Houston & Beyond

A Woody Allen Kind of NYC

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Note:  This post began as a review of Fading Gigolo, the 2013 John Turturro movie, featuring Woody Allen as a character that perhaps only Woody Allen can play.  It evolved into a send-up of sorts for the NYC that perhaps lives only in Woody Allen’s movies.

Manhattan-Love

In the mid-1990s, I lived on Manhattan’s East 55th Street.

Down the block from my apartment building, there was a lounge, Michael’s Pub, where  I’d heard that Woody Allen played clarinet.

Many evenings, I would slow my pace as I walked past the pub entrance on my harried way home from the stifling subway station, hoping that I might chance a glance upon the  famed Annie Hall director.

I’d stare at the pub door, relishing the thought that the man whose films evoked the NYC I dreamed of, had mere moments before walked through it.

Even then . . .

Negative news had emerged in the early 90s about Woody Allen.  The photos of Mia’s adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn.  The dysfunctional households.  The nasty break-up with Mia Farrow, and of course, the charges that flew back and forth, from one to the other, skimming the Central Park tree tops that separated their two homes.

Even so, I found myself still drawn to this complex man’s films. I know I was not alone.  It was as if there was a sort of disconnect between Woody Allen, the man who romanced the adopted daughter of his long-time girlfriend, and Woody Allen, the director, the maker of movies and the weaver of dreams.

 A Woody Allen Kind of NYC

After all, his movies held the promise of a New York City that had, for all my seasons spent there, still eluded me.  His was a city of scotch and existential sophistication, of chance meetings in wood-paneled bookstores with like-minded people who thought deep thoughts together in brilliant bursts of harmony.

To this day, I’m not sure if that New York City has really ever existed beyond Woody Allen’s movies—and my imagination.

 

Movies

Of lunchboxes and possiblities

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The Lunchbox, the movie

A few weeks ago, I not so much saw the new movie from writer and director, Ritesh Batra, The Lunchbox, as I did inhale it. It was that good.  That sumptuous.

Savoring the aroma

Amid the glorious colors and the cacopohony of steel against steel in the trainyards of Mumbai, one of the most gratifying aspects of the movie was to watch an Indian office worker, whom one might imagine would be jaded by the temptations of Indian cooking, take in the aroma of ageless spices, and close his eyes as he savored each pungent taste.

That is what I do, a world and a culture away.  I close my eyes, inhale the pungent, exotic aroma, and savor each bite of Indian food.

Take me away

Food thoughtfully-cooked, in general, transports me.  It takes me to another place–both gastronomically and geographically speaking.  For that brief instant, I am in Mumbai. I am in Cairo. I am wherever the taste I am tasting was first tasted.

A new day of new possibilities

Today, as the fiery snap of coriander punctures my taste buds and the subtle scents of curry waft through my nose, I am embodying those who’ve tasted the same taste as I am, millions of times before me. And, for that brief moment in time, I am again transported to a world of possibilities. A world of endless lunchboxes and endless possibilities.

Family

Money, and all that jazz

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Our house (rented) on a cliff overlooking the ocean at Laguna Beach, California
Our house (rented) on a cliff overlooking the ocean at Laguna Beach, California

We rented richly

I don’t remember us being rich as I was growing up. Nor, however, do I remember us being poor.

When I was born, we were living in a house a mile from the ocean in Laguna Beach. When I was one year old, we moved to a house across the street from the ocean. And, when I was five years old, we moved to a house on a cliff, directly above the ocean. When you look at it that way, I suppose we were rich.

We lived on rich land, indeed.  It was land that would become even richer.  Yet my father, Edmund, rented. He refused to buy.

A renter in a buyers’ market

Long before hedge funds and mortgage-backed securities were household names, long before Silicon Valley teemed with venture capitalists, Edmund had the foresight to move his young family to a place that would one day rival New York City zip codes for the priciest addresses in the country.

In what would become one of the world’s hottest real estate markets, Edmund chose not to buy property that would one day increase exponentially in value.

On being un-wealthy

Edmund, who was sent as an adolescent from his boyhood home in China first to boarding school in Korea, and then as a teen to The Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, would regale us with stories of having gone to prep school with the sons of the very wealthy.   He, the son of Presbyterian missionaries to China, by comparison,  was poor. And that worldview seemed to inform his thinking about having money from then on.

My memory is that for him, being without wealth was a way of staking his identity.

Heading West

His was a fascinating combination of fear and bravado. On one hand, when he was contemplating moving my mother, Helen, and my older siblings West, from Ossining, New York, to Laguna Beach, he wrote of his fear of making the wrong choice, financially-speaking. Later, as fervently as he had promised Helen a new start in Laguna Beach, he justified why it had not worked out the way he had promised.

Adrift in a sea of new-age wealth

It’s ironic, and not quite surprising, that Edmund never did buy property in Laguna Beach. Ironic, because he had turned his back on wealth, yet he had planted his family in the epicenter of it. Not quite surprising, because to him, having no wealth, in a sea of wealth, seemed to suit him just fine.

Edmund died relatively young, and poor. I’m not sure he would have had it any other way.

Family

In a snapshot: missing Mom’s embrace

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MomToddlerGretchen(1)

Photos that were never taken

The photo here is one of my favorites. It is one of the few I have of my mother, Helen, embracing me. It is one of even fewer I have of her smiling while embracing me. And it is the only one I have, in which we are both smiling while she embraces me. I wish I there were more.

Cameras were not ubiquitous then

Yes, it’s true that when I was a toddler and adolescent, cameras were not ubiquitous, must-have parts of everyday life as they are now. And yet. And, yet there are plenty of photos of me–as a toddler, and as an awkward adolescent, as a more awkward young teen, and then as a self-absorbed, blonde California teen.

In the few photos where Helen joined me and my sister when we were young, she sat–or stood–apart, erect. No hugs. No spontaneous smiles. And, in the final years of her life–my teens–the only photos I have in which both she and I appear, are forced, posed “family” photos: Helen, my stepfather, Brad, my stepbrother, Barry, my sister, Kristin, and me. Oh, how I wish there were photos of just Helen and me.

Memories blurred, presence blurred

What is sadly wonderful about the fact that there are so few photos of Helen with me is that it squares with my memory of her, which is to say, that I don’t recall her spontaneously embracing me in the limited years she was in my life.

This, in turn is sadly ironic, as I have lately come to learn that in the view of my siblings, I was my mother’s favorite. How is it possible, then, that there aren’t photos that speak to that affection?

As I alluded to in another post, “Parenting Ourselves,” my mother was often nearby, yet equally often nowhere to be found, emotionally speaking. She was compelled to anticipate my father’s needs. Then to nurse his ultimate betrayal. Then to nurse herself in sickness. And finally, to die.

It’s different now

Perhaps because I was an older mother, I felt the relentless march of time. I knew that I would not likely have a second child, hence a second chance to take more photos. I knew as well that time would rush by me, and I would wish I had been physically, and mentally present–in life, and on film to capture those moments of life. And so, (almost) anytime the opportunity arose, I said “Yes,” to the chance to be in a photo with my boy.

Little fingers, lasting memories

In fact, one of my favorite photos is of Lorenz, at five, and me, on a wintry day in New York. We were on the beach at Coney Island, our sweaters protecting us from the chill. I knelt behind him, while his beautiful fingers curled around my forearm.

A stranger had seen us laughing at the wind-tossed surf, and asked me if I’d like him to take a photo of us. I am to this day grateful that I said, “Yes.”

Family

Parenting ourselves

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Empty Swing 9.26.12

The Child-Less Swing

I love the story this photos conveys: a swing without a child, a bench without a parent.

As the child of an alcoholic father and a codependent mother, I was that child, often too busy parenting myself, too serious, to let go, to be a child in a swing.

A Father Present, Even in His Frequent Absence

Strangely, although my father was primarily absent, his presence permeated our home. I recall much time spent in nervous anticipation of his arrival home. And when he was home, there was an undercurrent of expectation toward his imminent departure, not to mention a wellspring of fear that one of us might trigger his anger.

I particularly recall his insistence that my mother have dinner ready by 5 pm, though he would depart shortly after we ate and remain out until long after we were asleep. I am sure his swift after-dinner departure was a source of sadness for my mother.

A Mother Doing, Rather Than Being

My mother. We revolved around her, as the moon around the Earth, yet she was in her own orbit, revolving around my father, as the Earth revolves around the Sun. If she wasn’t anticipating his needs, his anger, or his betrayals, she was likely protecting herself from them by staying in almost perpetual motion.

She was a “human doing,” and not so much a “human being.” Although she did not hold a job outside the home, she was a prolific volunteer and joiner. There were Women’s clubs and Hospital Auxiliary clubs, school PTAs and Community Playhouse committees. These I remember.

Taking on a Parent’s Role

For me, parenting myself meant earning the highest grades, selling the most Girl Scout cookies, getting in the least trouble, making the fewest demands. As a result of parenting myself, I became hyper-responsible. I felt responsibility for others lives, whether or not they wanted me to.

As an adult, I now try my best to let others take responsibility for their own lives, while I pay attention to that little girl named Gretchen in the swing, from my place on the bench.

Family

Contract Cohabitation

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Contract Cohabitation Softcover

Two bookends, and a book

If a cruel confrontation with polio in his childhood, and a visit from the same foe in his last years were the bookends to my amazingly smart, amazingly flawed father, Edmund’s, time on Earth, then surely one of his most prized accomplishments, set midway between those bookends, was the publication of his book, Contract Cohabitation: An Alternative to Marriage.

Published in 1974, while the scent of the hippy movement was still in the air, and the promises of “Open Marriage” had not yet been betrayed, his book was widely and well-received, even earning him a turn on “The Merv Griffin Show.”

The essence of Contract Cohabitation as a concept is a rejection of the limitations of traditional marriage, in favor of an employer-employee relationship in which either party is free to leave within thirty days.

Looking for love in all the wrong places

As Edmund tells it in his book, he came upon the idea of Contract Cohabitation almost accidentally. After leaving my mother for her former best friend, who was also the wife of his own former good friend, he was swallowed-up by a series of tempestuous romances filled with passion and recriminations.

One day, as he was driving in Northern California, it came to him: he envisioned a relationship that would allow him to be himself, and yet still have committed companionship. For this, he was willing to pay a salary.

Blank contract included

At one-hundred-ninety-two pages, Contract Cohabitation is part-memoir, part-showcase, and part-instruction manual. The book, published by Avon and by arrangement with Grove Press, Inc., is physically impressive, and includes a blank contract for the parties to fill out.

There is also an engaging compare-and-contrast between the ideals of Open Marriage and Contract Cohabitation. Edmund opines that Open Marriage rarely works in practice because one partner to the marriage invariably is overcome by jealousy or feelings of rejection.

In the realm of Contract Cohabitation, however, such feelings will never be an impediment, because both the employer and the employee are free to leave at any time (with a thirty-day notice).

When sex is involved, can it really be that easy?

In a perfect Contract Cohabitation world, calling one partner an employer, and the other an employee, and signing a contract and paying a salary will obviate the need for jealousy and possessiveness.

This, even though sex is an integral part of the arrangement. And, as we know, any time sex is thrown into the mix, all bets are off, no matter what you call the relationship.

Family

A story ready to be told

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DadToddler

Made in China

My father, Edmund Lorenz Van Deusen, was born to Presbyterian missionaries in Tsingtao, China, on December 13, 1923.  He would go on to create a firestorm with his free-love lifestyle, and a titillating book about that lifestyle, entitled “Contract Cohabitation.”

A life prematurely lived fully

Edmund died on January 18, 1994, a mere one month and one day after his seventieth birthday.  Proudly unrepentant to the end, he died alone, in his small home. He was ten years older when he died than he had expected to be, yet more than twenty years younger than his older siblings who are still alive. Years of alcohol and tobacco abuse usually do win out in the end.

I am my father’s daughter

Edmund’s story is my story. It is a story that is at once too painful to tell, and yet too compelling not to. Edmund epitomizes 1970’s California, and more specifically, Laguna Beach, land of tie-dye and patchouli, free love and divorce. On these pages I’d like to tell his story, and by doing so, tell the story of those he affected so profoundly, including my mother and me.