I’ll be honest, New York City is mostly an emotional minefield for me. Oh look! Here’s where my mother started to forget what day it was! There’s where my father died of cancer! And, yes, that’s the doorway where that strange man exposed himself to me. When I was eight. Woo hoo!
Nevertheless, in between those special landmarks traversing the city I also remember the laugh out loud moments and friendships dear to me that go back thirty five years. So last week when I ended up in the big apple for Thanksgiving visiting my two grown sons, there was a lot to enjoy!
If you’re following along, you probably know that I was invited to speak at the Art in Alzheimer’s Symposium at MoMa. A true life highlight, not only because I was able to be with kindred spirits who also believe in the power of art to create belonging, but also because I was born about ten blocks from there!
Just as much fun was spending time with all the friends I hung out with in the nineties! Whenever I'm there I spend time with my very talented friend Amy Stiller. It is actually Amy who, after posting on Facebook that I was looking for a comedian to help my mother in LA, called and gave me the name of her friend. Whenever we’re together I can’t help but remember our trips down Broadway dragging Christmas trees every year to her apartment after gulping glasses of wine and scarfing down softball size NY corn muffins. I thought of this even before I landed this year watching her brother Ben Stiller’s very moving documentary about their parents, “Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost.” Years ago, at a stand up show one night, Jerry Stiller chastised me for having notes on stage.
“No one wants to see you read a piece of paper. They want to see you searching for the joke. That’s funny.” A mini-lesson in vulnerability, in embracing imperfection on stage. This was before I knew how this was even more important to do offstage.
We also ate some great meals as a family, me, the boys and Tod. And I got to see Spiderman float by in between buildings with what felt like a thousand other parade enthusiasts.
Back in LA scrolling through photos of the trip, the same streets I’d walked a million times before and I’m smiling now. Simply said, I made some new memories. Which, given my genetics, I may some day forget! Hopefully not for a while. From three thousand miles away I have a feeling I can’t pinpoint. Satisfaction? Peace? Definitely not “closure.” In fact it’s more the opposite. Nothing is closed. It’s more of an opening. New memories sit alongside the tragic ones. Maybe the word is hope.
