Why I Drive A Lexus

Here’s the thing about cars.  I didn’t even learn to drive until I was almost 30 and my first car, a 1967 Coupe de Ville, was 12 years old. 

I had an Australian boyfriend once who drove a TR6 that he was very proud of and was sure it was the reason he caught my eye.  But it wasn’t that at all.  He was tall, dark and handsome, like Rock Hudson.  Coincidentally, much later, it turned out he was also gay.  I didn’t even know what a TR6 was. 

My father had a Mini Moke when we lived in Sydney.  I don’t think they exist anymore.  Instead of proper doors, it had flaps that you snapped down.  

I am sure that helped with the cost, my father being the sole supporter of a wife and five kids.










Long before that, when we were still in New York, he had a VW Kombi with a back, a back back, and a back back back.  The four kids would fight over who sat where.  The further back you sat, the more nauseous you became, so clearly, the back back back was for the losers of all coin tosses.  Beyond that, I knew nothing about cars. 

 

When I returned to the USA as an adult, and married my husband, who, coincidentally also once had a TR6 but was totally not gay, I started to get a bit spoiled.  Just before we got married, I traded in my Coupe de Ville for an orange VW Bug, more in keeping with my political leanings.  After we were married, he talked me into my first new car.  It was an American car, a Plymouth Reliant.  We both got one and quickly renamed it ‘Plymouth Unreliant.’ 

 

It was the last American car we had for years.  Today though, my husband drives a Ford.  We both feel good about that.

But back to Lexus.  It was not even on my radar screen before I got my job at Glendale Community College.  I was not into prestige/luxury cars.  In fact that was a big turn-off for me.  Remember, my parents were Communist leaning Quaker/Jews.  Snob stuff never did it for me.  I thought designer labels gave you washing instructions for your shirt, skirt or whatever.

The first thing I remember about Lexus was when I went through the Glendale Chamber of Commerce Leadership Training, which I totally loved.  This was a few months into my new job as Executive Director of the Foundation that raised money for the local community college.  During the training, we explored all the nooks and crannies of Glendale, and met some of the outstanding leaders.  One of them was Johnny Harrison at the Lexus of Glendale dealership.  He already had a reputation for helping the Glendale school district with innovative programs that raised an amazing amount of money.  Like his carwash program.  The schools got all these coupons that they could sell for $15 each, cars were washed at the Lexus of Glendale dealership (any car) and Johnny would donate the entire amount back to the school of your choice in Glendale.  That program raised over $1M for the Glendale Unified School District. 

I wished he were connected to Glendale Community College, but somehow, we were not on his radar screen.  Until, one day, two and a half years ago, during an event on the college campus that matched high school students with adult mentors in a variety of professions.  I decided to be a mentor that year and in my little group was  . . . Johnny Harrison of Lexus of Glendale.

I immediately made a bee-line for him and told him I had met him several years before in the Leadership of Glendale group.  I told him how impressed I was with everything he was doing for Glendale schools, and how I wished we could get him involved here at the college.  Well, he said, he had tried a few years back and gave up because of a poor response.  I looked back at him, horrified that he had tried to connect but had been rebuffed.  I told him that I never knew that but would love to connect Lexus and the College.  He seemed enthusiastic.  I followed up immediately, turning up the next week for a pre-arranged meeting in his office at Lexus of Glendale with my board President and the Sports Information Director at the College. 

Two and a half years later Johnny introduced the carwash program to raise money for our Athletic Department.  He also helped to make our Golf event in 2013 the best in five years, and this year, 2014, the best EVER!  He donated our top auction items:  Golfing for two at Pebble Beach, and a real 1916 Model-T Ford.  He underwrote our online auction.  He even purchased several online and live auction items himself.

So, you can understand, when I realized I had three more years to buy out my current car, an Infinity (which by the way does nothing to help the Glendale community)  that I jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of the great deals Lexus of Glendale was offering that  4th of July.

My experience at the dealership was better than any car dealership I’ve ever been to:  well-trained staff, no heavy pushing, very helpful, very Lexus.

And now, parked in our garage, is my brand new leased 2014 hybrid ES Sedan.  The fact that it’s a hybrid makes me feel a lot better about going up a bit.  But that gets me the whole Lexus experience, plus rewarding a philanthropic company that excels in helping its local community.  Hey, it’s a work thing!  Seriously.  In fundraising, they say that people give to people they like.   It also, of course, has to be a cause they believe in.  I really like Johnny and his commitment to philanthropy.  But, in all honesty, I also like the car.  It rides like a dream.  I get to experience a beautiful piece of artistry—a Lexus hybrid.  And it goes 650 miles on a tank of gas.  Who can argue with that? 

 

Think of all the money I will be saving on gas!

My Writing Life

“If I could be born again, I would choose to come in a writer’s form.  Too many things these years have ached inside of me, living in bright bursts of painful contacts with people but never once on paper.  I live in the writers’ souls of others.”  Age 21

I kept a diary from about age 12 until almost 40 years old.  Handwritten.  Emotional.  Pages and pages.  Books and books.  Trying to make sense of love, loneliness and fear.  The usual.  I never thought of myself as a writer; merely someone who kept a diary and loved reading.  Writers were extraordinary beings who inhabited a realm the rest of us mere mortals could not enter.  I would fall in love with writers:  Dostoevsky at age 12, D.H. Lawrence at 13, Albert Camus at 16, and so on.  Most recently, I fell in love with James Salter who was a pilot in WWII before he began to write.
 

James Salter AKA Horowitz

I read one of his books by accident and then googled him, and found to my amazement that he was born a Horowitz, my maiden name.  I proceeded to read every book available on Kindle that he had ever written.  Recently, I mourned his death.  His writing was so vibrant and sexy but he will live forever for those of us lucky enough to discover him.  The legacy of all artists—immortality.

I documented my first flight away from Australia in the mid-1970s.  As it turned out, I was never to live there again, although I had no idea back then.

“It is happening.  I am flying to Israel.  How do we grasp the momentous things which happen to us?  The strangeness of being suspended, alone, quietly into the mysteriousness of the world.  To have just left behind a whole era—of my first struggles towards independence and womanhood. . . It would be so funny dying now with all this sophisticated French food on my lap.”  Age 24

Always, there was the constant questioning and insecurity about my own writing.  My own writing life.

“The strange thing about keeping a diary is the knowledge that it is only for yourself.  Knowing that even your style is nothing to attract comment.  I would so dearly love to be able to write. One thing I can’t quite work out about writing.  Does it mean that you have a more complex and beautiful soul if you can write well?  Or do you just have a special talent of being able to use words in a complex and beautiful way?  I rather suspect it is a combination of both.”  Age 26

In those days, I fell in love with men who claimed to be writers, although they talked about it more than they actually wrote.  I documented them in my diary.  I started a new diary when I met a new man.  “A new man, a new book.  Inspiration for my inner whisperings...”

Just before I turned 30, I met someone who was  “the culmination of all my men.  The quickness and artist’s soul of W, the glamor of X, the generosity of Y and the sensitivity of Z—and much more... He is so foreign to me, and yet I trust him.” Age 29

In my thirties I married this culminating man who freed my creativity, which included writing poetry, short stories and novels in between my full time job as a social worker and later a fundraiser.  We celebrated our 30^th Anniversary in September, 2015.

It didn’t happen all at once.  There was the push and pull of creating our own identities within the marriage.  Two strong-willed people not ever becoming one but becoming better versions of themselves.

One day, a few years into our marriage, my husband read something I had written and said that I was good.  I was shocked, of course, and obsessed about whether or not this was true.  Searching for finality, I took an extension course at UCLA for writers.  They would let me know for sure.  Was I good?  Or not good?

The UCLA instructor gave us this exercise with a one-line prompt.  Everyone else seemed polished and confident, and looked more writerly than I felt.  I watched them bow their heads and start a furious word attack.  I stared at my paper and hyperventilated.  What was I even doing here with real writers?  Now I would be found out.  Everyone continued writing except for me.  Finally, out of humiliation and fear, I began.  At the end of the half hour, the teacher asked who would like to read their works.  Hands shot up all over the room.  Not mine.  Nevertheless, he called on me, and I read in a trembling voice.  After class, the instructor told me that I was good.  I was shocked.  I didn’t understand why he said that.  Everyone else who had read his or her piece seemed so much more than I was.   

What made writing good?  I wanted to know, definitively.  Was I good or not?  I searched for more writing courses and discovered something called MFAs. (Masters of Fine Arts—Creative Writing)  USC had one.  So did Antioch Los Angeles.  I thought USC would be so cool and then discovered I would have to take a GPA exam, whatever that was, before they would admit me.  That seemed ridiculous, considering the fact that I already had a Masters from the London School of Economics.  What was their problem?  The truth was that I was afraid.  Besides having left America at age twelve and not knowing what a GPA was, I figured mathematics would be involved. 

My high school mathematics teacher’s name was Mr. Scott.  I was sixteen, soon to be seventeen, but still counted on my fingers that I hid under my desk, ashamed that Mr. Scott would be disappointed.  I loved the class because, there, I could study his beautiful square hands as he explained all the various incomprehensible formulas to us.  I would furrow my brow in great concentration and nod occasionally so that he would think I was smart.  When he turned his back to write on the chalkboard, his shoulders were so strong and broad.  I marveled at the strength of him.  When he turned around to ask us questions, he would push a strand of sand-colored hair out of his Bondi Beach blue eyes and I felt a sharp pain straight through my under-developed but tender breasts to the thin walls of my heart.  The more I studied him, the less I understood about algebra and calculus. 



My mother ended up hiring a tutor that we could barely afford.  I don’t remember his name but he was a thousand years old.  Eventually, I passed, but barely.

I enrolled at Antioch because they gave me credit for my degrees and never asked me to take a silly exam.  It was creative writing, for God’s Sakes, not rocket science.  What could that have to do with mathematics?  Seriously.  There, I was sandwiched between the extreme young and much older folks.  I was excited but intimidated—probably a good combination to throw myself into the writing life.  Even if I was a pretend writer, I had made this huge commitment of time and money, which had to count. 

I just wanted to know if I was good; if I would make it in the world of writers.  But all I learned that I was better than some and not as good as others.  Slowly, I began to understand the real question:  What was I going to do with that knowledge and where would it take me?  We were told over and over again that everyone could learn to be better.  But could anyone learn to be great?  I doubted it.  I focused on ‘better’ and tried not to feel too shabby, or even worse, untalented. 

I entered the program with the whisper of a short story and left with 100 pages of a novel.  In addition, we were required to write a dissertation.  Mine turned out to be about mothers in literature and mine in life.

“I am still grappling with my flawed mother.  In many ways, she is the terrifying figure of my childhood, which also means that I am stuck in that hypervigilant place:  I am watchful and then full of hope, joyous and then crushed and furious.  And then it starts over again.  Will I ever be able to release my own unrealistic expectations of her?  I can’t help longing for that flawless mother even though I know she doesn’t exist even in good literature, where the best characters—the ones that endure—are imperfect, complex and interesting.  Admittedly, I never wanted an interesting mother, just an emotionally healthy one.  Though I am prepared for a not-so-happy ending, I am also hopeful that the journey I have undertaken through this paper has brought me new insights about my mother and myself.  Perhaps forgiveness is simply ‘having given up all hope of having a better past.’ (Lamott 210) But then the future, ah the future, is wide open.” Grappling with the Flawed Mother: In Life and Literature.  Lisa Horowitz Brooks. 2001

 One might argue that was my most important learning at Antioch.  My mother died several years ago, and now, when she visits me in my dreams, she’s a softer, kinder mother.  And I’m a better daughter.  The past is suddenly better.

Flush with my degree and newfound friends, I felt very writerly.  I even went to a writer’s retreat at Squaw Valley, where writers sold their wares to agents and publishers with the ‘pitch’.  There were so many bad writers there, with a few good ones sprinkled in between.  The pretense of the organizers was to help all writers to be successful.  The reality was to help a few really talented ones or commercial ones (neither of whom really needed the help) and let the rest of the poor schlubbs underwrite the entire operation.  Give them enough hope so that the leaders could keep paying their bills, even though they knew the odds were against the majority.  The whole thing made me nauseous.  I felt embarrassed and lost there, wondering which category I really fell into.  Going home was a relief. 

I was working at a job that frankly bored me.  I had been there too long and knew where all the bodies were buried.  I looked forward to rushing home every night to write.  I would stress over every extra minute of my under 12-mile mile commute—ranging from 30 to 95 minutes depending on the dysfunctionality of LA traffic.

Once home, after my shower and while I cooked dinner, I worked on my fledgling novel.  It grew and grew although I wasn’t sure where the flowers started and the weeds ended.  So I joined a local writers’ group to help me prune.  The leader had great instincts and I agreed with much of her critiques of the other writers. 

I presented bits and pieces of my novel and got feedback.  Too much feedback.  Being a social worker by training, I like to make people whole.  Slowly, slowly, I began to write for the common denominator.  I got some accolades.  Applause.  But slowly, in a strangulated way, my novel took many detours and dead ends.  I tried to stay true to myself and sometimes rebelled against the group consensus and went the opposite way.  But wasn’t that still kowtowing to the group?  And was it really serving the story?  I could no longer tell.  

By the time I left, I wondered if the rewritten novel was really mine or the sum total of everyone in the group.  Or if that was a bad thing.  Wasn’t collaboration supposed to be good?  There were definitely benefits of being in a writers’ group: support to market your book, get an agent, not give up, work, work, work.  I, an overachiever, did it all.  Wrote the synopsis.  Polished the first few chapters to perfection.  Sent out the pitch letters to search for the agent.  Etc. Etc.  I received some polite interest and some polite rejections.  I recalled the many greats who had been rejected innumerable times and went on to achieve fortune and fame.  But still, I felt like an imposter. And disheartened.  I stopped reading other writers, afraid it would further dishearten me.

And then, a life change.  I got a new job.  Bigger than anything I had done before.  My heart was no longer in the ‘marketing myself’ business.  I quit the writing group and stopped writing.  Dead.  Full stop.  Nada. 

Yes, I had to write things for work.  And yes, it was a job that stretched me to capacity and used parts of myself I never knew I had.  And yes, I was relieved to put the marketing of that novel behind me.  Perhaps I did not have the temperament for rejection.  Perhaps I needed to focus on those activities that brought me accolades.  Like my job.  For which I was paid a very decent salary.  And felt happy every day.  And so I stopped writing.  Except for marketing materials for work, a newsletter for the service club I joined, and an occasional blog.  But I began to read voraciously on my Kindle.  I read dozens and dozens of writers.  When I found a great one, I read every book he or she had ever written.  I fell in love with many female writers amongst the men.  Ann Patchett.  Meg Wolitzer.  Alice Hoffman.  Amy Bloom.  Tara Ison and Alice Sebold (my Antioch mentors.) Donna Tartt.  Anais Nin.  Iris Murdock.  Janet Turner Hospital.  And many, many more.

Lately, I’ve begun writing non-fiction.  Takes a leap of faith to assume reality is interesting enough to not have to spin tales.  Although there is a certain amount of tale spinning even in memoir where one has to frame things, and the frame one choses is very personal, creative and subject to interpretation.  Just like our lives. 

Who knows what the future will hold?  I no longer stress about ‘being discovered’, or winning writing accolades.  Or being bad or good.  I am way too old.  Now writing feels personal.  A way to communicate with my loved ones.  A way to make sense of the world.  Because I know that all the tough stuff is yet to come.  Although I had a painful childhood and young adulthood, my thirties to now have been rather lovely.  That is certainly not everyone’s reality.  I read about all these dire scenarios of young people diagnosed with dreadful diseases, or people shot in the prime of their lives, or rape victims and on and on.  I have this theory, unproven, that the fact that I suffered so much in my younger years has earned me a reprieve during my middle/late years.  I keep waiting for the reprieve to end.  Because I understand that the longer one survives, the tougher the learning.  About sickness, and death.  About loss of too many things to document.  About becoming one of the invisible older women for whom men no longer rush to open doors, check you out in restaurants, and fall all over themselves to be your friend.  If they do rush over to you it is because they think you may fall on the uneven pavement, or keel over in the street.  Some respectful people (men and women) probably had stellar mothers whom they have elevated as saints and treat older women gently and kindly.  I could benefit from this in my final years.  I hope.  I pray. And then, I think, being smart and kind and very experienced might be valued.  Even if your hands are twisted with arthritis, and your neck hangs in pouches, not to mention your fallen breasts. 

But then I remember that I am not really so kind.  I am very private.  Very critical.  Very selective.  Kind of like my mother.  No one will really care if an old woman writes stuff.  Even if it's good.  Certainly not the agents or publishers, who will not have years of payouts to hope for.  So, now that I'm jaded, I am starting again to write about love, loneliness and fear.  Hey, cut me some slack.  I’m just an old broad.

 

 

London Blog

The world is a very big place.  Having family spread across three continents sounds exotic but the reality is that we very rarely see one another.  Our last Australian family reunion was four years ago.  Our Israeli reunion was over six years.  So, when my Israeli nephew e-mailed us in April that he and his family had just booked cheap tickets to London, my husband and I had a decision to make.  We had talked for years about meeting up in Europe because of the huge distance between LA and Israel.  Not to mention every time I headed to Israel a war seemed to break out.  My husband was convinced that there was a correlation and urged me to meet family in Europe instead.  He promised to join. 

But so fast!  Only a few weeks away.  May 13!  I had an event on May 14 and another on June 8 for which I was totally responsible.  I had a new staff person, coupled with my fear of flying, not to mention the expense.  It was not possible. 

But, on the other hand, my nephew and his family were stretching to make this trip.  My husband, who was my nephew and his sister’s ‘second father’ from the time they were four and eight respectively, hadn’t seen them in over a decade.  Though I had seen them six years ago, it was during the Gaza war which broke out on December 27, 2008. I flew there the next day, but my nephew was called up on shortly afterwards and so I only saw him once.  Here was a great opportunity, even though, sadly, our niece, his sister, would be unable to join us.  I’d been saving my mother’s modest inheritance for something special.  A family reunion would certainly qualify.  When I spoke with my staff, boss, board etc., they all encouraged me to go.  My husband agreed to the trip and so we were ON.

My husband and I both have a British past.  I lived in London for four years during which time I had a tempestuous relationship with a manic-depressive Dutchman, earned a Master’s from the London School of Economics and worked in a school for severely disabled children.  I remembered being cold, depressed and poor.  My husband’s, on the other hand, was about being refused entrance to a hotel with his 2^nd ex-wife (because she was white), and leaving London sans regrets. 

Nevertheless, we both decided to negotiate these troubled waters.  Tickets bought.  Hotel booked. Traveling clothes ordered online. (Mine.)  Dog sitter arranged.  Work stuff negotiated.  Heads cleared.  Relaxation tape charged up. Husband’s tablet organized for maximum efficiency once in London.

To minimize travel drama, I arranged for a flat fee car to drive us to the airport.  Not exactly Uber since all those rape reports and rioting taxi drivers but simple enough that we wouldn’t have to stress about parking etc.  The car, a Prius, got us to LAX in record speed.  As we gathered our bags and paid the man, my husband discovered HE HAD LEFT HIS CARRY ON AT HOME.  His immediate reaction was not so Zen.  His carefully organized tablet was in that bag, amongst other things not quite remembered.  I won’t go into details, except to say there was a moment when I didn’t think the trip would happen.  None of my best Zen techniques helped.  But, eventually, he came to terms with the loss of his carefully planned ten and a half hour flight.  I kept thinking about William Hurt in ‘The Accidental Tourist’.  The more he tried to control things the more they spiraled out of control, until, eventually, he stopped fighting for so much control, found a new life and healed.  My husband once told me that William Hurt was his least favorite actor because he always looked like he was in perpetual pain.  Funny, that’s why I loved Hurt so much.

We embarked sans my husband’s carry on. I secretly prayed for a calm flight and then took a Zanax.

Our nephew had already told us about the free WhatsApp for communicating around the world.  This, after both my husband and I paid AT&T mucho bucks for an International data plan that never actually worked. We arrived safely and a taxi took us to the Astor Court Hotel, which had a royal ring to it when I booked online.  Though not royal, the hotel was fine.  Smaller bed than we were used to (hey, you can’t come close to the California King), but lovely staff and separate office/living room space—essential for a seven day stay.  And very central, though not knowing where our hotel was in proximity to our nephew, his wife and their 3 kids: 4, 8 and 12—we walked for blocks the first night, until discovering it was only a straight block away.  We were accidental tourists, indeed. 

We loved the great nieces/nephew from the first moment we saw them.

That first night, we all walked together to the main drag—Great Kensington Road.  Our first choice of restaurants was booked, something we would regret afterwards, so we went next door to Nandos.  Remember that name. Nandos. We settled into the horseshoe booth in the back of the restaurant.  Seven of us.  The other table was filled with several grownups and a young kid who kept running around our table.  I was at one of the ends and tried to hook my handback on the booth but it kept falling off so I set it on the floor next to my feet.  We sorted out what to order (basically bad British fast food) and I reached for my bag to accompany my nephew to the counter. 

My bag was not there!  No way.  Not possible.  Seven of us sitting there.  But it was gone.  So gone.  I reached down deep for my Zen Buddha spirit with deep breaths and my mantra: “It’s only stuff.  No one was hurt.  We are all still together and everything will work out.”  Why, then, did I feel like I was going into freefall just before the plane crashed? The restaurant wanted nothing to do with it.  Not responsible.  Didn’t see a thing.  But after seeing how traumatized we were, management shifted to calling the police, giving us a free dinner to go, etc. etc. 

We stumbled to my niece and nephew’s short term rental where I proceeded to cancel EVERYTHING.  Phone.  Credit cards.  Bank register.  Passport?  OMG.  How would I even get home?  We googled what to do and with my wise, practical Israeli niece’s urging, my husband and I turned up at the next morning at the American Embassy. 

Clutching a yellow plastic bag with a few pounds of cash in the cold London drizzle, I explained to the security guard that my passport had been stolen the night before.  “Can I see some ID?” he asked, at which point I broke into tears.  I was nobody.  Nothing.  My California Driver’s License was gone.  My checkbook.  Credit cards.  Cash.  Phone.  Lipstick.  Under eye concealer.  Purse. Medical card.  House key. Comb.  Perfume.  Sunglasses.  Wallet.  EVERYTHING.

The security guard looked worried until my tears stopped with the realization that I had a trump card.  My husband!  He still had his passport and ID.  We were linked.  Inextricably. Legally. For the past 30 years.  That had to count.  Four hours later, I had an emergency passport.  My trump card and I took a taxi to the closest department store, Debenhams, which also happened to be very high end. Three hundred pounds later on my husband’s credit card, I had a new handbag, wallet, sunglasses, make-up, etc. etc. We resumed our vacation.

That story of theft was the one I repeated most often when I got home.  But the real story was being with family.  No wonder recent studies on longevity have proven that in countries where you are surrounded by your loved ones, however you define that, you live longer.  Of course, other things like diet, exercise, balance etc. etc. play a role.  But my trauma was mitigated greatly by how our family rallied around, even the kids.  And how much fun we had after that.    

Everything is an adventure with kids.  Taking selfies in the tube, the buses, the museums and parks and restaurants and just being silly everywhere.  How much my Israeli great-nieces and nephew loved Starbucks!  I always thought it was an overblown American franchise, but even my husband and I thanked God for it after the terrible British coffee. 

Okay.  Just for the record, British food has not improved.  My prawn salad was dressed with ketchup and mayonnaise. Really.  Mushy peas?  Why?  The only good restaurants were Indian and other exotic places influenced by immigrants.  But the Brits do some things really, really well.  Like their parks, stretching in glorious greenery for miles.  You can take a paddle boat on the lake along with the ducks and swans, which our nephew did with the kids, while we rested on a lovely bench along the waterfront.  Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, once the venue for Karl Marx and other greats, is now mostly overrun by religious zealots.  But even the fact that these crazies can proclaim in a public place is great.  Los Angeles desperately needs more public spaces.  It makes your city livable. 

Americans can learn from British Museums.  So can Israelis.  Don’t post armed guards all over the place who stand aggressively near you with bulging weaponry.  Give the people space and let them take lots of selfies and get up really close to great art.  I stopped going to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art because of the number of armed guards and how intimidating it was for the viewing experience. British museums are stellar.  My great-nieces took selfies next to Van Gogh.  How cool is that?  And the café, OMG the café!!!  Free food for children!  I love that.  Maybe Americans do that, too, but I don’t know about it.  And it was healthy food.  Salads and fruits and humus and tahini.  Fresh vegetables and lovely breads. 

Public transportation makes a city livable.  Pay attention LA.  The benefits are so huge.  Although we relied on our niece to put all the pieces together, we were able to get around by bus so easily.  And walk back to our hotel.  Exercise, saving money, saving the environment with all those extra car fumes.

 

Both of us agree that our nephew is an amazing father.  My father was pretty much an absent one.  Though he was a kind, funny, beautiful man, we mostly saw him asleep in his chair after a long day’s work.  Too tired to counterbalance my mother’s hysterical bouts, he took a passive role.  But the few days he spent with us are etched in our memory.  But too few.  He died at age 56 and we all missed out.  My husband’s experience with divorce left a fractured relationship with his children, something that still haunts him and his children. 

Not so with our nephew.  Not only does he cook and bake with his kids, all of the meals are colorful and delicious.  We experienced a couple of them in a short-rental kitchen that was not so well-stocked, but he still managed to create subtly seasoned stir fries, great pasta dishes and vibrant salads.  His children chop, hand him ingredients, stir and taste for seasoning.   His dessert combos are not to be denied.  I remember when he and his sister stayed in our non-kosher home in the summers; they would solve the no meat with milk ban by eating their ice cream (Häagen-Dazs) before the main meal.  For some reason, that was allowed.  Hey!  Don’t ask me.  I never followed the rules.

Our niece, his wife and their mother, is a strong beautiful woman who models competency, leadership and warmth.  She is the go-to person in a crisis as I learned first-hand.  She also knows how to kick back and enjoy the idiosyncrasies of her children.  She laughed when her 8-year old dashed around the rented apartment in live communication on her tablet with her Israeli friends.  She is quick to detect her 12 year old’s moods, and does things like spending the day with her, alone.  She is a driving force in all decisions.  She is someone you want in your court during a crisis.  And at all other times. Probably why our smart nephew fell in love with her in the first place.  Plus she is beautiful.  And the kids.  Well, only the eldest spoke English, and neither of us speaks Hebrew, so the rest is surmised from non-verbal cues.  The four year old boy is adventurous, sensitive and inquisitive.  He loves breaking things apart and putting them back together, has a great sense of humor and can also be very knowingly naughty. 

The eight-year-old daughter, also inquisitive, is observant, very smart and creative with quite a dramatic flair for art.  The eldest daughter is very loving and kind.  She is shy and also very bright.  She is solicitous of her younger siblings and is approaching adulthood with much more wisdom and calm than I could muster at that age. 

They are a family to emulate.  They discuss things, create projects together, cook and bake, and spend lots of time laughing.  It is an adventure to watch them in action.  And that, in all honesty, was the best part of being in London. 

It was hard to integrate the London from my 20s and the London now that I am a very old broad.  Suffice it to say that most of it seemed so unreal.  Did I really go to the London School of Economics (LSE)?  Although I have the degree to prove it, I can’t remember where the campus was located.  I had e-mailed the LSE Alumni Department, hoping to visit.  Although I later discovered that they e-mailed me back, by that time my phone was stolen and with it all connectivity.  I remember a few things about LSE.  Winston Churchill’s nephew (at least that’s what he claimed) picked me up on his motorbike my first day on campus, and it went from there.  My husband should not feel jealous since I can’t even remember his name.  I do remember the first name of the head of the Social Work & Administration Department. Jalna.  She assured me that a Master’s Degree in Social Work would land me a job in America.  I did move to LA shortly after receiving my degree and got my first American job within three months of my arrival.  Thank you, Jalna!  One day, I will try and find you. 

There was also the hippie who spotted me across the tube tracks, and crossed them (strictly forbidden) so that he could talk to me.  The fact that he broke the rules sealed the deal for me and we ended up having an Indian meal together.  I also don’t remember his name but I remember the Indian meal.

I remember a British boyfriend who yelled at me for toasting bread under the grill instead of the toaster because it took more electricity.  I wish I didn’t remember his name.

The only food I liked when I lived there was Indian food.  The best meal my husband and I had with our extended family in London was also an Indian one.  I was so proud because I found it.  I was not really sure it was within walking distance because I can’t really read maps, but I trusted the Astor Court Hotel staff who assured me it was close.  My husband was skeptical, probably because he knew my dyslexic sense of direction.  But it turned out to be so cool.

It was an interesting dynamic between my husband and me.  Did he secretly like the fact that I was totally dependent upon him with no access to my bank accounts, credit cards or phone?  Normally, I am very independent.  I earn a decent salary and coordinate most of the bills, though honestly, I wouldn’t be where I was today without his wisdom and support.  But suddenly, here I was in London, terrified about getting separated from him because I had no ID.  Perhaps it was my overactive imagination but I think there was a part of him that liked it.  In any case, it was nice being there with him. 

I remember being tremendously lonely all of those years ago in London.  No matter how many boyfriends I had, I was insecure, poor and mostly terrified.   Now, I was part of a beautiful thriving family.  With very young people who threw their arms around me for no particular reason. With a husband who had stuck with me through many traumas and was smart and cool.  With a nephew and his rock star family.  The stuff of life. 

This trip was well worth the expense, even given the fact that AT&T is making me pay mucho bucks for my stolen and uninsured phone.  Now that we are home the Whats App has morphed into an ongoing family reunion.  My two sisters (one in Melbourne, the other in Jerusalem) and other Israeli niece and nephew have also joined.  We all post silly and fun things.  We watched our great niece in her ballet class, looking graceful and sweet.  We saw how grown-up our Aussie nephew was and watched our Israeli nephew celebrate his birthday.  Maybe social media is not what the studies meant about being around family, but in the mornings, when my husband and I go out to breakfast in Glendale, we check to see postings that make us laugh. 

Somehow, this trip has made the world a more intimate and connected place for our family.  Suddenly, the distances do not feel so insurmountable.  We have London to thank for that.