In 1967, I left my hometown in Michigan to move to Chicago with Fred, who would be starting medical school. Before I moved, I received several dire warnings from the women in my family. My great-aunt Sarah shared that she had read several cases in The Jewish Daily Forward’s “A Bintel Brief” about women who put their husbands through medical school, only to be dumped when they became rich doctors. My grandmother expressed her disapproval of the odd assortment of used household goods I was packing for my apartment. A woman should have all new stuff and get married first when leaving her parents’ home. My mother just cried. She really loved Fred, but never forgave him for taking me away from her

Remember the old chant, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Laurie with a baby carriage”? That pretty much sums up what happened. The love was the easy part. I met Fred at the movies senior year of college at the University of Michigan. Well, that’s not entirely true. I already knew him because I had dated one of his fraternity brothers. I also knew him from taking Sociology 101 together the year before. He rarely showed up because of the 9:00 a.m. start time and because it was a fluffy class that fulfilled a distribution requirement. Of course, I dutifully attended and took copious notes in peacock blue ink. He borrowed my notes, teased me about my choice of ink, doodles, and poor spelling, and got a B in the class. I got an A and thought he was funny in a sarcastic sort of way. But we were just friends back then.

Everything changed at the beginning of my senior year of college. I went to a movie, Shop on Main Street, with a girlfriend. We had just pledged to forget men and dating and concentrate on expanding our minds prior to graduating. Fred and his friend sat next to us. I left with Fred. I lost my friend forever.

We had an amazing senior year zooming around Ann Arbor on his used Honda 90 and spending far too much time partying. But graduation loomed. Fred was headed for medical school in Chicago, and I had no idea where I was going. So why not get engaged and move there with him? It made perfect sense. That first summer in Chicago, he washed trailers, I pretended to sell subscriptions to the Chicago Tribune, and we delivered phone books together. Somehow, I was hired to teach English at the same high school that Fred had attended just three years earlier. The fact that we waited a full year to get married (to make sure he didn’t flunk out of medical school, or so he said) was daring in those days.

We got married exactly 50 years ago today. Here’s what we contributed to the wedding planning: nothing. My mother took care of all of the ceremony and reception decisions, although I did get to select my gown (with her approval, of course). Here’s what we discussed before getting married: nothing. I guess we assumed the big issues—children, lifestyle, career, religion, and family—would somehow just happen without giving them much thought. And they did. Lucky for us, as we grew older we did get around to talking about the big issues. Still, three kids and a mortgage by the time we were in our early thirties made life a bit busy, leaving minimal time for these deep discussions. As I remember it, for some reason we always had them on Sunday night after the kids were asleep. This generally led to poor sleep and a rocky start to the week. But at least we kept talking.

It’s probably better to have the big stuff sorted out before getting married rather than winging it like we did. But now that we have survived the little kid catastrophes, middle school misery, high school pressure cooker, and college and career choices with our children, we are amazed to have come through with our relationship stronger than ever. Grandkids are the icing on our cake.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy gave a pretty good definition of marriage in his majority opinion in support of gay marriage:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they once were.

So perhaps the secret to a long and happy marriage is not so complicated. We didn’t need a business plan to make it work. We just needed love to light the spark and keep the flame going. We added fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. As we just celebrated fifty years of love and marriage, I see that Justice Kennedy had it right. We grew up with each other to become something greater together than they were apart.

*I wrote this in honor of our 50^th anniversary. We just celebrated our 55^th, so it holds up well.

 

 

 

Quilting in Angola

An extraordinary humanitarian project has been on-going at the Louisiana State Prison for years now. That prison is commonly known as Angola, as that was the name of the slave plantation whose land it now occupies. Louise Kelleher was the co-founder of The Social Justice Quilts Project with Kenya Baleech Alkebu, who is incarcerated there. The project gives “inside quilters” and “outside quilters” an opportunity to work together (and for some, to receive quilting guidance from the “outside quilters”).

Mr. Alkebu was making quilts for people receiving end of life care in the prison’s hospice program. He has been incarcerated at Angola for 44 years and quilting became part of his lifestyle. Ms. Kelleher, also a quilter, found out about his work and desired to aid the Angola Hospice Program – both those dying in prison and those who love them. Those inside the prison have limited access to quilting material and stuck together scraps of fabric. She was struck by the combination of art and care she saw in the hospice program. In this, she saw wonderful humanitarian work being done, all from inside the prison.

There are now about 18 “inside quilters” and 4 “outside quilters” and, like the quilters of Gee’s Bend, a group of formerly enslaved African-American women from an isolated part of Alabama in the 1800s, whose work was recently on display at the Boston MFA, this work is noteworthy and striking, both in intellectual and visual content. A group of the quilts are currently on tour around the US. The show, called “Stitching Time”, was on view at UMass – Amherst earlier this year and on display in a museum in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard until October 9. Some of the quilts have political themes, others are just abstract beauties, but all speak to redemption.

Fluidity

My brother, Rabbi Richard Sarason, and sister-in-law, Anne Arenstein, live in Cincinnati, where my brother has taught at Hebrew Union College for over four decades. Annie has been involved in the rich arts community, doing both museum education work and writing about the cultural life for various magazines and papers.

They currently sing with a choral group called “Fluidity”. Its mission, aside from being welcoming and inclusive, is to pick a worthy local non-profit for each concert cycle, raise funds and awareness for it. The chorus learns about the group and tailors its music to highlight the non-profit work being done. Their latest concert benefitted the Ohio Innocence Project, which works to exonerate and free wrongfully convicted people from the morass of the prison system (in this case, they work just in Ohio).

I have linked to two important pieces, provided by my sister-in-law. One is a snippet of that recent concert, including some music as well as interviews with members of the chorus, as well as a man exonerated by the Ohio Innocence Project and the leader of the Ohio Innocence Project. The second is an article Annie wrote several years ago about an opera written about the Ohio Innocence Project. Both are worth your time.

 

https://www.citybeat.com/arts/cincinnati-operas-world-premiere-of-blind-injustice-uncovers-innocence-12225513

Arts of all kind can be used to make a difference in prisoners’ lives.

David Brooks wrote an op-ed in the New York Times on August 17, 2023 stating that a long, successful marriage is more important to a happy life than a successful career. Let’s think about that for a moment; so many people strive for money, thinking it will buy happiness. But the position stated here is that fulfillment comes from long-term, positive relationships. They impact our entire outlook on life.

I have been married for 49 years and have thought a lot about what goes into a successful marriage. I do not claim to have the answers, but I have puzzled through this for many years. I think a shared set of values is the basis to start from. Love and physical attraction are intangibles that can remain or fade, so other attributes need to be strong as well. The ability to communicate, nurture, empathize, to be compassionate, compromise. An ability to laugh with one with another and share the fun helps. A common sense of purpose also goes a long way too. These traits are ideal. In many instances, marriages stay together for the sake of the children, for financial reasons or inertia.

My Feature photo shows me with my wedding attendants, my two bridesmaids and a dear friend who sang before the procession. I’ve known all these women since our teen years and remain friendly with all to this day. All have successful marriages (one, regrettably, lost her husband to cancer in 2017). I would like to focus on my two bridesmaids.

Debbie

We have been friends since 8th grade. She is bubbly and smart, a committed Jew. Her mother became one of my surrogate mothers. She lived close by, had several close friends in the neighborhood and I was happy to be included in that circle. She is the bridesmaid on the right with short hair. I was always in her house; at some point, I dated her older brother, knew her aunts, uncles and cousins (they were members of our temple, she was more religious). She took me to her lake house. She dated Larry Bacow (the president emeritus of Harvard) before dating the man she would marry. I saw him at a lecture this summer and reminded him of that. He remembered her fondly. She is that kind of person.

She met Eugene in 11th grade Physics class. He wanted to be her lab partner as she was the cutest girl in class. She took all the hard science courses because she knew what she wanted to be at a young age: a veterinarian. Yet she had time to be a cheerleader, be in “Bye Bye Birdie” with me, or work backstage on some of the other plays. She had boundless energy. When she started dating Eugene, I was the third wheel (he was a grade ahead of us and I knew all his friends through my friend Chick – we were friends from temple and he lived around the corner from me, he’d come over and we’d hang out, but never date). Once Debbie started dating Eugene, that was it. They were IT.

Eugene went off to Cornell, but transferred back to the University of Michigan when Deb went into the five year program at Michigan State for their veterinary program so they wouldn’t be so far apart. I dated her older brother the summer after our Freshman year and we were a foursome. They taught me to play bridge, but Eugene had to partner me, as David had little patience with the beginner. We’d go camping together. For a while I wasn’t the third wheel, but David and I didn’t last long. Deb and Gene still welcomed me.

They married on March 24, 1973. My father let me come home from Boston to attend the wedding. I was overjoyed. Debbie was still in school, Eugene took a job teaching math in Jackson, outside Ann Arbor. After Debbie finished her schooling, they moved back to Huntington Woods, where we were all from (Eugene grew up a few blocks from Debbie). Eventually they bought a house two doors down from my parent’s home. They had their first child, but Debbie could still work part-time. Eugene worked for his father’s paper company. They made grocery store bags. His father’s company was bought by a St. Louis firm and Eugene’s job moved with it. They already had two children, but Debbie continued to work.

I couldn’t see them as often. We’d exchange letters and photos of our growing families. Debbie was ambitious. She went into a new graduate program. She became one of the first-ever board certified animal psychologists. Eugene pitched in and helped raise the (now) three children. Debbie established a lucrative private consulting practice and became an in-demand speaker. They traveled together all over the world to conferences. They enjoyed going to sporting events with the kids, including coming to Boston to see a game at Fenway Park. The family had fun together.

Eugene brought Laura on her college tours, including to Brandeis and Tufts and I visited with them then. She chose Tufts (when Larry Bacow was president of that university, which was the first time he reconnected with Debbie). I saw the whole family when they came in for Laura’s graduation. We stayed with them when Vicki visited Washington University in 2006.

They bought a condo in Naples, Fl which gave us another chance to connect in 2008.

But mostly, we kept up via phone, email and then Facebook. Their family has grown to seven grandchildren, four in St. Louis, three (Ben, the youngest son lives in New Orleans) not. Eugene is the second of four brothers who are far-flung. His mother is gone, but his father, aged 102, still lives in Phoenix. Debbie visits him regularly.

So the news, in 2014, that Eugene had been diagnosed with stomach cancer, hit us all in the gut. I spoke to Debbie as often as I could. She cancelled her speaking engagements. The diagnosis wasn’t exactly correct. The cancer was at the intersection of the stomach and the esophageous. But Eugene made the best of it and, feeling up for it, still took Laura to NYC to see “Hamilton”. He died on March 16, 2017. It had been a long, happy marriage.

How does one move on from that? Debbie had two children, four grandchildren, lots of friends close by, who were by her side. They, plus work, kept her going. A little over a year ago, she moved out of the home she had shared with Eugene into a townhome in the same community. She was tired of all the outdoor upkeep and who can blame her. And earlier this year, she finally told me that she was dating someone and she was happy. I am thrilled for her. They are taking it slow, but it is nice to have companionship again. I say – bravo! She deserves it.

Patti

I met Patti in 10th grade. (Patti is the bridesmaid with the long dark hair on my other side.) We were in Geometry class, Girl’s Choir, but we really bonded during “Bye Bye, Birdie” rehearsals where she was choreographer, I was “Randi”, Kim’s little sister (it is a male role, but they changed it in our production) and a certain senior named John Z. was the rehearsal accompanist. So I was there to witness the birth of that relationship too. I guess I’ve been a third wheel for much of my life. The two of them were just smitten with each other and Patti and I found that we were kindred spirits, loving so many artistic pursuits.

For the next several years, we were in the choirs and madrigals groups and worked on the musicals together, she as choreographer, I as head of make-up and finally took a role in “The Music Man” our senior year. I didn’t get either of the parts I wanted, but didn’t want to pass up my last chance to be in a play at my high school (my talents were rewarded at Brandeis).

I spent more and more time at Patti’s after I got my driver’s license and my mother would let me use her car. Patti did not live close by, so begging for the car was bothersome, but her mother was always lovely to me. I tasted delicious food at her house. Christmas of our senior year, I attended Midnight Mass with them (“do everything I do – but don’t come and take Communion”). I found the pageantry fascinating. Her mother was a manager at Avon and gave me little presents from the company. I still had a hair brush she gave me until recently. I sent it to Patti, as it would mean more to her.

But she and John were the real deal and when I went off to Brandeis, Patti came east to Boston University to be close to John, already at Harvard. This afforded us many opportunities to see one another. They came to see me in my shows (and took lovely photos of me after). Patti and I spent two Thanksgivings together in her apartment when John went home. Neither of us could afford to. We had a blast together, and solved the mysteries of the universe.

John graduated from Harvard in 1972 and pursued a PhD in Child Developmental Psych at Stanford. Patti transferred to Mills College, which became her true alma mater. I only saw them when we were all home on vacation. They married on June 17, 1973, 364 days before I did, so from time to time, we celebrate our anniversaries together.

Through the years they have enjoyed visiting Boston, a place they’ve known well through the years. Our oldest went to Stanford and our younger child went to work for Apple right out of college and lived around Silicon Valley for nine years, so we’ve had many opportunities to visit and I could see their true commitment to one another.

After John got his PhD, he got a teaching job at the University of Utah and moved there with Patti. She found the entire atmosphere stifling and announced that she was moving back to the Bay Area. She hoped John would come, but she couldn’t stand it in Utah. He did follow, even without a job. He is a fantastic writer and quickly became a tech writer for this start-up named Oracle. At the time, he was an independent contractor and wrote their initial tech material. Soon, he was in-house with stock grants. He worked there for some time.

Patti is fantastically creative. With her sister, she started a fabric business, sourcing material to make sheets, bedspreads, pillows and such. They sold to Bloomingdales, and other high-end retailers. Patti hoped to open a boutique of their own, but that never happened and the business blew apart. She went into tech writing as well. John went back to independent writing. They sang with the San Francisco Chorus under the baton of Michael Tilson-Thomas and thrived in that creative community. They vacationed on Maui, bought some land, longed to build a house. Eventually they did and moved there full-time. John played with the Maui Symphony, they loved their life there for a while, but getting back to the mainland when they needed to was arduous (they never sold their home in the Bay Area, just leased it).

Patti had a cancer diagnosis long ago, a small lump in a breast. She had a lumpectomy and opted for no other treatment, choosing instead to exercise, and eat healthy, only organic (I sent lobster dinners from Legal Seafood for support). They both watch themselves carefully. I have never seen two people support one another so completely. They enjoy their group of friends, celebrate life, know how to throw a great party and are loyal companions. Their 50th anniversary was last June.

Watching my two close friends has taught me a great deal about long-term marriages, how to support each other and the joys of and sorrows of that are part of the bargain.

 

The “Haven for Newlyweds” Art Park contained more than one hundred sculptures by Korean artists scattered throughout the lush park with its paths in rolling hills and forests.
Read More

Retiring to do what you want to do ... or are you already doing it by working?
Read More

I have spent my retirement digging through the documents of my past, filing through my history. Here’s a poem I found in a box, long forgotten. 

Yoishyo—haiyo.  Haiyo-yoishyo

Watching the preparation of Omochitsuki (rice cakes for the New Year),

Yearning to take hold of the kine  (mallet) to pound into the usu (stamp mill),

Swimming in the rhythms of the exchange between the person who folds and the person who pounds.

“Yoishyo/haiyo,”  Pound and fold, fold and pound.  I imagined pounding the mallet with her into the mill.

The joy of mutually working to prepare a new year’s gift for the gods ,

A seal on the past and a key to a future.

The sweat released long pent up emotions—laughter, love, union and reunion.

Without any experience of this ceremony

I do not know how there arose in my mind

A longing to become a kine.  On that snowy day in Nara

the sounds of pounding and folding, yoishyo to (and) haiyo

became intoxicating: reminding me of a famous ancient Chinese poem that seemed made for this experience.

“stealing in between the eyebrows like a seagull,

Diving into the lake to catch fish,

A flake of snow pecks the curious quiver of the heart.”

You became my usu (mill).

Pound and fold.  Snow drops that pound folded into the earth’s soul.

From Nara to Osaka,

From the Nara Todaiji (Temple) to the Osaka Hoteru (Hotel)

Departure and delay

Asobi (Play) is pounded into arbito (enthusiastic work)

Pound and fold

Two become one with the pounding of the mortar into the folds of ecstasy.

Yoishyo—haiyo

Haiyo-yoishyo

We are the new rice cake.  Ready for love in the New Year.