Old Forge

Adirondack Mountains painted by Winslow Homer

Tuesday, February 6, 2007
for Marion, with love, Anne

Just as Mildred was my dad’s favorite sister, her sons were my favorite cousins when I was growing up. Richie was exactly my age, we were best friends, and Alan was only two years younger, he could be included in our play. And even tho my little brother was 5 years younger then me, Richie nicknamed him Guchie and included him too. Every Sunday we drove over to their apartment in Jackson Heights, where the two sets of parents had coffee and cake together, and the 4 of us played together. We always had a wonderful time.

And in the summers we were all up in Old Forge together. On beach days we all were at the beach together and I played with Richie in the water. But mountain summers don’t have that many beach days, half the week is always cold and cloudy and rainy. I would walk over to Richie’s house in my raincoat and boots and we'd lie on his bed and read comic books and then walk over to the drug store for a phosphate, and visit the dogs in the neighborhood, there was a collie I liked a lot. I loved our summers in Old Forge but Richie didn’t. He said “it is boring, there is nothing to do,” he had far more fun with his friends back in Jackson Heights.

Life only got interesting for him when he sent away in the comic book for that Daisy BB gun, and set up the targets outside, and shot at them with his gun. We were best friends then and of course he offered to take turns with me and I tried. But the BB gun didn’t do anything for me, and it did everything for Richie. I guess it marked the end of our friendship because after that all he wanted to do was play with his BB gun, and it just didn’t hold my interest. A girl named Nina arrived with her family to rent the house next door, and after that I spent all my time with Nina.

Richie and I had done a lot of things together before the BB gun arrived. We would fish together off the pier, we would go in the canoe together, he would take the back, I would take the front. And we would plan when we had real money to buy a motorboat together. He said he will have money when he has his Bar Mitzvah and I said I will have money when I have my Sweet 16.

I really don’t know why I was so completely content up in Old Forge and Richie was so bored. When he said he had so much more fun with his friends back in Jackson Heights, I just took his word for it. I mean I assumed he had far more fun with his friends back in the city than I had with my friends. But I wonder now if that was true. I visited Richie and Alan as kid, and sure it was fun throwing water balloons out the window on people, and flipping baseball cards, and playing fort with his friends downstairs in the trees around the apartment building. But I was a jump-rope freak, what more fun is there than jump-rope with all your friends! And we played Skelsy, and Girls and Boys, and over-the-knee, and Jacks, and Chinese handball and stickball and Potsy, and the box with the marbles game. We had a lot of good games too.

When I was very young in Old Forge I played with the Dennises across the street. They had so many kids, that playing with one family meant we could play all our games, thrilling games of Hide and Seek and Kick the Can. And Richie and Alan had the Beckinhams, with 10 kids, next door to them, as well as Dolphie in the big house, so they had kids to play with too.

I just liked our routine in Old Forge, I didn’t miss my NYC life when I was up there at all. I found it totally fulfilling to be there. I would wake up and get out my bike and ride my brother on the back fender, and ride into town for jelly donuts. I loved jelly donuts. The lady who worked in the bakery of D and D who sold us the jelly donuts was Floanne Wormwood’s mother. She and Floanne lived in a trailer not far from us and I was friends with Floanne.

When my dad woke up he would build the fire in the pot belly stove, mountain mornings are cold. And when my mom put up the hot cereal, he and I would take long walk together while the cereal was cooking. We would walk down the road to where Floanne’s trailer was and the other trailers, and then take the path behind it thru the woods, and walk on that path as long as we wanted to. It was probably a logging road, the Adirondacks is filled with logging roads. And we would chat and then come home for hot cereal.

When I was even littler, his favorite walk was to Charlie Able’s farm. To get there we walked right on Route 28 in front of our house, there was a kind of footpath next to it, no sidewalks. And we’d pass about 4 houses. And just before the big fancy stone house which belonged to the principal, was Charlie Able’s farm. We’d walk up the long winding road to reach it. And my dad loved talking to Charlie Able, and I got to have my one and only experience of a farm. I got to see the baby pigs and the chickens and everything. I loved it. And my dad loved Charley Able. A rose bush grew up in front of our house which had the most beautiful smelling roses there was, pretty pink roses with a fragrance to die for. And Leon always said he must have picked up the seeds on his shoes when he was visiting Charley Able, that was his explanation of the roses. He loved those roses. And when I went away to camp he would always include one in the letter he sent me, and it would still have its miraculous perfume even if it had lost its beauty.

After that I would put on my swim suit underneath my dungarees and flannel shirt and head to the beach. Because Maurice Dennis, the father of the kids across the street, was the beach lifeguard back then, and he gave swimming lessons in the early morning. And I wanted to earn those Red Cross cards. I took Beginners with him, I took Elementary, I took Intermediate Swimming. I earned card after card. And then the big day came when I was allowed to take Junior Life Saving which was my passion back then.

We had an eat-in glass porch. Which meant there was table there to look out at the woods and field, and 4 burner hot plate with small black stove sitting on top of it, my mother did all her cooking on that. The field was adjacent to our house but where our house ended the woods began. And my father would sit and have his meals there and watch the deer come out of the forest. Or his favorite, watch the humming birds alight on the field wild flowers. He loved both. There would be hush when he would espy the deer arriving, and his thrilled joy at the humming birds. When the sun was actually warm and if it was sunny day, my mother would put up roast chicken in the little black oven on top of the burner, and we’d all set off for the beach.

I was allowed to buy jelly donuts for me and my brother in the early morning in town because my mission was to buy the New York Times for my father. He did not like to go one day without reading his New York Times and he had arranged with one of the drug stores to have one put aside for him each morning. So I would waltz in with my brother and ask for my father’s New York Times and they would give it to me. My brother and I ate our jelly donuts right away, I discovered jelly donuts up in Old Forge. And then arrived home with Leon’s New York Times.

It was on one of these excursions home with the New York Times in the basket of my bike and my brother on the back fender, that we bumped into my father’s friend from New York, Vicky. She was older than even my father’s big sister Esther. She was the doyenne of all the school teacher families from New York. And she said “did you hear the great news the war is over.” I realize now she was referring to the Korean War, but at the time it didn’t mean anything to me. I wasn’t even aware there was a war, I wasn’t even aware what war was. I was in a world of jelly donuts and swimming lessons. She was beside herself with joy and excitement and happiness, and I tried to chime in. But I don’t know if I even mentioned it to my parents when I got back home, it simply didn’t register. All that registered was that Vicky had talked to me as if I was a grown up. Saying “great news the war is over” seemed like grown up talk to me.

My mother set up our beach blanket next to the other families from NY, and I looked for Richie and we went into the water together and played games in the water. And I guess my father headed straight for the tennis court and played tennis. And we all had glorious time until my mom said “time to go home for dinner.” In Old Forge we had our meals differently. We had dinner at lunch. When we arrived home the roast chicken was already roasted, the apple pie she had made from apples in the backyard was already baked, and we had our delicious meal on our eat-in porch. And that is when my father would see the deer or the humming birds.

Then we would return to the beach and it was the long wait of one hour before we were allowed to go back in the water. Old Forge was so far north, evening did not start till quite late. So there was time for endless afternoons. Richie and I played in the water, walked up to Rudy’s for ice cream cones, collected empty bottles, brought them to Rudy’s for two cents each and bought candy with it, and we played a lot of cards. The men all sat on one big blanket and played Hearts.

And when we had changed out of our bathing suits and back into shorts and tops again, the serious tennis playing began. All my aunts and uncles played tennis, they played doubles with each other. But my father was the best tennis player of all and long after all my cousins and aunts and uncles had gone home, my brother and I would sit on the bench, I guess my mom was there too, and my father would play with all the best tennis players in the neighborhood. There was one young man who would come from up the Channel on his motor boat to play with Leon every evening. He was a great tennis player too. And my brother and I sat there for long endless beautiful match. It was how tennis got into our blood. Love ten, Love twenty, Deuce, all the names, we knew them by heart. Set, match, serves, backhands.

My father taught both of us how to play tennis as soon as we could hold a tennis racquet. Each time he got a new racquet he gave his old one to my mom, who gave her old one to me, and I gave my old one to my brother. Back then you had to keep your tennis racquet in a press with screws, and sometimes I got a good enough one from my mother that I had to do that too. I knew all about tennis racquets and which were the best ones. We would play as a family if no one else wanted the courts.

Sometimes instead of watching my dad play tennis, my mom would take me and my brother in the car to go buy the chicken and eggs from the egg lady. That was a nice drive in a different direction, around the lake, up and up a windy road, and we would come to some house. And she would ask for her capon and her two dozen eggs.

Supper was simple. I was allowed to go to the movies once a week. There was a movie theater just before you hit the center of town. I used to take the short cut in the field beside it when I was visiting Richie. Outside the movie theater were the movie posters. And I would study them to make my choices. The other night “Shane” came on TV, and I remembered when I had stood outside that movie theater and the poster from “Shane” had been up, and how long and hard I had looked at it trying to decide if that would be my choice.


The movies changed on Saturday, Sunday was different movie, I could only see one. I did miss “I Love Lucy” my favorite show, when I was up there, we had no TV, and when the movie poster showed “Long Long Trailer” with Lucy and Ricky, of course I chose that. The other choice was Danny Kaye movie “The Court Jester.” But for me there was no competition with Lucy. I chose “Long Long Trailer” and went to see it. It was not good. The next evening my parents went to see the Danny Kaye movie, and my mother loved it so much she broke the rule for me. She said “you can see it too even tho you already went to the movies.” And I loved it. I had felt very gypped that the one I had chosen turned out to be a lemon and the one I had not chosen was so great.

Danny and Sarah, one of the couples up there as New York City school teachers, knew how to lead folk dancing, so once a week, in some huge long log cabin affair, officially called the hay fever center, with an old cannon from the revolutionary war in front of it with plaque, Danny and Sarah held folk dancing. First all the children had folk dancing. Then the grown ups. Sometimes we stayed to watch the grown ups dance, most of the time my brother and I were sent home to bed. I had no idea that after the folk dancing the grown ups would walk across the street to the beach, take off their clothes and swim naked in the lake, until one morning my mom told me “we were all swimming naked in the water, and when we wanted to come out and get dressed, there were teenagers on the swings, and we couldn’t get out of the water until they left, and they would not leave.”

There was bingo in the Fire House once a week which I loved too.

And then Chuck who worked in the Post Office told me he was opening up a miniature golf course, and of course once that happened life really took off. I fell in love with miniature golf, I loved it. It was open every night and they sold popcorn there too. It was high up, on top of the big hill across from the Fire House, and all thru August we would watch the shooting stars as we played miniature golf. My cousins did that too, I played with Richie. And I learned to see the Big Dipper and the North Star and the Little Dipper too.

And some mornings instead of beach, or maybe when it was too cold and cloudy for beach, my mother took us all near the ski slopes to go huckleberry picking. I always think of huckleberries in hot dry dusty places, but there is no way we would be huckleberry picking instead of at the beach unless it was not beach weather.

And on Wednesday mornings she took all the cousins horseback riding in Thendara, which I loved too. Richie’s horse was Daisy, a pinto. And I rode Freckles. I don’t know which horse my brother rode. I remember my mom rode Dexter, he was chestnut.

Mrs. DuBois ran the riding stable and CarolAnn who lived across the street was her assistant. CarolAnn was my age and we became friends, and she taught me games to play with horses. How you can slide off backwards, like on a slide. You just slide down their tail, it was fun.

My dad once took home movies of me sliding off the horse that way, but for some reason it was at night, the movies are too dark to see. If I hadn’t known what I was doing in them I wouldn’t have known. But there is CarolAnn and me and my horse and my climbing up again and again for the fun of sliding off. I wonder now what the horse thought, but I guess he found it fun playing with two joyous little girls.

Because it rained so much up there, many many afternoons I put on my raincoat and boots and walked into town to the library. It was right next to the movie theater. There was a wonderful librarian there. As soon as I walked in she would say “I know just what you would like” and she would pick out ten books for me, and they were all heaven. My father had paid Maurice Dennis to remodel the house one winter, to put in a knotty pine kitchen, and a little bedroom next to it so I could have my own room, and have the little bedroom painted pink the color I wanted. Before that I shared a bedroom with my brother on the second floor next door to the bathroom and my parent’s bedroom.

I loved my little pink bedroom on the ground floor. There was a little brass bed in there. I would lie in bed and practice my scissors kick for Intermediate Swimming, that is when you are taught the side stroke. But mainly I would read. Yes I found “The Saturdays” all on my own in the Pomonok library near our house in Flushing and I discovered it was a series and I read all of them. And I think I discovered “Dr Doolittle” in Queens too and read all of them, that was a huge favorite. But the librarian in Old Forge introduced me to everything. I read “Black Beauty” because of her, and “Bambi,” and a book about a whale where the whale describes his whole life thru the seas, that was an amazing book. I read so many books from the point of view of animals that she found me. I even read a book about the adventures on a submarine, the only book my cousin Richie took out too. I don’t think we had the same taste in books but he and I both liked that wonderful adventure book of the submarine. I am sure she found “Mary Poppins” for me. I had read a chapter from “Caddie Woodlawn” in my reader in school and loved it, and she showed me they had “Caddie Woodlawn” there and I read the book and loved it. And she introduced me to “Little House on the Prairie” and I loved them all.

And several months ago when I was wondering what a perfect life in Heaven meant, and I tried to think about a perfect life-- how I wanted to have everything I have in Tucson, my beautiful desert, and everything I loved in Old Forge, a lake and docks and trees. And I thought about all the people I wanted to be friends with, I remembered that wonderful librarian in Old Forge and wanted her to be my friend too.

It was a nice Easter

NYC painter Ronnie DeNota paints his wife Lucy, and names it:
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"

It was a nice Easter
Monday April 17 2006
(a very slight story, but after I took it out, I put it back)

It was a nice Easter because of the glorious beauty of the day. The week which preceded it had been awful weather. It was only second week of April but heat had soared under a hazy cloud cover. So it was worst of both. The hazy cloud cover robbed us of our beauty, steamed up the heat, so all there was was hot awfulness. 4 days of hot awfulness is no big deal, except when you live on the desert, and know a very long hot summer awaits you, you think “O no! Has it already begun! Is this it!”

On the 4th day of it, we were driving around midtown traffic and there was huge sign high up above a car wash at a major intersection saying in huge letters “THE HEAT IS BACK.” It is because it was what we all feared that the sign was disturbing.

And then 2 days before Easter, in the evening, the miracle began. Cool air blew and blew and blew and blew. And day before Easter the day was absolutely lovely and Easter was the most gloriously beautiful day there ever was.

Then there was the strange phenomenon of sleeping. This too began week before Easter. Each time I closed my eyes for even an instant, before I even knew it, I was in the deepest sleep imaginable. It wasn’t like any other sleep, it was so deep, and waking up from it, was traveling huge distance.

This culminated the evening before Easter. At 7 PM I went in to lie down and watch tv, planning to get up an hour later for dinner. But the deep sleep happened and when I woke up it was early morning, I had slept thru dinner. Who falls asleep at 7 PM and sleeps thru dinner? The sleep was so strange, out of the ordinary, that I thought “this is like the sandman.”

So I woke up yesterday morning, Easter morning, from that round-the-clock sleep, and also to the most gloriously beautiful day ever. And of course Easter is such a subtle holiday, not the heavy sledgehammer of Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is like a subtle flavoring to the day. You can remember it, or forget about it. And when you did remember it, it just flavored it, didn’t overpower it. It makes you realize all holidays should be this way. Just a subtle sweetening of the day. Like having a bouquet of flowers on your desk, a little loveliness and little sweet perfume, but harmonious with everything else.

We went to the pool. There was zero traffic. It made driving a joy that there were no cars on the road. And pool was semi deserted too, which was nice. I swam and dreamed along in my lane, until I started to get bored and then I looked up and there was Sue. I had really finished swimming but to be in that light and in that air, who wanted to go inside.

And Sue had just bought herself the most beautiful ring in the world at Mac’s Indian Jewelry. I had seen it flashing under water, and was about to comment on it, when the conversation took a turn and I forgot about it.

And then Sue said “see my new ring!” Some great artist did it. It had jet, it had coral, it had turquoise, and it had pink shell. 4 stones, 4 colors, pure beauty, and huge. Whoever created it had indulged a passion for beauty. And there it was on Sue’s finger. That ring was made for Sue.

She said “John and I had Easter buffet here, and then we went home, and I read your story on email, and then we decided to come back to swim, it is such a glorious day.” Sue said “I am having such a nice day.”

Even tho Sue and John are retired, Sue won’t retire. She had accepted a full-time teaching position at a Native American school, and for some reason it is an around-the-clock job. Every day all day and on weekends and holidays too, Sue works and works and works for them. Today was really her only real day off since job began in mid August of last year.

“This is how to live” Sue said, as she wriggled her toes in the water.

She said "we are now selling the house and moving back to Ann Arbor, Michigan." “We love Tucson” Sue said "but we want to be with our granddaughter. If we make money from selling this house and buying condo in Ann Arbor, we will use the money for lessons for the little girl.”

“But she is 4 years old, isn’t that too young for lessons?"

“Not in Ann Arbor” she said, “they begin school and lessons at 2, she will have ballet lessons and swim lessons.”

Then Lily arrived for her swim, she was wearing navy blue bathing suit in old fashioned style, she looked like '40s movie star in it. And after her swim we sat in the jacuzzi together, and talked about our astrology sign, she is born day after me. Because I had watched Lily express herself when she was stoned on pot as we sat on the grass in front of Alice’s art studio, when she was expressing herself to Roy. The argument was senseless to me but Lily’s expression of her point was like a dance. She didn’t express argumentably. She said “this is how I see it,” and it was like a beautiful modern dance on the stage. It all involved opening up her arms wide, and turning face of passion upwards. Sincere passion expressed in flowing arm movements, with neck arched to the heavens. So even tho I got her point in our conversation right away, I let her go thru the whole dance as she expressed it fully, because I knew it was about the dance, not the point. Lily likes to embrace the universe as she espouses. It is quite lovely. It made the time go by enchantingly as I waited for Billy to finish his swim.

Then Bill and I set off for Sunflower market.

Because we are now drinking tea in the mornings I was looking forward to the free teeny cup of coffee you can have at Sunflower. But they moved the coffee grinding machines to where the coffee urns are, so it was very crowded there. When I finally got in, I opened up 3 tiny little half-and-halfs to put in the tiny cup. And to be a good girl I immediately tried to put them in the trash, and of course one spilled milk all over the counter top, on the floor, and nearly on the girl’s shoe. So I took napkins and wiped everything. There were so many behind me waiting, and around me. And after I finally finished doing all that I turned the spigot on the coffee urn and there was no more coffee left. I burst out laughing. “After all that” I announced to no one in particular “there is no coffee left.” So someone said “try the decaf coffee.” I said “but I don’t like decaf coffee, I wanted this one, English Caramel coffee, it sounded delicious.” But the decaf urn had coffee in it so I did that one and it was delicious anyway. I was so worried about spilling it on my white dress as I marketed. I was careful not to do that but it did slosh all over the floor as I wheeled my cart.

Gurus and Companions

by Ronnie DeNota
Riomar Cafe on Little West 12th Street, NYC, 1998

“Gurus and Companions”

Saturday, January, 7, 2006

Today is Jeannie’s birthday. Helen’s birthday was last week, Cora’s birthday is next week. And my 3 friends named Sue have their birthdays at this time. Sue my friend at college, Sue who used to talk on phone about astrology with me back in NYC, and Sue at the swimming pool who got me back into writing. My Moon is in this astrological sign. These women have been paths for me. Cora opened up the greatest path for me, love and spirituality. And Helen took me further along that path. Jeannie taught me women’s liberation and art. My friend Sue in college taught me intelligence. You could say they were all my gurus, they were my teachers.

The teaching styles were very different. Cora arrived at my apt. every evening, sat at my kitchen table while I made her coffee, and asked for my advice and told me all her problems. No one had ever asked for my advice before. I was famous for being an idiot, a chicken without a head. People would say “I worry about you, Anne.”

Everyone saw me as a mess. But not Cora. We'd have coffee, she’d settle down happily and tell me the long stories of her problems. At that time she was still trying to hold a job, so most of it had to do with jobs. She was a waitress at Wall St. lunch counter when she accidentally dropped the piece of luscious chocolate cake the man had been eyeing on his lap. She was in the typing pool when the women kindly and gently and lovingly took her aside and explained she has to be fired because she arrived 3 hours late at work every day.

In Cora’s world everyone was an angel. She saw everyone thru a loving empathetic lens. She had such sympathy for her landlord, Mr. Kessler. Each month Cora would arrive with five dollars to pay down on the rent she owed from 4 months ago, until Mr. Kessler couldn’t take it anymore, and said “Cora let’s start from scratch.” Mr. Kessler was a saint to put up with this the whole time Cora lived there. She did not get evicted until the neighborhood changed and landlords were offered big money for their tenements. As Cora explained to me, “having another de-rent controlled apt. sweetened the deal.” Cora was evicted from her rent controlled apt. where her rent was only $70 per month. She was 6 months behind at that point.

Because Key Food closed at 9 PM, at few minutes to 9 she would put on her coat and all her scarves, and say “thank you dear sweet Anne” and look at me with face of such love, and try to get to Key Food in time to bang on the doors and get them to open for her. “Is there anything you want at Key Food she would ask?” So sometimes she would return with something I needed.

Compared to Cora the official story that Anne is such a mess I realized was not quite true. I was able to keep my job. I was able to pay my rent. I paid my electricity too. When we had the big black out, Cora was reading by a candle. She looked outside when she heard all the noise and saw the streetlights were out. “Why are they making such a fuss about the streetlights being out,” she thought, and went back to reading by her candle. She didn’t know electricity had gone off for the city.

But what I learned from Cora was everything. I learned from Cora that all people are angels and I am an angel too. Before that I thought all people were monsters and I was a monster too. I had no idea you could see people thru the eyes of peaceful love, and as a result see yourself that way too. Cora used to refer to herself that way. She would refer to her own sweetness. And I, who had always hated myself, was floored that Cora loved herself. And she saw me thru such loving appreciative eyes. I began to see myself that way too. You could say Cora liberated me. She did.

Cora was a good antidote for me for my friendship with Jeannie which had preceded it. What ruined that friendship was my intense envy. At first I just whole-heartedly admired Jeannie and I expressed all my admiration. I was happy admiring her and expressing it and she was happy to be admired. But then she wrote a book it got published she became famous, and I became very envious of her. Before she wrote her book she had been a painter. It was my first introduction to the world of art, and to the life of a working artist. It caused a great switch in values for me. I had never considered anything other than the professions before. In fact I was school teacher during our friendship. Jeannie was quite contemptuous of the professions. “Women are always shoved into the helping professions” she announced at a women’s liberation meeting.

In our personal friendship I saw how much art gave her. For Jeannie art gave her everything. “An artist’s childhood is their treasure chest” she told me, “it is what the artist draws from.” Because of Jeannie I wanted to become a writer, I wanted it with all my heart. And it had never occurred to me to want it before. It had not even occurred to me I could do it before. I thought you had to have talent. But Jeannie had said “the best painter in art school said ‘there is no such thing as talent.’” She said the other girls in art school made their own clothes, did crafts, and did other things. “They spread themselves too thin” Jeannie told me, “you have to just do your painting in order to be good at it.”

Helen was my friend when my big troubles arrived. She taught me that prayer works, and also she got me to consider Jesus which is why I opened up the New Testament and read “The Gospel of St John” when I was so frightened my beloved dog would not make it. The spiritual path I am on now came from Helen.

But I would never have been open-minded to spirituality at all were it not for Cora. Cora’s solution when things got very bad, which they always did, was to pray. That is how she balanced herself. She had a moment when the landlord had evicted her and all her stuff was on the street, when she lost her balance. But she prayed to Mary, and she regot her balance. Mostly Cora prayed to God, she said “the Father is stronger than the Son” but at times of extreme crisis, and her whole life was crisis, she would remember her mother’s words about Mary and ask Mary for help.

I, who never had any balance, watched Cora hold on to her balance no matter what was thrown at her. And finally asked “How do you pray Cora? Do you just ask God for what you want?” “No Anne” she said “you thank God for already giving it to you.” I didn’t begin to pray till my time of great troubles arrived and Helen said “prayer works.” But it is from praying that I first found out God is real. Everything else stemmed from that. I would be totally desperate and then I would remember about praying. And at first I would think “what good will praying do? I won’t believe God is real till He sits down next to me and smokes a cigarette with me.” But I was so desperate I would pray anyway. And always to my amazement I would find I was calmed down from it.

Irene was my companion during my great travails. She was born in October, she wasn’t one of my teachers like the other girls. We learned from each other. Our friendship consisted of communication. We would share experiences and see what we learned from it. We were partners learning spirituality together. We had the same problems at the same time and we learned from each other.

Gurus matter but so do learning partners. You learn from gurus from the examples they set. I learned from Cora from Jeannie from Helen by watching them. Irene is how I learned from my own experience. You have to have someone to share your experience with to make it real.

My last friend before I left NYC was Marjorie. We would walk our dogs together, or she and I and my dog would walk to Delancy Street for her to place her bet at OTB. Her husband Joe did not follow the horses but Marjorie said he had genius with numbers. She would place the bet for him, and they would always win. I did not know about the winning. Finally after doing it for months, walking with her to Delancy Street, I said “why do you bet Marjorie?” She said “people assume betting means you lose money but Joe wins.” It never occurred to me anyone ever wins, I thought betting was way to lose money. You could say Marjorie taught me about gambling.

I’m trying to think what I learned from Marjorie and it doesn’t seem like very much. Once I wore a black T shirt and she said “you look good in black Anne.” Mostly I loved Marjorie because I loved being with her. I just found everything she said interesting. We both took out lots of library books. She said “it is the women in the Agatha Christie mysteries who are so interesting.” She read books about everyone, rock stars, everyone. She said “I am like Joe Friday, ‘just give me the facts, Ma’am.’” She read a biography of Jim Morrison of “The Doors” and talked about it a lot, so I read it too.

Marjorie was a painter too. “What do you paint Marjorie?” “I just paint paintings of people committing suicide” she said. Marjorie had tried to commit suicide. She went to flea bitten hotel and took pills. But Joe, who was her boyfriend then, found her and took her to Bellevue and had her stomach pumped. He saved her. Marjorie used to say “I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life, I never expected to live past 30.” Marjorie and I were both working as part time secretaries for psychiatrists. Marjorie said “I see the patients when they walk in, they are so upset, and then I see them when they leave, they are so calmed down.” She had so much respect for the psychiatrist she worked for.

Marjorie cared passionately about the Mets and the Yankees. She would listen to the games on the radio as she painted. In some way Marjorie is the most like Bill, not only because they are passionate sports fans, but because from each of them I got to be in another world. Marjorie was born in July, she is not the same astrological sign as my gurus, and she was not a guru, she was a friend.

Our friendship fulfilled itself after I moved to Tucson. I would write to Marjorie but she never wrote back. Finally after a few years she wanted to argue with an astrological insight I had sent her. “I don’t know how to write a letter” she said “I never wrote one before, but I will try to do what you do,” and she wrote back. By then I was totally with my Higher Self so I would write her my experiences with my Higher Self. And after a few months of this, Marjorie connected to her Higher Self too. So we shared our experiences with our Higher Self. We wrote to each other every single day for 6 solid years, sharing our daily life and our experiences with our Higher Self. We each knew every single detail of each others daily life.

And then Helen taught me how to be on internet and I never wrote another letter again. I always hoped Marjorie would understand. I guess I thought she would, because what I learned from Marjorie was understanding.