 978-317-1169
The blessing in working near home is that i can partner up with organizations that do fine work and create fundraising nights.  Last week the show raised nearly $300 for The Salem Mission, committed to ending homelessness.  Have cooked the '4th Thursday night of each month' dinner with a hearty and loving crew there for 20 years.  On March 12 a percentage of the night's profits will go to Healthlink, an incredible local organization that advocates and educates around environmental and health issues.  
Some quotes about the show:
"Judith's performance and writing was brilliant.  And best of all, everyone in the audience knew it.  The atmosphere was electric and the laughter long and often. This is every woman's story and every man should take this ride too... there are no seat belts!"

Salon! You're On!' Performance Series: San Francisco, CA
                                        Producers Robert Kiluchi Yngojo and Nancy Wang
This is the thinking woman's version of Menopause: The Musical...Black is a warm and dynamic storyteller, exposing the legacy of bias against older women with a wry sense of humor. In fact, she shows how life after 50 can be wonderful.......Smart and undeniably funny, That Fading Scent... is a great example of the power of storytelling."                                    Orlando Sentinel
Have had the blessed opportunity to work in TN, Calf, New Jersey, Florida, Vermont, Chicago, Texas, France, from last Spring through this fall.

 

We traveled to Southern Spain with our friend's David and Elaine.  Please, I know that our 'carbon footprint' from the journey will require us to ride bicycles and hang laundry for the next 10 years.  In terms of environmental realities, though, it was revelatory. Our nation's disastrous misuse of resources is truly in high profile compared to how Europeans have acknowledged and adjusted to the new needs of our planet and our over use of it.  The lights go off in the Madrid airport at 9 AM.  It's not mismanagement.  The building is designed so that the natural lights of the sun illuminates its entirety during daylight hours.  As we journeyed to the small town where  we were staying in southern Spain, wind farms, creating electricity from a renewable resource, dotted the highways.  I saw no dead birds littering the ground and the sound was a gentler hum that the exhaust fans on the rear of a Stop and Shop. In the ancient village that we resided in for the week, Gaucin, you could look out over the 300 years old stone houses and see that over 1/2 of them had been retrofitted with passive solar paneling.

Recycling was evident everywhere from airports to the streets of the smallest villages.  What has to happen for our communities, businesses, and government to make these and other adaptations for future life on this lovely planet?

The village we were staying in is a called a White Village and is imbedded in mountains not far from northern Africa.  You could see the Rock of Gibraltar from our roof.

One day we drove down, went through British customs, drove up the rock and walked into the deep stalagmite caves that have been there forever.

At one turn the cave opens up into a large space with a stage and seating and an unbelievable echo.   I started singing Dona Nobis Pacem.  Soon a second, then a third and forth voice joined in the round, and the cave echoed with our voices weaving and out of one another. When we finished our extemporaneous concert, we parted cheerfully, because one of us spoke Norwegian, another German, a third Spanish, and I, English, but in that cave in Andalucia, we were in harmony.

I keep wondering how we can live smaller in every way:
-Travel less (though I love it)
-Use less fossil fuels (And yes i drive a Prius, but it feels like a liberal's adjustment instead of real change which would be to always use public transit and a bicycle.)
-Use less commodities (Well that will be self enforcing as no one will have any money soon!)
I wonder if we will have a major readjustment to the way Americans think about resources with out laws to press us towards reducing use, using less, and recycling all we have.  What are your thoughts and actions in this direction?

Christmas Day 2008
I was in charge of Christmas diner at the Salem Mission this year.  Let me say up front, that I do not believe that 'do-gooders' do much of anything.  Have provided food and, with dear friends, cooked the 4th Thursday of every month meal at the Mission for over 20 years.  We don't do shit about the systemic causes of poverty and homelessness. As a young revolutionary in Pgh., PA, felt deeply empowered to change systems.  Now I cook at the shelter.  It's pathetic really, but we, the crew, have a great time, make good diners, and the folks who eat them are grateful for plates with balanced colors, real potatoes and butter, and homemade desserts.  Hey, it's better than nothing.
 
The Christmas Menu:
Salad with candied walnuts, cranberries and apples with a sweet dressing, warm rolls and butter
Sirloin center, mashed potatoes, gravy, asparagus, cheese sauce
Double chip brownies, with vanilla ice cream and homemade caramel sauce

Piano provided by Mark Arnold
Piano Player, Marjorie Zoll
Singing by all of us!

Arrived at 9 AM, and the joint was packed with folks giving out a breakfast that had been provided by I-hop.  Then people just kept coming. 
   My friends Phyllis and Rod whose own celebration was postponed a couple days came and began the process of making the dining room festive looking. Various Jewish people from all over the place just made their way to Salem Mission, came into the kitchen and asked "Can we help?" Two  older women and a gent from Temple Shalom in Salem, a family of four from Swampscott, the two teenaged girls amazingly willing to mix with the clients, a few singles who simply came peeled, or chopped, or set tables. A quiet gent in his late 40's, he told me he was Catholic and practicing when i asked,  and had a beautiful singing voice, stayed on the dirty cooking implements and then dishes. A big (wide) rambunctious, good humored, fellow who was a trained chef was there in full apron. Poor baby tried to take over MY kitchen.  Good luck buddy! Put him in charge of the animal which when sliced had the men ooooooing over it's soft red texture, and women recoiling and asking "Isn't that still raw?". 4 of our usual 4th Thursday crew were there, Cindy and Sarah, and Declan, and Mike, amazing, soulful humans who know how to work their butts off in a kitchen.  Now in February we are scraping the sides of the refrigerators for sustenance, but on this Christmas day, food, food, and more food...cookies, hams, turkeys....poured out.  There were enough people to decorate the Mission, and the staff had gifts for everyone at the front door.  Marjorie played gently during the 3 course diner, which for once we served to the seated guests rather than the traditional food kitchen line up at the window. Once the last dessert was out I hollered "Let's sing."  We (those willing to do this act publicly) headed out and tried to get the lame, bent, and homeless to sing with us. OK, it wasn't a rousing chorus of Come Oh Yea Faithful, but they listened or hummed, or sang quietly, and began applauding after each tune.  The big guy who always wore 5-7 layers of cloths and his hair looked like electrified dread locks, grinned every time i made eye contact with him.  When taunted  "Let's hear a few notes from ya big guy.'
"Oh you don't want to hear me sing."  And he was happy enough hearing us.

I tried to get each table to take one of the days of Christmas in the 12 days, and the only ones who would join me were days 4 and 3 , but the rest got a kick out of me trying to get them to sing...kind of like pushing a fat drunk up a narrow flight of stairs. One cynic, who not only wouldn't sing, but pretended to not be involved, finally was cajoled into hold up his hand with a ring on it for Five Golden Rings.

The old woman, with short white hair and few teeth who is always surrounded by old bags and what seemed like a permanent casing of depression, was quietly singing every single song.  We'd never interacted despite 20 years of passing on the 4th Thursday of every month.

"Do you know all these songs"
"Oh yes dear.  I was in glee club in high school and we sang them all."
She had been a young, lovely, singing teenager in southern Maine.  We all have been someone else, and now we were all here at the Salem Mission on Christmas day.

xoxoxoxoxo
Judith