Five questions from Rachel

Rachel sent me some very interesting, thoughtful questions that I have been mulling over for the past week or so. In the spirit of this provocative game, I think I have my thoughts together now and will answer here.

1. What thing about your life has surprised you the most?

This is the hardest question so I will leave it for last!

2. Do you have something that someone in your family or life passed down to you that holds particular significance? What is it and what's the significance?

After my father died, and then, shortly after, my step-mother (my father had remarried after my mother died and had a twenty-five year, happy second marriage), we (her son and two daughters and my sister and I) were cleaning out the house where my sister and I had lived as children, and my father had continued to live until he was ninety. I remember it was September, a warm sunny day in Bethesda. I was in the driveway near the garage and my step-brother came up to me with something in the palm of his hand. He said he had just found these in his mother�s closet, that I could do whatever I wanted with them, tell my sister or not, but he would give them to me. It was my parents� wedding rings. A very precious gift. I have made my father�s ring smaller and wear it on my left index finger.

As for my mother�s, I had always loved it. It is a carved gold ring of flowers. When I was married I found one similar so I bought it and wore it. When I left the marriage, I had the ring made larger so I could wear it on another finger. My first dog, Miranda and my mother shared the same birthday and they had somewhat similar personalities: very friendly, outgoing, vivacious, sensitive, intelligent (well, I think so, but Aaron used to call her a dumb blond, the dog, that is; my mother died two years before he was born and she was not blond!). The night Miranda was dying, I felt the ring being removed from my hand in my sleep and the next morning it was gone. I never found the ring, even when I moved from that house and searched in the empty room. I don�t wear her ring. But it sits on a special ring holder on the chest of drawers in my bedroom. And, almost fifteen years later, I still haven�t told my sister.

And then, there is my grandfather�s watch chain, a beautiful piece of gold chain. My parents had it cut in half and gave part to my sister and the other part to me. I used to wear a gold watch piece (one my parents bought in Venice) on it, but when the watch stopped working, I had the chain made into a necklace and bracelet and wear them every day.

There is also my mother�s cameo. That is a piece of jewelry she wore almost every day, on the lapel of her very well tailored suits, when she went to work as administrative assistant at the National Institutes of Health. My grandfather bought it in Africa, I think, and gave it to my grandmother when he saw her again, after bringing her, with my then six-year-old dad, over to the U.S. from Latvia in 1908. When my mother died at sixty-five, my dad gave me that cameo (and another one to my sister). I hardly wear it because I am in jeans and a tee shirt most of the time. But it is very special to me.

So I guess I would have a hard time choosing which piece means the most to me. I�ll just say I would like my children to have my familial jewelry collection.

3. What one place that you've not visited would you most like the chance to see? Why?

That�s easy: Brazil! I want to spend time with my granddaughter and see where she lives, explore the country with her. She�s been living there for the past seven years. I saw her last January 2004. It was as if no time had passed since she was two, since she moved away. Even though I don�t speak Portuguese, we could communicate, through drawing and doing things together. And of course, Aaron, her dad, was there to translate, so perhaps I will need to take him with me!

4. Both of you made significant moves in your life. What do you like the most about your new location and what do you miss the most about the old one?

I love the feeling of peace and space I find here in Nova Scotia. Even though the weather can be fierce (as it is right now--cold and raining and windy, no summer yet!), the general tone of life here is very considerate. I live only a short distance from the largest city in the area, Halifax, and yet I am in a rural setting, not visible to my neighbors, although I know they are close by and available. I have privacy and community. And it is visually very beautiful and interesting all the time!

What I miss most is my family and friends, especially my children. I have good friends here but I do miss my New York friends and love to visit there. I don�t miss the speed of the City but I do miss the readily available culture, the many museums and galleries, the big choice of movies and plays and concerts. We have some of everything here but not the excitement of so many choices. So I guess it is the cultural life of the Big City that I miss along with the friends I left there.

5. What one piece of wisdom do you wish to pass on to your daughters?

This is another hard question. There are so many things I would like to say (and probably do, my children would say!) but especially, most important, follow your dreams. Do it for yourself, don�t worry what other people think. That is what makes you so unique and paradoxically what makes other people notice you. So�be true to your dreams.

And now for question 1. What thing about your life has surprised you the most?

I am still surprised at how much I�ve changed over the years. The only thing you can count on is change. But it can still be a surprise. And this has happened and keeps happening, despite it being hard. It�s not the physical change that I am talking about, but the internal ones. Although the physical changes do reflect the inner ones. It�s been about transformation, allowing what is on the inside to happen on the outside. I do things today that I never thought I could or would.

When I was younger I would go so far as to try to mold my handwriting to the person I thought I should be. At one point I even tried a backward slant because I admired people who were different, left-handed, and wrote that way. Then I made my writing be straight up and down. And then small even though my natural tendency was to write large. Now I write as large as I want as a reflection, not a statement.

I think I brought up my children to embrace change as growth, as what life is about. But my parents were trained to put their children in categories and keep them there. So labels were frustrating and limiting and basically useless words to fight against. My fur can still get ruffled when someone tries to put me in a box that doesn�t fit or one that I have outgrown, left behind.

I was always a very shy, reserved person in public. And often quite loud at home, much to my family�s dismay. I remember once a friend assessed me quite accurately: that I carried myself very carefully because I felt like a bull in a china shop and was afraid of breaking something. The other morning I did break my favorite mug, one that is irreplaceable. Maybe it was a symbol of what�s happening in my life, but it was just a mug. I�m in the process of cleaning up my house, purging my closets and shelves. Changing, once again, how I think about myself, my life, my choices, my inner and outer home. And I am still surprised by how pervasive the need to change, grow, transform is in me. Lately I keep telling my friend Ed, a chiropractor, that by the time I die I will be in perfect shape. (Well, maybe the day before, he says!)

So these are my answers. This was a really fun and challenging way to look at my life. I really enjoyed thinking about these questions. If any one else wants to play, let me know and I will send you five questions to answer on your blog!

Posted by leya at June 16, 2005 01:30 PM