Silver Linings

As the pandemic winds down – or so we think – leaving many dead, many long-sick, the rich richer and the poor poorer, and me with my social skills fractured; I have to admit to a silver lining. Doesn’t that sound callous? I think so. But some people might call it “looking on the bright side,” which is yet another example of my social confusion.

Anyhow, way back at the beginning, when I was in Philadelphia for my “urban infusion” month interrupted by Covid, my sister Elizabeth rescued me. She drove down from Massachusetts and retrieved me. As the reality of pandemic hit us, Elizabeth was especially nervous because she lives alone. I promised her that I would not let her feel unsupported; I would check in on her every week.

And I have.

And I even went the extra step: I included my brother, Larry.

My brother once said powerful glue held all of us together. And then, ten years ago, I stopped speaking to him. Oh, he was still cc’d on sibling emails, but no visits, no phone calls, no private emails, no contact. The glue was dissolved. The siblings were in disarray.

So disruptive was this wound that we kept it from my mother. My mother died feeling that her legacy – four kids who would stick together no matter what – was intact. It wasn’t. I spoke to my brother for the first time at her funeral. In between, I’d manage the “I can’t get away” excuse when the family gathered.

So what did he do? Never mind. To me, it was very, very big.

But I’d made a promise to Elizabeth and now it was Covid time, and there was Zoom. So the siblings – all four of us – started Zooming every Sunday: noon Alaska time, 1:00 California time, 4:00 Massachusetts time, and 10 p.m. Berlin time.

 

Every Sunday. Except when that was impossible, so then it was Monday. One friend called it “sacrosanct.” Yup. Every Sunday.

For two or more hours.

I suffer Zoom fatigue. No, I suffer Zoom hate. I can’t stand looking at faces in little boxes, sitting erect in front of my computer, having people talk over each other, etc etc. I have a Zoom limit of an hour (if I’m generous).

But I can Zoom with my siblings for HOURS. This is what we do: we laugh, we tease, we agree or disagree, we try not to give advice, we get tired, we prattle on meaninglessly, we comfort, we talk movies and books, we listen.

At one point, Larry held up a stapler. Immediately, Elizabeth held one up, too. “I got it from Mom; she got it from her office.” Someone else got theirs the same way. I held up mine: “I got it when I was little and it turns out it had a lifetime guarantee, so I got a new one about twenty years ago.” “Who gives a lifetime guarantee on staplers?” And off we went, proving to Larry that we could talk about anything.

Anytime Allison’s eyes start looking down, we know she’s researching something. She’s relentless. So sometimes, when we see that, we all “stop video.” She looks up to see us all gone. “Where is everybody?”

Once one of us pulled out the masks we got on a family vacation in New England. Back then, we had spent an uproarious time in the general store trying on masks, hooting and freaking out. Amazingly, now, each of us then disappeared off-screen and returned with our own masks – even in the same general store bags. We spent an hour, carrying on in masks, disguises, costumes.

After several months, I told my brother I forgave him.

I started with the sibling Zooms as a gift to Allison and Elizabeth, knowing that they needed all of us together, but I was wrong. These sibling Zooms are a gift to me.

Yes, I know all those sayings like, “Anger does more damage to the vessel in which it is stored than the object on which it is poured,” but I’d felt wronged.

How wrong I was. I might have called this post Pearl of Wisdom #3 except that I’m too slow a learner. I don’t feel very wise. I feel foolish and stubborn. I needed a 2x4 to the head; I needed a pandemic!

Life is short. Love is long. I love my siblings, all of them. Thank you, Covid. Thank you, Zoom.

Pearl of Wisdom #2

I didn’t even realize this was a Pearl of Wisdom until today. My sister Elizabeth and I were trading memories (or non-memories, which seems to be the case more and more – is there a word for forgottenings?). She’d come across a mention of the play, Bye Bye Birdie, and remembered that I starred in it in sixth grade.

For those of you who may have missed it, Bye Bye Birdie is a take on Elvis Presley going into the Army. Some lucky girl is picked at random to get Conrad/Elvis’s last kiss before he’s inducted. The lucky girl is named Kim, and Ann-Margret became a super star with this role.

In 1963, I was a dork. I had pointy speckled eyeglasses, a flat chest, and scabbed-up knees. I was a member of the Math Club. At my own birthday parties, I hung out in the corners.

I was not Ann-Margret material.

But I had a very active imagination and fantasy life, and the part of Kim became my quest. My totally unrealistic and ripe-for-disappointment quest.

The director of the play was my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Faella, who was truly dedicated and did nothing halfway. She was going to pull off a spectacular production. For the scene where all the teens are talking on the phone in big squares, she’d have us on platforms with ladders and tables. We were going Broadway!

Yes, there was the problem of who was going to be Hugo (Kim’s boyfriend) and who was going to be Conrad Birdie (the kiss). The available pool were the sixth grade boys after all. I’d have to cross that bridge when I came to it.

Besides, I was still a dork.

The day of the audition, all the popular girls lined up. We were reading the part where Kim gets the phone call that she’s been selected as the lucky girl who will get the Last Kiss. Kim has just finished telling her mother that she is no longer going to be treated like a child, that now she will call her mother “Doris,” when the phone rings. She listens and is blown away. She shouts.

One after another, the girls read, “Doris! Mother! Mommy!” Next girl: “Doris! Mother! Mommy!” Next girl: “Doris! Mother! Mommy!” No crescendo, no variation, no increasing volume.

Back in the line, I had a crushing realization: if I read it just like the other girls, I’d just be one in a long line of girls. Plus, I’d still be the dork who thought she could try out for a starring role. I had to do something – ANYTHING – that would distinguish me.

You cannot imagine the crushing realization this sent through me: I had to do something DIFFERENT. I had to separate from the peer group and do something DIFFERENT. Even now – sixty years later! – I can feel the sweat and near-hysteria that gripped me on that line. It was either step out of my comfort zone and risk total and complete sixth grade humiliation or … remain a dork and abandon a fantasy.

My turn came. I read “Doris!” with a whimper, “Mother!” with desperation, and positively WAILED “Mooooommmmmyyyy!”

You could have heard a pin drop. Classmates stared at me. I had broken every rule of sixth grade peer-enforced decorum. But Mrs. Faella said, “Well, there’s no doubt about that. You have the part.”

Bye Bye Birdie was the biggest thing in my life for a long time. I did not become a popular girl; I remained a dork with scabby knees. But the dork was an actress. I had starred on the stage.

So now I’m sitting in my Third Third, musing on sixth grade Barbara. I didn’t know at the time I was learning a lesson, that I had broken through a wall, made something happen by the sheer force of will to appear stupid. I think I’ve revisited this lesson over and over again throughout my life – not just auditions, not just trying for a part – but encountering all sorts of barriers and obstacles and trials.

I’m not sure what the fear is exactly: the fear of losing out or the fear of actually being proven stupid. It seems an impossible effort to break through and risk utter stupidity. It takes practice.

If that 10-year-old Barbara could do it, so could this Third Third one. So can we all.

Pearl of Wisdom #1

We don’t reach our Third Third without accumulating some wisdom. One of my little bits of wisdom isn’t earth-shaking. It’s not high on the list of Great Values or Good Deeds or even How to Be a Better Person, but it does pop up again and again. So I’ll call it a Pearl of Wisdom. I’m sure you have them, too. Tell me about yours.

This one started at a summer job at Tramco Automatic Transmissions. Oh, there were so many things I learned there – sexism, unfair working conditions, boredom – but this is not about that. Our job at Tramco was to assemble transmission repair kits according to specifications printed out on a sheet. The women sat in one room and assembled the kits and got paid less. The men roamed the warehouse, filling the bins with the right parts, and got paid more. One other woman and I were rovers; we were given shopping carts to go out into the warehouse, find the right part in the bins, gather all the parts for an order, and bring it back to the women with the kits.

Sometimes, as I wandered the warehouse, I would come upon an empty bin for a part I needed to complete my order. I’d stare at it, wondering what to do, and one of the men would say, “Oh, check with Maria. She has a private stash of J2Z89 gaskets.”

So I’d go over to Maria, who had some sort of domain in a corner of the warehouse, and I’d ask for a J2Z89 gasket. Marie had five, but she was unwilling to part with one. I’d cajole her, somewhat confused: “How am I going to fill the order without one?” Eventually, after telling me about her grandchildren and how they were doing, she’d relent, and I’d walk off satisfied.

Until I needed a 2KL47 ring, and that bin was empty, too. “Check with George. He has a private stash.” George, too, had his little corner, filled with his own little boxes and tubes and containers.

“Hi, George, can I have a 2KL47 ring?”

“But what if I need it?”

“Do you need it?”

“I might.”

So I’d chat him up a little, beg a little, finally get my 2KL47 ring. But I had to do all this wheedling and convincing and persuading just to do my job. And this happened over and over again. The solution just seemed so obvious, so I made an announcement:

“Everyone, if we all gave up our little private stashes and put everything into the bins, we could do an inventory and see what we really have and what’s really missing.”

You would have thought I’d planted a bomb. “That’s not how we do it.” “Crazy college girl thinks she knows how to run the place.” “What a stupid idea.” “If we gave up our stashes, they wouldn’t need us.” (We wouldn’t be indispensable.)

Aha! That’s my pearl of wisdom, but it didn’t register until I worked for an organization much later on. Now I wasn’t dealing with gaskets and rings; I was dealing with information and skills. For example:

“How many employees have been reassigned in the last year?”

“Which employee are you interested in?”

“No, not one, any of them. I’m looking for a pattern.”

“Give me a name, and I’ll tell you.”

“No, I need the whole list.”

“I’m the one who keeps the list.”

That’s The Guy Who Keeps the List. Or maybe it’s The Woman Who Operates the Machine. Or The Person Who Knows the Number. Do you know them too?

It’s about private stashes of information or skills or knowledge … and the resistance to sharing. Yes, there are some reasons for dividing labor, but when the Common Purpose requires sharing, private stashes get in the way. When someone holds on to being indispensable, organizations flounder. Any organization. Any group.

I was 18 when I worked at Tramco Automatic Transmissions, and the guys in the warehouse seemed to smell me out as I wheeled my shopping cart around. Somebody decided that was inappropriate, but I was the one fired. The guys felt bad and got together to find me another job … as a topless dancer. Which so freaked me out that I ran from them on my last day of work.

There were a lot of lessons learned on that job, but the little bit of wisdom that lingered had everything to do with sharing … or refusing to.