Go Ask Ali

by Ali Wentworth

  Now, I am in no way comparing myself to de Kooning. It’s just a lovely, selfless story that stands on its own. And I think it encapsulates the kindness that’s becoming so tenuous these days. You should still be wary when a stranger offers you candy (unless they’re Milk Duds and in that case it’s worth the risk). But there is something to the notion of practicing random acts of kindness, otherwise it would not be written somewhere in every yoga studio in the country.

  Chapter 4

  Maine

  Every summer we spend a weekend in Maine with my mother and stepfather. The predictability of these annual visits is an unfailing source of comfort. That, and we shove as many lobsters and steamers into our mouths as humanly possible.

  My mother and stepfather have been going to Maine in the summer for the past twenty years. It used to be Cape Cod, but Maine is slower, more temperate, and not as crowded with the hordes of college students elbowing one another for jobs scooping ice cream and throwing frozen clams into huge vats of oil.

  The best thing about our visits is that my children are afforded very little luxury and absolutely no WiFi service. They pad around in bare feet and are “encouraged” by their grandmother to pick blueberries, clear the table, and help out around the house. And they are at their most polite. You will never witness either of my daughters giving their grandmother, Muffie, any sass. Even when my mother is careening around the dirt roads of Tenants Harbor popping deviled eggs into her mouth as she drives with one hand at about seventy miles an hour, my children are polite and quiet. This could be because they are contemplating their mortality. But I like to think they are simply gracious children.

  On our last trip my mother insisted on taking my kids to the local dump. A place I remember all too well—though the one I frequented weekly as a child was in Plymouth, Massachusetts. We would grab the foul-smelling garbage bags and hurl them onto a heap of trash heavily guarded by seagulls. You saw everything from old lobster shells to mattresses to (once) a dented rowboat. Although steeped in a retching stench, the dump was an endless source of wonderment.

  The one in Maine did not disappoint. Not only was there the obligatory mountain of rusty mufflers, decaying shopping carts, and broken lobster traps, but they had a store next door that sold the salvageable trinkets. There were huge posters for movies and jazz festivals in moldy frames behind smashed glass, rusted Christmas cookie tins, and baskets that used to hold floral arrangements from the town florist. My mother excitedly scooped up an old ice bucket she was eyeing for compost. She got it for fifty cents. My daughters picked their way through the narrow shelves gingerly, so as not to risk smearing schmutz on their leggings.

  My children never knew my mother when she was fancy. When she wore gowns, danced with royalty, and walked through the White House Rose Garden with various presidents. To them, Grandma always wears jeans, brags about her sweater score from the Goodwill, and serves food from the fridge that expired months ago. And I love that they know this version of my mother. Sure, she still has the trappings of a well-heeled upbringing, a higher education, and the worldliness of an avid traveler, but she has retained all the important things in life and released all the frivolity. She is someone who doesn’t fuss over coffee-mug rings on a Winslow table that should be in the Boston Museum of Fine Art.

  But the greatest gift she awards my children is a sense of their heritage, the stories of the relatives who lived before them. No visit is complete without a full-blown oral history presentation, augmented by an arcade of photographs, cockeyed and warped paintings, a chipped teapot, and a captain’s bed, all bursting with stories and mythology.

  And she makes them aware of the history beyond their own. As we barrel down the back roads, she points to colonial houses with chipped white paint and worm-eaten barns. “That’s where George Washington slept in 1789,” she’ll say, pointing toward a hilltop mansion while swerving wildly to avoid hitting a seafood truck straight-on. We’ll stop at the side of a road joint that sells bait, tackle, and ice cream. The freezer burn makes the ice cream sandwiches look jaundiced, but as my daughters prune their faces she laughs. “Oh, come on, they are perfectly fine! Ice cream is ice cream.”

  I will never forget one visit when my mother wanted to surprise the girls with homemade pancakes. She used an unbuttered nonstick frying pan and the pancakes were burned black on the outside and dripping raw on the inside. If these were made at home, the girls’ plates would have been hastily pushed away, followed by endless complaining and a mass exodus to their rooms. In Maine they ate every forkful. And no amount of maple syrup could cover the taste of charcoaled Bisquick. But they knew that making their grandmother feel confident and appreciated would outlast the pasty metallic taste.

  My mother and stepfather have a small schooner that they take out less frequently now that age has assaulted their muscles and chipped away at their sense of balance. But we went out this summer. The girls curled up under towels in the bow as we sailed along the quintessential rocky coast, passing majestic lighthouses and elfin islands crowded with so many pine trees that they looked like birthday cakes for centenarians. Every once in a while my mother would shriek and point to the slick head of a baby seal bobbing in the waves or a bald eagle soaring over our heads. And my children would search for the animals, their mouths open and eyes wide. We anchored by a little island that actually had a beach—well, a pebbled beach. And laughed hysterically as their father (my Rhodes Scholar husband) struggled against the tide to row us to shore. Political commentators are his friends, not oars.

  We walked the surf line of the beach finding green sea urchins that had been discarded by seagulls. The ones still round and intact were true treasures. We collected them in a plastic bag, which I eventually placed in Tupperware, carefully wrapped in tissue paper as if they were living organs being transported to the nearest hospital. My younger daughter lay on a large, smooth boulder with her bare feet in the air singing to herself what sounded like a camp song she had learned earlier in the summer. My eldest nibbled on chocolate chip cookies while she listened to my mother talk about clamming and how Maine was losing its hold on the lobster market.

  “Because of global warming, the lobsters are heading out farther and farther into the sea and the lobstermen then have to go out farther and farther to get them, which costs them money and time. It’s such a shame. You guys need to help the planet and stop global warming.” My daughter nodded; wondering how she would possibly be able to help these lobstermen when she became the editor in chief of Vogue.

  We slowly made our way back to the harbor. Camden Harbor is part of what is known as Maine’s Gold Coast; it has high-end shops filled with duck decals, hand-embroidered throws, polished sea glass, and the kind of bookstore you can spend a full day in. And for some unknown reason, the triple scoops of Moose Tracks ice cream just taste better in Maine.

  “Maybe we can go shopping,” my older daughter (who is our resident fashionista) blurted out as we secured the ropes to the dock.

  “Oh, you don’t want to buy anything in town, you can make it all yourself.” And that was that. My mother can take you to the most remote, unheralded antiques store, the one so off the beaten path that you have to call first to have them unlock the barn, but she has little interest in the commercial stuff.

  Two of my best friends, Katie and Michelle, hail from a small island in Maine. I instantly fell in love with them as we all made our way in the shark-infested waters called Hollywood. They were taking the more noble path of nonprofit and philanthropic endeavors, I was dressing in thrift-shop dresses with crazy cat-lady glasses auditioning to be a receptionist on shows like Dharma & Greg. We would spend hours around a small farmhouse table in Santa Monica talking love, heartache, and sometimes even politics. If the politics related somehow to the heartache or the love. I have witnessed them flourish in their careers, marry, and have children and all the joy and upheaval that comes with it. There is something resolute and puritan about them that is so familiar. They are,
as they say, solid people—and I’m proud to live on the same planet as them. They are my rocks. And they come from rocks. Literally. They are “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and “get this shit done” kind of gals.

  The morning we were at the dump I assumed they were still at the billionaire think tank convention in the Midwest, where they share ideas with great minds like Bill Gates and Malala Yousafzai. But, funnily enough, Michelle texted me from the dump in Mount Desert Isle, Maine, where she has built herself a home overlooking the water and hidden by sprawling pines. She is in her element at the local hardware store, which she finds “wicked cool.” So Michelle and my mother, women I regard with such admiration and esteem, were both simultaneously chucking their crap into a big hole in the ground. Kind of a metaphor for life.

  These are the women who have taught me the integral components of a full life: history, the earth, legacy, truth, and love. And when the materialism, WiFi, and other trappings of my children’s generation are stripped away from them, they do the most remarkable things. They experience pleasure on its most fundamental level. Like helping a moth find safe passage from the garage to the freedom of the outdoors. And experiencing the joy in picking blueberries off the bush and putting them into their mouths until their lips turn blue. To appreciate a smooth gray rock, encircled with white lines, which used to be a talisman for sailors who clutched them for good luck as they left their families to sail out to sea.

  In this world my children have access to their roots, their dreams, and their creative ideas. Imagine a world where lavender barnacles are more fascinating than who slapped who on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

  We had discarded all the stinky garbage from our lobster feast the night before. My mother honked the horn and we strolled out of the dump’s thrift shop. My younger daughter tugged on my hand.

  “Mom, I saw this little blue chipped lamp in there that would look nice in my room, can I borrow a dollar?”

  And the beat goes on.

  Families are complex. Thanksgiving is always a letdown, I don’t care how amazing your pumpkin pie is. But it’s important to know your roots, your history, where you hail from. It informs the person you become. Unless you’re a Dahmer, in which case you should keep it to yourself. For better or worse, I know who I am in part by the stories and myths handed down from generation to generation. Note to my daughters: The captain of the Mayflower—William Bradford—is our direct descendent, so cool it with the “the pilgrims were cannibals”! It’s upsetting Grandma.

  Chapter 5

  Mona

  At some point—make that at multiple points—in your life you’ve been asked, Who’s your hero? Your mentor? Your inspiration? And how many times did you have to respond diplomatically with the perfunctory answer Helen Keller or Harriet Tubman? And don’t ask me which teacher’s support allowed me to break the glass ceiling. I ended up breaking many glass objects, but only those within arm’s reach. At my all-girls’ boarding school the ceiling was stucco with fluorescent lighting, and none of the subpar teachers so much as loaned me a ladder to reach it. There was an art teacher who taught me how to blend charcoal shadowing, but then she ran off with one of my fellow classmates to live in a lesbian co-op in Amherst, Massachusetts. The rest of the teachers were more of the “no you can’t” than the “yes you can!” variety. But I’ve never listened to the word “no.” Unfortunately, or fortunately, my teenage daughters seem to have inherited that trait.

  Nonetheless, heading into adulthood, people pressed me for archetypes. And by people, I mean college essays. I considered the usual suspects: Goldie Hawn, Lucille Ball, Imelda Marcos . . . but it always seemed contrived, conjuring up a role model responsible for the schizophrenic path I had taken. If I was being completely honest, I guess I would have had to thank the unaccredited child therapists I frequented in my youth.

  (An aside: I am always suspicious of people who cite Louis Pasteur or Copernicus as their personal heroes. Really? Your “personal” heroes? You have a kinship with a Reformation-era mathematician and astronomer? Sure, they have impressive Wikipedia pages, but I doubt anybody has a real affinity with the heliocentric solar system. And if I read a college application where the student equated himself with Jean-Paul Sartre, I’d never stop throwing up.)

  But then, in my forties, I met Mona.

  The scene was a cocktail party for some convoluted charity or book signing or something important because Salman Rushdie and Barbara Walters were there. It was the kind of affair that calls for a black dress, kitten heels, and a swipe of blush. Nothing too flashy; a look that prizes subtlety and intelligence over moxie. These were events convened to show off one’s ability to digest the latest op-ed and New Yorker pieces, not one’s potential sexual abilities. So naturally, I was at ease.

  My husband always gets cornered by the front door and that’s where he’s held hostage for the evening. I have restless-leg social syndrome so I have to move around. I am mostly hunting for the best hors d’oeuvres or a cheese platter I might have missed. Party food is my jam. I can happily park myself all night on an ottoman with a mini–porcelain plate of tiny bites. My favorites: baby potatoes stuffed with sour cream and cheap caviar, anything that involves prosciutto, and huge chunks of creamy cheeses that smell like ripe feet. And an ice-cold ginger ale. Not Schweppes, but Canada Dry. Score me this combo and I will kick my kitten heels off and sing “Lady Marmalade” at the top of my lungs whilst twerking.

  I had just tiptoed into a small library and struck gold—a dessert table (and not just any dessert table: three different kinds of pies, bite-size cheesecakes, and gargantuan strawberries dripping with dark chocolate)—when I heard the most harmonious laugh. Not fake cocktail chortle; real, guttural howls of joy. There was Mona. Short in stature, but giant in personality. Mona was petite with cropped, almost pixie, buttery blond hair and high cheekbones that framed her infectious smile. She wore black leggings and a large, crisp, white men’s dress shirt and black velvet flats (an outfit I could make my uniform for the rest of my life). Mona was cracking up with some foreign dignitary! Who probably didn’t even speak English. I introduced myself to her—after all, she was the hostess and I had just devoured most of her desserts.

  “I just wanted to introduce myself and thank you for inviting us.”

  Mona gave me a strong and enveloping hug like I was her long-lost abducted daughter suddenly set free.

  “Oh, I finally get to meet ALI!” she said as if Ali were as infamous as Cher or Charo! “We were just discussing the benefits of having a mirror on the ceiling above your bed. People think it’s wildly distracting, I think it’s an enhancer! I have one and as long as I’m not on top, I love it!” The three of us burst into giggles. Mona was accessible and benevolent; people told her their deepest secrets and fears. And she never judged. She could have found something sympathetic about the Manson family as she served them chicken matzo ball soup. Her first question would have been “Why Squeaky? Lynette Alice Fromme is such a beautiful name.”

  Mona genuinely enjoyed every person she met. As a child psychiatrist, she was a listener and compassionate. She would have found Donald Trump fascinating. (I didn’t say exemplary, I said fascinating.) She would have taken him out for dim sum and convinced him that instead of building a wall between the United States and Mexico, he should build a water park! Or thrown a brunch where she sat Trump between Jorge Muñoz, a former illegal immigrant and the founder of An Angel in Queens, a nonprofit that has served seventy thousand day laborers a warm meal since 2004, and Bette Midler (just for fun; for a little Bette and Donald sparring).

  Mona personified life. She was the “if life is yogurt it’s up to you to add the granola and nuts” kind of gal. She made you want to break out in song. She was the biggest optimist. If she were ever captured and held in a prison camp, she would have the enemy and captors holding hands in a circle. She would make pasta. And they’d all play Scruples. Mona had this palpable energy; she embodied chutzpah. You’ve neve
r had sea urchin? Well, Mona would take you to the best sea urchin place in the city and clap as you savored your first gritty bite. She was passionate about art, music, people, politics, desserts . . . there was no subject she didn’t relish and no person she would ever shun. She was a saint who loved a good blow-job joke.

  Mona used to teach me Yiddish. She would call me mishpucka and mashugana. I love the Yiddish language; the words sound exactly like what they mean. When you schvitz you can hear the mist of water dripping off the back of your neck. And whenever I hear a Yiddish word, I think of Mona and her joyous punim.

  Mona was known for her parties. Great, big happy parties. Where she would hang thousands of kites on the ceiling or fill enormous bowls with gold Hanukkah candy. She once threw a birthday party for her boyfriend who had once lamented that as a child he never had a toy train. Mona had a six-foot train doing loops down the dining room table all during dinner. The food was delicious, the ambience festive, but it was always the warmth of the beloved hostess that set the tone. You always left her parties as elated as the balloons that floated over the banister.

  Mona wasn’t famous (except to those who knew her). She never won a Nobel Peace Prize (though she should have). She was a psychiatrist. She not only loved people, she knew people. It was part of what made her so intent on understanding the human condition. And why she was so curious in general. She could make our seven-year-old daughter truly feel seen and heard. And most children that age don’t ask to go visit an adult. Unless there’s an enormous amount of candy involved. But my kids genuinely loved Mona.

  I have an acquaintance named Jane. I don’t know her well—in fact, I still don’t know her last name. But I’m always happy to see her when I run into her. She is a natural beauty with bee-stung lips, green eyes, and a smattering of freckles. In other words, she looks like the woman in most organic face-cream ads.