CLOUDS, CLOCKS, and CALENDARS

I am not quite sure why I have entitled this week’s blog with the above title. It came to me at night as things sometimes do to all of us.

 

Clouds, I suppose because things are often not absolutely clear to understand or to figure out. Clocks, this must be because I have been feeling the push of time, the chase against the clock to complete all I still have the desire to complete.

Calendars, because I am so married to mine and to my daily and longer term plans that I often refer to my personal calendar to make sure I have not forgotten any task or phone call. So, at least two out of three are down to earth!

I omitted some of the most important job details last week when reviewing my work. This is not to amplify a resume, but rather to illuminate my life choices and decisions (Is there a difference between choices and decisions?)

While completing my college undergraduate studies and beyond, I worked as a camp counselor for six years, specifically a Dance/Drama counselor and LOVED it!

There were a number of small and not so small successes as well as new boyfriends.

I worked part time at a Jewish Community Center all through undergraduate college (my graduate studies came two years later).

After living in France for 15 months, I returned to New York and landed a challenging position at Goldwater Memorial Hospital as Recreational Director for the Polio Ward. I hoisted young dying Polio victims onto a hospital van on trips.

One was to Pacific Palisades---to see all of the amusements. Another was to Radio City Music Hall to see the show. They were connected to chest respirators and all strapped into wheel chairs. This was a very trying time, having to witness the end of young lives and their plea for life!

I developed a monthly magazine of their poetry and titled it SCOPE. It was a big success.

So the clouds   of unseen desires, the clocks of their short lives, and the calendar at that time to mark the months of my developing pregnancy. They arranged   a beautiful baby shower for me before I left .

Before the pregnancy and before this job, I was in a professional theatre performing in CLERAMBARD at Rooftop theatre in lower Manhattan. This was after returning to France for over a year and a half. This was a highlight which opened quite a few doors which I summarily slammed shut out of a deep lack of self confidence. An all professional (Broadway) cast starred, and I had excellent publicity! I had starred in several college plays prior to this opportunity, and knew that the stage was my haven.

After these deletions of opportunities, I moved on to do what I felt and knew to be my destiny. Calendars of far travel, a baby, an uncommon alliance with a partner, formation of a French Language nursery in my neighborhood, and all to culminate in a special two year assignment  as Parent/Teacher coordinator to align the public school teachers with the low income minority parents (mostly mothers) for  the New York Jewish Federation.

Ithaca College was considering hiring me for a similar position following that assignment until the black mothers of my neighborhood took some very strong action against me and the college offer. It was cancelled. I was not black!!Even though my daughter was not 100% white!!

After relocating to Los Angeles when my daughter was 10 years old, I worked very successfully as a head hunter .I was also selected for a six month program by UCLA to participate in a program to help alcoholic mothers who had children under age 18 at home.

In order to apply one had to be a reformed alcoholic or an adult child of an alcoholic  That was me! My father was a self confessed alcoholic until late in life. (He passed away at age 63).We worked in their homes and in hospital   family groups who were in rehabilitation. This was a very rewarding experience indeed which culminated with a formal UCLA graduation ceremony especially for this program’s participants.

At one point while living in Los Angeles, I developed a small business which I called: BASSIA’S  LIFE REPAIRS. Individual women responded to an ad I put in Beverly Hills People. I helped them with whatever they needed to handle in their lives. There were emotional problems, agoraphobic issues, need for companionship and the like.

I was also a wardrobe helper, shopping and selecting outfits to suit their life style and suggesting appropriate items for their figures. Yeah! This was a real adventure while I was receiving unemployment

There have been many life events in clouds and clocks and calendars since all of the above. My present marriage is reaching 23 years of the strongest bond of my life. The first five of these were living together without the ceremony.

The end portends clouds----the end of a life so well enjoyed, so well enacted, so fully lived. Then,  why clouds? Clouds are often a sign of rain or questionable weather. My calendar   now is not fully mine. Calendars never are though. The thought of not being here once an event on my calendar appears is unsettling and sad.

Perhaps sharing these words with you from week to week leaves me filling in a calendar of feelings rather than events.

I do appreciate your comments and questions. I also appreciate your reading Miss Rheingold .I have carefully selected the names on my send list. They are now in alphabetical order as I wrote last week.

France will always be my heart’s location. The event of the stabbing two weeks ago in Eilat created a heavy black cloud.

MISS RHEINGOLD