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yellow, it’s me

Posted by cgcopy on April 24, 2025 in finding the sunshine

There’s an iconic line from the classic Bette Davis movie, All About Eve: “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.” Spoken by the diva played by Davis, it alludes to the rollercoaster of events that lies ahead. The perfect line for today’s world – seatbelts required, indeed. But in these uncertain times, I’ve found something that actually stands out to soothe the mayhem (even if just for a few minutes – or seconds). The color yellow.

Yellow as in sunshine. As in a big bowl of bright lemons. As in a bunch of spring daffodils. (And speaking of blooms, yellow irises. Or a bouquet of sunflowers.) A fluffy serving of scrambled eggs (add a golden biscuit for extra comfort). A yellow ceramic pitcher set on a bright blue placemat (if filled with lemonade, even better). Cute yellow flip flops. A brilliant canary. A fabulous, buttercup-colored car (smile quotient – and adorableness – goes up if it’s a Beetle, a Fiat, or a Mini). A crisp, brand-new legal pad (it just makes me feel optimistic that I might actually complete the to-do list I’m writing on it). Sunny yellow rain slickers (especially on tiny little kids with rain boots). Busy, buzzy bumblebees (yellow and black is so chic). Fuzzy yellow bunny slippers. Or a little rubber duckie – come on, you know you’re smiling already.

The power of color is real, and beams of yellow shining through a glum day are like brief spots of happiness, sometimes even sparking creativity.

Which is exactly what happened to me yesterday. Crossing a parking lot toward my car after leaving the supermarket, I saw a woman, her arms filled with yellow gerbera daisies. “Those are beautiful,” I told her. (I do that, complimenting people wherever I go. It makes them feel good. And makes me feel better.) “Aren’t they pretty?” she responded. “They make me hopeful and are just what I need to brighten my day.” Me too (as witnessed by my writing this blog soon after).

My best example of yellow as a candle in the dark came last week, when B. and I were taking a walk along a beach up in the Bay Area. The day was grey and foggy, with no sunshine in the forecast. We crossed paths with a woman walking her dog and wearing a pastel yellow jacket. “I love your jacket,” I told her as we petted her dog. “The color is perfect.” She thanked me and then welled up for a moment. “This jacket belonged to my best friend,” she said softly. “She passed away recently and it’s the only thing of hers that I asked for.” She gave us a small smile. “I wear it to honor her and, whenever I have it on, I feel like she’s giving me a big hug. You’ve made my day by noticing it.” And her story made mine, warming my heart despite the lack of sunshine.

Yellow, I love you. Mellow yellow. Orange’s brighter little sister. However you see it, really see it.

Buckle up – and slow down for yellow lights.

©2025 Claudia Grossman

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file it under funny

Posted by cgcopy on February 12, 2025 in finding the funny, no really - what?

The little absurdities of life seem to be some of the few things that can make me laugh these days – and those that get filed under “ridiculous” are at the top of that pile. To wit:

Our office space at home (aka our former dining room) is perfectly laid out for maximum efficiency, thanks mostly to B., and maximum creativity, thanks mostly to me. The fact that everything is easily within reach, that we’ve made the most of the modest space, and that the art on the walls is a mix of fun, color, and whimsy, makes it a comfortable and comforting place. Here is where B. teaches via Zoom, preps for class, and grades exams, while I write, play Wordle, write, browse for books (yes, and beauty stuff) online, and write (also draw, doodle, and dabble).

For almost three decades of living in our apartment, a mainstay of said office space has been two file cabinets. You know the kind – two-drawer, lateral, metal, taupe (okay, that’s being too kind – office beige). Functional, yes; fabulous, far from it. Side by side, the cabinets have held about a million files over the years as well as a plethora of office supplies inside and a printer and lots of other necessities on top.

But things don’t stay the same, even in the life of a file cabinet. First, we started with the tops showing quite a bit of wear. Not a game changer, necessarily, because of all the above-mentioned office paraphernalia kept there, but still, not so pretty. Then, however, came the breakdown. I pulled out the bottom drawer of one cabinet one day and the door kept moving even when I – and it – should have stopped. Result? One drawer off its worn-out tracks and one writer knocked off balance and on her ass. The drawer was irreparable, the writer okay, albeit annoyed. (Note to self: kicking a metal file cabinet drawer out of frustration while wearing your bunny slippers – not so much).

For a couple of weeks, as an interim solution while B. was in the midst of a mountain of exams, we band-aided the situation by moving two cardboard file boxes into the space where the bottom drawer used to be and filled them with that drawer’s files. A brilliant idea by B., although short-lived at best (can you say eyesore?). That’s where those online “browsing” skills of mine came in. I located replacement cabinets, although the price has certainly skyrocketed since last we purchased them.

This time, we went with black instead of beige – chic, sleek, and a big step up in how the office would look. I picked the free overnight delivery date (guaranteed!) so that we would be able to make the change while B. had some time (a Saturday). Now all we had to do was wait less than 24 hours for them to be delivered. And there’s the rub.

Even though I had ordered them from a major retail chain – always dependable – the delivery service used by said chain in our area is a bit tricky. For one thing, it’s not one of those services anyone has ever heard of. For another, the tracking number supplied by the retailer is not in the format used by the deliverer, which means you have to contact the service to get the correct number. And third, there is no way to contact them other than by online chat. Which, I didn’t realize until much, much later in what was to become a painful saga, is manned (and I use that word ironically) by bots.

Cabinets ordered and tracking deciphered, we waited. And waited. And waited. Long past the promised overnight delivery date. Good news – I was able to track the cabinets. Bad news – for three days they were lost between being on a truck at a warehouse five minutes away and making it to our apartment. Hours spent communicating with the delivery service resulted in the same “don’t worry, they will be there today” broken promise. I finally cancelled the order with the retailer and the delivery service. And pouted. And kicked the cardboard file boxes. (Note to self: don’t do that. Cardboard caves when kicked.)

A dozen emails from the retailer and the delivery service (plus updates on their websites) all assured me that the order was, indeed, kaput. Over. Not going to be delivered. Refunded to our credit card. In a word, finis.

A day later, on a not-good-for-B.’s-work-schedule weekday afternoon, as I went back online to find some other retailer, we heard a horrendous scraping noise from the lobby (our LA building has outdoor corridors and an open-air courtyard). Combined with grunting and groaning. Looking out over the railing from our upper-level unit, we saw a delivery person with, you guessed it, our cabinets, which were packaged in huge cartons. He was working alone and struggling – how he got them up the front steps of our building, into the elevator, and into our apartment foyer is a mystery. How we were going to pull this one off (we had to get the old ones emptied and removed and the new ones in place and filled – stat) was going to be interesting.

Suffice it to say that our place was unrecognizable for several hours. Piles of files everywhere. Old file cabinets emptied and dragged into the kitchen (in order to get them to the front door) using the flattened cardboard cartons to help slide them. New cabinets waiting in the entryway to be slid around the old ones in the kitchen and into place in the office. And then.

We had to find a way to get the cabinets – 80 pounds each when empty, by the way – downstairs and into the garage trash room. The first step was to remove the drawers. Except that the one drawer that had removed itself so easily when it broke and started this whole fiasco had three brothers and sisters who insistently refused to come loose. Finally, after much struggle, B. managed to get two of those three drawers out; the fourth one was just a bridge too far. Three drawers successfully made it into the dumpster. Last step – getting rid of the cabinets themselves.

And that is where the ultimate comedy came in. We brought the file cabinets down using our mini hand truck that I have affectionately dubbed “Chuck” (rhymes with “f**k,” which is particularly apt, as you’ll see). We managed to lift the drawer-less cabinet up and over the edge of the dumpster, where it crashed inside (a very satisfying sound).

But now it was time for the second cabinet, the one that still had a drawer stuck inside. Which meant few places to get a grip. Also apt. Because as we lifted it up, it slipped out of my hands completely, threatening to crash back down on our heads and, less horrifying but equally potentially painful, our feet. “Motherf***er!” I screamed at the top of my lungs as I lost my grip, both literally and figuratively. B. managed to summon that extra adrenaline and strength to push the cabinet up, up, and over the top. Score. My hero. Let’s face it, we’re getting too old for this kind of stuff.

The clean-up and the cabinet refills ensued, followed by two very exhausted, very worn, and very achy people falling into bed (“achy” being the operative word here). The good news? We were back in business the next morning.

File closed.

©2025 Claudia Grossman

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pass or play

Posted by cgcopy on December 13, 2024 in finding the funny, on the road

It’s that time of the decade again – time to renew our passports. And, as often happens with B. and me, the occasion resembled more a Marx Brothers movie than smooth sailing. Honk, honk.

The online renewal option should have made it a breeze. (Previous passport-getting adventures had involved long lines at the post office, a long application, and a longing to get the hell out of Dodge.) Easy-peasy. What could be so difficult?

The photos, that’s what. To wit:

With earlier passports, we had the photos taken either at the post office or at a drugstore, attached them to our mail-in applications, and voilà! No problems.

This time, we went to a retailer, sat in the perfectly placed seat in front of the perfectly placed ring light, and, following instructions, did not say cheese. We received actual photos and a flash drive with the digital versions. The employee who took the shots assured us that the equipment was preset according to passport regulations, so we okayed our photos when he showed them to us on the camera. Maybe we were a bit hasty.

Because in looking at them on my laptop at home, B. looked terrific (who looks that good in a passport photo?) but I thought my face was too big, my hair too strange, and what the hell was going on with the color of my shirt (a very flattering berry shade – only not in the photo). I bore a disturbing resemblance to Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon in the movie).

Forget that I hate my driver’s license photo but have lived with it for years; forget that the passport photo would only be seen by a customs agent probably not even once a year; and forget that I have better things to do with my time and money than to have a second one taken. I decided to try again, much to B.’s befuddlement. (“Really? It’s just a silly passport photo.” “Easy for you to say, Mr. Photogenic!”)

The new photo came out a bit better (but still not great); however, it seemed like it was taken from too far away. How could the cameras in both locations have been preset correctly and the two photos be so different in terms of distance?

Giving up on finding photo nirvana (and wanting to start the online application process), I actually decided to go with the first shot. It just seemed more in keeping with my previous passport photos, distance-from-camera-wise. Good thinking, right?

Wrong. Photo denied. Not accepted. You suck – use another photo. Okay, then. I guess we’ll try uploading the faraway-looking shot. It worked. Time for the Snoopy happy dance until we realized – oh, no, if my close-up photo from the first store was deemed unacceptable, what about B.’s?

Bzzzt. You lose. Your picture is garbage, Handsome Guy. “You know what this means, don’t you?” I couldn’t help zetzing B. (translation: poking the bear). He looked at me warily. “It means my vanity paid off!” “Yeah, yeah.”

New strategy: the take-your-own-photo solution. Cue the Marx Brothers mayhem.

Passport photos must be taken in front of a white background in bright light with no shadows; ergo, we ran full-tilt from room to room, practically colliding with each other, searching for a white wall. Before we realized that we have no white walls in our apartment. Ecru, cream, ivory – whatever you want to call it, yes, but not white. (There’s also a pumpkin-colored wall, but that didn’t work. Obviously). And the early-evening darkness coming through the windows, combined with our warm, cozy lamps, didn’t help. Test shot after test shot just turned out too dark.

But then. I was just about to give up hope when I saw it. Stashed in a closet in our den was a rolled-up museum poster we had purchased but had never hung because it was too big to frame.

“That’s it!” I shouted, jumping out of my bunny slippers with excitement (and falling down in the bargain). B. grabbed me and I grabbed the poster, unrolling it to reveal its brilliant white reverse side. Using painters’ tape, we attached it to our double-pantry doors under the bright lights in the kitchen and – you guessed it – a photo op was born. Click.

Finally, the moment of truth: upload the photo and – wait for it – success! (It made that unhangable poster worth every cent.) B. doesn’t look quite as terrific, but you can’t travel on good looks alone. And me, I’m thinking that looking good while playing in, say, Paris, is more important than looking good in the passport that takes you there.

Our new passports arrived today and, amazingly, we don’t look half bad.

Bon voyage, indeed.

©2024 Claudia Grossman

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just like this

Posted by cgcopy on October 24, 2024 in finding the good, little bits of joy

There’s an expression that I grew up with and heard very frequently when I lived in New York, but haven’t heard used at all, I don’t think, for the past 28 years (as long as I’ve been on the West Coast). In fact, not until B. said it the other day (he grew up with it too – no surprise) did I realize that I hadn’t heard it in ages. The expression? Just like this.

Not “just like this” as in the sense of demonstrating something, e.g., “Mix the brownies just like this.” Or, “the right way to paint a wall is to use the roller just like this.” Or, “perfect your parallel parking by turning the steering wheel just like this.” This “this” is something entirely different. To wit:

When you buy flowers for your sweetie for no obvious reason, you’ve bought them “just like this.” (And be sure to tell her or him – it will bring an extra kiss. Really.).

When you opt to take off for the beach for the weekend at a moment’s notice because suddenly the fresh, salt air feels like a great idea, you’re doing it “just like this.”

When you decide that only Chinese takeout or pizza will do for dinner even though it’s not the weekend and you’ve got your usual weeknight dinner plan in place, you’re ordering in “just like this.”

“Just like this” can mean “on a whim”; it can be translated as “because it’s Tuesday and why not brighten up the week?”; it can stand in for “because I just feel like it.”

And that’s the best part of this slightly ungrammatical but completely charming expression (the meaning behind it surely isn’t just a New York “thing” – the phrasing, however, seems to be). It stands for those moments when you put aside your pros-and-cons list; when you turn off the clock in your mind but turn on your imagination; when you think with your heart, not necessarily your head (in a good way).

It’s for those times when spontaneity takes over and when doing something for no reason at all – other than that it appeals to you – is the best reason you can think of for doing it. It’s for those gestures that bring you or someone else joy. It doesn’t require an agenda or a game plan or a whole lot of thinking.

What it does require is the ability to throw all that serious stuff away for just a few minutes and to embrace the chance to act on an impulse. It doesn’t have to be an enormous, grand gesture; in fact, small “just like this” moments mean you can experience more of them – even every single day.

So, from the place that brings us such classics as “Yo! I’m walkin’ here,” “Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” and “What the f**k is wrong with you?” (you’ve gotta love those New Yorkers) comes this other, arguably softer expression. Try it (you’ll probably have to explain it, but the learning curve is small) – it will become a habit before too long (a good one, trust me).

Just like that. Snap.

©2024 Claudia Grossman

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write the joy. again.

Posted by cgcopy on September 21, 2024 in a writer's life, finding the joy, she's write

I originally wrote a version of this post a few years ago; recently, in looking back at all 12 years (already?) of my blog posts, it really jumped out and resonated with me. I wrote it, back then, to explain one of the reasons (the best reason, I think) for why I write – a reason that has become especially vital today, in these increasingly trying, uncertain times. I am reprising it today for that same reason; simply put, I write to find the joy. And with that joy, a feeling of hopefulness. And so I write on.

Writers write for many reasons. For me, it’s all about the joy.

Writing the joy means not only writing what you know – the advice given to writers probably since the beginning of time – but writing about what makes you happy. The people, the places, the passions that fuel you. The words themselves that feel good to say and even better to write down and relive. The colors and shadings of nature, of cities, of places visible and those only dreamt about. The things that you’ve seen and heard, tasted and touched, felt with your fingertips and caressed with your soul.

Write the joy of a cerulean blue ceramic bowl filled with a pile of richly colored peaches (and enjoy, with an internal “ahh,” the use of cerulean and ceramic in a single phrase). Immerse yourself in the pleasure of finding the words to describe looking at a glass of ruby-red cabernet, glints of light captured in its depths, and seeing the world as if through a jeweled lens.

Describe the perfect cup of cocoa – write until you can see the creamy color, smell the irresistible lure of the chocolate, taste the sweetness. Until you can feel the comfortable weight of the warm mug in your hand. And until you can remember the very first time you ever tasted cocoa and all the joyful memories that evokes.

Find the words to paint autumn in New England. Leaves of scarlet and gold, amber and purple, nature’s most glorious collage. Or New York in the spring – towers of grey and silver punctuated by bodega buckets of tulips in pink and coral and bright red. Or San Francisco in October. The Golden Gate emerged from the fog in all of its rich orange grandeur, the perfect complement to the clear sapphire sky above.

Write down how you feel about the person you love most in the world – or describe his kind eyes; her gentle touch; the way he saves you the comics and the crossword from the paper each day; the way she saves you the edges of the brownies because she knows those are your favorite pieces.

I write the joy because it evokes pure elation. Because it allows me to capture, craft, and create small, exquisite moments in time through lines on a page. Because it restores my faith in the power of words to make something beautiful. And because it makes me happy.

Joy to the girl.

©2021, ©2024 Claudia Grossman

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vow to laugh

Posted by cgcopy on September 4, 2024 in finding the funny, isn't it romantic?, life moments

As anyone who knows B. and me can attest, we don’t always do things conventionally – and that includes our wedding. Rather than a large, catered party in a really swell venue with lots and lots of people, food, and music, we opted for just a tiny celebration – the two of us and two friends (well, one friend and her then-boyfriend), a judge as officiant, and a videographer (with his lovely girlfriend / assistant) in the backyard of our Santa Barbara apartment.

It’s the wedding video that inspired this blog post because finally, after 27 years of marriage, we decided to have it digitized, just in time for this year’s anniversary. Our VCR broke years ago (in fact, being able to view this one tape was the only reason we had kept it), so we hadn’t watched the video for a long time. When we received the digitized version and had the chance to look back, literally, at our wedding, we remembered the adventure.

We hadn’t necessarily planned it this way. When I had moved from New York and in with B. nine months earlier (no significance to that number, to those of you thinking about doing any kind of math) in December of 1996, we had talked about getting married in the spring of 1998. But nagging brought us to our vows in the summer of 1997. Not my nagging. The nagging of two mothers-in-law-to-be, one in New York and the other in South Florida at the time, both of whom were driving us nuts. To wit:

The judge thing – you may be wondering about that yourself. So were the mothers. My mother didn’t get it because her daughter was (thank God, finally!) marrying a nice Jewish boy. B.’s mom just plain didn’t get it. Neither mom got that we’re secular Jews and that a rabbi marrying us just wasn’t in our plans. Oy.

Next, the fancy-wedding concept. Try explaining (a couple of hundred times) to a couple of mothers, who had been planning their kids’ weddings since their kids were in diapers, that a big wedding to rival those of their friends’ children was not happening. “What? No wedding gown, no tuxedo, no bridesmaids and ushers, no band announcing your entrance, no spotlight on the parents? You’re depriving us of all that?”

Even the food. In those days, when we were starting out, our budget was very tight. But we were creative. We had envisioned a wedding list of maybe 20 or so adults (no kids, thank you very much); to feed them, we thought of ordering lots of mini gourmet pizzas (something for everyone), as well as my baking homemade wedding cupcakes. Bottles of champagne would round everything out nicely.

But no, not if the mothers (hereby known as the Mom-nipulators aka the Insister Sisters) had anything to say about it. “You cannot serve pizza at a wedding!” B.’s mom intoned. “No kids?” my own mother gasped, horrified. “What about all the nieces and nephews?” See where I’m going here? The joy of wedding planning was quickly dissipating, more and more with each not-long-enough-distance mother conversation.

Finally, after several of months of non-stop guilting attempts, we’d had it up to here with the mama drama about nearly everything – the what, where, when, and why of every detail. Whose wedding was it, anyway? We looked at each other one morning and, almost at the same moment, said “Let’s just get married now.” We set our date for two weeks from that day and then scurried around to get all the details taken care of. We limited the friends guest list to just B.’s law partner and her partner (our witnesses). B. made arrangements with a judge he knew. And I ordered the perfect size wedding cake – the top tier.

The videographer (I told you we’d get back to him) – a nice, good-hearted guy who obviously meant well – was a friend of a friend who came highly recommended, although, based on the finished product, I’m guessing that this video was actually his first job. Out of focus in parts, hard to hear in parts (except for the windchimes, those came through loud and clear), in shadow when it should have been in sunlight, overexposed when it, well, should not have been. It was a mess. (Fortunately, the videographer’s girlfriend / assistant used our camera and snapped beautiful stills so that we have a real wedding album.)

Ironically, while you can’t see or hear our vow-taking (the most important part) clearly, our first dance, to Glenn Miller’s In the Mood on a boombox, was shot perfectly. The fact that my dress was too narrow for swing dancing and that B. had two left feet is beside the point – that part taped wonderfully. Go figure.

How did the mothers take it, you ask? As it happens, my mom was not allowed to fly at the time because of a recent fall. And my darling B., who knows how sensitive I am and how much it would have hurt me if his parents came to the wedding when my mom could not, offered to not have his parents there either. While we didn’t tell my mom about our plans until after the wedding (amazingly, she wasn’t upset at not having been there, so overjoyed was she that her daughter, who had moved to California without a ring – oh my! – was actually married, and to a great guy), we did let B.’s parents know of our plans beforehand. His mother interpreted her son’s loving gesture to me to mean that we obviously didn’t want her or my father-in-law at the wedding (seriously?) and boy (and oy), did we hear about it.

Even though we rushed copies of the wedding video, photo albums, and our printed vows to my mom and my in-laws within days, my mother-in-law never quite got over it. For years afterward, she would tell us that whenever she passed by our wedding photo on her coffee table, she would start to cry. Despite her best efforts, the guilting didn’t work (extra points for the effort, though). I haven’t heard that from her for a little while, though, so now, 27 years later, maybe we’re okay. (Or not.)

The best part of the wedding was the vows, which we had written ourselves. Each year on our anniversary, we retake them, just the two of us, usually at home, sitting on the couch. They still hold up because, by the end, we’re a mess. The digitized video added to this year’s celebration – we were thrilled to see that the flaws are as fabulous as ever. We could not get through it without laughing so hard that we fell off the couch – it’s that ridiculous. But it’s all ours.

Vowing to love, honor, and cherish is a good thing – vowing to laugh makes everything better.

We do.

©2024 Claudia Grossman

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of nightingales, nora, and night skies

Posted by cgcopy on August 22, 2024 in heartfelt, isn't it romantic?, love and relationships

I’m a sucker for romance. Just a hint of love – a sweet older couple walking by, two high schoolers making eyes at each other, a bridal party taking photos in a garden – makes me feel better about things in general. And when I can find romance in a movie or music (books, too, of course), well, that can even make my day. To wit:

I’m a great fan of the Big Band Era and find the love songs absolutely swoon-worthy. In fact, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (pronounced Barclay), a British song released in 1940, is one of my Top 5 love songs of all time. Divinely, gorgeously romantic, it is a perfect example of the wartime love songs so popular then. Just the first few lines: “That certain night / the night we met / there was magic abroad in the air / There were angels dining at the Ritz / and a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.” And it gets even better from there. Sigh. (Note: Rod Stewart’s 2004 recording of this standard is wonderful – check it out.)

And movies? Whether it’s the we’ll-always-have-Paris romance of Casablanca or the I-swear-that’s-our-story (well, minus the deli scene, maybe) of When Harry Met Sally (the perfect rom-com in my book, written by the brilliant Nora Ephron), these movies restore my faith that real love, true love, is alive and well – if imperfect – throughout the universe.

Which leads me (very nicely, I hope) to the romance within B.’s and my own four walls. We love us, and we love our marriage – and we know how important it is to keep the romance a-kindle. Little things like one of us buying the other one flowers “just because;” like B. putting some music on and grabbing me to dance for a few minutes while I’m in the midst of making dinner; like my finding him a new time-travel book because he loves those; like him giving me the biggest hug of my life when he knows I need it most (which, these days, is every day). These are the things that remind us why we are together. The grander gestures are wonderful, but it’s the little daily things that make the difference.

Now here’s where the night-sky part of the story comes in. As someone who sees (and seeks) hearts in everything, I recently discovered a company that offers what I think is a very romantic concept – an image of the actual night sky (stars, constellations, moon) wherever you were on any given day in your life. You can add your own message to the image and – voilà! – you’ve got a moment to remember on those days when maybe there are no flowers, when he steps on your toes dancing, or when you’re too impatient to stand still for a long hug. You know, those days when you might forget, momentarily, just how special each moment is.

I ordered two night-sky images – one for the day we got married and the second for the day we met. The first (Santa Barbara night sky) borrows some words from When Harry Met Sally with a twist of my own: “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. I’ll have what you’re having … always.”

For the one that marks the day we met (Ithaca night sky), I borrowed from A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, with another original twist: “That certain night / the night we met / there was magic abroad in the air / Fireflies were dancing in their light / and a nightingale sang at Cornell there.”

One image has a midnight-blue background; the other, aquamarine (because color is romantic). Both are framed and displayed where we see them very, very often each day.

Sure, maybe it’s a little corny for some people. Maybe a little overly sentimental for others. But in my book (or movie or song)? True romance.

To the nth degree.

©2024 Claudia Grossman

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not so gym dandy

Posted by cgcopy on July 10, 2024 in finding the funny, klutzy but cute

If you ask me to name my favorite subjects in junior high and high school, it would be easy – I’d say English (the more reading, the better), French, art, and geometry (I loved figuring out those proofs). And if you asked me my least favorite, it would be even easier – gym. (Okay, trigonometry came next – what the heck is sine, anyway? – but gym was by far at the bottom of the list. The very bottom.)

Why? Because, quite simply, I was both a klutz and not exactly schooled in the art of playground. (I wasn’t the very last person chosen for teams but pretty close to it.) Add being painfully shy to the mix and you can understand why I’d rather have spent my time in the library than in the gymnasium.

Let’s start with those outfits, called “gym suits” in those days. Unlike now, where girls get to wear cute gym shorts and tees, we were relegated to wearing these absolutely ugly, one-piece garments made out of a stiff cotton (maybe) / polyester blend. This fashion faux pas looked like a short-sleeved, collared shirt tucked into a pair of baggy shorts, with unflattering elastic around the waist and snap fasteners. Our names were supposed to be written onto the front pocket in laundry marker. (In my case, my mother felt the need to embroider my name in contrasting thread. Not too embarrassing – thanks, Mom).

Worse than wearing the gym suit was participating in the activities. To wit:

First, gymnastics. While I did okay when the balance beam was represented by a taped line on the ground (I could walk along it without losing my balance), once it became a beam, I became a mess. So scared was I of falling off that, well, I fell off. Time after time. And we’re just talking about walking here. Other girls could walk, turn, leap onto it with the help of a spring board, and even learn to do a cartwheel dismount. Nope – not happening.

And don’t even get me started on the uneven parallel bars. All I needed to be told was to dangle from the high bar and then let go, drop down, and catch the low bar – and I froze. Let go? Are you kidding me? I may not have been studying physics, but I knew all about the laws of gravity and had no intention of testing their limits.

And you know how there are all kinds of vaults? Mine was the no-fault vault – that is, I would run as fast I could toward the apparatus and then, at the moment it was time to place my hands on it and push myself over, I’d stop still in my tracks, like one of those cartoon characters who skids to an abrupt halt, leaving a cloud of dust behind. That’s all, folks.

Next up, softball. Here was a conundrum for me, because I detested both batting and fielding. Batting, because I’d get so nervous that I would be too distracted to keep my eye on the ball and attempt to hit it. And fielding, because I would pray that the ball wouldn’t come to me for fear of it popping out of my glove, rolling between my legs (hello, Bill Buckner), or, even worse, my catching it and throwing it in the wrong direction. The only good news there was that catching it, apparently, was never a possibility.

Volleyball. You know how cool it looks when you watch a volleyball game, and all those beautiful, perfectly fit people are digging, spiking, tapping, jousting, and killing the ball, having the times of their lives? (Cue the soundtrack to Top Gun). Yeah, not so much for me. First of all, my serve was never quite strong enough to get the ball over the net easily. And secondly, I just never had that all-or-nothing, “dive for it” instinct in me (again with the praying that the ball not come to me). One sight of that ball bearing down on me and it was “take my breath away” time. Literally.

I did like a game called Newcomb, though, which only involved catching the ball and then tossing it back over the net (I opted for a two-hand underhand). When I recently mentioned Newcomb to B., telling him I’d really liked playing it back then, he thought I was joking. “That’s not even athletic!” he said, cracking up. One look at my disappointed face and he tried to fix it. “Well, it’s sort of athletic,” he amended. “I mean, you do have to catch the ball, I suppose.” Side out.

Did I like any of it? I liked the modern dance unit. I liked the jumping jacks. And I liked doing somersaults (aka forward rolls). But the rest? As we said in those days, “let’s not and say we did.” What I loved, though, was being able to change back into my clothes and head to English class. (Thankfully, my college had no phys ed requirement – coincidence?)

Final score: Scarlet Letter, 1; gym class, 0.

©2024 Claudia Grossman

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braided together

Posted by cgcopy on June 15, 2024 in heartfelt, life stages, little bits of joy

The Saturday before Father’s Day seems like the perfect time for me to repost this piece about some wonderful memories I have of spending Saturday mornings together with my dad when I was growing up. A toast to dads and the daughters who love them.

I am so happy for my friends who have had their fathers with them over the years to share in their adult lives. Although I have lived so much more of my life without my dad than with him (he passed away when I was only 19), my memories of him are sweet. One of the most vivid is that of our Saturday mornings together.

Although my dad worked long hours, he was always home for dinner on Friday nights and through the weekend. Saturday mornings were our time together. When my mom had a list of errands for him to run, I rode shotgun. Other times we went to the hardware store – not one of the huge home-improvement chain stores we all go to now but a genuine hardware and garden store run by locals, two men named Ralph and Pat, who became fixtures of my childhood. Although my dad was a film editor, in his younger years he had done the kinds of jobs that had left his hands callused and roughened. Sometimes I think that the time we spent at the hardware store shooting the breeze with the men who had grown up in the Bronx, as he had, were some of the most satisfying moments for him.

More often than not, our Saturday morning jaunts around town included lunch – just my dad and me. Maybe it was the local Jewish deli, maybe the burger place where the hamburgers always were wider than the buns, maybe the lunch special at a Chinese restaurant. (Because I was such a fussy eater, he had convinced me that the water chestnuts in my beef chop suey were really potatoes; it worked for me.) What mattered was that I was with my dad and that I had all of his attention. Ours was a mutual admiration society – he was my hero and I could do no wrong (or very little) in his eyes.

One of the most tender memories I have of my dad is of the occasional Saturday mornings when we would attend Sabbath services at the synagogue. Two things I remember most about those mornings: 1) that my dad would revert from his regular glasses to his sunglasses during the sermon so that he could grab a nap while the rabbi was speaking, and 2) that I would sit next to him braiding and unbraiding the tassels on his tallit (prayer shawl). Sometimes I wove the strands between my fingers, sometimes I tied them into loose knots before untangling them. It was my way of staying awake during the sermon; it was also my way of feeling even more attached to my dad.

While I now consider myself a cultural, non-religious Jew, my memories of those Saturday mornings at the synagogue are no less special. The plush seats, the beautiful melodies, the whispered jokes, the slices of sponge cake afterward – it all came together to create an experience with my dad that I will always, always remember.

Funny the things that connect us to our pasts and tie us to the people we love.

Heartstrings.

©2019, 2024 Claudia Grossman

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what if?

Posted by cgcopy on June 4, 2024 in it's life, it's me, making a change

What if? Two wonderful words if you’re a dreamer. A creative. Someone who is bursting with great ideas that can’t wait to be shared. Two not-so-great words if you’re someone who suffers from anxiety. Two words that are kind of analagous to those two notes that comprise the theme from “Jaws” – bum, bum. Danger ahead.

As someone who has suffered from anxiety for almost all my life, “what if” has ranged from living in my subconscious, to becoming a more frequent visitor (buzzing like an annoying mosquito), to being front and center, the reference point for far too many of my decisions, actions, and reactions. What if I do X, and the result is disastrous? What if the world falls apart because I wasn’t on top of all that could go wrong? What if I take a chance and, as a result, the entire house of cards comes tumbling down? (Because what if all it really is, is nothing more than a house of cards? Oy.) What if, what if, what if.

What you may not know is that, at some point, too much “what if”-ing can lead to a tsunami of feeling helpless to move forward; to a storm of self-doubt and dread; to the need to blow the whistle and call a time-out. Which I needed to do a few days ago. A time-out to reset. To step back. To understand what is happening.

What sets anxiety into high gear? In my case, I’ve always been an anxious person, from the time I was a little girl – hiding behind my mother’s skirts (“Oh, she’s just shy” – not); being terrified of jumping into the pool at summer camp; fearing my parents dying if they took that trip on an airplane. The signs were all there, but, unfortunately, never dealt with – only avoided. Part of it was the times, I’m sure, when anxiety wasn’t recognized for what it was; part of it was just a lack of understanding of the situation; and part of it was having a mother who suffered her own kind of anxiety but never treated it. Was my anxiety nature or nurture? Yes.

Over the years I’ve been given conflicting sets of guidance by more than one therapist and doctor, probably because the right treatment for anxiety is different for everyone who suffers from it. What works for one person may not work for the next. And it takes time to figure it out.

For example, one theory offered was that generalized anxiety is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain, one that medications can help. I tried that for a very long time, with what turned out to be too high a dosage, making me feel just awful. Then I was told that no, that wasn’t the way to look at it, and that anxiety ought to be treated with a regimen of cognitive relearning – when you’re anxious, divert your thoughts and attempt to meditate it away. But for someone like me, a born-and-bred neurotic New Yorker, every attempt at meditating or self-focusing or closing out the noise only results in more anxiety (What’s that strange sound I’m hearing now that it’s so quiet – is the refrigerator broken? How much longer do I need to try to focus on emptying my mind – has it really only been 30 seconds? And why does trying to clear my mind only result in it feeling even more full of worry?).

And so I’ve muddled along through life as best as I could, which is what a lot of people (even those who aren’t anxious) do. But I never really did the the work to tame the beast properly in a way that worked for me – I did just enough to get by. Apparently, though, just getting by is just not enough.

To wit: over the last several months, particularly, anxiety was nipping at my heels, to the point where over the past few days it reached a crescendo and I realized that the aforementioned time-out was necessary. We had been planning a 16-day, 3000-mile road trip from LA up to Canada and back again, with a departure date of later this month. I’d been preparing and researching our vacation, all the while dealing with a ton of outside stress from various different life challenges (we all have those).

That was the straw that made the camel say, “You know, my back really, really hurts.” I woke up a few days ago and told B. that I just couldn’t do the trip. It was overwhelming and terrifying – too far away for too many days. “What if you or B. get sick so far from home?” the anxiety beast taunted. “What if the car breaks down along the way? What if you get so far from LA and can’t get back? What if something happens to B. and you’re left there all alone? What if you’re in the middle of a 9-hour driving day and can’t breathe in the car?” What if, what if, what if. Again.

Time out. After hours of crying over the cards falling around my head, hours of being horribly disappointed in myself, hours of B. being the amazing support that he is, and hours of feeling like s**t, I finally realized that the the only way through this is to take a deep breath and finally address the beast for what it is. A f**king pain in the ass and something to be tamed in order to be conquered. It was time to realize that no, I’m not a screw-up, but yes, I need to take the time to learn what I need to do and how to do it. What I do know is that, for me, attempting to meditate or knit or distract anxiety away just won’t work. Like so many other things in life, I’ve got to recognize it, acknowledge it, and work through it to get past it. And so the work begins anew.

I share this account for many reasons. First, in the hopes of letting you know that anxiety disorder is not simply feeling nervous about something, even though so many uninformed people may minimize it that way: “You’re such a nervous Nellie. What do you have to feel anxious about?” or, “You’re always flitting around taking care of everything – it’s just a lot of energy,” or, my favorite, “You just need to calm down.” Yeah, no. It’s an illness and deserves that kind of acknowledgement.

Second, know that anxiety can inhibit, restrict, and just plain suck the joy out of life. Think about it – if you worry about everything and, therefore, feel too frightened to do things, your world can get really small, really fast. The walls can feel like they’re closing in.

Third, anxiety is not a sign of weakness. And dealing with it is a sign of strength.

Fourth, people suffering from anxiety need kindness. From others, sure, but from themselves. I need to be kind to myself, to be patient with my small steps forward, and to realize that I’m not a bad person or a failure for having this condition. I’m human.

Smalls steps. Patience. Kindness. The right techniques. It will take time and it will be an everyday battle, but I fully hope to get the anxiety beast under control eventually. Slay the dragon completely? No, because anxiety is a part of me. As much as my wicked sense of humor. My green eyes. And my unshakeable belief in the power of chocolate.

And while it’s not the headline, the good news is that we’ve reconfigured the vacation to a shorter, closer-to-home getaway to Yosemite for just a few days with maybe a couple of days somewhere else not too distant. As for the aforementioned life challenges that have added to this particularly lovely bout of me vs. the beast (very difficult aging-parent issues being at the top of that list), those will get chipped away at a bit at a time. Not perfectly, but in a way that I can handle and still take care of myself, which is the most important thing.

I couldn’t ask for a better partner, advocate, or co-slayer of my dragon than B. – my gratitude to him for loving me unconditionally and for my being able to lean on him for strength is boundless. Ultimately, this is about me, though, about my fighting the fight and emerging stronger for it. About the words “what if” not being scared but, one day, being hopeful. And full of possibility.

I’m gonna need a bigger piece of chocolate.

©2024 Claudia Grossman

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