When I started out on the library tour, I thought I would have to argue for the survival of libraries. But I think that is not generally the case. Libraries are struggling and their budgets are being slashed, but their plight is also forcing many local residents to grasp the idea of community, and to come forward and fight for the libraries in their community. In Osterville, Mass., residents have raised money for a new library, and construction has begun. I gave my talk there in the meeting room of a local church, which the library is using for its community events. Big room, but the library nearly filled it up for me at 2 p.m. on a weekday.
Last week, in Providence, on the library book tour, I went looking for my grandmother’s house. Took me a day to find it, and as it happened, it was in view of the hotel room the whole time. Maria came with me.
My grandmother was perhaps the most important person in my early life. When I ran away from home, it was always to her house, and to a warm bed, cookies and pie, and lots of attention. When I was sick, I went to her house, and she would swath me in blankets and feed me hot soup until I boiled like a lobster and sweated out the germs. Saturday’s, she walked into downtown Providence with me to see Jerry Lewis movies, and other comedies, and although she spoke Yiddsh and didn’t speak 10 words of English, she would howl with laughter until she cried, breaking out the Hershey Kisses, dot-candy’s, Tootsie Rolls and licorice with much rustling and crinkling. She taught me how to laugh. And to love stories, even if you didn’t quite understand them.
Each week we walked across the State House Plaze into downtown Providence to see one comedy or another, and how sweet those walks were. Whenever she saw a police car, to the end of her life, she would push me into a doorway or behind a sign and put her body between me and the officers. I could never convince her that they were not looking to harm us and haul me away, not even when I was a middle-aged men and she pushed me into a neighbor’s doorway and tried to block me from the sight of a passing Providence Patrol Car. Other than the police, her great dread seemed to be that I might marry a gentile woman,and so it was with some trepidation that I finally found the three story tenement in North Providence – she lived on the top floor in four rooms for 60 years after coming from Russia – and broke the news to her about Maria.
“She doesn’t cook or clean much,” I said,” and I know that was important to you. But I am very happy and she is one of the best people in the world and I know you would love her if you knew her.” She’s an artist, I explained, a creative person who makes lovely things. This was not something my grandmother could ever have understand. She was a creative woman in her own right but all of her energies were bottled up internally – family, cooking, cleaning, shopping. And often in the service of men. The idea of making something beautiful and selling it for the sake of her own creative expression was not in her consciousness.
But she understood love and connection, and she would have grasped that. And so I choked up a bit and got back into the car, because I knew one thing was true. All she ever wanted for me, really, was for me to be safe and happy. I can cook and clean for myself. And for Maria for that matter. (And she does a lot.)
I was sorry to leave. I miss my grandmother, whose name was Minnie. She loved me without any reservation and I trusted her without any. I was so glad to be able to find her house and say hello. And goodbye. I started to tell her about the farm and the donkeys and all, and I dropped it. The gentile was enough of a jolt for one visit.
“Goodbye, Grandma,” and thanks for loving me so much. They say it only takes one. And I think that is true.
Storm Center is all aroused again, I gather and there is another two-day storm rolling East from the Midwest. I decided Friday that winter was over. I saw the Spring Light, the longer days, the different angle of the light. This is what photography has helped teach me and show me – how to see the world anew, each time I look at it. And what I see is Spring Light. So I’m really going to pay all that much attention to the winter anymore, even though there seems to be plenty of it left.
Friends of mine down South are catching it worse than we are, or perhaps this kind of winter just isn’t all that over-the-top here. It’s the fourth or fifth in my time. Once the days start lengthening and the sun gets stronge, the season changes for me. And I can see it in the photos, Still, I’m heading for the market later and stocking up. Good to be back home. Still absorbing an intense week. I want to get much more serious about meditation. Been reading about it’s impact on the brain and I remember meeting an impressive analyst who said meditation could change my life.
