Jill's World Trip aka"The Wandering Jew"

Handstand

I was a nine pound baby. According to my family, that was HUGE for a newborn. I was the last of four girls, and given that the others were the standard(average) 7lbs. and change, nine pounds was a mammoth size.Maybe thats where my identity with large sizes began, but I was always the “big” little sister. Especially since the sister closest to me , Lynda, was the most petite of us all, just scraping the wall at 5’2.
My mother, who had her own issues with weight in her life, would sweetly assuage my discontent with describing me as “big boned”, a label I still use to describe myself with the same amount of confusion. my bones are no bigger than any of my sisters, but while I was growing up, my butt sure was!
I was never obese, just “large.” Mildly athletic, but mainly creative and musical. It suited me and my nature. I leaned towards the hippee culture. It was the counter cultural way to be in the late 70’s,as disco and spandex were making its way into the masses. My friends and I preferred the Grateful Dead and peasant skirts.
Needless to say we were not cheerleaders or gymnasts. That always frustrated me. The bodies on most of those girls were taut and compact, even if they were tall. There was a grace to them that I couldnt find in myself. I longed for the abilty to do a cartwheel or a back bend, but I could never get past the stiff hamstrings.
For most of my life, I skated the line between thin and zaftig, some times more fit than other times, always latching on to some fitness regimen to keep my “bigness” in check. Through all of the aerobics, zumba, kickboxing, uphill walking, biking and weight training I must have lost 1000 lbs., which was of course the same 15 over and over again.
And when the joints hurt more than normal or the jumping around just got to me, I would go back to Yoga. I loved it, especially when the instructor spent the time to focus on breathing and meditation. It seemed to make the physical aspect easier. Still ,I never really considered it a complete workout, so it remained a transitional workout, until I worked up the desire to find the next big thing.
Then , after some challenging years and a few key dietary changes, the 15 pounds disappeared and I stepped off the proverbial(and literal) treadmill. I joined a Yoga class at a studio that weighed in very strong on philosophy along with physical form. The class was a full 1 hour and 15 minutes, which gave ample time to meditate,stretch, work, stretch, and meditate at the end. But I never anticipated that I would, after so many years, at 50, do a handstand.
Maybe it was the age. I know that it was the time. The teacher set the theme of the class to go on an adventure, and I played along. when we got to inversions, she split us up so each handstand would have 2 spotters. I don’t know why, but I was determined to do it. The first time I went up my whole right side collapsed.My mind gave my body over to my spotters. I let out a surprised yelp and freaked the teacher out.I could have quit but i was ready to go again- I saw what my mind did with my permission. She stepped in to spot me, and I went right up.I felt my hips stretch and release, and I felt my straight legs, but I didn’t feel my arms. It was liberating.Coming down was different too, and I felt incredible. I flew through the rest of the day.
I was no longer too big for the space I occupied; I was just right.

Now I know why I was unable to do Handstands before, and why I am going to keep on doing them!

The Silver Lining

When Franklin Stainless was sold, many things went along with it.
For my family, it was the end of an era. Franklin was a flagship built on the backs of 3 brothers, and through more than 1/2 a century, remained a steadfast provider to the brothers and their clan. The company functioned as the fulcrum between the brothers and their kin, sometimes serving as a catalyst of raw emotions and deep tenderness, and other times, the business forced the hard line drawn between siblings in the shadow of both greed and unbending trust.
Although Franklin was born on the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn, it was during the early years in Port washington that the company really began to take off. Like an adolescent bursting with hormones, Franklin was growing rapidly and the brothers became dizzy with its hard earned success.Moving the business into 85 Harbor Road represented Franklin’s arrival into adulthood, and Franklin was now considered a well established and well respected entity that had earned its place among the metal distributors along the east coast. To commemorate their good fortune,the brothers commissioned a local artist to create a piece that would serve as a trademark for the thriving business. George Gach created “the three condors” out of stainless, his only work in that metal,and the statue served as the landmark and the company logo since 1967.
Since my fifth birthday the statue stood outside my fathers corner office window,standing guard over the company.I would gaze into it from the chair I sat in for countless hours.Through the years it withstood all types of weather, even an occasional egg assault from the local kids at halloween. It stayed impervious to it all, a testimony to the metal it was constructed from.The piece in its simplicity resembled how our family must have appeared to the outside world: Strong and durable,a little mysterious but at the same time very familiar.

Of the personal affects my family would take from the property as it sold, the “”Condors” was the only possession that did not immediately have a home.No longer welcome as a mascot for the new company, the family considered the options. Given the history of the piece, a donation would be ideal, but to find a place that would accept a 19 Foot monument proved very difficult.

We reached out to many people including the Town of Port Washington north that had grown up around our 8 acre piece of light industrial zoned land. It was to no avail. Sadly,hesitantly, our thoughts turned to scrapping the sculpture.Then, while surfing the internet one day, I decided to look up the artist. We knew he was deceased given the time passed but knew very little else. To my delight I learned that George Gach had gone on to become well known as a wildlife sculptor, creating works mainly out of bronze. “The Condors” still remained The largest piece of George’s career. Georges daugther Susie was a well known painter who still taught in the area, and her son Evan was a painter living in NYC.
I reached out to them and before long a committee at the Cold Spring Harbor library and environmental center took a look at the piece and fell instantly in love. The family of George Gach had helped the piece find its new home, where it would welcome the many visitors to the library each day.The Birds, once designed to represent brothers flight into business,now represents the “soaring”imagination of those that utilize the center.
May this gift of stability and grace from both the Gach and Talve families stand guard for generations to come.

Happiness is a son named Joey

In my living room there is a portrait of my twins, Joey and Marina, painted when they were 4 years old. The painting was done by a chinese artist who came to stay with us over 3 days and took hundreds of photos of them, running, playing, emoting, sleeping and eating as 4 year olds do. The idea was for him to develop these photos and create a composite of what he saw on a large canvas that would hang neatly over the large fireplace in the center of the room.Several months later we received a finished painting of our children. We marveled at the incredible likeness, and how well the overall work blended with the decor.
Over 17 years,I have spent countless hours looking at that portrait, sometimes longingly for those prepubescent days when I stood in the center of their universe, and they, in turn, the purpose of mine. Other times I would simply stare, just to pacify an especially difficult day of missing them, now that they are away in college.In the hours I have spent staring through the muted colors and invisible brushstrokes, I begin to see the subtle mannerisms and characteristics that have remained true to them: Marina’s direct smile into the viewer, with one leg up on the bench and the other in the air, ready to engage and challenge what comes flying her way; and joeys glance upwards, gentle, but thoughtful, with one leg planted firmly on the ground. The final pose is a testimony of the two as siblings:Joey upright, barely sitting but steady, with marina, smiling, one arm holding on, leaning in to her brother.
Over dinner with Joey tonight while visiting him in Baltimore, I am thinking of the portrait. This handsome young man who is politely listening to my recent world travels is looking at me with his big hazel brown eyes and while I am cheerfully reporting I am also melting inside. He still looks up and away to formulate a question, and he is steady and strong. When he begins to bring me up to date on all that I have missed in his life, I find myself catching everyother word as I muse on how complete his world seems to be. I ache with pride.

Mother,Daughter,Sister

If you are female and reading this, you’re either a mother’s daughter or a daughter’s mother, or both. If you’re like me, you’re a sister too, and any combination thereof feels like a direct portal into the complex feminine soul.

Watching my sister Lisa with her daughter Talia during this time is such a window. Surrounded by breathing apparatus , suction machines, feeding lines and the people who frequently tend to them, Talia is almost lost under the clear and milky tubular plastic. Lisa first tends to her pain, asking the myriad of questions to the staff over and over again to verify that everything is being done to soothe and relax her. Then she makes sure that the hospital bed is no longer foreign, covering the firm vanilla platform with a fleecy hot pink and leopard blanket, and 2 ultrasoft overstuffed pink puppydogs , that can soften even the crankiest attendant. There are flowers and balloons at her bedside to remind her that she is thought of and deeply loved.Lisa is constantly talking to her, holding her hand,periodically jumping up to address every detail that pops into her mind. As with each of us in a heightened state when our loved one is hurting, there are multitudes of them.

For the better part of Talias life, Lisa has had her share of daily physical pain, even on a good day.You would never know that here.But from her soft pink bed, Talia keeps a keen eye on her mother,making sure that she is pacing herself, taking little breaks, no matter how small. Even as the discharge date draws closer and Lisa the mother becomes Lisa the nurse, and the details of care becomes more critical because there will be no one to correct it, Talia joins in to council where she can, to further her own understanding of self care but also to help her mother.Here, in the sweetest moments, they tend to each other.

Back on the road

Momentum is a difficult thing to change. By definition momentum is mass in motion; since everything has mass, everything has motion. Momentum must have direction. Maybe that’s the problem with changing momentum, it’s changing direction.
I was on my way home to NY when my sister Sues phone accidentally called me and when I called her back, found out that she had fallen and broken her pelvis in 3 places. She was going to be okay, she had a mild concussion and would have to heal over the next six weeks. Susie has made thousands of hospital visits in her life as a rabbi, but this is the first time in her adult life that she was in the ER for herself. Timing is never good for these things, especially in the life of a rabbi in demand. Sue would have to take it easy for at least six weeks, which is a place that susie doesn’t go very often, at least willingly. Unfortunately this happened only a week before she was flying to Ohio to meet our sister Lisa and our niece Talia at the children’s hospital in Cincinnati, for Talias throat reconstruction surgery. Born with recurring respiratory Papilloma, Talia has had a 21 year battle against a virus that repeatedly invades her airway and is only removed with periodic surgeries. The resulting scar tissue had grown to a point where her airway was 90 percent blocked, and the decision was made to install a tracheostomy tube last summer, although it was assumed that the virus would now have another foreign item to grow on. Lisa found Dr. Cotton, a surgeon working out of Cincinnati children’s hospital who is the foremost authority on airway reconstruction. Dr. cotton agreed to look at Talia’s case to see if she was a candidate for this type of surgery and thought he could help her. The six-hour procedure took the tissue from her rib and created a new throat, with the help of a temporary stint. The tracheostomy tube was replaced with a new one, with every intention of having it removed at the end of the entire 6-8 week odyssey. As in most medical journeys, timing is not a luxury, rather a delicate balance between the surgeon’s availability and the patient’s needs. As far as the patient is concerned, surgery seems to be only a delicate balance of intense fear of the unknown and the deep desire to get it over with.
With Susie unable to come, Lynda stepped in for the critical days during pre-op and the surgery. It was quite an ordeal. talia had a lot to deal with: 2 incisions, a stint, a trach, feeding tubes and oxygen. With no ability to swallow, the first 48 hours post op were frequent suctioning of fluids out via the trach tube, which meant round-the-clock care. As with any major surgery, vitals were constantly checked, airway monitored, IVs filled. On top of all that, amidst the plethora of pain medication, Talia has to breathe, because if she doesn’t, pneumonia can set in. Nothing is as vulnerable as a body after invasive surgery.
Lynda had to leave and after a week of sorting through mail and hugging the cats, along with a delightful and long awaited weekend with marina, I am on the road again. This time with a one way ticket to Cincinatti and a tentative plan to see Joey at college on either wednsday or Thursday night. It’s a short trip, but it’s open ended, which makes it feel adventurous. And to help my family, well,that just makes it plain worthwhile.

Prologue

As with any good story, this trip was born out of inspiration.
At the end of last summer, fresh from dropping Joey and marina off at their respective colleges, I stopped at Susie and Larry’s in Vermont, for fear of coming home to a childless house.
Being in Vermont with my closest friends could be the only thing to lighten my heart. Susie and Larry have had many homes since I have known them, many of them starting with a vision (I will never forget standing in the middle of the woods on a dirt floor in Lloyd neck with raccoons living on the second floor and a starry eyed Susie pointing to where the stove will be) and ending with a beautifully designed, highly functional and incredibly cozy and comfortable living space. Each house was modeled and molded and carefully considered; the results a collage of sumptuous colors and textures, harmonizing perfectly with its exterior surroundings. The rooms themselves were a direct expression of the couple, multi-faceted and complex in nature, but together a perfectly blended composite of the universe, much bigger then the sum of their individual parts.

The house in Vermont is no exception. Originally a vacation retreat, over the years the rambling farmhouse has proved to be a perfect palette for their evolving lifestyle. Now, as “Vermonters”, it is still an open door to the weary traveler, but it is also a homestead, a warm ,comfortable loving center in a creative , growing community. And if the house isn’t inspiring enough, there is the river, rushing alongside, offering countless hours of lazy summer afternoons or a brief respite to anyone willing to dip their feet in.

It was there, in Vermont, where I first hatched the plan to take this trip, and it was with the loving encouragement of my dearest friends that I knew it was possible.