you know, it's like a marathon of stuff to be grateful for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UNnA-mLuSchttp://
I have been crazy in love with our president since the day he started running his campaign eight years ago. And what’s better than a super cool, smart guy? A super cool, smart, FUNNY guy. I laugh at this picture every time I see it. Check out an excerpt from the Correspondence Dinner. Love you, Barack. With bangs, or without ’em!
(I WROTE THIS YESTERDAY.)
So, today I had about 17, 432 things to do. All of them urgent. But instead of doing any of them, which my head kept telling me to do, I did something my heart has been nagging at me to do. I wrote Boston a little note and I brought it down to the makeshift memorial at Copley Square, a few blocks from the marathon bombings.
I have been feeling a need to go there, to familiar Boylston street, the place where Boston’s history changed a few weeks ago. Much of my history is there, as well. I used to live 30 seconds away, on Newbury Street. In fact, when I lived there, I watched lots of Boston Marathons standing at the finish line. It’s also a street where I’d once waitressed, the location of my first job after college at a small design firm, and my first copywriting job at the advertising agency I would meet my husband because of. I had banked, and eaten and shopped and walked Boylston Street a million times. It runs through the heart of the city, like a fancy ribbon. And today, burdened by a laundry list of stuff to do, not to mention laundry, and waking up to the kind of New England weather that we New Englanders live for, I decided to ditch my “shoulds” and put my sneakers on and go and pay it a visit.
Walking through Boston is fun. When I lived downtown, I never had a car. In fact, I didn’t even own a car until I was 30, because I walked absolutely everywhere. Brookline, where I live, is right next to Boston, and on foot, it takes just about an hour to hit Boylston Street. This is the sort of thing I used to do a lot when I was younger and had more time on my hands (and feet). I went through the medical area and saw one of my neighbors, a doctor, like 100 feet large, advertising one of the hospitals. His happy face above the words “human first.” I strolled by Children’s, boasting that it had been named the number one children’s hospital in the country, and I thought about how lucky we are to live five minutes from this mecca of medicine. Holding my poster, I passed the doctor’s building who helped me to have Jake and Ally, my husband’s old lab, and then the Gardener Museum. I cut through the Fenway, and turned up on the far end of Boylston, after witnessing a flock of geese fighting in the muddy river (They were pissed. I don’t know if someone’s husband cheated, but it sounded like that might be it). Boylston was teeming with people. I walked by my old cross street, and thought about how much had changed since this had been my neighborhood for seven years after college.
I reached the block of the first bombing, but didn’t see much evidence, except that of The Forum Restaurant, which was still closed, but had a sign outside reading “Forum Strong, Coming Back Soon”. Next door, at Max Brenner’s restaurant, which was open, there were three Boston Red Sox logos with the word “strong” underneath. Other than that, the block seemed its usual bustling, busy self. I was surprised by its normalcy. And then I crossed over Exeter to the block where the finish line bombing occurred, and I tried to imagine it. There were some workmen fixing some windows that had been blown out. And several different signs in the windows of stores. But mostly, everything was open, including Marathon Sports. The library looked undaunted, a large and monolithic majesty, filled with so much knowledge, you could feel it. The footage and photos I’d seen hundreds of times had taken place live where I was standing. But today it was filled with school kids visiting the scene, and other Bostonians going about their business. I did hear several snippets of conversation that were clearly about the life changing event that took place on that cement, and at least 5 people with t-shirts on that said “Boston Strong.”
I crossed Boylston to Copley and was surprised not only by the humber of people, but by the number of posters, flowers, momentos and sneakers I saw. I hadn’t imagined the memorial area would be so large and it shocked me. I walked around, dodging tv cameras and people posing for photos. I picked a sweet little tree and put my poster there. Here’s what it said:
♥Dear Boston,
We’ve been through a lot together over the past 30 years– you and I. And I realized just how much I loved you a few weeks ago, when some people tried to turn you into a tragedy, a place to be feared. You stood up proudly, and said, “FUHGETIT. WE’LL PAAAHK AH CAAAAAHS ON YEH HEAD, YOU TRY ANYTHING LIKE THAT AGAIN.”
Love to all the people of this city. Loving and healing thoughts to all who were injured and affected.
XOXO,
Toni Lansbury
Wickedly Proud♥Bostonian
I stood for a moment, looking around at the hundreds of people taking in the kindness and support that had turned a corner of Copley Square into a reminder of Boston’s latest history. I looked around and remembered when I used to lay on the grass that was once Copley Square, and eat my lunch or take in the rays, during a work day. I’d grown up here, been here hundreds of times, but this time was distinctly different. And with the shining sun, and the crowds around me, I took a deep breath, and walked over to the T (although full disclosure, not before going to The Tannery). I put my Charlie card in the slot, and climbed onto the train. Brookline was where I lived, but Boston would always be my home.
SCORE: Jason Collins. Standing ovation. Let’s do the wave (oh, sorry, that’s baseball). You’re my new favorite basketball player. It’s impressive that this NBA player just publicly announced that he’s gay, but even more impressive is this seven footer’s courage. In case you’ve been living in a cave for the last few days, Jason is the first openly gay athlete playing on a major American sports team. This is the kind of move that creates change.
I’m not gay, but I support the gay community because as I’ve said many times before, gay people are just like straight people. We all share the same sort of big dreams and hopes, fears and insecurities. When you get right down to it, we’re all just people. JUST. PEOPLE. Trying to have a good life, find love, give back, do our best. I don’t want to kiss a girl, but I don’t care if you do. I’m all for it. And I’m all for equal rights, HUMAN RIGHTS. ‘
An announcement like this helps the lesbian gay, bisexual, and transgender community of teenagers in a big way. And this is a population that needs support. We all know how complicated adolescence is, what with the hormones, acne, emerging personalities, romantic relations, friends, school, social media and mandatory rebellion, but add a questioning of sexuality, or knowledge that you’re different sexually than all your friends, and you’ve got yourself the kind of isolating experience that causes deep pain and shame. Now these kids have one more person who’s let them know that it’s ok to be exactly who they are. Hey, I think I’m a little in love with Jason!
How has this announcement been received in the macho world that is professional basketball? All sort of NBA players have been extremely supportive to Jason. And even President Obama called him to say he had his back.
In the Sports Illustrated article, in which Jason makes his announcement, he says,
“I realized I needed to go public when Joe Kennedy, my old roommate at Stanford and now a Massachusetts congressman, told me he had just marched in Boston’s 2012 Gay Pride Parade. I’m seldom jealous of others, but hearing what Joe had done filled me with envy. I was proud of him for participating but angry that as a closeted gay man I couldn’t even cheer my straight friend on as a spectator. If I’d been questioned, I would have concocted half truths. What a shame to have to lie at a celebration of pride. I want to do the right thing and not hide anymore. I want to march for tolerance, acceptance and understanding. I want to take a stand and say, “Me, too.”
And looky here, our city’s marathon tragedy actually helped him make his decision to come out, as he talks about in this excerpt:
“The recent Boston Marathon bombing reinforced the notion that I shouldn’t wait for the circumstances of my coming out to be perfect. Things can change in an instant, so why not live truthfully? When I told Joe a few weeks ago that I was gay, he was grateful that I trusted him. He asked me to join him in 2013. We’ll be marching on June 8.”
So, Jason Collins–you have my 100th day of gratitude. I imagine you feel about a bajillion pounds lighter. You’re a good ball player, but you’re a great man.
My memory is going. I know everybody says that, but really, I’m telling you that my memory is…..what was that word again…..oh yeah, GOING. ‘
Let us dissect. From everything I’ve read, it’s normal to start forgetting stuff in your 50’s. Perfectly natural. And while I am not forgetting where I am, or wondering what it is you do with a toothbrush, I am forgetting words. In the middle of a sentence. I just plain forget a word. While I’m talking. It’s like I see a giant white board in my forehead. I fumble, I throw in a some “um’s” and some “uh’s,” until I can retrieve the missing noun, verb or prepositional phrase. Honestly, sometimes I can do it, and sometimes I come up empty handed, using my hands if I’m face to face to try and describe the phrase that’s gone missing like a kid on the side of a milk bottle. Sometimes whoever it is I am talking to (or as the case may be, not talking to) will pitch in and participate in my little game of hide and seek. “Flower, wine, street, belly button, parsnip?” they’ll yell, as if playing charades. One day, my friend Deb was speaking and then she stopped and said, “can anybody finish this sentence?” And that about sums it up these days. If we’re talking, try and keep up, because you might be called upon to finish my thought.
Sometimes the kids talk about something that happened and I stare blankly at them like they are trying to pull one over on me. “When did we go to that restaurant?” I will ask, indignantly. And they will describe the event and get all dramatic about how ridiculous it is that I can’t remember said moment. I will push my little brain to try and recall. “C’mon cerebellum, get with it, cerebral cortex,” but they’re all like, “We’re 54, we’re exhausted. Who cares about the dumb restaurant, anyway.”
My husband has worked on Alzheimer since I have known him. I am always quizzing him on my memory issues. He claims if we get old enough, we’ll all get it. “But what about NOW?” I ask. “You don’t have it,” he says, giving me the “Pfffttttt” sound to let me know how crazy I am. But just because he works for Harvard and has been studying Alzheimer for the past 25 years doesn’t mean he knows, is what I think. Plus he can barely remember his name these days, so he should talk.
I have always been the memory for my sister who has barely been able to remember yesterday for her whole life. So, it’s kind of rough on her too. The two of us will be like the guy in the movie Momento, with tattoos all over us to tell us about our pasts.
A lot of my friends say the same thing, of course. And it is likely, very age appropriate. Still, it is unsettling, to lose some of the moments of your life that were once important. I wonder if maybe I can figure out a way to selectively remember. Like all the dumb people who are against gay marriage, or gun control. Those people, I’d be happy to forget.
When the chips aren’t just down, but strewn all over the damn place, all I can ever think to do is laugh. I mean, I cry, and I whine too, but at the end of the day, I always find that laughing and making fun of a bad situation is probably going to get me to the finish line in better shape than clearing out my tear ducts.
Apparently, my love for a good guffaw isn’t all in my head, either. There are a bajillion articles on how and why laughing is good for us. For instance, the famed Mayo Clinic reports that laughing has both short and long term effects. Short term benefits include, stimulating organs (no, not THOSE organs), like your heart, lungs and muscles by increasing oxygen intake. Also it increases endorphins released by your brain (think runner’s high, without all the exhausting running).
Cracking up also turns on your stress response. A good harty har har, increases your blood pressure, resulting in a relaxed feeling. And it tames tension, by stimulating circulation and increasing muscle relaxation, which can reduce those nasty and annoying physical symptoms we know of as stress.
Long term, watching the comedy channel can improve your immune system and actually help with fighting stress and potentially serious illness. A chuckle can ease pain because it causes the body to produce its own natural painkillers. And your funny bone can actually make it easier to deal with situations you’d rather not be in. Not to mention, have you ever met someone who doesn’t love to laugh–it helps you connect with people–and that’s always a positive thing. There are even laughter clubs and laughter yoga. Yup, laughing has become a serious thing.
I was raised in a family that had an exceptionally good sense of humor. And I am always drawn to people who could be professional comedians in their spare time. Maybe it’s some intuitive way that I take care of myself? Anyway, I am grateful for the ability to chortle at even the worst of it. It sure beats the swollen eyes I get when I cry.
It’s about to be May. This is when it happens. Time is about to speed up and go faster than pack of cyclists at the Tour de France. And this year, this sci fi time warp thing is going to go even faster and be even crazier. This year Jake graduates from high school. You see the countdown is on. The time we have left with him under our roof is about to end. And we’re all acutely aware of the fact that next year at this time, he will be in sunny California, approximately 2,000 miles and 6 hours away from us.
This is of course what we want, what we hope our kids will be able to do, what we think about in the middle of the night when they are nursing and we are bleary eyed and psychotic from nights on end without adequate REM sleep. And yet, the poignancy of the moment is bigger in its reality than when Neil Armstrong put his gosh darn foot down on the moon.
But I digress.
Back to the time thing. Ok, so really, this is what happens when May strikes. Time is actually reduced in some totally and completely other worldly way. First of all, there are the “end of year” events. When the kids were younger, there was a celebratory picnic for everything they did. EVERYTHING THEY DID. It was like if you walked by the fountain in the cafeteria, there would be a picnic. PICNICS. PICNICS. AND MORE PICNICS. Festive, but endless, tedious and exhausting. And, most importantly, TIME STEALING. Then there are all the spring sports. We barely had a family dinner that did not consist of pizza at 8:00 during May and June for the entirety of my children’s youth. I mean how do you show up at a game, or two games, AND cook a meal. You don’t. And I decided, early on, showing up at the game was a far better use of my time. And then, there’s the weather. For some reason, the spring, the GORGEOUS, GORGEOUS SPRING, WHICH I LOVE LIKE A BIG HUNK OF CHEESE, speeds up the proceedings, making May and June whiz by like the now defunct Concorde. Add weddings and graduations, a couple significant birthdays, and you’ve got yourself a a few months that feel like a few days.
I know it’s all perception. I know that May and June do not really go faster than the rest of the year, but they feel like they do, and as I get older, I see sometimes that’s all that really matters. This year there will be a lot of graduation parties, and my close friend’s 50th, and athletic celebrations, and I’m working on a large scale party for after the prom, and we will have relatives from out of state come for graduation (which you know, means I will have to clean and cook a lot), and I am trying to figure out how to create a meaningful album to send Jake to college with that reminds him of where he came from, and oh yeah, I’ll be fitting work in there somewhere.
Anyway, this May feels like a bit of a magic time, although rather chaotic, and much like a long race that you’ve trained a lifetime for, and that you are finally in the last leg of. This May I will have to prevent myself from sobbing at all the end of year festivities. Jake is not dying, but the end of something is. The end of our time with him in his messy (this is the absolute understatement of the year) room is waning. The beauty of him flying off to sunnier pastures is thrilling and exciting and absolutely unbelievable. And it’s making me hold close all the Mays and Junes we’ve had with him as he’s grown up. I’m grateful to be aware of this window. I’m going to try and slow it down. Take it in. And enjoy the picnic.
You can’t go home again, but you can go back to your old school. And last night, I went to Jake and Ally’s elementary school for Pierce Trivia Night, with our close friends who still have kids there. The place still doesn’t have walls (it’s an open classroom set-up), it’s filled with loads of people and teachers I no longer know, and the bleachers in the auditorium can still cause back spasms, but the 12 years we spent there are still alive and well. In my memory, anyway. I hope the parents in that audience have as incredible an experience in that building as our family did. Best school in Brookline? Pierce. I win.
While we Bostonians are back at it, we’re still reeling from the effects of marathon week. You’d have to be made of non-human materials, if you’re not moved by what happened on Boylston Street April 15. I usually pick up Boston Magazine because the cover offers a promising read, but it never seems to deliver the in-depth news I want it to. But I’m giving it up for this cover. It’s really beautiful. It hits the perfect note, at the perfect time.
While I am partial to belting it out with my current celebrity crush Adam Levine, or full on pretending I am Rihanna, or Adele, while I’m in the car, I’m also totally captivated by the over-the-top intelligence, sensibility, and downright smarty pants-ness of NPR, or in my neck of the woods, WBUR. The news is apt, and in-depth. The news reader is a friend who possesses all the stuff I like about NPR. Her name is Sharon Brody, and she is now not just reading the news, she is also writing for Cognoscenti, the station’s blog. She’s brilliant, and funny, and my neighbor, to boot. (She is also a really good mom of two totally stellar kids, plus a talented photographer–she even did me the favor of taking my son’s yearbook photo).
I love anything that takes me suprises me, makes me think broadly, differently, or intensely. I like to be challenged by thoughtful insights, studied opinions, passionate views. NPR often takes me off-guard, while making me feel understood. What I mean by that is, it feels like it reaches a hunger deep down, that sometimes I don’t even know I have.
I am partial to Fresh Air with Terry Gross (and even more partial to SNL’st parody of this show, “Shweddy Balls”). Tom Ashbrook has a smart and compassionate voice, and although I’ve never laid eyes on him, I’d trust him with my life. Robin Young has a lovely measured intelligence, with a soothing sound, and reminds me of my early days in Boston, when she hosted Evening Magazine, a local entertainment/news tv show. (Ok, whoever REMEMBERS THAT is old). And of course, who doesn’t love the party that is “Wait, wait, don’t tell me?” I am a fan of Radio Boston with Anthony Brooks and Meghna Chakrabarti, I listen to the BBC World Service, just for the accent.
If only the real world could all be as intelligent and thought provoking as NPR always is. It’s so smart, sometimes I don’t even sing anymore (which, if you heard me, you’d know, is actually a really good thing).
*the gratitude-a-thon 