Yoga for Dummies
By Margie Reins Smith (9/7/09)
I am more than halfway through a series of 12 Yoga classes. The brochure said it was for beginners. You’d think I would be getting the hang of it by now.
I’m not.
Our instructor is a willowy, 20-something, rubbery-limbed woman on stilts. She’s about 6 feet tall (five of those feet are her legs), and she weighs about 105 pounds wringing wet, including big jangly earrings. She doesn’t sweat.
She has long sleek dark hair wrapped up and pinned to the top of her head with something that looks like a spring-loaded clothespin, a dazzling smile, an aura of serenity and competence, and she can squat, sitting on her heels, indefinitely.
Really. She crouches, knees bent, feet flat on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees. She seems perfectly comfortable, poring over our class list and chatting affably.
She brings her boom box to class and plays lovely, chanty music. She dims the lights. She drifts around the gymnasium, sylphlike, speaking (verrry softly, mind you) about relaxing our muscles and feeling our own bodies; about breathing deeply.
"When you inhale," she says, "inhale deeply. Take three or four times longer to inhale. Exhale slowly, deeply.
"Close your eyes and gaze inward," she whispers. "Yoga is individual. It doesn’t matter what the person next to you is doing. Yoga is about you and what feels good for you, what your body needs. Your body will tell you what it needs."
I close my eyes and gaze inward and I see guts.
I see a stomach contorted with hunger, a slippery tangled jumble of liver and esophagus and spleen, a pancreas industriously pumping out insulin, some twisted coils of colon, a trachea and lots of frizzled nerve endings.
I sit cross-legged (sort of) on my $24.95 specially-designed-for-Yoga cushioned exercise mat and try to follow directions. I try to relax; I try to release the tension that she tells us builds up in our bodies during the day; I try to breathe deeply; I try to clear my mind.
Instead, I feel like a huge bloated slug. And I’m hungry.
She wraps her left arm behind her waist, throws her right arm over her shoulder and actually clasps her hands together.
Come on.
She tells us to be a table (both hands and both knees squarely on the floor, backs straight). She tells us to be a downward-facing dog (both hands and both feet planted flat on the floor, head dropped down). She tells us to close our eyes and not peek.
I peeked. Most of the other people were peeking back. Grimacing, too.
My favorite part of the class comes at the end. We all stretch out on our backs on our $24.95 specially-designed-for-Yoga cushioned exercise mats, arms at our sides, palms up, eyes closed, breathing deeply and evenly. She turns off the lights. She cranks up the shimmery music.
We lie there for what seems like 10 minutes. I love it. I go home greatly refreshed.
Sometimes I feel taller, too.
This essay first appeared in The Grosse Pointe News
I am more than halfway through a series of 12 Yoga classes. The brochure said it was for beginners. You’d think I would be getting the hang of it by now.
I’m not.
Our instructor is a willowy, 20-something, rubbery-limbed woman on stilts. She’s about 6 feet tall (five of those feet are her legs), and she weighs about 105 pounds wringing wet, including big jangly earrings. She doesn’t sweat.
She has long sleek dark hair wrapped up and pinned to the top of her head with something that looks like a spring-loaded clothespin, a dazzling smile, an aura of serenity and competence, and she can squat, sitting on her heels, indefinitely.
Really. She crouches, knees bent, feet flat on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees. She seems perfectly comfortable, poring over our class list and chatting affably.
She brings her boom box to class and plays lovely, chanty music. She dims the lights. She drifts around the gymnasium, sylphlike, speaking (verrry softly, mind you) about relaxing our muscles and feeling our own bodies; about breathing deeply.
"When you inhale," she says, "inhale deeply. Take three or four times longer to inhale. Exhale slowly, deeply.
"Close your eyes and gaze inward," she whispers. "Yoga is individual. It doesn’t matter what the person next to you is doing. Yoga is about you and what feels good for you, what your body needs. Your body will tell you what it needs."
I close my eyes and gaze inward and I see guts.
I see a stomach contorted with hunger, a slippery tangled jumble of liver and esophagus and spleen, a pancreas industriously pumping out insulin, some twisted coils of colon, a trachea and lots of frizzled nerve endings.
I sit cross-legged (sort of) on my $24.95 specially-designed-for-Yoga cushioned exercise mat and try to follow directions. I try to relax; I try to release the tension that she tells us builds up in our bodies during the day; I try to breathe deeply; I try to clear my mind.
Instead, I feel like a huge bloated slug. And I’m hungry.
She wraps her left arm behind her waist, throws her right arm over her shoulder and actually clasps her hands together.
Come on.
She tells us to be a table (both hands and both knees squarely on the floor, backs straight). She tells us to be a downward-facing dog (both hands and both feet planted flat on the floor, head dropped down). She tells us to close our eyes and not peek.
I peeked. Most of the other people were peeking back. Grimacing, too.
My favorite part of the class comes at the end. We all stretch out on our backs on our $24.95 specially-designed-for-Yoga cushioned exercise mats, arms at our sides, palms up, eyes closed, breathing deeply and evenly. She turns off the lights. She cranks up the shimmery music.
We lie there for what seems like 10 minutes. I love it. I go home greatly refreshed.
Sometimes I feel taller, too.
This essay first appeared in The Grosse Pointe News
'Hate writing; love having written'
By Margie Reins Smith (8/31/09)
I’m writing a novel, so, when people ask what I do, I say (albeit, sheepishly) "I’m a writer." I’ve wanted to say this since age 11, when I became enchanted with "The Secret Garden" and a series of sappy dog stories by Albert Payson Terhune: "Lad, a Dog," "Further Adventures of Lad," "Buff, a Collie," "Bruce" and more.
What do writers do? If I don’t have appointments or scheduled activities, here’s my typical week day:
Get up, shower, eat breakfast. Make coffee. Alas, no morning newspaper, so breakfast is short and sweet.
Take steaming cup of black coffee to in-home office. Fire up computer. Wait while some dumb program called Registry Booster does its thing. Can’t figure out how to get Registry Booster to go away. Welcomed it once, lured by slick ad that promised to make computer zip along at breakneck speed, then discovered Registry Booster wanted me to PAY for this service. Changed mind. Hit delete. Put in trash. Emptied trash. Registry Booster returned. Hit delete again. Registry Booster returned. Continues to return every time I boot up.
Say nasty things about Registry Booster, but put up with little dance it does every morning before my computer is ready to get down to business.
Should start writing. Chapter 33 is next. Almost finished with first draft.
Check email. Open five forwarded jokes and videos from friends. Chuckle softly. (All are mildly amusing, even second or third time around.) Answer email. Write new emails. Check grossepointetoday.com for new posts. Read posts.
Go to Detroit Free Press Web site. Flip through pages and read stuff that interests me, ending with Luann, Zits, Mother Goose & Grimm, Grand Avenue, Speed Bump and Non Sequitur.
Fire up printer. Print Freep’s daily Sudoku. Begin Sudoku. Put Sudoku aside.
Replenish coffee. Scrutinize backyard bird feeders and bird bath for interesting birds. Put load of laundry in washer. Take phone call. Make phone call. Empty dishwasher. Think about what to make for dinner.
Check email again. Answer new email. Check Facebook. Read new Facebook posts. Check blog. Check blog hit counter to see if anybody has read blog. Alas, nobody.
One game of Scrabble couldn’t hurt. Play Scrabble for 45 minutes. Check email. Check blog counter.
Open document labeled Chapter 33. Type "Chapter 33" at top of page. Format page. Kick self for not figuring out how to save format (line spacing, paragraph indents, page numbering) so every time new document is created, format will be same. Put laundry in dryer.
Replenish coffee. Horray for caffeine.
Go to bathroom. Boo, caffeine.
Make To Do list. Check email. Check Facebook. One more game of Scrabble because personal score is nearing 400, longtime goal. Lose. One more game.
Google Alzheimer’s Disease. One of novel’s characters has it. Novel is about old people – scratch old; elderly people – scratch elderly; mature people – scratch mature. Novel is about senior citizens, their unique problems and relationships.
Take phone call from walking buddy. Go for walk with two friends. Consider this important, as Surgeon General says seniors should get 30 minutes of exercise most days of week. Wonder why Surgeon General is labeled "general." Also, why Attorney General is a "general." Make note to self: Google this later.
Eat lunch. Open Chapter 33 again. Write.
When I visited Ernest Hemingway’s home in Key West, I loved seeing the actual room in which he wrote. It was a loft above his pool house. He got to his workroom by walking across a catwalk from the second floor bedroom of his big, high-ceilinged Spanish-style Colonial home. The tour guide assured us that every morning, hangover or no hangover, Hemingway walked across the swaying bridge to this workroom and sat down in front of his typewriter, where he wrote. He worked from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and produced 300 to 700 words. Every day.
Then he took a nap or went fishing. By cocktail hour, he was on a stool in Sloppy Joe’s Bar. He stayed late and drank a lot.
But he was a writer. He wrote. Every single day.
I’m not a writer. Not yet.
I’m writing a novel, so, when people ask what I do, I say (albeit, sheepishly) "I’m a writer." I’ve wanted to say this since age 11, when I became enchanted with "The Secret Garden" and a series of sappy dog stories by Albert Payson Terhune: "Lad, a Dog," "Further Adventures of Lad," "Buff, a Collie," "Bruce" and more.
What do writers do? If I don’t have appointments or scheduled activities, here’s my typical week day:
Get up, shower, eat breakfast. Make coffee. Alas, no morning newspaper, so breakfast is short and sweet.
Take steaming cup of black coffee to in-home office. Fire up computer. Wait while some dumb program called Registry Booster does its thing. Can’t figure out how to get Registry Booster to go away. Welcomed it once, lured by slick ad that promised to make computer zip along at breakneck speed, then discovered Registry Booster wanted me to PAY for this service. Changed mind. Hit delete. Put in trash. Emptied trash. Registry Booster returned. Hit delete again. Registry Booster returned. Continues to return every time I boot up.
Say nasty things about Registry Booster, but put up with little dance it does every morning before my computer is ready to get down to business.
Should start writing. Chapter 33 is next. Almost finished with first draft.
Check email. Open five forwarded jokes and videos from friends. Chuckle softly. (All are mildly amusing, even second or third time around.) Answer email. Write new emails. Check grossepointetoday.com for new posts. Read posts.
Go to Detroit Free Press Web site. Flip through pages and read stuff that interests me, ending with Luann, Zits, Mother Goose & Grimm, Grand Avenue, Speed Bump and Non Sequitur.
Fire up printer. Print Freep’s daily Sudoku. Begin Sudoku. Put Sudoku aside.
Replenish coffee. Scrutinize backyard bird feeders and bird bath for interesting birds. Put load of laundry in washer. Take phone call. Make phone call. Empty dishwasher. Think about what to make for dinner.
Check email again. Answer new email. Check Facebook. Read new Facebook posts. Check blog. Check blog hit counter to see if anybody has read blog. Alas, nobody.
One game of Scrabble couldn’t hurt. Play Scrabble for 45 minutes. Check email. Check blog counter.
Open document labeled Chapter 33. Type "Chapter 33" at top of page. Format page. Kick self for not figuring out how to save format (line spacing, paragraph indents, page numbering) so every time new document is created, format will be same. Put laundry in dryer.
Replenish coffee. Horray for caffeine.
Go to bathroom. Boo, caffeine.
Make To Do list. Check email. Check Facebook. One more game of Scrabble because personal score is nearing 400, longtime goal. Lose. One more game.
Google Alzheimer’s Disease. One of novel’s characters has it. Novel is about old people – scratch old; elderly people – scratch elderly; mature people – scratch mature. Novel is about senior citizens, their unique problems and relationships.
Take phone call from walking buddy. Go for walk with two friends. Consider this important, as Surgeon General says seniors should get 30 minutes of exercise most days of week. Wonder why Surgeon General is labeled "general." Also, why Attorney General is a "general." Make note to self: Google this later.
Eat lunch. Open Chapter 33 again. Write.
When I visited Ernest Hemingway’s home in Key West, I loved seeing the actual room in which he wrote. It was a loft above his pool house. He got to his workroom by walking across a catwalk from the second floor bedroom of his big, high-ceilinged Spanish-style Colonial home. The tour guide assured us that every morning, hangover or no hangover, Hemingway walked across the swaying bridge to this workroom and sat down in front of his typewriter, where he wrote. He worked from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and produced 300 to 700 words. Every day.
Then he took a nap or went fishing. By cocktail hour, he was on a stool in Sloppy Joe’s Bar. He stayed late and drank a lot.
But he was a writer. He wrote. Every single day.
I’m not a writer. Not yet.
Generation Xers and Ageing Baby-Boomers
are much closer than I thought
By Margie Reins Smith (8/24/09)
I learned three cool things about Generation X last weekend.
Observation No. 1: Gen Xers (those born in the 1970s and 80s, roughly) are linked to each other by a tough, fibrous technological connective tissue. It’s stronger than a spider web. But it’s sticky, like a web. It’s wireless and digital. Gen Xers are constantly in touch with their significant others, their children and their extended families. They also communicate frequently with a string of friends and acquaintances. Daily. Hourly.
This is a good, not a bad thing.
I went shopping for a wedding gown with my youngest daughter – (who, by the way, is going to marry a Prince of a man) and three of her five bridesmaids-to-be.
I think I am a 21st Century senior citizen. After all, I have a cell phone. I’m on Facebook. I email. I blog. I know my way around the Web, even though I stick pretty closely to Google, Mapquest, Scrabble, my email account and Grossepointetoday.com, my community news Web site.
But I had no idea how good this Gen X bunch is at keeping in touch.
On Saturday, we had five cell phones among us. Somebody’s purse played a jingly tune on average, say, every 20 minutes, all day long. One bridesmaid and I had the same ring tone, so when we heard our song, we both reached for our purses. I pressed mine close to my ear to determine if the call was for me. It hardly ever was.
They all had fancy blueberries or blackberries or strawberries or whatever-berries, all stocked with dozens of thumbprint photos of their adorable children and snapshots from their vacations and recent family outings. They also had the names, addresses, home phones, cell phones, office phones, fax numbers and email addresses of hundreds of other people at their fingertips. Their fingertips are agile, too, and all four of them could thumb out a text message faster than I can think.
We caravanned around metropolitan Detroit for an entire day, visiting four different retail establishments that dealt solely in bridal gowns, bridesmaids’ attire and wedding accessories. By the end of the day, the bride’s two sisters, the two absent bridesmaids and various other friends of the bride and the bridesmaids had – right in front of their own eyes on cell phones or computers or blueberries – 10 or 12 pictures of the bride-to-be wearing the dresses she really, really liked.
The only person who didn’t have pictures of these dresses was the groom-to-be. He’s supposed to be surprised, next May, when she glides down the aisle into his loving arms.
Observation No. 2: Women are all – I’m talking about women of all ages, not just Gen X and Ageing Baby-Boomers – very, very conscious of our breasts. We talked about breasts all day long. Eighty percent of the bridal gowns we saw were strapless – so the topic was right under our noses, so to speak. How much cleavage is too much for a blushing bride in what is supposed to be a gorgeous, but demure, white gown?
We discussed breast feeding. Four of us are mothers several times over. Did we nurse our babies? Did our mothers nurse us? Did our grandmothers nurse our mothers? If your child has to come home from kindergarten for lunch because he’s still nursing, have you kept at it too long? We talked about una-breasts (the look produced by certain kinds of sports bras), breast cancer, mammograms and breasts that are (we each could check at least two of these categories) too big, too small, too saggy, too high, too low, uneven or pointed in two different directions.
One of the saleswomen, during our discussion of how much cleavage is good for a bride and how much is tacky, referred to breasts as "the girls." This is new to me, but apparently I’m the last woman on earth to hear this nickname for breasts. I love it. I came away from the day-long outing with the conviction that breasts are just as important accessories for Generation X as they are for my generation.
Observation No. 3: A woman over the age of 25 who is looking for a dress – a really special, drop-dead dress for a momentous occasion – will recognize that dress as soon as she zips it up and checks the mirror. Each woman worth her salt knows what makes her look terrific. Is this instinctual?
I think not. It comes from years and years of trial and error. It’s the result of feedback we’ve gotten from our male companions, our trusted girlfriends, complete strangers and even our enemies.
The perfect dress? Women of all ages know it when they see it.
I think she found THE dress. I love it. I love her, too.
are much closer than I thought
By Margie Reins Smith (8/24/09)
I learned three cool things about Generation X last weekend.
Observation No. 1: Gen Xers (those born in the 1970s and 80s, roughly) are linked to each other by a tough, fibrous technological connective tissue. It’s stronger than a spider web. But it’s sticky, like a web. It’s wireless and digital. Gen Xers are constantly in touch with their significant others, their children and their extended families. They also communicate frequently with a string of friends and acquaintances. Daily. Hourly.
This is a good, not a bad thing.
I went shopping for a wedding gown with my youngest daughter – (who, by the way, is going to marry a Prince of a man) and three of her five bridesmaids-to-be.
I think I am a 21st Century senior citizen. After all, I have a cell phone. I’m on Facebook. I email. I blog. I know my way around the Web, even though I stick pretty closely to Google, Mapquest, Scrabble, my email account and Grossepointetoday.com, my community news Web site.
But I had no idea how good this Gen X bunch is at keeping in touch.
On Saturday, we had five cell phones among us. Somebody’s purse played a jingly tune on average, say, every 20 minutes, all day long. One bridesmaid and I had the same ring tone, so when we heard our song, we both reached for our purses. I pressed mine close to my ear to determine if the call was for me. It hardly ever was.
They all had fancy blueberries or blackberries or strawberries or whatever-berries, all stocked with dozens of thumbprint photos of their adorable children and snapshots from their vacations and recent family outings. They also had the names, addresses, home phones, cell phones, office phones, fax numbers and email addresses of hundreds of other people at their fingertips. Their fingertips are agile, too, and all four of them could thumb out a text message faster than I can think.
We caravanned around metropolitan Detroit for an entire day, visiting four different retail establishments that dealt solely in bridal gowns, bridesmaids’ attire and wedding accessories. By the end of the day, the bride’s two sisters, the two absent bridesmaids and various other friends of the bride and the bridesmaids had – right in front of their own eyes on cell phones or computers or blueberries – 10 or 12 pictures of the bride-to-be wearing the dresses she really, really liked.
The only person who didn’t have pictures of these dresses was the groom-to-be. He’s supposed to be surprised, next May, when she glides down the aisle into his loving arms.
Observation No. 2: Women are all – I’m talking about women of all ages, not just Gen X and Ageing Baby-Boomers – very, very conscious of our breasts. We talked about breasts all day long. Eighty percent of the bridal gowns we saw were strapless – so the topic was right under our noses, so to speak. How much cleavage is too much for a blushing bride in what is supposed to be a gorgeous, but demure, white gown?
We discussed breast feeding. Four of us are mothers several times over. Did we nurse our babies? Did our mothers nurse us? Did our grandmothers nurse our mothers? If your child has to come home from kindergarten for lunch because he’s still nursing, have you kept at it too long? We talked about una-breasts (the look produced by certain kinds of sports bras), breast cancer, mammograms and breasts that are (we each could check at least two of these categories) too big, too small, too saggy, too high, too low, uneven or pointed in two different directions.
One of the saleswomen, during our discussion of how much cleavage is good for a bride and how much is tacky, referred to breasts as "the girls." This is new to me, but apparently I’m the last woman on earth to hear this nickname for breasts. I love it. I came away from the day-long outing with the conviction that breasts are just as important accessories for Generation X as they are for my generation.
Observation No. 3: A woman over the age of 25 who is looking for a dress – a really special, drop-dead dress for a momentous occasion – will recognize that dress as soon as she zips it up and checks the mirror. Each woman worth her salt knows what makes her look terrific. Is this instinctual?
I think not. It comes from years and years of trial and error. It’s the result of feedback we’ve gotten from our male companions, our trusted girlfriends, complete strangers and even our enemies.
The perfect dress? Women of all ages know it when they see it.
I think she found THE dress. I love it. I love her, too.
We are what we eat
By Margie Reins Smith (8/17/09)
A few years ago, I read an article about a California woman who found a human finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili. The finger still had the remnant of a manicured fingernail. Don't you love these details?
The reporter noted that the incident gave new meaning to the term "finger food" and assured readers that the chili-eater immediately spit it out. Shortly thereafter, employees were rounded up and fingers were counted.
Nobody was missing any.
Wendy's issued a press release the next day reminding patrons that the chili had been cooked at a high enough temperature to kill bacteria and viruses.
A year later, on Mother's Day, a Virginia woman who was dining with her grown son at a Cracker Barrel restaurant claimed she found a mouse in her soup. She demanded money from Cracker Barrel to compensate for their shock, revulsion, pain and suffering. She claimed the incident put a damper on their Mother's Day outing. It was also supposed to be vegetable soup.
Before she got too far with her lawsuit, however, it was determined that:
1. The mouse died from a fractured skull.
2. The mouse had no soup in his little lungs.
3. The mouse had not been cooked.
Mr. Mouse must have tripped, cracked his skull, and fallen into the soup after it was served. Hmmmmm. The woman was charged with attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit a felony.
According to an old Irish folk song, Mrs. Murphy, who ran a boardinghouse that catered to men of Irish descent, found a pair of overalls in the bottom of a pot of chowder she was preparing for her boarders. When the overalls were fished from the pot, Mrs. Murphy fainted dead away. The diners demanded an explanation for the mishap by gathering around the table and singing "Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder" in four-part harmony.
Many years ago I read in an etiquette book that it's terribly impolite to point out to one's hostess that something is unsavory or unsanitary about the meal she has so graciously prepared for you. If you find a small green bug crawling under a lettuce leaf on your salad plate, it said, you should unobtrusively capture the critter with your napkin, squash it and dispose of it.
I assume the "disposal" would be carried out under the table or in your jacket pocket, not by leaping from your chair and dashing to the wastebasket. The book went on. If your hostess saw you picking something from the edge of your plate with forefinger and thumb, it said, your duty is still to spare her feelings.
Proper etiquette in such a case: Eat the bug.
This essay first appeared in the Grosse Pointe News
A few years ago, I read an article about a California woman who found a human finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili. The finger still had the remnant of a manicured fingernail. Don't you love these details?
The reporter noted that the incident gave new meaning to the term "finger food" and assured readers that the chili-eater immediately spit it out. Shortly thereafter, employees were rounded up and fingers were counted.
Nobody was missing any.
Wendy's issued a press release the next day reminding patrons that the chili had been cooked at a high enough temperature to kill bacteria and viruses.
A year later, on Mother's Day, a Virginia woman who was dining with her grown son at a Cracker Barrel restaurant claimed she found a mouse in her soup. She demanded money from Cracker Barrel to compensate for their shock, revulsion, pain and suffering. She claimed the incident put a damper on their Mother's Day outing. It was also supposed to be vegetable soup.
Before she got too far with her lawsuit, however, it was determined that:
1. The mouse died from a fractured skull.
2. The mouse had no soup in his little lungs.
3. The mouse had not been cooked.
Mr. Mouse must have tripped, cracked his skull, and fallen into the soup after it was served. Hmmmmm. The woman was charged with attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit a felony.
According to an old Irish folk song, Mrs. Murphy, who ran a boardinghouse that catered to men of Irish descent, found a pair of overalls in the bottom of a pot of chowder she was preparing for her boarders. When the overalls were fished from the pot, Mrs. Murphy fainted dead away. The diners demanded an explanation for the mishap by gathering around the table and singing "Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder" in four-part harmony.
Many years ago I read in an etiquette book that it's terribly impolite to point out to one's hostess that something is unsavory or unsanitary about the meal she has so graciously prepared for you. If you find a small green bug crawling under a lettuce leaf on your salad plate, it said, you should unobtrusively capture the critter with your napkin, squash it and dispose of it.
I assume the "disposal" would be carried out under the table or in your jacket pocket, not by leaping from your chair and dashing to the wastebasket. The book went on. If your hostess saw you picking something from the edge of your plate with forefinger and thumb, it said, your duty is still to spare her feelings.
Proper etiquette in such a case: Eat the bug.
This essay first appeared in the Grosse Pointe News
'Still Alice' shows tragedy of Alzheimer's from patient's point of view
By Margie Reins Smith (8/10/09)
Lisa Genova’s debut novel, "Still Alice," is about a hot topic: Alzheimer’s Disease. Genova’s story, however, is different.
Remember the movies "The Notebook" and "Away from Her?" Both were views of an Alzheimer’s patient from the outside, in. "Still Alice" offers us a look at this heartbreaking disease from the patient’s point of view, from the inside out.
Information about Alzheimer’s Disease is all over bookstore shelves. You can find books on the biology of the disease and its possible causes. You’ll see books full of clinical studies, pharmacological information, tips for caregivers and family members. You can read up on early signs to watch for, patient case studies, and you’ll even find dozens of heartrending memoirs about Alzheimer’s patients, penned by their anguished loved ones.
Hardly any accounts are from the patient’s point of view.
Genova’s book is fiction, but it’s grounded in solid research. It offers a fresh look at Alzheimer’s as experienced by protagonist Alice Howland, a 50-year-old Harvard professor of psychology and an expert in linguistics. She’s smart, successful, happily married, the mother of three grown children, a grandmother-in-waiting. She runs. She travels. She lectures. She writes. She works.
She begins to note unusual lapses in her memory. She can’t find a word; she becomes disoriented in her own neighborhood; she repeats herself; she completely forgets to go on a business trip; she introduces herself to a colleague’s new wife a few minutes after they have already been introduced.
Alice chalks it up to menopause or lack of sleep or the ageing process. Then she thinks it might be a brain tumor. She worries. She makes an appointment with her primary care physician.
The diagnosis comes several months later, after dozens of tests and re-tests: early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease.
Apparently, the current conventional wisdom is wrong. We’ve all been reassured: If you think you have Alzheimer’s Disease, then for sure you don’t have it. Alice knows exactly what she has and exactly what is going to happen to her. The only variable is how long it will take. She’s terrified. She denies. Rages. Bargains. Copes.
The remainder of the novel tells the month by month progression of the disease for which there is no cure, the disease that inevitably leads to loss of memory, personality and identity. During these months, Alice breaks new ground by putting together a support group for patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease. Caregiver support groups, she discovers, are a dime a dozen. It’s the patients themselves who need groups.
The novel has some lapses. Some of the scenes are predictable and stilted. The dialogue is often stilted or unrealistic. But the reactions of Alice’s three children and husband ring true and her own thoughts and experiences are based on actual cases and offer the reader a new view – more personal and private – of the agonizing deterioration of an Alzheimer’s patient.
Just before she is diagnosed, Alice prepares to make a dessert which had become a Christmas Eve tradition for her family:
"Alice took out the ingredients for the white-chocolate bread pudding and placed them on the counter – vanilla extract, a pint of heavy cream, milk, sugar, white chocolate, a loaf of challah bread, and two half-dozen cartons of eggs. A dozen eggs? If the piece of notebook paper with her mother’s recipe on it still existed, Alice didn’t know where it was. She hadn’t needed to refer to it in years. It was a simple recipe . . . and she’d made it every Christmas Eve since she was a young girl. How many eggs? It had to be more than six, or she would’ve taken out only one carton. Was it seven, eight, nine?
"She tried skipping over the eggs for a moment, but the other ingredients looked just as foreign. Was she supposed to use all of the cream or measure out only some of it? How much sugar? Was she supposed to combine everything all at once or in a particular sequence? What pan did she use? At what temperature did she bake it and for how long? No possibility rang true. The information just wasn’t there."
Alice reacts to her confusion with anger. She throws the eggs, one by one, in the sink, splattering the wall and the counter and the cabinets.
Months later, after she has deteriorated even more, her husband takes her to a hospital where her daughter has just given birth to twins, Alice’s first grandchildren.
Alice isn’t sure why her husband has brought her to the room and she doesn’t recognize the woman who is asleep in the bed. Then,
"A young man returned rolling a cart carrying two clear plastic, rectangular tubs. Each tub contained a tiny baby, their bodies entirely swaddled in white blankets and the tops of their heads covered in white hats so that only their faces showed."
The young man asks Alice if she would like to hold one of the babies.
"Alice nodded.
"She held the tiny, sleeping baby, her head in the crook of her elbow, her bum in her hand, her body up against her chest, her ear against her heart. The tiny, sleeping baby breathed tiny, shallow breaths through tiny round nostrils. Alice instinctively kissed her blotchy pink pudgy cheek . . . Alice inhaled deeply, breathing in the scrumptious smell of her beautiful granddaughter, filling herself with a sense of relief and peace she hadn’t known in a long time."
Genova holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard. She spent months on research, reading up on the disease and the neuropsychological tests used to diagnose it. She interviewed physicians, caregivers, facilitators of support groups, Alzheimer’s research experts and dozens of people actually living with the disease.
Genova decided to write the novel in 2004. She quit her job and began the research, then did the actual writing at a local Starbucks while her 6-year-old was in school. She completed it in 2006, then did all the right things to dangle the manuscript in front of agents and publishers. Nobody bit.
She self-published the book in 2007.
Ten months later, she found an agent who immediately sold it to Pocket Books, a division of Simon and Schuster Inc., for slightly more than a half million dollars.
"Still Alice" was released the first week of January. It jumped onto the New York Times Bestseller List on Jan. 25 – in the No. 5 slot.
Genova is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer’s Association. "Still Alice has been reviewed – and generally praised – by Time Magazine, AARP, USA Today, the Boston Globe, The New York Times and more. She’s working on her second novel, "Left Neglected," the story of a woman who recovers from a traffic accident with normal intelligence and memory, but who has lost the ability to process information coming from the left side of her body.
"Still Alice" is reminiscent of Mark Haddon’s novel, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time," which is narrated by an autistic teenager, 15-year-old Christopher.
"Still Alice" reminds readers that Alzheimers’ patients are still in there, still inside their bodies, living with their pock-marked, deteriorating brains. Alice is still Alice, even though she can’t remember her youngest daughter’s name (she refers to her as "the actress") or her husband’s name (she calls him "the owner of the house") or her connection to the newborn infant she cradles on her lap. Alice is foggy on the details, but she still has feelings and connections and pleasures and pain and love. "Still Alice" gives us a new way of looking at the tragedy of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Lisa Genova’s debut novel, "Still Alice," is about a hot topic: Alzheimer’s Disease. Genova’s story, however, is different.
Remember the movies "The Notebook" and "Away from Her?" Both were views of an Alzheimer’s patient from the outside, in. "Still Alice" offers us a look at this heartbreaking disease from the patient’s point of view, from the inside out.
Information about Alzheimer’s Disease is all over bookstore shelves. You can find books on the biology of the disease and its possible causes. You’ll see books full of clinical studies, pharmacological information, tips for caregivers and family members. You can read up on early signs to watch for, patient case studies, and you’ll even find dozens of heartrending memoirs about Alzheimer’s patients, penned by their anguished loved ones.
Hardly any accounts are from the patient’s point of view.
Genova’s book is fiction, but it’s grounded in solid research. It offers a fresh look at Alzheimer’s as experienced by protagonist Alice Howland, a 50-year-old Harvard professor of psychology and an expert in linguistics. She’s smart, successful, happily married, the mother of three grown children, a grandmother-in-waiting. She runs. She travels. She lectures. She writes. She works.
She begins to note unusual lapses in her memory. She can’t find a word; she becomes disoriented in her own neighborhood; she repeats herself; she completely forgets to go on a business trip; she introduces herself to a colleague’s new wife a few minutes after they have already been introduced.
Alice chalks it up to menopause or lack of sleep or the ageing process. Then she thinks it might be a brain tumor. She worries. She makes an appointment with her primary care physician.
The diagnosis comes several months later, after dozens of tests and re-tests: early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease.
Apparently, the current conventional wisdom is wrong. We’ve all been reassured: If you think you have Alzheimer’s Disease, then for sure you don’t have it. Alice knows exactly what she has and exactly what is going to happen to her. The only variable is how long it will take. She’s terrified. She denies. Rages. Bargains. Copes.
The remainder of the novel tells the month by month progression of the disease for which there is no cure, the disease that inevitably leads to loss of memory, personality and identity. During these months, Alice breaks new ground by putting together a support group for patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease. Caregiver support groups, she discovers, are a dime a dozen. It’s the patients themselves who need groups.
The novel has some lapses. Some of the scenes are predictable and stilted. The dialogue is often stilted or unrealistic. But the reactions of Alice’s three children and husband ring true and her own thoughts and experiences are based on actual cases and offer the reader a new view – more personal and private – of the agonizing deterioration of an Alzheimer’s patient.
Just before she is diagnosed, Alice prepares to make a dessert which had become a Christmas Eve tradition for her family:
"Alice took out the ingredients for the white-chocolate bread pudding and placed them on the counter – vanilla extract, a pint of heavy cream, milk, sugar, white chocolate, a loaf of challah bread, and two half-dozen cartons of eggs. A dozen eggs? If the piece of notebook paper with her mother’s recipe on it still existed, Alice didn’t know where it was. She hadn’t needed to refer to it in years. It was a simple recipe . . . and she’d made it every Christmas Eve since she was a young girl. How many eggs? It had to be more than six, or she would’ve taken out only one carton. Was it seven, eight, nine?
"She tried skipping over the eggs for a moment, but the other ingredients looked just as foreign. Was she supposed to use all of the cream or measure out only some of it? How much sugar? Was she supposed to combine everything all at once or in a particular sequence? What pan did she use? At what temperature did she bake it and for how long? No possibility rang true. The information just wasn’t there."
Alice reacts to her confusion with anger. She throws the eggs, one by one, in the sink, splattering the wall and the counter and the cabinets.
Months later, after she has deteriorated even more, her husband takes her to a hospital where her daughter has just given birth to twins, Alice’s first grandchildren.
Alice isn’t sure why her husband has brought her to the room and she doesn’t recognize the woman who is asleep in the bed. Then,
"A young man returned rolling a cart carrying two clear plastic, rectangular tubs. Each tub contained a tiny baby, their bodies entirely swaddled in white blankets and the tops of their heads covered in white hats so that only their faces showed."
The young man asks Alice if she would like to hold one of the babies.
"Alice nodded.
"She held the tiny, sleeping baby, her head in the crook of her elbow, her bum in her hand, her body up against her chest, her ear against her heart. The tiny, sleeping baby breathed tiny, shallow breaths through tiny round nostrils. Alice instinctively kissed her blotchy pink pudgy cheek . . . Alice inhaled deeply, breathing in the scrumptious smell of her beautiful granddaughter, filling herself with a sense of relief and peace she hadn’t known in a long time."
Genova holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard. She spent months on research, reading up on the disease and the neuropsychological tests used to diagnose it. She interviewed physicians, caregivers, facilitators of support groups, Alzheimer’s research experts and dozens of people actually living with the disease.
Genova decided to write the novel in 2004. She quit her job and began the research, then did the actual writing at a local Starbucks while her 6-year-old was in school. She completed it in 2006, then did all the right things to dangle the manuscript in front of agents and publishers. Nobody bit.
She self-published the book in 2007.
Ten months later, she found an agent who immediately sold it to Pocket Books, a division of Simon and Schuster Inc., for slightly more than a half million dollars.
"Still Alice" was released the first week of January. It jumped onto the New York Times Bestseller List on Jan. 25 – in the No. 5 slot.
Genova is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer’s Association. "Still Alice has been reviewed – and generally praised – by Time Magazine, AARP, USA Today, the Boston Globe, The New York Times and more. She’s working on her second novel, "Left Neglected," the story of a woman who recovers from a traffic accident with normal intelligence and memory, but who has lost the ability to process information coming from the left side of her body.
"Still Alice" is reminiscent of Mark Haddon’s novel, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time," which is narrated by an autistic teenager, 15-year-old Christopher.
"Still Alice" reminds readers that Alzheimers’ patients are still in there, still inside their bodies, living with their pock-marked, deteriorating brains. Alice is still Alice, even though she can’t remember her youngest daughter’s name (she refers to her as "the actress") or her husband’s name (she calls him "the owner of the house") or her connection to the newborn infant she cradles on her lap. Alice is foggy on the details, but she still has feelings and connections and pleasures and pain and love. "Still Alice" gives us a new way of looking at the tragedy of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Go Finger
By Margie Reins Smith (8/3/09)
My friend Bonnie is petite, blond, a grandmother of five. When she's standing up straight in stiletto heels (which she'd never ever in a million years actually wear), she's about 5 feet 4 inches tall. She weighs slightly more than a hefty golden retriever, even when she's soaking wet and claims she feels bloated.
She's a typical working mother and grandmother. She works hard, dresses conservatively, loves her children and grandchildren to pieces, attends church, pays her bills on time, recycles old newspapers, bottles and cans, eats five fruits and vegetables every day, visits shut-ins and flosses frequently. She writes thank-you notes. She knocks before entering.
Bonnie recently demonstrated some ways of behaving that we all want to believe are important -- some behaviors that our parents harped on for most of our formative years:
Size doesn't matter.
And attitude is everything.
Bonnie didn't carry anybody out of a burning building. She didn't single-handedly hoist a wrecked school bus off a child's crushed shoulder and hold the vehicle aloft while rescuers pulled the victim to safety. She didn't foil a carjacker or cripple a mugger in a dark alley, then tie him up with her pantyhose. She didn't snatch a kidnapped baby from the arms of his abductor. She didn't give anybody the Heimlich or CPR or even first aid.
She showed some burly young whippersnapper that he should mind his manners and manage his nasty temper. I'll bet this guy's mother, if she had been there, would have slapped Bonnie on the back and thanked her profusely.
Here’s what happened. Bonnie was getting off the expressway at an unfamiliar exit. One of the lanes on the surface drive was closed and she was afraid she'd miss her chance to make a right turn. She eased into the far right lane a little bit too soon and much too quickly.
She ticked off the driver behind her. He and his passenger, both big men in their 30s or 40s, were angry. The hulking driver did what many drivers do. Locked and snug in his steel-and-chrome-and glass bullet, with his windows rolled up, his radio blaring and his ego inflated to XXL, seated beside a passenger who needed to be reminded of Mr. Driver's intelligence, skill, speed and rightful dominance over other dumb, clumsy and ill-informed motorists, this young man made eye contact with Bonnie and flashed her an overused, well-known digital hand signal.
His mistake. Now Bonnie was ticked, too.
But unlike Mr. Important, Bonnie was raised right. She didn't speed up and return the visual favor. She didn't honk or shake her delicately gloved fist. She didn't glower, swear or swerve. She pulled up beside the young man and rolled down her window. She indicated that he should roll down his window too.
Amazingly, he did.
"I'm so sorry," she said. "I'm not familiar with this exit. The lane was blocked. I wanted to turn right and I pulled over much too soon. Sorry."
Mr. Aggressive blushed and stammered. "He looked like he wanted to slide under the dashboard and disappear," Bonnie said.
He apologized. He said he usually didn't make such gestures. His passenger looked embarrassed and flustered. The driver said he was sorry and that he'd never do it again.
Bonnie rolled up her window and drove on.
Grandmothers: 1
Whippersnappers: 0
Baby Sitting
By Margie Reins Smith (7/27/09)
Raising decent children is backbreaking, exhausting, thankless work. I’m glad I took the time to do it. It was touch and go for a while, back when I was sitting on the front porch of my girlhood home, begging my parents to let me join the Girl Scouts.
I was browsing around eBay recently, marveling at the fact that old Life magazines are worth about 30 times their original purchase prices. The bidding for a 54-year-old issue of Life with Marlene Dietrich on the cover starts at $6.99.
It cost 20 cents in 1948.
When I was growing up, girls were warned – mostly by their mothers, who knew about all kinds of dangerous practices – not to sit on cold cement or cold ground. If your mother caught you sitting on the front porch steps on a chilly autumn evening, you were told to go inside and get a cushion. Or stand up, for Pete’s sake.
"Why?" we asked.
The answer varied according to whose mother caught you, but if all the answers were added together and divided by the number of mothers who actually responded, the reason boiled down to: "You’ll ruin your insides and never be able to have babies."
That didn’t sound like such a terrible consequence to me.
Being a Girl Scout wasn’t all it was cracked up to be either. I joined because all my girlfriends were scouts.
The good part was the uniform, which we got to wear all day in school on Thursdays. Our meeting was held after school in the gymnasium. I felt important, like I belonged, like I was a member of the chosen few. I think that’s what uniforms are for.
I liked the badges too. I liked wearing them more than actually earning them.
The downside of Girl Scouts was all that camping crap.
I didn’t like sleeping in some Godforsaken forest in a tent on a rock-hard cot under a mosquito net. I didn’t like to swim unless the water was 90 degree or higher. I didn’t particularly like tromping around in swamps, dealing with large unfamiliar insects, drinking icky-tasting water or using outdoor toilets.
By Margie Reins Smith (8/3/09)
My friend Bonnie is petite, blond, a grandmother of five. When she's standing up straight in stiletto heels (which she'd never ever in a million years actually wear), she's about 5 feet 4 inches tall. She weighs slightly more than a hefty golden retriever, even when she's soaking wet and claims she feels bloated.
She's a typical working mother and grandmother. She works hard, dresses conservatively, loves her children and grandchildren to pieces, attends church, pays her bills on time, recycles old newspapers, bottles and cans, eats five fruits and vegetables every day, visits shut-ins and flosses frequently. She writes thank-you notes. She knocks before entering.
Bonnie recently demonstrated some ways of behaving that we all want to believe are important -- some behaviors that our parents harped on for most of our formative years:
Size doesn't matter.
And attitude is everything.
Bonnie didn't carry anybody out of a burning building. She didn't single-handedly hoist a wrecked school bus off a child's crushed shoulder and hold the vehicle aloft while rescuers pulled the victim to safety. She didn't foil a carjacker or cripple a mugger in a dark alley, then tie him up with her pantyhose. She didn't snatch a kidnapped baby from the arms of his abductor. She didn't give anybody the Heimlich or CPR or even first aid.
She showed some burly young whippersnapper that he should mind his manners and manage his nasty temper. I'll bet this guy's mother, if she had been there, would have slapped Bonnie on the back and thanked her profusely.
Here’s what happened. Bonnie was getting off the expressway at an unfamiliar exit. One of the lanes on the surface drive was closed and she was afraid she'd miss her chance to make a right turn. She eased into the far right lane a little bit too soon and much too quickly.
She ticked off the driver behind her. He and his passenger, both big men in their 30s or 40s, were angry. The hulking driver did what many drivers do. Locked and snug in his steel-and-chrome-and glass bullet, with his windows rolled up, his radio blaring and his ego inflated to XXL, seated beside a passenger who needed to be reminded of Mr. Driver's intelligence, skill, speed and rightful dominance over other dumb, clumsy and ill-informed motorists, this young man made eye contact with Bonnie and flashed her an overused, well-known digital hand signal.
His mistake. Now Bonnie was ticked, too.
But unlike Mr. Important, Bonnie was raised right. She didn't speed up and return the visual favor. She didn't honk or shake her delicately gloved fist. She didn't glower, swear or swerve. She pulled up beside the young man and rolled down her window. She indicated that he should roll down his window too.
Amazingly, he did.
"I'm so sorry," she said. "I'm not familiar with this exit. The lane was blocked. I wanted to turn right and I pulled over much too soon. Sorry."
Mr. Aggressive blushed and stammered. "He looked like he wanted to slide under the dashboard and disappear," Bonnie said.
He apologized. He said he usually didn't make such gestures. His passenger looked embarrassed and flustered. The driver said he was sorry and that he'd never do it again.
Bonnie rolled up her window and drove on.
Grandmothers: 1
Whippersnappers: 0
Baby Sitting
By Margie Reins Smith (7/27/09)
Raising decent children is backbreaking, exhausting, thankless work. I’m glad I took the time to do it. It was touch and go for a while, back when I was sitting on the front porch of my girlhood home, begging my parents to let me join the Girl Scouts.
I was browsing around eBay recently, marveling at the fact that old Life magazines are worth about 30 times their original purchase prices. The bidding for a 54-year-old issue of Life with Marlene Dietrich on the cover starts at $6.99.
It cost 20 cents in 1948.
When I was growing up, girls were warned – mostly by their mothers, who knew about all kinds of dangerous practices – not to sit on cold cement or cold ground. If your mother caught you sitting on the front porch steps on a chilly autumn evening, you were told to go inside and get a cushion. Or stand up, for Pete’s sake.
"Why?" we asked.
The answer varied according to whose mother caught you, but if all the answers were added together and divided by the number of mothers who actually responded, the reason boiled down to: "You’ll ruin your insides and never be able to have babies."
That didn’t sound like such a terrible consequence to me.
Being a Girl Scout wasn’t all it was cracked up to be either. I joined because all my girlfriends were scouts.
The good part was the uniform, which we got to wear all day in school on Thursdays. Our meeting was held after school in the gymnasium. I felt important, like I belonged, like I was a member of the chosen few. I think that’s what uniforms are for.
I liked the badges too. I liked wearing them more than actually earning them.
The downside of Girl Scouts was all that camping crap.
I didn’t like sleeping in some Godforsaken forest in a tent on a rock-hard cot under a mosquito net. I didn’t like to swim unless the water was 90 degree or higher. I didn’t particularly like tromping around in swamps, dealing with large unfamiliar insects, drinking icky-tasting water or using outdoor toilets.
Why sleep outside, I wondered, when I had a comfy bed at home with a pink and white ruffled bedspread in a room with roses stenciled on the walls and screens on the windows.
In order to go camping and in order to earn our camping badges, we had to make useless, trumped-up craft projects.
Sit-upons, for example.
We made these things called sit-upons. All Girl Scouts had to make them before they went camping. I’ll bet any Boy Scout worth his salt in those days (or these days, for that matter) wouldn’t recognize a sit-upon if it bit him on the butt.
Our leader came to the meeting one Thursday afternoon with a stack of Life magazines, a couple of balls of yarn and some patterned oilcloth cut into rectangles with pinking shears.
We placed a piece of oilcloth on the top and bottom of a stack of four or five Life magazines. Then we punched holes all around the rectangles with paper punches and wove the yarn in and out of the holes to sew up the magazines inside the oilcloth.
The finished product -- the much ballyhooed sit-upon -- was a waterproof cushion. We were supposed to carry these everywhere and use them when we sat on the ground.
Today, in attics all over America, valuable old Life magazines are waiting to be reclaimed. They’re stitched up in faded red-and-white checked oilcloth sit-upons. The magazines have been protected and preserved and are still pristine, un-yellowed and un-dog-eared.
God bless the Girl Scouts because some girls really enjoy this stuff. If the organization ever needs to raise some money, it should put out a request for all former Girl Scouts to dig up and turn in their sit-upons. Today’s Scouts could rip off all that old oilcloth and put the magazines up for sale on eBay. It would be a splendid troop project.
They’d raise a fortune. They’d learn about recycling, about the Internet, about the auction process and the economics of supply and demand.
By the way, that stuff about not being able to have babies if you sat on cold cement – that’s baloney too.
Ear ye! Ear ye!
By Margie Reins Smith
My 3 ½-year-old grandson stood up and backed away from a miniature fleet of cars and trucks spread across the family room floor. He sidled up to one of his adoring aunts, leaned on her knee, opened his eyes wide and whispered: "Look in my ear and tell me what the family is doing."
My daughter (his aunt) moved closer, grasped his left earlobe firmly, closed one eye and squinted as she peered inside his ear.
"They’re singing Christmas carols," she said. "They’re gathered around the piano and the father is playing the music. They’re singing ‘Away in a Manger.’"
He smiled, satisfied.
He returned to his trucks and the ongoing perfection of those "Vroom, vroom, vroom" sounds that little boys make to imitate the sounds that trucks make.
A few months ago, the last time this particular aunt was in town, she told him he had a family of five people living in his left ear.
I think he knows this is a made-up story, but I’m not absolutely sure.
How do kids learn the difference between truth and fiction? Between scary nightmares and real life?
I know I had some imaginary playmates when I was his age. We were triplets. We all looked alike, but I was the only visible one. The other two could not be seen by ordinary run-of-the-mill people, like my mother. I often blamed those two for my misdeeds.
My mother, however, was no dummy.
At age 3 ½, sometimes I think my grandson knows his mother and father are no dummies. Other times, I wonder.
Last summer, while I was babysitting for him and his little brother, we took a walk to a nearby school playground to swing on the swings, slide down the slide and run around the bases of the baseball diamond. (He swings, slides and runs; I push, catch and watch.)
We set out on our adventure. Grandson No. 1 was on his brand new two-wheeled bike with training wheels. His baby brother was in a stroller. Mr. Big-Shot-on-the-bike was decked out in full bike-riding gear. That is, he wore a helmet.
How did my children survive childhood without helmets and safety car seats and shin guards and elbow protectors and warning labels on just about everything? How did my own generation of pre-Baby Boomers survive without training wheels and child safety caps and seat belts and No. 45 sunscreen and cribs with slats that were much too far apart?
My mother would have said, "They didn’t all make it. We just remember the survivors."
Anyway, Grandson No. 1 rode his bike alongside the stroller, chatting amiably and stopping to get off his bike and look both ways as we crossed each street, exactly as he had been taught.
The next morning, while he was eating breakfast, his mother tells me he announced:
"Gramma let me ride my bike in the street, no-handed, without a helmet."
I hope there is a page in his baby book, along with "First Tooth," "First Birthday," "First Haircut" and "First Words" for "First Fantasy" and "First Big Fat Lie."
The previous three essays first appeared in the Grosse Pointe News
My 3 ½-year-old grandson stood up and backed away from a miniature fleet of cars and trucks spread across the family room floor. He sidled up to one of his adoring aunts, leaned on her knee, opened his eyes wide and whispered: "Look in my ear and tell me what the family is doing."
My daughter (his aunt) moved closer, grasped his left earlobe firmly, closed one eye and squinted as she peered inside his ear.
"They’re singing Christmas carols," she said. "They’re gathered around the piano and the father is playing the music. They’re singing ‘Away in a Manger.’"
He smiled, satisfied.
He returned to his trucks and the ongoing perfection of those "Vroom, vroom, vroom" sounds that little boys make to imitate the sounds that trucks make.
A few months ago, the last time this particular aunt was in town, she told him he had a family of five people living in his left ear.
I think he knows this is a made-up story, but I’m not absolutely sure.
How do kids learn the difference between truth and fiction? Between scary nightmares and real life?
I know I had some imaginary playmates when I was his age. We were triplets. We all looked alike, but I was the only visible one. The other two could not be seen by ordinary run-of-the-mill people, like my mother. I often blamed those two for my misdeeds.
My mother, however, was no dummy.
At age 3 ½, sometimes I think my grandson knows his mother and father are no dummies. Other times, I wonder.
Last summer, while I was babysitting for him and his little brother, we took a walk to a nearby school playground to swing on the swings, slide down the slide and run around the bases of the baseball diamond. (He swings, slides and runs; I push, catch and watch.)
We set out on our adventure. Grandson No. 1 was on his brand new two-wheeled bike with training wheels. His baby brother was in a stroller. Mr. Big-Shot-on-the-bike was decked out in full bike-riding gear. That is, he wore a helmet.
How did my children survive childhood without helmets and safety car seats and shin guards and elbow protectors and warning labels on just about everything? How did my own generation of pre-Baby Boomers survive without training wheels and child safety caps and seat belts and No. 45 sunscreen and cribs with slats that were much too far apart?
My mother would have said, "They didn’t all make it. We just remember the survivors."
Anyway, Grandson No. 1 rode his bike alongside the stroller, chatting amiably and stopping to get off his bike and look both ways as we crossed each street, exactly as he had been taught.
The next morning, while he was eating breakfast, his mother tells me he announced:
"Gramma let me ride my bike in the street, no-handed, without a helmet."
I hope there is a page in his baby book, along with "First Tooth," "First Birthday," "First Haircut" and "First Words" for "First Fantasy" and "First Big Fat Lie."
The previous three essays first appeared in the Grosse Pointe News