Composit Saddle

July 26th, 2008

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Composit Saddle

Making Friends With Change

Last year, I was asked to give the speech at my 50th high school reunion. I only wished that my superlative parents might have been there to reap the benefit of having struggled so valiantly not only to send me to the esteemed Buffalo Seminary preparatory school, but to keep me there.

I was a rambunctious public school kid from South Buffalo. PS 67. My father was a butcher. In the 8th grade, my English teacher, Helen Wilson (bless her insightful heart) called my parents in and told them that I should take the scholarship exam for entrance to The Buffalo Seminary, a small (and snooty) nonsectarian all girls prep school on the other side of our fair city. The parents were suitably flattered and encouraged me - no - forced me to go all the way up there and do the exam. I did the exam. Then, I bit my nails to the quick awaiting the results with high hopes of dismal failure in my black little heart. But of all the bad luck... I won! Yes. I won a scholarship to attend The Buffalo Seminary.

For the 14 year-old me, this victory meant I was being punished for being smart. This Buffalo Seminary place was not only a two bus - one and a half hour ride from my house; but it was full of strangers who wore very odd, squarish lumpy clothes. In those days, I fancied only white nylon see through blouses, circle skirts with felt poodles and sequins plastered all over them and black suede ballerinas. I had never even heard the word wigwam except when we studied about the Maid of the Mist going over Niagara Falls in a birch bark canoe in Mrs. Robinson's 4th grade class at PS 67.

Buffalo Seminary girls wore chunky woolen socks called Wigwams and bulky cardigan sweaters called Shetland (as in pony) that their well-to-do mothers bought by the dozen from a store in New York City called Best & Company. Those same Seminary girls wore galumphing great Spalding saddle shoes over their wooly wigwams and heavy camels' hair polo coats. They looked remarkably non sexy.

Not only did I not want to go to school at The Buffalo Seminary. I didn't want to look lumpy or un-sultry. Moreover, I did not have a rich mother who went to New York to buy me expensive clothes. I wore my older sister's marron storm coat with the fake fur collar and orlon sweater sets in pastel colors to keep me warm.

My parents mulled, then decided. I was to be sent, at great expense for bus fares and books and school lunches etc., to The Buffalo Seminary. In response to this announcement, I cried buckets of tears of self-pity. And when I stopped crying for a few minutes to watch Howdy Doody with my little brothers, I would suddenly think about what was ahead for me in September and cry some more. I pleaded with my parents to let me attend public High School. They said no. I promised I would even attend the dingy red brick Catholic Mount Mercy Academy where my poor sister had gone and been treated like a Viet Cong for being Protestant. The parents vetoed that too.

I would have gone to Guantanamo rather than attend The Buffalo Seminary.

But my parents knew best. I would soon adjust, they said. And Eureka! Good news! They announced one evening at supper. My classmate (and rival) from PS 67, Barbara Linden was also going to The Buffalo Seminary. Just think! How lucky. Barbie and I could ride the bus up there together - which we did for four long, windy, snowy, chilblain-producing, refrigerated years.

I never told my parents how much I hated Barbie. Her father was a lawyer. She had 6 pairs of wigwams and a camel hair coat before she even started at The Buffalo Seminary. Her mother even took the train to New York City to find the right Shetland sweaters at Best & Co. - the ones with the grosgrain ribbon sewn down the placket in front. And she had braces on her teeth. I had the ugly space between my top front teeth. Barbie had no spaces. But she wore expensive braces anyway. Everybody did.

My father was a butcher. We were five kids. My mother didn't know much about plackets or grosgrain ribbon. But she knew just how to cook my Dad's succulent roasts of beef till the meat was perfectly light gray. I felt as though I was being sent to reform school.

It is June of 1952 and I am about to be enrolled as a freshwoman at The Buffalo Seminary for the coming Fall. My father attends a conference with the imposing headmistress, a certain Miss Angell who had been head of school since 1903. My dad and Miss Angell agree that in my first year I will study 4 subjects: English, French, Ancient History and Algebra.

When my Dad came home and announced the four subjects, I moaned. "Frennnnnch????? Daddeeeeeeee! Please! For what? French is a foreign language!"

"You won't start Latin till your sophomore year," He explained.

I didn't want any part of his stupid Latin either. I wanted typing and shorthand. I wanted to grow up to be a secretary like all the other girls in my 8th grade class as well as those in my church youth group.

But my father insisted that I could just do as I was told "young lady".

So I sobbed some more and left the table in a huff and slammed the doors upstairs and stayed pouting in my room for hours feeling excruciatingly sorry for myself. Privilege meant less than nothing to me in those days. Privilege was punishment.

I have lived in France now for over 40 years. I speak French almost better than English. I have written whole books in French and translated books from English into French and vice versa. I have an abiding love and respect for the French way of life. And, having learned how to be grumpy and emotive on cue, I fit in swimmingly with the exuberantly grouchy French people.

In short, although it took a year or two of shingle-shaking family fights, I did adjust to the rigorous changes that The Buffalo Seminary's standards of excellence imposed upon my hitherto relatively predictable life. And if I am able to write this, it is because my parents somehow managed to raise all five of us on a modest income and still ensure that I, their unmanageable smarty pants cheeky daughter, graduate from The Buffalo Seminary. I thank them and I thank the scholarship fund every day of my life.

Maybe those endless early morning and dark afternoon bus rides past Buffalo's fetid smelling National Aniline and Republic Steel factories scrambled my brain chemicals. Or perhaps it was molting from nylon see-through blouses and draped black gabardine trousers to Hathaway button down shirts, plaid kilts, Wigwams and Weejun loafers. But whatever was operative in those precious teen age years, it somehow got me used to being me. Those four costly (and often painful) years at Seminary opened my eyes to the world and altered my destiny.

Instead of working as a bookkeeper in a bowling alley on Seneca Street in South Buffalo, today I live in Paris and Buenos Aires. And I write books.

Once it was established that I would stay at Buffalo Seminary and not run away and join the circus, I began to love to learn. The first year in Ancient History class, I learned the word "inundation". From Algebra, I learned that x's and y's could be values. From sweet Mrs. Clements, the English teacher, I learned how not to cry at a C+ on a composition. She patiently explained that I simply did not (yet) know how to write and that, if I tried very hard, I could probably learn.

And finally, from my gifted, elegant French instructor, I learned how to conjugate irregular verbs à la perfection. Yvonne Handy taught me how to speak and write her mellifluous language meticulously and with joie. Madame Handy's pre-war French still echoes in my 21st century French; just as my mother's pre-war adages are still alive in my daily English. I loved Yvonne Handy. I admired her style. Gray skirts, simple silk blouses, cardigans thrown casually around her shoulders. Pearls. Stockings and simple well-cut black pumps. When she retired, Madame Handy wrote to me in Paris offering me her job. "No one else can do it." She claimed.

I declined. But boy was I proud!

Before I had to leave Paris to attend the 50th reunion, I re-read the weekend's schedule on my computer screen. To my astonishment, I had not only been invited to make the speech at my 50th reunion; but I had given top billing. The schedule's creator raved that I had promised to talk to the reunionees about "My Fascinating Life".

It reminded me of how in elementary school, we used to have to write compositions called: "My Summer Vacation".

When look back over "My Fascinating Life" it often seems as though, since I began writing books, I have been on an extended holiday. I love what I do. I am not rich. I don't belong anywhere. I am free to roam and write and do what excites me the most at any given moment. So, I decided, I would speak about my life as a vacation.

I write books about Chinese and Western Astrologies. If you are not keen on astrology or if you think it's hogwash, I fully understand. I don't proselytize. I am not a missionary.

I started writing about Chinese Astrology in 1975. I had already written and sold one novel. My agent in New York broke it to me. "You're a single mother. You should start writing non-fiction." She said.

I did not even know what non-fiction was. She made a list: Fashion, Beauty, Cookery, Astrology, History, Religion, Gardening....

I vociferated. "I can't write about any of those silly subjects. I want to write stories. Novels. Short stories. Even plays or films. Not cookery fer chrissake!"

She warned me. "Nobody makes much money writing novels. At least not until you have written seven or eight. It's simple. If you persist in writing novels, your children will starve." She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke at me. "Do the math." Said she.

I chose Astrology - the Chinese variety. I wrote a proposal that very day and the next week my clever agent sold it to a big publishing house. Not writing fiction anymore represented a huge change and something of a disappointment too. But, I quickly made peace with the idea. At least I was being paid to do what I love most which is writing books. Too, I was off and running in a new direction - on my way to becoming the high priestess of Chinese Astrology. I have now written four best-selling books about Astrology and they are published in almost every language in the world - including Chinese.

Despite and because of my astrology books and my willingness to shift into another gear in order to survive and feed my kids, I do in fact have a fascinating life. I wondered to myself.

Why did I go live in France?

Why did I start writing books?

How did I survive cancer for so long?

How did I raise two kids in Paris without a husband or child support?

How did I get published?

How have I managed to live in so many places and do so many different jobs and love so many men and be so often disappointed and still remain optimistic?

I think the answer is this.

I espouse change.

I go after change. I seek it out. I hunt it down. I nose about like a truffle hound looking for change. And if I can't find any, I intentionally make change happen.

Sometimes, when we don't expect it, when change just up and happens, I do my best to welcome it.

Most people are hobbled by the familiar. They remain close to what is comfortable and stay with what is safe. They never color outside the lines. They work the same territory every day. They do their chores and pay their bills and take their holidays at the same time in the same places. That is the way they feel most secure.

Are they bored? Maybe. Yes. They might be bored. And they might complain of being bored. Did they choose boredom over change? Not really. Not consciously. But. come to think of it yes. It's safer that way. Change might prove to be dangerous or at the very least uncomfortable. Many people fear discomfort and as a result they continue to resist change.

My so-called fascinating life is never safe. I guess I don't believe in security. I know in the pit of my being that not one of us is ever safe... from illness, despair, loss, fear, poverty, sorrow, self-doubt or lies. We are but specks who float rather aimlessly by each other in the vast universe; and if we don't want to be bored and we don't want to be disappointed and we don't want to be depressed, we must make our own amusement. Fun is always there right under our noses. To create it, we must only dare to espouse change.

If I am today the author of five books and friends with people of all races, sizes, shapes, colors and professions, it's largely because I am so cozy with change.

And were I advising a young person starting out, I would say, "Make it your business to live your life your way - even if it means crashing through screaming crowds of people who want you not to. Be selfish if you must. But be you."

What if being you means being alone? Then be alone. Until you decide you need a change.

About the Author

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