Sharing a Bed with Alberto Moravia

Alberto Moravia shares my pillow tonight, in the form of a paperback edition of Boredom, published by the New York Review of Books in 1999.

Having finished Contempt mid-Saturday, I took a one-day hiatus to recover from the perfect devastation I felt at the book's conclusion only to plunge into Boredom...a novel whose dense and suffocating atmosphere rises up from the very first paragraph.

On the floor next to my king-size bed is more Moravia -- The Conformist and The Woman of Rome. The groaning shelves in our dining room bear others of his work, but it is so late that I cannot recall their titles and I am too tired to leave my cozy bed to check.

Over the past few months I burned through Clarice Lispector and before her Junichiro Tanizaki and before him Richard Yates. The most heartbreaking encounter I had was with Oscar Wilde, two winters ago, begun with The Picture of Dorian Gray on a trip to Dublin, concluded on a bitter cold afternoon in New York with the reading of De Profundis. The most ill-fated affair I had was with Elfriede Jelinek, whom I had to ditch in the midst of Lust, begun in good faith after The Piano Teacher shattered me. The most epic authorfest I've ever had was with the novels of Nabokov, read in their entirety over one glorious summer, on the Shortline Bus traveling from my country bungalow to my then-job in Manhattan. The most fun? The works of Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, begun with an avid and conspiratorial reading of A Series of Unfortunate Events with Little Babe and concluded on my own, with his uneven adult works.

This is my preferred way of reading -- an intense and exclusive audience with a writer's entire body of work, best accomplished when the writer has ceased writing, that is to say, when he is dead, though I will make exceptions for exceptional living authors, reading them in real time.

The hour has crept past midnight and it is time to close this instrument of a century that Moravia did not live to see. After all, he is my date tonight and for probably many nights to come. I lay back on my pillow and wait for him to overtake me.

Reservoir Walk

About a million hours ago it was Sunday morning and HOBB and I fled the urban bungalow at an hour we normally dedicate to coffee, tea and a sleepy perusal of the New York Times.

The sunshine was abundant and the forecast was for a day of unseasonable warmth. Pulling on shorts, t-shirts, sweatshirts and sneakers, plunking his 'n her baseball caps on our heads, we left our home in record time, leaving a sleeping teen and perplexed Pomeranians, who could not recall the last time they saw their masters so alert at this hour on a Sunday morning.

The Central Park Reservoir Walk has been a cherished feature of our marriage, an approximately 75-minute opportunity for information sharing, gossip, negotiation, political debate, dream analysis, complaining, calendar coordination, strategic planning, child and household maintenance, problem solving, arguing, advice-gathering, current event discussion and philosophical musings about matters important and trivial alike.

It is around a five-mile journey from the urban bungalow to the reservoir, once around and back home. We are creatures of habit, walking pretty much the exact same way each and every time -- heading east on W116th street, turning right on Morningside Drive, heading down until W110th Street, turning left until we hit Manhattan Avenue, walking along the avenue until 108th Street, crossing the street until Central Park West and entering at the transverse -- closed for cars on Sunday -- joining up with the reservoir at the tennis courts, stopping first at the bathrooms.

For variety's sake, we might walk through Morningside Park or take the stone bridge directly onto the reservoir. What is important to state is that HOBB and I walk. And not in a particularly speedy fashion, either. There is no heavy breathing, no rhythmic running for us. While others whizz past us on blades, bikes or the power of their own feet, we amble happily, neither fast nor slow -- just right. As the season changes, so does the scenery, but a reservoir walk is a reservoir walk is a reservoir walk.

It is now a million hours later. The day was busy -- I barely got to read the New York Times, nor did I lose myself in the Sunday morning spate of television shows featuring pundits and talking heads. Aside from the briefest perusal of internet news (CNN.com; nytimes.com; Jpost.com and the Huffington Post), I have no idea what's going on in the world...aside from the tragedy at Fort Hood and the anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The day took me to other places, both on foot and by car, actual and conceptual. Some of the destinations were shared by HOBB and Little Babe, our only child at home right now. Others were mine alone. There were adventures of the spirit and of the body. There was good food and delicious drinks. There was the opportunity for creative expression.

I think about the essence of Sunday -- a handbasket to be filled sparsely or generously with experiences, a day dramatically different from Saturday, if you are a Sabbath observer. I ponder the lifesaving quality of the weekend for all people, but especially those who are deprived of unstructured time, oppressed by the commitments of work during the week. I regret the melancholy I have experienced on so many Sunday evenings, the threat of Monday encroaching, muttering in my ear, breathing down my collar. The marked absence of that dreaded feeling -- Monday as a bully -- is a gift, recently acquired. A great tikkun is underway.

My focus is fading. It is time, finally, for dreams. I think about this particular, inimitable Sunday and recall that it began with a reservoir walk with my husband of 26 years, early in the uncomplicated morning.

Candy-Gram

Between proofreading Middle Babe's essay for her college class in Biomedical Ethics (which defends the sale of human organs) and catching up on correspondence with the press for a conference on female clergy last night, I managed to snack my way through half a candy necklace, left over from Halloween.

The necklace was classic, featuring pastel-colored powdery disks strung on a elastic string, exactly as I remembered from my own childhood. To get each candy bead off, it was necessary to bite down, breaking it in half. Though my internal health nut looked on in horror (tooth decay!!! simple carbohydrates! empty calories!!!) primal instinct kicked in.

A joyous munching of flavored sugar ensued...until the powdered confection melted and it was time to snap off a new bead.

Those who know me would surely be shocked to hear that I was eating candy close to midnight and frankly, I'm not sure how the candy necklace came to be between my teeth. Perhaps slicing the new Macoun apples on my kitchen counter seemed too taxing and wasn't the necklace -- discovered draped suggestively on a desk in Middle Babe's room -- begging to be bitten?

As I ponder this puzzle by the light of day, I think about yesterday -- a manic Monday framed by two separate phone conversations with loved ones on a similar theme: their sadness, even despondency in the face of disappointment from friends. And while my morning caller vented her feelings of rage and betrayal in the face of unrequited loyalty from a long-term friendship, my evening caller sounded emotionally depleted by his realization that a more recent friend lacked the most basic sense of personal responsibility towards him.

Dealing with heartache is draining; indeed, I've done my share of venting to the point where I was sick of hearing my own voice. As someone who loves and lives by language, I am nevertheless struck by the human need to use words to quantify, examine, contain and ultimately transcend our pain. Clinging to words, working in words, trading in words, dreaming in words, I am still continually surprised that tears alone do not suffice when they are such a spontaneous expression of our grief. Proponents of psychotherapy talk about the talking cure where words become the rungs of a ladder we construct for our emotional and spiritual redemption or the beads of a candy necklace that we string for our comfort, to be eaten in case of emergency.

We use words to rationalize our actions, to construct our arguments. The problem with sanctioning the sale of human organs rests in the notion of the slippery slope, admitted Middle Babe in her Biomedical Ethics paper. While the case can be made for the sale of kidneys from living donors, imagine the possibility that a poor family might consider selling a vital organ -- the heart, for instance -- of one of their members in a desperate and sacrificial bid to keep the entire group from starving.

Such an act of obscene indifference to human life arouses horror in all people of conscience and the ghoulishness of this scenario is obviously extreme. But in truth, human hearts are sold all the time, ripped out of their living hosts, traded for something that masquerades as salvation.

By the light of day, I note a half-eaten candy necklace next to my computer. Nothing has changed and everything has changed. The world remains full of heartache yet it is also true that creation has renewed itself through the dawning of a new day. The blank slate of the new day poses a tantalizing opportunity.

I drop the limp candy necklace in the trash.

Leonard Cohen for Shabbat with a Side of Broken-Heartedness

"You are hungry for experience," observed a friend last year, seated opposite me at a cafe just north of Columbia University.

"Sometimes you skate close to the edge of danger," he offered as a bonus, leaning in to catch my expression. "You have to be careful."

As I sat next to Big Babe this past Friday night at Leonard Cohen's spectacular one-night-concert at Madison Square Garden, crammed into my seat, shivering with fever, weeping at the beauty of the music, shattered by new sorrow, hypnotized by the aesthetics of the performance, saddened by Leonard Cohen's advanced age even as I was enchanted by his ageless elegance, bonded to my first-born in love of him, this moment and this music, I thought of my friend's observation and uttered a shehechiyanu -- the blessing Jews are commanded to say upon attaining a remarkable experience.

Because it was Shabbat, there were several other prayers I might also have uttered, in fact, I teasingly dared Big Babe to yell out "Good Shabbos," between songs. Though we did not recite the kiddush over wine that night, Shabbat was not forgotten; indeed, she was all around us. Squeezed into the inadequate seat beside me was the Shabbat Queen -- dressed as a gypsy, wandering, forsaken, almost human, also shivering, also broken-hearted. The Shabbos aspect of this concert was key. A strictly Orthodox person would likely have given up the experience of being at the concert, but it seemed to me a worthy challenge to both attend this great cultural event AND keep Shabbat.

Thus, all the measures we had undertaken en route to the concert were in service to this ideal -- the pre-Shabbat cab to the Time Warner Center before sundown; the Whole Foods salads hastily purchased within the magic eighteen minutes; the brisk jaunt down Broadway to the Garden; the stoic resolve to walk home after the concert, traversing the four miles by foot despite my hacking cough, high temperature and the hairline fracture in my right foot.

Those were the reasons and that was New York and this concert is now in my recent history, having taken place one week ago tomorrow. My firstborn sat beside me, he who made me a mother. The music drew my sadness from me, as a healer draws venom from the bee-sting. The tears flowed easily. It was, for me, the day after the discovery of a painful truth; the third generation of a particular sorrow. The discovery introduced me to true loneliness, which exists in a physical sense, weighing about the same as a human heart.

Last Shabbat, in Madison Square Garden, Leonard Cohen befriended and comforted me, he lay down beside me, he was my man, my rabbi, my brother of mercy, my yedid nefesh, friend of my soul; his music my personal kiddush, my Shalom Aleichem, my promise of redemption.

Howl of the Wild

The Bungalow Bunch participated in a rare family-wide cultural excursion last night -- an opening weekend viewing of the film version of Where the Wild Things Are, easily the most beloved book of the Bungalow Babies' respective and collective childhoods, a book I read so often I can recite it by heart, even now, at least a dozen years after I last held it in my hands.

With Big Babe living in Berlin, Middle Babe living at college in Maryland, Little Babe and me spending two-plus months every summer at the bungalow in Monroe and the general peripatetic pace of our lives - not to mention an 11-year spread between Big and Little Babe - we tend to take our culture in clusters, bunches and a variety of configurations and geographical settings.

Because I was in New Orleans last week, HOBB put himself in charge of the family's social life over the weekend, suggesting Where the Wild Things Are for Saturday night, a plan I enthusiastically endorsed. With Big Babe visiting for a month due to an NEA fellowship, Middle Babe popping in for a long weekend and Little Babe forming our only source of resistance ("I hope it's not a baby movie!" ), we wanted to create an indelible family memory, revisit a moment in our history, bond over the cinematic interpretation of a favorite book.

We had the magical experience of meeting, en masse, at the movie theatre -- Big Babe fresh from dinner at Alouette with the NEA fellows, me walking uptown after my workout and art lecture at the JCC, and HOBB, Middle and Little Babe coming, via taxi, from our apartment.

We had the further surprise and pleasure of meeting friends inside the theatre, playing quickie catch-up with them, showing off our kids.

And then we settled into our seats for the film to begin...which is where the family togetherness ended.

Two of us loved the film, two of us hated the film and one stated that he was "confused" by the filmmaker's intentions.

Two of us were enchanted, two of us were bored silly and one sought to articulate his problems with the film in a measured, nearly academic manner.

Such was my hatred for the film that I found myself chomping at the bit, then blurting out my assessment before the credits even stopped rolling.

"Omigod, I HATED this movie! I could not wait for it to end!! What did you guys think!!!!???"

To which Middle Babe snapped, "Stop being so negative!" and Little Babe high-fived me. "I know!" he groaned. "It sucked!"

HOBB looked surprised by his youngest son's reaction. "Really?" he asked, stung. "I loved it!"

"Me too," said Middle Babe, narrowing her gaze at the alliances being formed. All eyes instantly fell upon Big Babe, the family culture critic.

"So," I asked, holding my breath. "What did you think?"

Big Babe looked pained. He cradled his chin in his hand. He tilted his head slightly to the side. "I was confused by what the filmmaker was trying to do," he finally said.

"Did you hate it?" Little Babe asked avidly.

"Nooo," Big Babe said, thoughtfully. "I'm just disappointed. It didn't work for me."

"I loved it," repeated Middle Babe, tossing her hair. "I think it's not nice to diss the movie when dad planned this and bought us all tickets."

"We're not criticizing dad," I protested. "We're just debating the film's merits."

"But you were crying!" she stated, accusingly."I saw you! You cried when Max had to leave."

Middle Babe was right. When Max leaves the island, causing Carol the Wild Thing to let out a wrenching howl, I sobbed at the sound and the sight of the awkward creature expressing his grief. That howl pierced me and held me captive to its honest sorrow.

That howl reverberated all day long; it still echoes within the chambers of my heart. It has the texture of unadorned loss. It is a primal wound. It might be a small or negligible or even forgettable moment in the film but for me, it is what remains.

Now it is late, so late that my eyes are closing as I finish this post. In her room, Middle Babe is Skyping a friend and I have heard every word of her animated conversation. Next to me, Big Babe is grumpily writing a classical music review -- an assignment for his fellowship.

Little Babe is asleep now for nearly two hours and I suppose that HOBB is reading or went to sleep without saying goodnight.

Now Middle Babe is singing. Big Babe is still typing. With my fatigue comes a grace of sorts, or at least a reprieve. My sadness feels less central to my definition of self. This new thought forms the boat that delivers me to the shores of a new workweek with this dislocating day finally coming to a close.

I hold tight the magic of my family gathering on a Saturday night in October to watch a new, much-heralded movie -- two young adults, one teen, one parent newly turned 60, the other caught in the amber of forever waiting for her real life to begin -- lured by the romance of revisiting cherished memories from points in time both distant and forever at hand, by the irresistable offer of putting on a wolf suit, making mischief of one kind or another and joining Max as he sets sail for the place where the wild things are, knowing that the only way to survive a wild rumpus is to have a home where someone loves you best of all.