The Joy of Uber Driving

  WIND BENEATH MY WINGS

  A Joyful Unexpected Reunion

  Twenty years ago, I remember receiving a phone call one Thursday night from a woman who asked, “Do you remember giving birth to a baby girl thirty-two years ago?”

  My heart leaped out of my throat. I couldn’t breathe. . . . “Are you, are you . . . ?”

  “Yes, my name is Molly, and I’ve been looking for you since I was thirteen.” I flew to Oakland the next day and spent the weekend with her and her husband in Concord. When we met, we both couldn’t stay standing. We stumbled to the nearest bench, sat, held each other’s hands, hugged, and looked deeply into each other’s eyes for the longest time. The first thing she told me was that she was so grateful that I gave her life and gave her up to such a wonderful family. She knew all about me. She had a whole dossier on me compiled by her tech-savvy brother. We both had applied to the same central agency for birth parents and children to find each other.

  When we got to her place, Molly sat me down in front of the TV and inserted a VHS tape she had compiled of movie clips taken every Christmas of her growing up from age four months to ten years. I got to see how much her family loved her and what a great little entertainer she was, dancing and singing as soon as she could walk. That Sunday, we went to the Trinity Episcopal Church in San Francisco, where she was a member of the choir of eight professional singers, and she brought me up to the front and introduced me to the congregation. I felt the presence of angels surrounding us.

  Later, she and I embarked on a search for Eric, her birth father, the set designer who had nearly fainted in front of my dad and who later worked for Francis Ford Coppola. Turns out, he disappeared off the face of the earth around 1989, but a friend was found who knew where he was. We found Eric in a convalescent home in Burbank, being treated for manic depression. I contacted him, picked him up, and took him to lunch. He was a shell of the man I used to know, but he had a daughter who looked a lot like Molly. He had married the love of his life from college. They were now divorced. I arranged for a reunion with him and his daughter and Molly. When the girls met, they became fast friends, and Molly always arranged to meet her when she came to visit me in Southern California. He died shortly thereafter. She was also able to meet my father in an assisted living home a few months before he died. That was a momentous occasion, as my father suffered from dementia but came out of it miraculously and was completely lucid upon meeting his only granddaughter. (Side note: Before my father died, he was kicked out of that particular assisted living facility for streaking down the hall naked. He was true to his nature right up to the end.)

  Unfortunately, my mother had died a year earlier and was never able to meet Molly. I feel sure that she would have adored her and wished perhaps that I had been a bit more like her instead of the wild, unpredictable, immature, self-centered person I had been for her. Mother loved opera and often took me to her favorites, such as Madame Butterfly, La Traviata, and La Boheme, where she would always, on cue, weep at the most lyrical moments. Molly had a well-trained operatic voice, and when she played Katharine in Kiss Me Kate, she would have made my mother weep with pride. I must admit, however, that even though mother had difficulty understanding me, she was proud of all my accomplishments and was always there rooting for me in her quiet, unassuming way.

  When I returned, I planned a “Hello, Molly” party in Laguna in her honor. About eighty of my closest friends came to celebrate our reunion. The most memorable moment for me is when she sang “Wind Beneath My Wings” to me. There was not a dry eye in the room, including my own.

  I did at least two trips a year to San Jose to watch her perform on stage, starring in one of many popular musicals, such as High Society, West Side Story, Les Miserables, and Kiss Me Kate. She was usually cast as a strong, contentious woman, like the bitchy mother in Hairspray or Mama Rose in Gypsy. She won the Lucy Award for her starring role in The Will Rogers Follies. I cry every time I hear her in one of her productions. I think it’s partly because I lost my own singing voice years ago from years of intense Buddhist chanting. I try to justify it as my sacrifice for spiritual growth.

  For Molly, the stage is the perfect backdrop for her social life and a place to grow and sharpen her skills in order to be recognized and appreciated as the talented diva she is. It is also an outlet, where she can express emotions on a grand scale that I think she holds back in real life. (By nature she is very controlled and pragmatic.) This was powerfully clear to me in her final scene as Mama Rose, which brought out such authentic raw emotion that I couldn’t help but weep uncontrollably myself. I have never actually seen my daughter get angry or cry, except on stage.

  To be fair, there is much of her life I haven’t been close enough to share, such as when her first husband left her for a younger woman or when she had breast cancer. She told me how devastated she was when her husband left her. She went on a crying jag for weeks. I was shocked to learn she had breast cancer (which was cured). She never told me about the breakup or the cancer until after the fact. She still had her adoptive mom and siblings and close friends to talk to, which may have been all the emotional support she needed at that time.

  After seeing her in Gypsy, I almost became a real-life stage Mama Rose in my desire to see her expand her career to professional status. She informed me she is completely fine being out of the union loop so she can have juicier roles. The life she has now is her dream, not mine. Let me, with my overbearing inner Rose, not interfere. She has made it clear that her real mother is the one who raised her, but she holds a special place in her heart for me and is grateful that I am in her life now.

  PING! I have the good fortune to be hired to pick up Julia, an adorable young lady of ten, at her gymnastics school every Monday evening. Her mom, a beautiful French woman, one of the most naturally happy women I’ve ever met, hired me to make sure her daughter would be safely brought home by a female Uber driver. Tonight was my second time with Julia, who had recently put a subtle streak of blue in her hair for a friend’s birthday party.

  I don’t remember how it started, but she confessed that she didn’t believe in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus and asked me if I did. I shook my head and said, “Good Lord, no! Just think about it. In one night a funny fat man rides the sky in a sleigh and drops off presents for four billion kids worldwide.” She agreed that it was “totally illogical.” I said, “Right, but I believe in magic and that everyone has some kind of magic powers.” I pointed to the sky and said, “There, I just moved a cloud.”

  She giggled and said, “Oh, I’m not stupid.” Then she dared me to move a restaurant sign she pointed to.

  As we passed it on the freeway, I exclaimed, winking, “Look, it moved right past us.” She slapped her knee and giggled again, saying that didn’t count. “Well, you know, Santa might be an alien with superpowers.”

  She shouted, “No way, do you know what he looks like? Nothing like an alien!”

  I calmly pointed out, “Anything’s possible . . . and he could be a shape-shifter.”

  Right away, she responded with “What a kawinkidink [her word for coincidence]!” She told me that all the fourth graders in her school are now studying aliens from outer space. She informed me that they have great powers, including shape shifting. She also told me today’s daily quote: “When you get a lemon, make lemonade.”

  As we got close to her home, she asked if I liked being in cars. I said, “Of course. Don’t you?” She said that it all depends on who’s in the car with you and that she liked being in a car with me. Well, I just melted into a warm pile of goo!

  I often wonder if I would have made a good mother. I do have a propensity to want to guide and influence people to become the best they can be. Did I miss out on an important part of my growth by not embracing the responsibilities of motherhood? I have often transferred that question in my mind to Molly, who I feel would have benefited tremendously in her personal growth if she had chosen to be a mother. But again, who am I to question he
r choices and decide what would be good for her? Even if I had chosen to keep her and take on the responsibility of motherhood, I still would not have the right to decide her life for her. Khalil Gibran in The Prophet says: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself. They come through you, but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”

  She came to visit me in Laguna a few times a year, always staying at a hotel near Disneyland. She had a penchant for Disneyland, which marks one of the most striking differences between us. She would do every ride possible at least three times during a weekend, and she cried real tears when Small World was closed down for renovation. This, from a grown woman of thirty-five! I remember looking at her aghast! I, on the other hand, feel great antipathy toward Disneyland because of its sugarcoated phoniness and how it supplies children with commercial papier-mâché creations instead of inspiring them to use their own creative imaginations. I spent my youth making my own toys, such as paper dolls and miniature landscapes in shoe-boxes. I even designed a life-sized wooden car for kids (on paper) and a curved, tubular water slide into the pool (on paper) before it was invented at Water World. Unlike everyone else I knew, I was not excited about the opening of Disneyland.

  I agreed to go with her and her first husband to Disneyland twice, to try and understand why she was so devoted to the Disney fantasy. It still eluded me. But I found it somehow endearing and felt vindicated knowing that she must have had a wonderful childhood with her adoptive family and was reliving the youthful experiences she’d had with them at Disneyland. I have since softened my stance a bit, seeing the positive in all the colorful, creative beauty and the sweet, joyous atmosphere that gives parents a place to enjoy with their children.

  Two years ago, she sent me another compilation video of her growing up with her family in the suburbs. I noticed she had none of the fancy trappings of an upper-middle-class family that I grew up with. She lived in a mid-sized tract home. But the most remarkable part of all the videos was the demonstrably happy and caring environment her family provided for her. She was the object of all their attention and affection throughout her childhood.

  I don’t remember ever experiencing such a cohesive and loving family atmosphere. There was very little hugging or kissing or even handholding in our family. My earliest memory is of my mother bottle-feeding me with a surgical mask on her face as per the instructions of her new doctor husband, my father. I also had to wear mittens as a baby to prevent me from sucking my thumb. Hence, I sucked my thumb up through my preteen years. I remember once, while mother was helping me with my piano lessons, I turned to hug her and she pushed me away, saying she didn’t want me to become like my Aunt Martha, whom she judged as being “too mushy.” My mother knew how to express love only in ways I wouldn’t appreciate until I was older: things like redecorating my bedroom; cooking delicious meals; taking me shopping for new clothes; and, when I was in high school, making special and unusual sandwiches for my lunch (like cream cheese and raisins). She was not predisposed to hug or kiss Dad or me spontaneously.

  So when I saw Molly’s videos, I was both amazed and a little envious. Also, it became clear to me why my overly expressive father sought other means of expressing his love. He was of French heritage and my mom was of a strict British heritage: two vastly different cultures and temperaments.

  SEND IN THE CLOWNS

  Compliments of Match.com

  During this time, I was still looking for my matinee idol through Match.com and other Internet dating services. I had started doing this, years before, with little success, as most people lied about their age and looked vastly different in person. They were all “over-the-hill” matinee idols. I looked younger because of my good genes, not because of any pre-dated photos. I would have been far more interested in them had they presented themselves honestly to begin with. I don’t mind over-the-hill matinee idols if they’re truthful and are comfortable in the skin they now inhabit. But this was only one reason Internet dating didn’t work for me. The other was lack of familiarity or history with a person, which put the burden on chemistry and looks after there was some basic agreement on beliefs and personal values. But maybe this is true in any mating situation. It just seems that more emphasis is put on looks with Internet dating.

  I will mention only three of my most impactful Internet dating experiences, of which there were many. One time I hit the jackpot with a guy named Nick on chemistry and looks. We seemed to mesh on most of our values and beliefs as well. We spent weeks on the phone before meeting. He was a sexy, good-looking, and generally cheerful traveling salesman and had some business in Orange County. When we met, we literally started rolling on the floor of my studio in a passionate embrace. We were in steady communication throughout his travels and hitting all the right notes with each other. We were just at the point of commitment when he called from Florida to say that he had also been seeing someone he liked as much as me (which he had forgotten to mention before), but she lived near him in his home state of Florida, so therefore, he was going to go with her.

  Crash! Burn! There went another chink in my frayed and threadbare armor. I had been feeling pretty good about myself prior to meeting him, because I’d lost forty pounds on an extreme makeover program. Now, all that self-confidence I had gained was compromised once again. This was another problem I often encountered with Internet dating: the field is wide open and abundant with possibilities. If the slightest flaw or unresolved issue comes into play, or there’s someone else younger or prettier than you, it’s over before it has a chance to grow into anything meaningful. It seems a bright spotlight is focused on the flaws the moment they show their face.

  PING! I pulled up to an apartment complex and saw a gal and a guy waiting for me. They hugged, and she got into the car and waved goodbye. He looked longingly at her. She smiled. Her name was Tanya, and she was exceedingly beautiful, with long blond hair and clear blue eyes, wearing stylish tattered jeans. She said she was from Serbia and was going back in two weeks, leaving her boyfriend here and going to the one waiting for her in Serbia. She was not attached. I asked, “What are you doing here, and how does the US compare to Serbia?”

  She said she had been on a summer ecology course here, and as far as the comparison goes, there was absolutely none! For starters, the minimum wage there is eighty cents per hour. She said clothes and cars and most merchandise cost the same as here, but all education, including higher education and health care, was free. House and apartment rentals were substantially lower, but still most people could barely make it each month. However, there was no homelessness problem whatsoever, as everyone took care of their own. (I’m guessing people bunched up in groups of four to eight for their housing.) I asked about the war and lingering conflicts, and she said the Serbs and the Albanians were constantly fighting, and she got caught in the crossfire once. She was shot in the back, but it was from such a distance that it wasn’t critical. She was studying ecology and the global warming effect. She planned to move to the US someday but had no immediate plans. She borrowed money to come here and had been working at a bicycle shop to earn enough to pay it back.

  I asked about her social life, and she replied that she’s young yet and wants to experience as much of life as she can before committing to marriage. She also admitted to me that she made a lot of bad choices when she first came here, going to parties and getting drunk almost every night with wealthy IT guys in San Francisco. She was embarrassed to confess her “crimes” but said I would be the only person who would ever know. Neither her mother nor any of her friends back home would know this part of her life. What her other so-called crimes were have to be left to our imaginations, as she was not willing to be that open even with a stranger. (To respect her privacy, I changed her name.)

  Next? Enter Bob and his bubble machine. We seemed to have a good rapport over the phone, so he made a trip down from Sacramento to Laguna and met me at the gazebo overlooking
Main Beach. He brought a bouquet of roses, a bubble machine, and a boom box with the song “You Are So Beautiful to Me.” He directed me to go to the rocks on the beach below the gazebo, whereupon he turned on his boom box and bubble machine as he kissed me, to the delight of tourist onlookers above. This raised my level of self-esteem considerably and knocked down any red flags I may have had about him . . . for about a week. We both went headlong into marriage plans immediately and spent the week dreaming up the perfect wedding on my front porch. His contribution: red clown noses and an engagement ring that looked more like his high school class ring. We were both in our sixties. As the week wore on with our sexual explorations and adjustments, on the fourth night he made his first big mistake: shaking a little, and with a small voice, he asked if I would agree to have a facelift if he paid for it. It was like a bucket of ice water had been poured all over me. I should have kicked him out then, but I let him hang around three more days as I did my Christmas Festival gig at the Sawdust that weekend.

  The following Monday I was in my office, working on the computer to manage all the new business contacts I had acquired, while he lay on my bed watching TV. I was so engrossed I didn’t notice a couple of hours later that he had left. Suddenly, my phone rang, and it was my “fiancé” calling while on the road to Sacramento to say it just wasn’t working out as he had planned. He was upset because he wanted me to watch TV with him instead of doing my own “business thing.” I tried to talk him back, but his mind was made up. Whew! That was a close call! Can you imagine my going through life with a red clown nose, attached at the hip to another clown nose? Even so, there was another chink in my armor.