Joining the Thin Club

The Beauty in Grey

My husband peered out the big windows in our dining room.

"What a beautiful day," he said smiling.

I looked over his shoulder, trying to understand precisely what about the grey, overcast skies, he found beautiful.  The trees are past peak, barren sentries, standing tall on the far end of the icy lake.  The white clouds hang low in the sky, turning the lake, the trees, even the cottages on the lake a greenish grey.  The depressing pall over the lake is anything but pretty.

"Look at that lake - at the skies - at the trees, isn't it gorgeous?: He persisted.

My iconoclastic New York pragmatism took over.  "No, actually, it's overcast, gloomy and cold," I responded.  I took another look to confirm my first impression.  "Are we looking at the same lake?"

He shook his head.  "If you're going to get along in Michigan, you're going to have to learn to appreciate days like today," he warned me.  "This is a perfectly wonderful day - warm enough to take a nice long walk outside.  There's no rain or snow.  It's beautiful."

Even though it's puzzling - and sometimes (to be perfectly honest) kind of maddening, I really appreciate the fact that my husband can look at a bleak, gloomy day and see beauty.  While a part of me feels like shaking him and saying - what's WRONG with you?  Can't you see how ugly it is?   Another part of me, the innocent beauty-seeking part of my soul doesn't want to destroy his perception.  In fact, that part of me wants to laud his ability to see the beauty in grey--because it is truly a gift.  How lucky he is to be able to look past the same thick white clouds that I find oppressive and see beauty, to know that somewhere above the cloud cover the sun is still shining - and to appreciate what we've been given today.  Sure, my perception may be more "real" - at least according to The Weather Channel, but what my husband engenders is the true essence of gratitude.  His reality is a much better reality than mine and it makes me sad to realize that I've got a long way to go to be able to develop that kind of appreciation.  It leaves me with yet one more thing to aspire to: finding the beauty in grey.

 

Identity Crisis

I'm 97

...as in wait-number, not age.  I'm on line at the Secretary of State in Washtenaw County, Michigan.  That sounds so impressive, as if I'm taking a meeting with a lofty government official, but it's not really.  I'm waiting to take the final steps in changing my identity, getting my new Michigan driver's license with my new name - Judith Segaloff - the final document that officially appoints me a woman with a new name and an official resident of the state of Michigan.

84...85...

The line is moving fast.  I've always hated lines, even in New York.  I find them demoralizing and insulting.  After so many years of blasting through the less tangible lines in my life -- making friends in high places, catepulting my way into circles of influences with a smile, a business card, some fancy words--lines like this one bring you down.  They remind you that there are no special priviliges in some arenas--when you are waiting for a driver's license, you're not so special--everybody waits.

86...

Yet I wish this line would slow down to allow me to collect my thoughts.  If they only knew how fast they were racing, they'd give me a ticket on the spot!

87...

Stop!  I want to shout, "Stop calling those numbers!  Just let me be ME--whoever I am at the moment!"  Judith Steinberg - born in New Jersey.  Judith Lederman - the name I never officially assumed after my first marriage.  My babies were born Lederman.  My books were bylined Lederman.  In business I was known as Lederman.  But yesterday I sat and waited on another line - number C145 - and I obliterated another piece of myself - my name.  It's something I never did officially for my first husband.  "This is huge," I told my new husband.  I will now forever be known as Judith Segaloff.  Who am I?

88...

Judith Segaloff is a clean slate - an unknown entity.  I did a pipl.com deep web search and found--nothing.  Judith Segaloff in Michigan until yesterday did not exist.  I've been born anew.  It's like being in the Witness Protection Program.  I'm a complete stranger in a strange land, surrounded by strangers.  How will I ever find myself again?

89...

Even though I love my husband with all my heart, and moving to be with him was never so much as a question in my mind, I never anticipated these feelings of complete alienation.  Never have I felt so distant and separated from the people who love me and the places that my whole life I have called home.

90...91...

My grandson, my sons, my daughter, my parents, all my friends.  Familiar roads, familiar highways, familiar names.  The Department of Motor Vehicles - THAT'S the place we go to in New York - we don't visit the Secretary of State.  There are so many differences - beyond the miles - between there and here.

92...

Here I'm always getting lost.  It feels like I'm constantly traveling in circles, trying to figure out where I am, where I'm supposed to be, how to circumvent huge buildings - part of the sprawling campus of the University of Michigan - law schools, libraries, dental schools, hospitals, museums.  Who could have dreamed that getting married would make me feel lost.  My poor befuddled brain is screaming, begging for anything that invokes the familiar - a condo complex that reminds me of Crestwood in Yonkers, a pretty neighborhood that looks like Wykagel in New Rochelle, Starbucks, anything that sort of looks like "home."  Although to date I've yet to see anything that even remotely reminds me of New York City.  I'm lost!  How do I find myself?

93...94...

I need warmth and welcoming.  Not phony platitudes or people asking me how my day is going in the grocery store.  I need my stepson to smile at me - and mean it.  I need someone to call me up and ask me to come over for coffee.  I need real people to help me figure out who I am - now that I'm no longer Judy Steinberg, born in Newark or Judy Lederman, that marketing consultant from New York.

95...

Why am I here? 

96...97...

TIMES UP!

I go to the counter.  Papers fly  - documents that trace my life from birth through this very moment.  Papers that tell other people - not me - who I was, who I am.  Judith Segaloff.  A new license plate and the nice lady, Cristine, instructs me to stand in front of the camera to take a photo for my new driver's license.  "Take off your hat," she directs me.  "I'm sorry, I can't," I explain.  "I cover my hair for religious reasons.  I'm an orthodox Jewish married woman." 

"I've never heard of that before," she frowns and goes to her supervisor.  A hefty black woman comes over to the counter, and she repeats authoritatively, "You'll have to remove your hat, otherwise they will not process your license."  I reiterate that my hair remains covered for religious reasons and I cannot remove my hat.  "With all the burkas in nearby Dearborn, you mean to tell me that you make Moslem women remove their headgear for photos?" I ask shrewdly.  Both women disappear behind a desk and the telephone lights up.  I wait and I stand firm.  Sometimes a little New York is a good thing.  Five minutes later, the word comes down from the auspicious Secretary of State of Michigan.  My hat stays on for the license photo.  And in that five minutes I figured out who I am - an orthodox Jewish married woman named Judith Segaloff who is living in Michigan and is here to let people know just who I am. 

My First Football Game

I didn't actually go to the football game because it was on Saturday, but you cannot live in Ann Arbor without being keenly aware that a football game is taking place.  The traffic begins two days before as 100,000 people pile into the college town to root for their team, which in this case was Michigan State - one of the top ten.  Of course, there were team colors (blue & yellow for University of Michigan and green for Michigan State) all over town, on students, waving from fraternity and sorrority houses, on cars, it was just rah, rah, rah!

Beer pong was set up on every porch in town and the fashion of the moment was an oversized team t-shirt, used as a sundress, sleeves tied over the boobs to um...hold the banner proud.  The kettle drums and marching band noise started hours before kickoff, as the soundchecks were done.

Then came kickoff and an eerie silence fell over Ann Arbor.  The sound of cheering was amplified from the stadium and radios, televisions and computers were all tuned in to the big game.

But the kicker (pardon the pun) was the moment the game was over, when horns began to blare and hordes - and I do mean THRONGS of people started pouring onto the streets, staggering and speaking loudly.  New Year's eve at Times Square ain't got nothing in terms of volume and quality of the drunken masses, compared to Ann Arbor, Michigan post-game.  It really didn't matter who won and who lost - the losers (U of M) drowned their sorrow in kegs and bottles, and the winners (Michigan State) partied hearty.  There were driving drunks, walking drunks, male and female drunks, staggering on clunky heels, banners waving, and little rubber seat mats in hand.

"Stop that," one "green" girl said to another.  "You are behaving totally inappropriate!  Don't pull up my dress when you KNOW I'm wearing a thong!"

"Go green!" a drooling male observer leered.

And they partied on and gridlocked the small college town all night long.  So how did I like my first football game.  Let's just say, I'm homesick for NY where throngs of people on the streets mean business, and the sober hordes outnumber the drunks.  Delta?  I'm ready to come home now.

The Big Game

So, here I am in a college town and what I know about football, you can write on the head of a pin.  I don't like the game - never understood why those guys barrel into each other, and where exactly the ball goes when they do.  Baseball is so easy and methodical but football makes me antsy.  Once a boyfriend tried to explain the game to me - something about linebacks, kickoffs and touchdowns, but to me, a quarter back is a retail promotion, touch down is what I do when I sink into my duvet, and a wide receiver is what my backside looks like after I've been sitting in front of the TV trying to figure out football.

This week, apparently 100,000 people are expected to converge on the little town of Ann Arbor to celebrate the big game between University of Michigan and Michigan State.  I'm told they will be "tailgating" and I'm told that this does not mean they will be driving too close behind me as I drive down Washtinaw today - rather, they will have barbecues in the parking lot of the stadium.  Beer pong is the game set up on every porch before and after the game.

No doubt, by this time tomorrow, our little apartment will be replete with the oooming bsounds of marching bands, cheering hordes and partying into the night.  Rowdy people will be flooding the streets wearing blue and gold or green, depending on their affiliations.  And I will remain as clueless about football as I've ever been.  Sorry, Ann Arbor, some things just never change.  Go Michigan!

Culture Shock

So here I am finally "moved in" to the midwest - after having lived in the New York metropolitan area my whole life.  I moved for love - but I cannot tell a lie - this is a major adjustment.

Let's begin with the basics.  There is very definitely truth to the phrase "New York Minute" and people in Michigan just aren't in the same time zone!  In New York, multi-tasking is a way of life.  The train ride in to the city offers opportunities to email, catch up on financial news or accomplish tasks that ordinarily would take up other time.  We multi-task by nature in New York.  Here in Detroit - land of zero mass transit and 70 mph speed limits, multi-tasking could get you killed.

The SUPERMARKET:  In New York and it's outlying areas, the concept of supermarket is to get you in, shuffle you through the aisles, make you buy and then get you out of the store -efficiently and, while the store owners in New York know that time equates to commitment, and time spent shopping the store is good, once you've hit the cashier's line, they want you to buy up some candy bars and EXIT, keeping the lines moving along.  NOT SO IN MICHIGAN.  Here, as you hit the cashier's line, there is a friendly smile and an inquiry, "So, how is your day going?"

This has made me turn around to see who is standing behind me.  Perhaps the cashier knows the person next to me or behind me.  But, it has now happened too many times to be coincidence.  I realize that the cashier is addressing ME.  I have thought about telling them about how my day is REALLY going (I was feeling a bit under the weather, had a fight with my child, wished I could find a better gym because I overate yesterday and feel a bit frowsy) - but I realize that is not what they want to hear.  They want chit-chat and small talk, a language foreign to most born and bred New Yorkers.

The other day, the cashier was so busy giving me her recipe for homemade apple pie (it's all in the apple mix apparently) that I forgot my handbag at the cashier's counter.  The good news is that since it is NOT New York, my wallet and credit cards were still in it when I came to claim it an hour later.

The drivers are nuts too.  Even though they make cars here, they haven't figured out how and when to use their horns!  Yesterday I was driving when someone just stopped in the right hand lane.  A line formed behind me as I waited to see if I should pass the guy or not.  I contemplated using my horn - but no one else was honking.  Everyone else was just waiting patiently to see what the moron would do.  He eventually moved to the left lane and turned - but NOBODY HONKED.  In New York - heck - even in Westchester County, that guy would have gotten blasted with six or eight horns.

They walk SLOW here in Michigan - and every conversation begins with a "Good morning" and a "How are you?"  There is no "cut to the chase" attitude.  And for a bonafide New Yorker, there are trust issues.

Why does the cashier need to know how my day is going?  Why did the woman who ploughed into my car on Washtinaw HUG ME after the collision?

I'm homesick.  Will somebody please be rude to me today?