Direction Unclear

I lack direction.

Well, in addition to that, I mean I lack a sense of direction. I have been known to make four right turns and be utterly mystified that I came back to where I was. So negotiating a new place takes practice.

In New York, this is how I leave a subway or a building: I walk outside and strain to see the next street sign over. If I’m at 15th Street, and I can see 16th, I know that way is uptown. I am oriented! If I’m looking for an avenue, that’s harder because they’re longer and you can’t see the next one. So you look for the next street, aim yourself uptown, and then you know the avenues on your right and left. Unless you’re at Broadway, which runs diagonally. Or the avenues which suddenly give up numbers and become Madison, Park, and Lexington. Or Lexington, Madison, then Park? I scramble them every single time.

Invariably, I end up walking the wrong way and asking a stranger which way is Fifth.

Ah, but on the subway, I know my connections! I see a map in my head. That’s ON the subway. IN the subway station is a whole other story. Getting out of a station or transferring to another subway line within a station is a true challenge. Yes, after a while, you get the routine movements down, but a new station is always a new puzzle.

I couldn’t get from the F train to the 6 train until I found a man at an elevator with a little sign on it that said “To 6 platform.” When I got to the platform, other people were arriving, but I have no idea how they got there. I’ve looked and looked, but as far as I know, the elevator is the only way. But that can’t be true.

Some station arrows make it easy. Go up the stairs to the left or right.

But there are arrows that make it confusing. Does this mean you should turn around for the elevator? Or straight ahead and turn right? (Or jump up and down?)

Arrows combined with environmental cues (like stairs) are easier.

I think this one means “go around the big elevator box in the middle of the platform.” But that may explain why I could never find the 6 without the elevator.

Arrows without environmental cues are confusing. This next is the Big One, the source of much subway misdirection: Does this arrow mean up or straight ahead?

I have come across tourists looking for the stairs up where there are none. I have missed going up because I was aiming for straight ahead. The problem is the “up” and “straight ahead” arrows are identical. I propose a solution:

The longer ones mean “Go far ahead, into the distance.” They could even be grayed out as they stretch further ahead. What do you think? Will this work?

Bra Ladies

When I was a teenager, my mother used to take me to Dora Myers Corsetry to buy bras, and I HATED IT. Old ladies with glasses strung on beaded chains would poke and prod at me, and – did I mention I HATED IT? Why couldn’t we just go to Macy’s like all the other girls?

But now I’m in my Third Third … and I travel 4,000 miles to buy my bras at Mary Corsetieres on Long Island. I line up with all the other women who are outside on a cold New York day waiting for Mary to open up at 11 a.m. Yes, I’ve come the furthest, but there are women there from Manhattan, from Massachusetts, from Connecticut. We enter and sign in, and we are prepared to wait several hours. Unless you’re not and you’re new, and then you are horrified by the “terrible customer service,” but we Mary regulars know better.

Because once you’ve been fitted at Mary’s, you can’t go anywhere else.

The fitters at Mary’s – my sisters and I call them the “Bra Ladies” – can just look at you and say things like, “Now you’re a 36 F … in your left breast. So we’ll have to go up for that but adjust it for the right breast.” And this is what distinguishes them, this is why we return like salmon to our spawning grounds: they alter the bras right there, on their sewing machines!

They add a dart here, a line of stitching there. If those straps are uncomfortable, put in different ones. If you’re between sizes, let them take it in and make it a size just for you. The bottom line: you leave with a bra – or three or four because when will you be back? – that fits you and only you perfectly.

Now that I’m in my Third Third, I know the value of that.

I’m sending my Aunt Evelyn there because she needs to have front closure bras. I asked the fitter about that, and she said they can make ANY bra into a front closure for her. Women came with the dresses for their daughters’ weddings so they could get the bra first and have the dress fitted after, only with the right bra.

Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of my Bra Lady because I was too scrambled remembering the names of my bras, Anita and Freya and Dominique. But as she ran up and downstairs searching out bras for me to try, I eavesdropped on the conversations in the other fitting rooms.

Have we made it all the way into our Third Thirds to be so utterly embarrassed by, ashamed of, and angry at our bodies? Every woman didn’t like her flab or her fat, her breasts or her butt. They didn’t like the sag or the slump, the blob or the bumps, the skin or the hair. Hearing that cacophony of disgust and self-loathing was enough to shut my mouth tight (although I’ve been known to say the same things).

One of my other New York adventures was an exhibit at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology on “The Body: Fashion and Physique.” The exhibit focused on the lack of diversity in and the deception of fashion advertising. A video showed a live shoot with a live model … and then the photo manipulation afterwards – lengthening her thighs, narrowing her waist, lifting her breasts – that would be impossible for a real human’s anatomy to match.

Mary should show that video to all her customers. Through it all, the Bra Ladies were consoling but tough New York psychologists: “You’re 60; you want to not be 60?” “They’re called thighs. They hold you up.” “This is the size you are; you want to be happy in a bra or miserable in one?” And then they would provide a bra that held and supported and made someone look and feel great. And women left restored.

Who wouldn’t travel 4,000 miles for that? I even went home with a swimsuit.

But just in case, Mary’s has my whole bra history – with size, style, and altering notes – on file. If I’m desperate, I can order by mail.

Go Signs

A few days ago, my sister and I were on Long Island at longtime family friend (my mother’s best friend) Gloria’s for dinner. Her daughter, Linda, described how she took a particular course of action because she’d had three signs. You know, SIGNS. Like the universe telling you this is what you should be doing.

So let me tell you about my Signs.

#1
Several years ago, I became enthralled with the notion of transparent art. Something on transparent pages that would say different things depending on what you could or couldn’t see. I couldn’t figure it out. It’s very complicated because, of course, you can see through the pages.

#2
I read Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore. A young man commits suicide in the bookstore and leaves his suicide note in clues in a series of books. He cuts out the words in one book, leaving windows. When placed up against the pages of a companion book, the windows expose the words which become his suicide note.

#3
My Bricolage group challenge for last month was “Postcard.” Do anything with postcards: make one, collage one, send one, whatever. That’s how our art challenges work. I look at the postcards I’d sent my mother over the years – which I now have after her death – and they seem to me messages from not only place, but time.

#4
The next email I receive is from the New York Public Library about their 2018 series, NYPL LIVE. Billy Collins, the poet, is a speaker when I’ll be in Manhattan. I buy a ticket.

#5
Suddenly, Billy Collins’ poem, “Forgetfulness,” rises to my consciousness yet again. I’ve mentioned it a few times here because it’s so age-appropriate for us, but now you need to see these first verses:

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

And they seem to me to be messages from another time, from other places – postcards to ourselves in the present.

#6
So I take the poem and cut it up. I buy some clear, plastic envelopes and cut them into postcard sizes. I glue the words down to send these messages from the past, from someone who’s gone and retired far away. This is the first postcard I’d send:

And then this:

And then this:

And after eight postcards – all with messages like this – you would have this:

#7
Isn’t that exciting! All the Signs led me to this art project and it worked, so of course I have to show it to Billy Collins. I get to the library very early; I am the first in line. I get a good seat.

Billy Collins is a relaxed, humorous, self-deprecating sort of conversationalist. I thoroughly enjoy myself. Afterwards, I am right in front on his signing line, and I show him my creation. He looks at me, thanks me, is glad to inspire, and then he looks at the 75 people waiting in line and has to usher me away.

I leave happily. The universe told me this was the project for me – all the Signs said so – and they were right. In a world where things go wrong, sometimes they just line up and go right.