Go Ask Ali

by Ali Wentworth

  When I had my children, I knew I wanted to give them the same wistful summer experience. They would know soon enough the rough-and-tumble realities of the world, but while they were little I wanted them to have the chance to lie on a hammock under a big elm tree.

  My husband and I are raising our daughters in New York City. That’s where my husband’s work is, so that is where we live. And it’s a fascinating and electrifying town. But I wanted my kids to have grass and sticks and rocks. How can you build a fairy house out of moss and wild mushrooms in a Manhattan apartment? There are trees and rocks in the depths of Central Park, and I recently discovered a waterfall in the north woods near Harlem. But that was just minutes before a fully naked man ran by me.

  I was so shocked and traumatized by the image of an unshorn and fuzzy heinie (something I will never be able to unsee) that I texted my husband for help.

  “Honey, I’m really scared! A fully naked man just ran by me in the woods and there’s nobody around!”

  He texted back, “LOL.”

  Another time, I was alone in our house in Long Island. I really don’t like sleeping alone unless the bed is covered in rottweilers. I’ve seen far too many “the voice is coming from inside the house” films.

  The front door was locked. I finished the last pizza crust and was moments from turning off the local news when a report came on that there was a potential rapist on the loose. I was shaking. I grabbed my cell and called my husband. What he could do from a hundred miles away I hadn’t thought through.

  “Honey! They just said on the news that there’s a serial rapist on the loose!”

  There was a long pause and then he said matter-of-factly and with a slight chuckle, “You’re fine.”

  Within a couple hours’ driving radius of Manhattan, there are a few options. There is north into the Hudson Valley with its bucolic rolling hills and farmland; New Jersey, which offers both surf and turf; and the Hamptons with all its elitist trappings and horrific traffic—but also the Jitney (New Yorkers’ version of a Peter Pan bus except with a bathroom, snacks, and a movie). But there is a quaint side of the Hamptons—farm stands, old-fashioned movie theaters, candy stores, and the mighty Atlantic ocean. We are definitely beach people. Even the sight of water relaxes me. We found a sweet little house in the town of East Hampton. My husband was working, I was pregnant, and the house needed some love and tenderness. So I would paint a bathroom around my enormous belly until two in the morning listening to the Grateful Dead and during the day hunt for distressed antiques to add to our roost. I always had Herculean strength at the end of each pregnancy. I moved furniture that would take three husky college boys to haul. Instead of a chic, straw summer bag, I toted around a toolbox.

  And then the babies came. I would hold them tightly as their chubby little legs swished around the surface of the pool. Every day was sandy toes and nontoxic paint all over the backyard, the slate patio, and, in some spots, the kitchen walls. We would eat steamers drenched in butter on a quilt in the yard and lick ice-cream cones before the tops fell off (usually onto my sandals).

  The girls got bigger, and we moved and the activities became more active. We discovered huge round rocks and painted pig faces and fish on them. We collected pieces of shells and searched for sea glass. Even though I wasn’t pregnant I still stayed up until two in the morning painting bathrooms and listening to the Grateful Dead.

  We would meet up with family friends for clambakes or capture the flag . . . For a few years Fourth of July was in our yard. I would bake way too many red, white, and blue cupcakes and cheesecakes and watch the kids run around with sparklers and cannonball into the pool. There were magical nights when my daughters and their friends, adorned in sundresses, fairy wings, and bare feet, would frolic in the grass and bushes collecting fireflies in mason jars. I mean, is that a great Verizon Wireless commercial or what?

  It was during their young years that I discovered crabbing. Or should I say, the art of crabbing. Not just anyone can throw a string attached to a chicken wing and haul in dinner for six people! My girls would sit under a beach umbrella with apple slices and watch their daft mother knee-deep in the bay trying to outsmart crustaceans. But for me those days were euphoric. I lived in ripped jeans and carried my babies from sand to water and home for crafts. I didn’t have a cell phone and I don’t remember watching anything on TV except The Sopranos. I was mostly singing “The wheels on the bus” and making the girls squeal while I showed them how to put a lobster to sleep by rubbing its belly. And the exhaustion at the end of the day! I would collapse with kids and dogs all over me on the bed, everyone smelling like the sea and vanilla ice cream. It was pure bliss.

  Today, I am alone in the house. My daughters’ childhood dogs have gone to heaven, a place in the clouds made of bologna and pork chops or wherever they go to in the afterlife. And we have two new canines. They are out in the yard yelping at what they think is a deer but is actually a feral cat that lives in the brambles. In the house there’s nothing more to paint, hammer, or strip. I can see faint green stains on the sofa from many summers ago when my kids tried to tie-dye all the furniture. There is a plate of homemade chewy molasses cookies on the counter that I now bake by habit. But it’s only me who will eat them. And our hound dog whose tongue seems to swipe the counter. I caress the smooth stones we painted, stare at the huge, light blue jars of shells we have collected over the years. All remnants, all relics of joyful afternoons.

  So with this summer has come the realization that those serene and breezy days are gone. Yes, there are different days to come. There will be awkward walks with their new boyfriends and evening dinners to advise on career choices. But they will never Benjamin Button back to the cherubs who used to run around naked in the sprinkler or cover themselves in glue and glitter.

  They did grow up too fast. But I have to remind myself that they are still growing and blossoming into the amazing adults they will soon become. And I can revel in every minute of it. I will hug them, squeeze them, and smell them. I will smooth their hair and hold their hands as we sit down to dinner every night. I will know them, appreciate them, and love them.

  My elm tree now is in the form of two beautiful girls and I will lie with them and ponder and not allow the noise of the outside world to distract and intrude. I will hold them tight as we rock back and forth. And explain to them who Lee Majors is.

  My children, I have discovered, log the time for me. When I was young, time was irrelevant. Summers were endless and the possibilities were infinite. But now, standing in my kitchen in a still house, wondering if it’s too depressing to go to the farm stand and buy one ear of corn, I realize that this is it. My life will not change that much, mostly because it’s more than half over.

  Last night I had one of the most vivid dreams I’ve ever had (or at least ever remembered). In the dream I was shooting a movie in London, a period piece. The setting was the 1700s and I was an American patriot in England, on a journey with my parents. In the film, I was set to marry a boy back in Boston I didn’t love. And during the course of the film I fell in love with the son of a British farmer. The dream was in Technicolor and I could virtually smell the sawdust from the set. The kind of dream that when you’re immersed in it, your brain truly believes it is your reality. I could feel the tight corset (probably because my pajamas pants were too tight) and the sweat from running through the fields with my lover (played by the lead in the film Kingsman), which was probably sweat from perimenopause. There was also a very intense love scene. My body looked milky white and svelte. And those were definitely not my boobs (yes, I repeat, this was a dream).

  I woke up to the annoying buzz of my iPhone alarm. It took me a minute to convince myself that I wasn’t tangled up with my lover in a hayloft, but alone on a Posturepedic mattress in Manhattan. I was profoundly depressed at the idea of never being, let alone playing, a young damsel in distress. And that any youthful adventures would be relegated to nocturnal unconsciousness.

  An
d as I patted on my glycolic pads and sunscreen, it hit me. My life wasn’t over because I had hit a certain number. If I wanted to, I could make love in a haystack—I mean, ouch! and I don’t necessarily need a stalk of wheat up my ass, but I could! I was still the patriot girl, just in mom jeans and Tretorns. And I had married the love of my life . . . Granted, he’s not the British actor in Kingsman (who, let’s be honest, could be my son), but a much more suitable, swarthy Greek soul mate. With my superficial self-esteem, a much younger lover would leave me plastic surgery bills that would have me mortgaging the house.

  So perhaps I shouldn’t dissect the dream as it pertains to an unfulfilled life, but view it as simply what it was—a middle-aged woman’s sex dream! Yes, women don’t dream porn; there is a plot which is unveiled in three acts. And often a sequel.

  What I’m really talking about is the acceptance of life in the present and a need for more turtlenecks. I don’t need to press pause and mourn the past; I simply need to cultivate an enlightened excitement for the future.

  Plus, there’s always grandchildren. . . . Bring on the fairy wings and glitter!

  Chapter 8

  Pretty Funny

  I’m not sure I would have made it through adolescence if social media existed in my rather desperate, overweight high school years. I body-shamed myself enough, I didn’t need the hormonally engorged boys to tell me I was not f***able enough. And the bikini shots that plaster Instagram now? I wouldn’t have stood a chance, even with Photoshop.

  I wasn’t a cheerleader, so there was nothing to bring it on. I wasn’t a jock—well, I am a WASP, so I played mediocre tennis and skied well enough to be invited on other people’s trips. But I found myself in the 1980s version of having to identify myself. Rather plump, Caucasian, nondescript female.

  I believe it was Amy Schumer who said that when she first started doing stand-up, she realized it was way better being funny than being pretty. I completely agree. I had that epiphany doing a Christopher Durang play in high school. It was meant to be a dramatic tour de force; I was playing an introverted cello player. But in the beginning of the second act I spread my legs wide to make room for the cello and it was the most blatant sexual gesture, yet my expression was completely nonchalant. The audience broke out in uproarious laughter. I remember the feeling perfectly, a rush of elation that rippled through my body, as if it’s frozen in time. It’s what I imagine it’s like to walk on the moon, win an Olympic gold medal, have a real orgasm. . . . For me, it was better than being crowned prom queen. Or monarch of the British empire for that matter.

  From that night forward, I chose funny over pretty. In fact, I lost interest in trying to compete in the gorgeous arena. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t become Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant; I still shaved my legs once a week and exfoliated, I just didn’t put all my chips down on my exterior.

  My first love was a drop-your-pencil James Spader (circa Pretty in Pink) Harvard-bound seventeen-year-old boy. I was a slightly overweight teenager with thin hair and no fashion sense. Unless you consider Laura Ashley flannel turtleneck dresses with knee socks and clogs chic. And to spare you the banal details of our courtship and cut to the chase: I got the guy. Not so much because I told the joke, but because I told and got the joke. I could make him laugh by making simple observations of our daily adolescent life. Oh, and I could act out all of the parts in Jesus Christ Superstar!

  As I got older, I honed my comedic skills. I had a friend who was completely fixated with the exterior. She would use a safety pin to separate each lash after she applied mascara, ate celery by the bushel, and spent Friday nights at home applying olive oil to her hair and watching Knots Landing in a face mask. As much as I was in awe of her laborious beauty routines, I knew it was ultimately a mug’s game. Not because a large percentage of her waking hours was consumed by blemish hunting, but because no other facet of herself ever had the chance to develop. Sure, she looked amazing in a bohemian dress and gladiator sandals, but when she pulled her chair up to the table, that was all there was. I would watch the gazes that were initially so focused on her slowly turn away. And whereas I was initially met with pleasantries, it was my off-color stories that eventually drew in those gazes.

  And so my confidence grew. And like any muscle, that was the one I worked and massaged. At fifty-two, my body is begging me to work out the other muscles, but my butt has a mind of her own.

  In full disclosure, I am now a middle-aged woman who could use an hour a day on the treadmill and some baby Botox; there is a balance. But as I witness my friends frantically squating, lunging, planking, and injecting, I am confident that my sense of humor will never lose its elasticity or require human growth hormones. It will always be my strength, my shield, my Kardashian lips. Listen, beauty fades; a good political joke never does. And if you ask me if I could come back in another life, would it be as either Brigitte Bardot or Phyllis Diller? Phyllis Diller all the way, baby!

  So it’s particularly fascinating to now have teenage girls who are obsessive about contouring cheekbones, Kyle Jenner’s lip gloss line, and DIY avocado face masks. The other day I found them in the kitchen stirring up Elmer’s glue and charcoal, which they then brushed on their faces for a few hours until it almost peeled the first few layers of their skin off. “You already have perfect skin! And stop trying to look younger, you are twelve and fifteen! You are already younger! You want infant skin?” Gotta be pretty pretty pretty pretty! And it’s nearly impossible to compete against the infinitude of wannabe models on social media. My daughters actually DM (direct message, Mom) these women for tips on becoming one of the pillars of beautification. I walk around our home repeating my mantra, “It’s much cooler to be an attractive biochemist,” which is always met by an eye roll or a whisper, “No it’s not.”

  But the moment I knew I was fighting a losing battle was on a rainy night in September. In our house bedtime takes an hour. First my husband and I have to herd our children like sheep to give up their phones, put on pajamas, and brush their teeth. That takes five minutes. The next fifty-five minutes are spent on frivolous, pointless beauty regimens. My twelve-year-old does not need retinol on her forehead or a blemish strip taped across her nose. And my fifteen-year-old has more product layering and steps than a renovation of a historic house. What is so hysterical to me is that these products all contradict one another. The organic face oil is then taken off with an anti-oil astringent followed by a moisturizing oil-based face cream. They’d have better results scrubbing my stainless-steel utensils with silver polish. After they have put their youthful epidermis through a schizophrenic series of punishments, they kiss us good night and hibernate in their caves of Polaroid selfies and spewed homework binders. That night, our youngest bounced up in her fluffy onesie covered in rainbow-colored doughnuts, gave us each a quick peck on the cheek, and skipped away with a faint “Love you!” And then entered our eldest with shiny cheeks (I assumed maybe car wax) and two plastic clips on her nose. They looked like strange surgical tools. “What the hell is on your nose?” I laughed. “They’re Japanese nose shapers. I ordered them off Amazon,” she answered. My husband looked at her in curious horror. “They’re WHAT?” In full adolescent swing, she stared at us as if she could smell our idiocy. “It’s a nose uplifting, shaping bridge straightener. It works without having to have plastic surgery!” Silence. Both my husband and I were furiously scrambling to find the words to end her ethnic cleansing. So I just ripped the ridiculous plastic toys off her face. “You have a wonderful, beautiful Greek nose that defines you! If you ever put these potato-chip clippers back on your schnoz, I’m going to show up at your parent-teacher conference in a gold bikini and roller skates.” My Lord, what happened to interesting, unique features? Frida Kahlo would be cyberbullied for that unibrow today. Why do women scrutinize the minutiae and not the big picture? This episode disturbed me as I fear having daughters who are punishing their authentic, unique Mediterranean skin. And self-esteem. And it’s already so stressful gr
owing up in a celebrity-obsessed social media world. There’s something liberating in not caring. Although my poor husband might disagree a little. . . .

  A couple of weeks later my eldest came home from school with her dirty hair in a top knot, no hint of makeup, and no sign of self-mutilation over a blackhead. She had come from a heated debate in her history class about sexual harassment, race, and the plight of women. She couldn’t stop talking and gesticulating. She was all fired up. “Sexual harassment is just a symptom of a much larger problem. It’s about women and power, women in the boardroom, women getting equal pay . . . the only thing men can process and be responsible for now is the harassment because of evidence and strong voices, but so much more needs to transpire for us to even begin to feel equal!” I yanked the backpack off her shoulders and gave her a big squeeze. “When you use your mind like that and get excited about your own thoughts and beliefs? THAT is beautiful and stunning and awesome!” She kissed me and we kept hugging. After a pause she said, “Can I whiten my teeth?”

  Part II

  Cautionary Tales

  I’ve seen things, and that’s almost the same as doing them.

  —Loretta Lynn

  Chapter 9

  Lessons from a Movie Star

  A kind and honest man taught me a great lesson about misdirected love. He is one of our great actors, and even though he deserves total recognition for the life lesson he imparted to me, the details of his life are not mine to tell . . . and my editor won’t even let me say what his name rhymes with.