New Year's Medley

Jan. 4, 2010

I'm gingerly working back to food reading, since that's what keeps my interest piqued. Last week, I read Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichl's delectable memoir of "growing up at the table." She is the editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine, and, as you may recall, I blogged recently about her memoir about her eccentric mother.

Of the two books, I prefer Tender at the Bone. It's like the difference between a smorgasbord and a plate of scrambled eggs with everything tossed in -- I'll take the buffet. The smorgasbord includes portraits of the charming and wise Mrs. Peavey, a great cook from Reichl's early childhood days; the beautiful and proud Serafina, Reichl's college roommate and best friend who learns as an adult that she is both Black and adopted; Doug, the sculptor Reichl marries who turns out to be much like her father; and the indelible charm, Milton, who is the quintessential tour guide. You will find recipes in this book relating to each period of Reichl's life, and you will enjoy the read, appreciating the delectable characters as much as the recipes.

In case you think I'm limited to reading just one book a week, I'm going to confess that I read more than that. And would read still more, if I could. I'm also halfway through the 500-page Practicing the Path, A Commentary on the Lamrim Chenmo, by Yangsi Rinpoche, to which, you, reader, may now be responding --Huh? What? And, to which I will reply -- Exactly. You have to be there when it comes to this one. Still, I urge you to explore it and any other Buddhist texts you are moved to read. You don't have to be Buddhist to read about the religion or agree or disagree with its tenets. And thankfully, Buddhists don't sell their religion.

Segueying further, I also read Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings, and pretty much annihilated a section of a jazz encyclopedia, reading about jazz pianists. If you don't know by now -- and why would you, you haven't been listening to what I hear as I type -- jazz of the 40s and 50s, bebop and hard bop, is a kind of obsession.

Evans was a hard bopper, the first "modal" pianist, an American Chopin. Jersey-born, he was known for his classical touch and his ability to make the piano "sing." He explored modal language with trumpeter Miles Davis, whom he joined in 1958. Evans had the gift of being able to communicate his feelings on musical instruments -- and was able to create a singing vernacular with his left hand on the piano. Downbeat magazine ranked him second only to Thelonius Monk, that great spontaneous jazz pianist. Evans was a member of a few trios and quintets and was well-respected internationally, particularly in France. He worked with the talented bassist Scott LaFaro, whose death in a car accident in 1961 not only ended the trio that included Evans, but devastated Evans so much, he didn't play for months. Evans himself died in 1980 from bronchial pneumonia and a hemorraghing ulcer, but really from drug abuse that had plagued him for two decades, resulting in bouts of malnutrition and hepatitis. A friend of Evans' once observed that his "was the longest suicide in history."

As is true with so many of my jazz faves, once you read about them, you have to set down the stories and return to the music, which, thankfully, continues to "sing."

And, while you're listening to the likes of Fats Waller, Art Tatum or Monk, grab yourself a piece of fine chocolate. It's the new year, after all, and resolutions were meant to be broken. I was just perusing the bookshelves at Barnes & Noble and came upon the most delectable image of a chocolate dessert...

Reading is like eating. One good thing leads to another, and another. And another.

The Risks of Unraveling

Dec. 26, 2009

A few years ago, journalist Norah Vincent went underground as a gender spy, dressing and living as a man in order to write, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back. Her book garnered accolades and became a New York Times best-seller. But the emotional price of her 18-month experiment was a nervous breakdown. The experience led to her next book, Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin.

Vincent launched her loony bin experiment getting off the meds her psychiatrist had prescribed -- Prozac, or Vitamin P, as she called it-- and voluntarily committing herself, first to a city public hospital, then a small private hospital, and finally, a holistic recovery facility.

Early on in her experiment, Vincent writes, "Being put away does a number on you very quickly, and very thoroughly, no matter who you are in the outside world." She also recognizes fairly soon that the brain -- unlike the kidney or other types of the body -- requires more than medicine in order to be treated. It requires empathy.

You have to marvel at Vincent's brazenness and willingness to go the distance. She informs her insurance company that she (not they) should foot the bill for her institutional stays, as she is a journalist doing research, and shells out $14,700 not once, but twice -- to the public institution, then to the private facility, both of which put her in a state of roiling anxiety about all the freedoms she's turned over. Vincent doubts whether she can recover in these places, where patients are over-medicated, and conditions, often inadequate.

Vincent becomes fascinated by the habits and prognoses of the patients she encounters in wards, but their colorful stories would be old news to anyone who's ever been in rehab or made the rounds of recovery rooms for group therapy.

Vincent writes with confidence and her quirky observations can be inspired -- as she depicts day-to-day life among the addicted and mentally ill, and particularly as she questions her own mind, her surroundings and the system into whose hands she's entrusted herself.

She asks, for example, "How does one exist as a self, as a discrete person in the world, and yet not inhabit one's own self?" While at a private hospital, where she finds herself spending too much time curled up alone on the tiles of her bathroom in order to avoid having to deal with the overwhelming pain of those surrounding her, she realizes this is how many sensitive people feel out in the world and how the homeless mentally ill and addicted especially feel, as they are forced to live without a break on the streets, bombarded by chaos, noise, pollution and fear.

Vincent also ponders, "What might happen if we as a culture took even the most minor responsibility for the lost among us, rather than consigning them, and quite possibly ourselves, to the ravages of the system? The indifferent system."

At St. Luke's, the name she gives to a private hospital, she is touched by the kindness and simplicity of Sister Pete, who prompts her to muse: Maybe "true goodness... in this fucked-up creation" is a "form of retardation. Not an avoidance of vice but an ignorance of it, a lack of acquaintance with it that cannot be willed after the fall, no matter how strong the intention."

By the time Vincent leaves St. Luke's, she is beginning to emerge from her depression, a depression complicated by the power struggles she encounters in the institutions in which she places herself. At St. Luke's, she realizes how much a private room can mean, providing as it does, healing space, even room for exercise.

By the time Vincent commits herself to Mobius, a place she determines is easily "within the reach of the middle class," she is back on Vitamin P, taking 20 milligrams a day, and holding. Unlike the previous two institutions, Mobius aims to heal mind, spirit and body. It's a place where Vincent is able to explore past traumas and experience deeper healing. She finds therapists there to whom she can relate as they freely share their own humanity. They inform her that she is not mentally ill after all.

Summarizing, Vincent laments the overcrowding, lack of fresh air, cleanliness and nutrition that she has experienced in institutions, noting significantly, that among all the patients she encountered during her hospital stays, she found very few willing to take responsibility for their own health and lives. The resistance of patients to change stymies many in the system who want to help and often turns them cynical.

At one point, a therapist at Mobius asks Vincent to consider the word 'compassion" as a means to heal. Unable to stomach the word, she opts for the idea of help instead. Vincent realizes, "I am not bound by my diagnosis. I can help myself, and I will," a perception that, once seized, could make all the difference to anyone suffering mentally, physically or spiritually.

Death and Laughter

Dec. 18, 2009

We're getting close to Christmas and the farthest thing from most people's minds is death, or so I'm assuming. But it's pressing on my mind this year. My father died last Wednesday, and today we are going to the funeral of a friend's brother, who died suddenly this past Tuesday.

One thing I've learned for sure is, try as you may, you can't plan death. The world is full of surprises, and death, even in the midst of a holiday that rains so much color and joy. Like holidays, life with all its color and vibrancy ends too. Throughout it all, you try to keep laughing. That's why, even in the midst of my father's passing, I wanted to read David Sedaris. I wanted to laugh.

I loved Naked, published a few years ago, and expected great things from When You Are Engulfed in Flames, which I picked up a few days before we heard the news that dad was in the process of dying. I wasn't altogether disappointed, although the dark humor and pointed quips struck almost too close to home.

The cover of Sedaris' book has a skeleton on it that appears to have a cigarette between its teeth. The cover is meant to be the death mask of Sedaris himself, who was, until fairly recently, a habitual smoker, and whose final essay, "The Smoking Section," refers to his process of quitting. There's also an essay in this collection about a skeleton that Sedaris once bought for his partner Hugh, who decided to hang it in the bedroom. Sedaris found himself looking at this dangling skeleton, which seemed to say to him, "You are going to die."

I can't say this struck me as particularly funny, just true, having recently stared at death straight in the face and recognized, sure as I'm sitting here right now, that this life, solid and real as it seems, is indeed ephemeral as a dream and quick as smoke to disappear.

My father was a strong, indomitable soul, full of enthusiasm for life, with a vitality so palpable it was intimidating to some. He lived a year and a half longer than he was expected to live, and no one, least of all the doctors who predicted his demise, could believe he could carry on so long, his heart being in the shape it was. He humored us, mugging till the very end, reminding us of his amazing resilience and also of his capacity for laughter and the importance of it. It has always been a balm and savior for our family.

Taking my dad's cue, the night after his passing, my siblings and I drank, smoked pot, and drove fast and furiously around Hilton Head, where my dad lived. I turned around to my two sisters and brother once and said, "How does it feel to be 15 again?" No doubt, each of us was filled with the intractable knowledge somewhere deep within that we are no longer 15 and will never again be, and are in fact now ourselves on death's list, however far into the future each of us may live.

Still, the laughter helps, and for us, for me, provided a much needed respite from our vigil with death, reminding us that good times can be there, sometimes even in the midst of heartbreak.

Brilliant Madness

Nov. 30, 2009

A psychotherapist once informed me that it took a certain talent to develop schizophrenia and that I didn't possess it, as I had a solid mind. Honestly, I was a little disappointed. But it got me thinking about how one might learn to actually blow one's own mind, expand it out of its accustomed boxes, bust out of what one perceives as real and imaginary. Learning to do this might be the door that opened to madness or brilliance.

I've always been fascinated by how the mind works, and how it fails us. The best book I ever read on mania was Kay Redfield Jamison's soul-searching, gripping memoir, An Unquiet Mind, which captivated me so much I literally did not put it down from the moment I got it home until I turned the the final page. It took all of one bitterly cold night under the covers under a small, dim lamp in my room with a slanted floor in Ithaca to devour it.

Jamison's story is particularly remarkable because she wrote it both from the standpoint of a professional -- she's a clinical psychologist -- and as a sufferer of mania, doing what no psychologist or psychiatrist before her had done, coming out of the closet as a sufferer of bipolar disease. Jamison, an expert on the subject, is currently a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, and her autobiography set a standard that I don't think has been matched since An Unquiet Mind was published in 1995.

Jamison's ability to detail with uncanny precision the workings of her manic mind and to pose questions and logic concerning her experiences with equal precision captivated me. There would be no question at the end of this reading about the profound effect of mental illness on the sufferer as well as others in her life. Like alcoholism, the disease affects everyone who comes in touch with it.

This fact is made stunningly clear in the opening pages of Hurry Down Sunshine, A Father's Story of Love and Madness by Michael Greenberg. A columnist for The Times Literary Supplement, Greenberg was forced to come to grips with his 15-year old daughter's psychotic break in the summer of 1996 -- Sally unraveled while walking down a street in Greenwich Village and continued unraveling in a psychiatric ward -- an event that deeply shook up Sally's mother and step-mother, among others, and transformed Greenberg's life and Sally's.

While it's Jamison's ability to see herself that mesmerizes the reader in her autobiography, it's the combination of Greenberg's desire to love his daughter back to normal and his ability to embrace both the ways he is united to and separated from Sally by her madness that gives this book its unique beauty and power. It's as if Greenberg believes his own ability to perceive Sally exactly as she is might be the magic wand that reels her in from madness.

Madness isn't beautiful. It causes pain and hardship. Jamison's account of ruining relationships with her outbursts, and Greenberg's description of Sally on a rampage in his apartment, set loose by her instability like an automated alien, are chilling and disturbing.

Jamison found a route out of madness through medication, therapy and self-knowledge, and Greenberg found a way to cope by charting his daughter's descent and return with raw accuracy and honesty. Both journeys took extraordinary courage and both stories acquire a kind of luminosity in the telling.

Like journalists in a no man's land, these writers pass along their insights as they toe the edge. It may be the very danger they encounter in the act of telling that endows their perceptions with such rare and heart-wrenching brilliance.

The Rare Gifts of Our Mothers

Nov. 6, 2009

Ruth Reichl's memoir, Not Becoming My Mother(2009) is above all an ode to defiance, that much maligned virtue, especially when it is attributed to women. Reichl, an award-winning journalist, food critic and author of several critically acclaimed memoirs, has written a beautiful and heart-wrenching elegy, taking the reader through the diary notes and letters left behind by her mother. These messages left in a box and uncovered at what would have been Miriam Brudno's 100th birthday, it turns out, hold the woman's true self and legacy.

Not Becoming My Mother opens on an upbeat note with Reichl recounting zany "Mim tales" out of her childhood, stories about her mother's culinary mishaps and failed attempts to be a typical mother. Miriam was a disastrous cook and totally uninterested in housekeeping, something that constantly frazzled her own mother who expected her to excel at these.

Like many women of the generation of the 1940s in which she grew up, Miriam was stymied by convention -- marriage and motherhood. An intellectual, she aspired to become a doctor, but relinquished her dream, giving in to her mother's expectations to marry, settle down and have children. She did taste independence in her early 20s, when she ventured into the business of opening a bookstore, an opportunity that allowed her to befriend important writers and intellectuals of her day. But, as a wife and mother, Miriam felt burdened, with no outlets for creativity, and became overwhelmed first with boredom, then depression.

Mary Gordon's Circling My Mother: A Memoir (2007), includes portraits of many family members besides Gordon's mother, and many of these are dark and unflattering. Her primary focus is her mother's religious life and her friendship with a few Catholic priests. In younger years, despite polio, Gordon's mother, Anna Gagliano, a deeply devout Catholic and also an alcoholic, managed to be the family breadwinner making a living as a legal secretary, but at 90, in a nursing home, her mind gone, she is the epitome of decrepit old age, with its stench and embarrassment. Gordon compares the scene in a nursing home to a Bonnard painting, but it is evident that she is repulsed by what her mother has become. Gordon, who teaches at Barnard College, has written nonfiction, but is perhaps best known for her first novel, Final Payments (1979), and her best-seller, Men and Angels (1985).

Reichl's account, which focuses almost exclusively on her mother, is rare as it is about a woman who finds herself in old age, that time of life so often associated with waste and decay and so often discounted by our culture. Miriam endured a bad first marriage that ended quickly with divorce; suffered through years in her relationship to a harsh, demanding yet charismatic and talented mother; bore two children whom she taught to be self-sufficient despite her own feelings of insecurity and failure; and finally, survived the loss of her faithful husband of many years. But it is only after finding herself alone, at the end of her life, that Miriam saw who she was and felt free enough to become herself, embracing her independence.

Miriam's gift to her children was defiance -- that surge of the instinct rebelling against obstacles it deems unnecessary -- and a profound belief in the importance of a strong work ethic. She encouraged her children by negative example -- "This is what I don't want you to become," she seemed to say over and over.

Miriam's story is sad and not so uncommon, but it is ultimately hopeful. It's final message -- that one can transform at any age -- is refreshing and important, particularly in our youth-driven culture.