What I Know About Love

I was honored to be asked to contribute to the wedding celebration of my dear friends Laura Fedele and Rita Houston. This is what I read:

For Laura and Rita

On The Occasion of Their Wedding (9/10/11)

We gathered on the granite steps of Greenwich Town Hall in the January cold, an insistent wind pummeling out of a crystal blue sky, snow squeaking underfoot. It was the kind of day when all the body wants, all the soul wants, is shelter. We gathered together in the full sight of the Universe, we gathered together with flowers and handmade signs and so much joy in our hearts. Sweet tears froze on our faces as we witnessed your bodies, your souls, legally bound in the shelter of marriage.

Now we gather again and again we are in the full sight of the Universe and again there are flowers and handmade signs and so much joy in our hearts. Again sweet tears flow freely as we witness your bodies, your souls, bound together again in this celebration of your love. 

Here is what I know about Love—it is everything. It is, in fact, the only thing, the shelter that our most essential selves require, the shelter built of cumulative moments of Yes. Love says, “Yes, I see you. Yes, I know you. Yes, I will show you who I am so you can see and know me. Yes, I choose you. Yes, I trust you with my heart. Yes. Yes. Yes.”

You are, each in your own specific, individual, magical ways, two of the strongest and most generous women I know and it is a wondrous, wonderful thing that you found one another. It is a wondrous, wonderful thing that you have chosen each moment of Yes from the first to this and beyond.

I rejoice, we all rejoice, that you two—who we all love so much—love one another so much.

You dwell together in the house where Love lives, the home you have built together, the home you fill with great music, great food, great wine, the home you share so generously with the rest of us, your family and friends, the community you have created. And the house where Love lives is the shelter of you, Laura, and you, Rita, and the new creature that is called “Houdele,” the magical co-creation made manifest through the specific alchemy of your shared love and your marriage.

Here is what I know about marriage—a true marriage is the shelter Love builds, a shelter made to hold two bodies, two souls, two minds, while also making space for the infinite distance that exists between even the two closest people. A true marriage requires strength, generosity, magic and a community that believes in and supports that marriage. A true marriage is made up of countless moments of Yes.

I know I speak for all of us when I say, “Yes, we see you. Yes, we know you. Yes, we believe in you. Yes, we support you. Yes, we love you. Yes. Yes. Yes.”

Simple Magic

I took care of my grandson for most of today. This was our first time spending an extended period of time together and though I was a little nervous about diapers (I haven't changed a diaper in nearly two decades and I've never dealt with a boy and all that entails) I think we did just fine with that. Bottles happened, burping happened, sleeping happened. I drove him in the car for the first time, a friend came by for lunch, the dogs and cats played their usual territorial games, and everyone survived.

At one point he was in his seat and began to stir in what seemed a meaningful way. I peered down at him, asked him how he was doing. He smiled at me—a purposeful smile, a smile of recognition, a smile that, for the first time, reached his eyes. And I fell even more deeply in love with him.

The Reason Some Things Are Funny

My friend Jane Brda just wished me a happy Rachel Ray birthday. This is funny because of this.

(Yes, that's a link to my book, "Every Freaking! Day with Rachell Ray: An Unauthorized Parody." )

Another thing that is funny (albeit in the "isn't that odd" and "well, one just has to laugh because otherwise one would cry" senses of the word) is that Rachael Ray, for all her mediocrity, is so very popular—-and powerful, perhaps--that some publications wouldn't review or even mention this parody of her for fear that they would lose advertising money or something. Therefore, Rachael Ray is a huge success and I am not. Funny, right?

Overwhelmed

My office is a mess. This is, partly, because I walk in here, sit down at the computer and begin to work on whichever project is on deck. This is, partly, because there are so many projects rotating to the top of the pile:

• Memoir revision (and coming up with a workable—according to my agent—subtitle)
• The novel I've decided to revise as a sort of break from the unrelenting me-ness of the memoir and as a way to explore specific issues of craft
  
• A ghostwriting project that I'm enjoying working on
  
• Syllabi and lesson plans and reading so I can come up with lesson plans that make some sort of sense to me and, more important, my students
• Freelance projects
  

Yes, it's too much. But what do I not do? Clearly the novel is the thing that could be set aside. I don't want to, though, for so many reasons—it's fun and it is, I think, teaching me much about writing that can be applied in other areas. Plus, the novel and the memoir make me feel like a writer.

I guess the thing to do is to clean the office. The whole thing makes me cranky.

No Ketchup

One waits, the waiting accompanied by a pulsing of anticipation/excitement/worry.

Seven months ago I waited for this to be done:

Once the snow melted, I began to wait for these:

Today I waited for my grandson to be born.

This was different than when my granddaughter was born. Sixteen years have passed and life has changed, of course. On that day I was an active participant in the birth and while the pulsing was certainly there, my attention was on my daughter, my focus was keenly on her and the incredible ordinary magic of the process.

Today I waited. I sat on the couch in my living room working while the dog and cats slept nearby, the historic heat pressed its estimable weight on the world and, a few short miles away, my daughter once again labored through the incredible ordinary magic of giving birth. The pulsing this time was nearly deafening, pulling my mind and heart away from the work at hand. When the pulsing overwhelmed, I called friends and talked until it was just a hum in the background.

In the evening family assembled—my daughter's sister and aunt, my husband, Florida Freddy. We ate pizza, we laughed, we talked. We waited together. Then a point came when I knew I had to go to the hospital—worry had overwhelmed all the other elements of waiting. I drove the few miles, walked in to the labor/delivery room, checked out what was going on and, after a little while, came home again.

Two hours later my phone buzzed. "Baby's here. Shannon says Wendy's, please."

We all piled into one car and headed for the drive through. I spoke into the intercom, gave the order. "A #1 with cheese and no onions."

"No ketchup?"

"No. No onions."

Shannon's aunt said, "Where did she get 'no ketchup?'" 

We all laughed, releasing the swirl of anticipation and excitement (no more worry). We laughed again when the two giant cups of soda were passed out of the drive through window. We laughed again when we saw the sign proclaiming that ketchup and salt were available by request. We even laughed when we got stuck behind a man on a motorcycle following the white line on the right side of the road at 10 mph in a 35 zone—though our laughter was once again tinged with worry.

In the vestibule we had to wait to be allowed in—a group of five giddy adults carrying tubs of soda and a paper sack redolent of grease and salt, surrounded by a pulsing halo of excitement and anticipation that was surely visible.

Down the hall, the nurses calling congratulations from their station and then the waiting was over and there was this:

Look at those eyes. Look at the old soul peering out from inside.


When I held him for the first time, I felt a pulsing made of wonder and gratitude and the incredible ordinary magic of love.

Elizabeth Who?

I may have killed my blog.

To be more precise, my life may have killed my blog. Perhaps it was that I have been doing other things (like writing) in the time I would have spent blogging.

(Yes, a lot of the time this is how I write.)


Or maybe it was summer that did it.

Whatever the cause, my blog has lain fallow, untouched by me since my birthday which was over a month ago.

I promise to be more diligent. After all, where else can I indulge myself in the way I do here?

Again, Around The Sun

Yesterday was my birthday.
It was a delightful day: my husband and I went to the NY Botanical Gardens to experience the special exhibit about the gardens of Alhambra, to look at the peonies (my favorite flower), to walk through the rose garden; then an early dinner (or was it a late lunch?) at the Tarry Lodge with good wine (very good wine—thank you, Joe Bastianich, for that wine list) and good food (very good food—thank you, Mario Batali, for that menu).

This was a departure from my usual mode of celebration, which involves inviting people over and me cooking (which I love) amid the hubbub of talk and laughter and the kids braving the not-yet-warm pool. One of the by-products of having a birthday that usually happens on the "unofficial start of summer" holiday weekend is the tradition of a cookout, after all. And I love that, usually.
But this year I needed some time to walk among the flowers and trees and shrubbery with my best friend, needed to reconnect in a new spot (we'd never visited together—which is unbelievable), needed to smell the perfume of a garden I do not tend. I needed, frankly, to be tended to myself. Because I made the space for that, it happened.
My daughter and both of my brothers called with birthday wishes before we set out for the day—as did my friend, Miguel, with whom I share this birthday. I was, frankly, stunned by the number of birthday wishes I got on Facebook; an embarrassment of riches, that.




The weather was glorious. The peonies are beginning the end of their glorious blossoming (a surprise, each time, that just a few degrees to the south makes that much difference—mine have just begun!) yet they were still showing off, as peonies do and which is why I love them so. The roses were, as they always are, an inspiration. And as we rode on the tram through the shade of the forest (a forest in the middle of the Bronx—it still blows my mind!) with a good breeze blowing, I thought, "Oh, yes, it's my birthday. Happy Birthday to me."

This is a Peace and Love rose.