Please describe a relative, family friend, or neighbor who frightened you as a youngster. (Alternate): Please describe a relative, family friend, or neighbor whom you were especially drawn to during childhood.
The answers included an uncle and aunt who were always interested in their niece and whom she could talk to in strictest confidence; a female cousin, two years older with the same name, who taught her how to smoke, play tennis, and make out with boys; and an older brother who delighted in torturing his 4-year-old sister by hiding in closets, leaping out from bushes, squashing fireflies on her nose, convincing her she should sleep with raisins to protect her from animals hidden in the walls, and taking her to see The Fly instead of going to catechism.
[Break]
Please describe a time when silence spoke louder than words.
Our February session happened to fall on Valentine’s Day so the opening round questions were all devoted to what the French call, amour:
(1) Suppose that love was not an emotion (or volatile mix of neuro-chemicals) but an actual substance, object, or imaginary location. Please describe its most salient properties or scenic features.
(2) If it’s true that it takes work to maintain a loving relationship, what would you say in the job description for domestic bliss?
(3) If you were the commander-in-chief of the army of love, where would you deploy your troops?
Answers to #1 included: dark chocolate infused with red chili pepper (sweetness balanced by spice); the womb with its sense of floating, freedom, and total unity of mother and fetus; a gas or gravitational force that leaves one feeling lighter, buoyant, and able to do things more easily (“good love”) — contrasted with Karo syrup (“bad love”) whose stickiness keeps one trapped; a thatched-roofed cottage staffed with loving people who make you tea and cookies and support you in discovering your truth — the one place where no one bullshits you; a pair of hands that embrace your face in total acceptance.
Ten days after the start of the new year, the talk at January’s Noodle Night was all about another type of beginning, i.e., human birth. By all accounts, 2011 had far less difficulty getting here than most of us experienced when we burst on the scene!
One of the opening-round questions — “Being as expansive or imaginative as you like, and without concern for reality, what kind of physical birth would you have preferred?” — evoked a number of trauma-free fantasies: being born in a liquid state that solidifies afterwards (à la the T-1000 Terminator); mimicking the way bacteria multiply through binary fission (“forget about growing up and the whole childhood thing . . . [plus] it solves the weight problem”); materializing on Earth as a mature adult from another civilization whose consciousness was more evolved (thus avoiding everything that’s wrong with the human race).
Several of us were willing to accept a more conventional birth as long as we were greeted with a bonding and acceptance that was missing on the first go-round: to be held by our actual mother rather than shunted among relatives, or to feel a father’s pride, “Son, you’re a chip off the old block . . . and just the kind of boy I want to have. You and me, we’re going to do great things together.” One individual imagined that newborns are better integrated into primitive societies than they are in ours.
At the end of the evening, when time remained for an extended free-form discussion, the subject of birth was still very much on our minds.
Natural Childbirth (3:47)
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“Wouldn’t it be nice,” someone said, “to be handed a manual, or list of instructions explaining what and what not to do,” when being discharged from the hospital with our parents.
Looking for Answers (1:03)
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The parent/child relationship also figured prominently in response to this question: “What is one of the more memorable things that have been said either to you or about you?” For one woman, it was her daughter’s response to the mother’s compliments on her parenting skills: “Well, I had a very good teacher and role model.” Another mother experienced a daughter’s validation when her citified 28-year-old exclaimed, after visiting an organic farm, “Oh Mom, you just find the greatest places.”
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The following reply describes a comment all of us might take to heart:
Service (2:46)
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Perhaps the most beautiful story of the evening came in a fourth sharing when a woman recounted a relationship that had its start in high school. During a history class in her senior year, the boy behind her gave what she thought was an excellent answer to the teacher’s question. She turned around and said, “Gee, you’re really smart.” Even though they had hardly spoken to each other before, they began to date. He had a bad reputation because of the crowd he traveled in — and her mother distrusted him — but she enjoyed his company anyway. In the fall, she went off to college. To everyone’s surprise, he decided he would do the same, albeit to a different school. They stayed in touch for awhile but eventually went their separate ways. Now, fast forward to the eighties: She is married with a family and he is living overseas as a successful executive. He calls her out of the blue one day to thank her for being the individual who turned his life around. He still has the sweater she gave him back in high school.
While everyone else was engaged in holiday shopping or errands — or attending the Maurice Sendak film in the library’s community room — we at Noodle Night were exploring a decidedly different subject — automobiles! Whether the tone was set by one of the opening-round questions, or by the brake problem M. was concerned about when she first arrived, is hard to tell. (Fortunately, the car repair mavens among us assured her there was nothing to worry about.)
The fact that a new year was coming up in just a few weeks inspired this question to kick off the evening: “Psychologically speaking, and using common driving habits as a metaphor, how are you approaching 2011 (e.g., Speeding up? Slowing down? Going in reverse? Switching lanes? Idling until the light turns green? Stuck on the shoulder with a flat or overheated radiator?)” It seems like everyone felt the need to slow down and proceed cautiously. D. spoke literally about her ongoing efforts to get better gas mileage from her new car; a more figurative discussion, i.e., how to get more mileage out of our own vintage bodies, is on hold for another day.
In the course of imagining sculptures that honored our individual selves, we learned about a Hell’s Delight Road outside of Smithsburg, Maryland and a town in Michigan called Hell. Perhaps that’s where M. could still find the sandwiches made of cream cheese and dried, smelly black bananas that her mother sent her off to school with, or the dirndls she was forced to wear in her youth. Which just goes to show that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, especially when parenting is involved.
Imagine being 13 years old, the youngest of six siblings. Your father is a wealthy businessman, your mother, very protective. Soon, you will leave this comfortable cocoon and never see your family alive again, except for a sister. You will spend the next five years in constant cold, hunger, and fatigue, witnessing atrocities that no adult, let alone a child, should have to bear. And when you manage to survive this ordeal against all odds, you will find your way to America and start life over, becoming a successful architect and designer, marrying, and raising a family.
This was the story that A., a Holocaust survivor, told at November’s Noodle Night. The following day was the 72nd anniversary of Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”), the two-day, Nazi-led rampage against German and Austrian Jews, synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses that was a precursor of Hitler’s Final Solution. Devoting the entire Noodle Night to A.’s experience was the first time many of us had heard a first-person account of one of history’s darkest periods.
Following are audio excerpts from the evening. A frequent voice, apart from A.’s, is that of J., his second wife, who guides the narrative along whenever there is a language problem or details have been overlooked. Photographs and text from Internet resources have also been added to provide additional context.
October’s Noodle Night took place on Columbus Day, one day after the library’s weekend centennial birthday bash. Each occasion inspired a question for the opening round: “What have you discovered inadvertently in the course of looking for something else?”; and “What fictional character would you like to have as a companion on a cross-country car trip?”
In the realm of unexpected discoveries were a husband, a wife, an old family letter, and $100 (while hunting for a misplaced MetroCard). L., a newcomer, told of visiting Vietnam as part of her research into the healing practices of countries that send us large numbers of immigrants. Ten years later, she was still there, living in Ho Chi Minh City and teaching and practicing psychotherapy. She had fallen in love with Vietnamese culture and a population that was “beautiful, warm, kind, and gentle.”
E. described a hospital stay that wasn’t quite what he anticipated:
(Click for audio):Hospital
We started a few minutes earlier this month to hear M. read a short piece she had written after her mother had passed away. The multitasking it described could only have happened in the last 20 years: shopping for a Thanksgiving turkey here in New Jersey while simultaneously on her cell phone ordering an urn for her mother’s ashes from a German funeral director. More than an absurdist take on modern burial customs, it was a lovely snapshot of a mother who danced to her own artistic muse and a daughter following in her footsteps. The reading was unfinished business from a previous Noodle Night and well worth the wait.
Our opening round consisted of only one question: “With whom would you like to collaborate on a project? Please explain why.”
The answers included well-known celebrities, spouses, or close friends with a particular talent. The first group outnumbered the other two but not by much. Some local jingoism may have been at work because Einstein received twice as many votes (2) as anyone else; George Gallup got another nod. Other notables included: Joni Mitchell, Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, Alice Waters, StoryCorps, and Bill and Melinda Gates. Even Adolph Hitler made the list, a selection that sent more than a few eyebrows crashing through the ceiling. We were assured however that a neo-Nazi wasn’t in our midst, just a well-meaning American citizen intent on helping the Third Reich restore German dignity and economic health without resorting to war and crimes against humanity.
A surprising metaphor came to mind as I started to write about this month’s Noodle Night. It felt like we were gathered around a seesaw watching different generational pairings — the storytellers with a family relation or friend — take turns upon it. Occasionally, our narrator would crash to the ground with a painful thump, other times, hang joyfully in the air; sometimes the two would balance contentedly, or rise and fall in gentle synchronicity, until one of them messed up. Off to the side stood another individual who was reluctant to even get on.
D. began on a light note as he responded to the opening-round question: Please describe a special moment you have shared with a relative who wasn’t part of your immediate family. He told of being taken to Shea Stadium as a child for the 1964 All-Star baseball game. With Willie Mays as a runner on first, D. informed the uncle who had brought him that Mays would soon be stealing second — which promptly happened. His uncle had no idea that the legendary Giant center fielder was being coached by his nephew.
Other answers followed:
A pregnant S. was with her Russian-born mother-in-law when she felt the baby kicking. In an effort at maternal bonding, she lifted her blouse so her husband’s mother could experience the fetal movement herself. To say that the gesture went entirely unappreciated would be an understatement.
M.’s daughter was married to a rabbi. For many years, both sides of the family would gather in Kansas, where her daughter lived, to celebrate the Jewish high holy days. Though she never felt close to her son-in-law’s mother and stepfather, she always looked forward to the visits — until the stepfather started coming on to her. In lieu of mentioning it to anyone, she gave up the annual Midwest pilgrimage. Its termination gives new meaning to the famous line, “You’re not in Kansas anymore.”
It’s always dangerous in Noodle Talk when the discussion veers away from actual experience towards therapy, philosophy, opinion, or social commentary. Not that there’s anything wrong with those activities — it’s just that the power of personal story gets lost amidst well-intentioned advice or intellectual argument. Instead of realizing our common humanity, people get cranky, bored, or stuck in their own beliefs. We might just as well be having a normal conversation :)
Such was the case at our July gathering. It began with one of the three opening-round questions: “Please describe a time when you had to start completely over from scratch.” Ranking high on the list were divorce, job loss or business failure, the break-up of a long-term relationship, and moving around the country as an army brat. Some transitions were painful, others full of hope and new beginnings. G. spoke about reinventing himself on numerous occasions. It was how he aligned himself with a benevolent universe that has only our best interests at heart — provided we get out of the way. (Apologies if my paraphrasing does injustice to the notion.) He asked everyone to buy into that concept but few did or even understood what he was talking about. Other thought-provoking questions followed: Was there a difference between reinventing ourselves and becoming more true to ourselves? And at what point do we recognize hardship and struggle as signals from the universe to “cut our losses” vs. tests of character or a chance to heal psychological wounds. Without being rooted in experience however, the discussion left much to be desired.
Our June meeting opened with the reading of an email response to one of the opening round questions, “What did you learn from your father?” — an obvious nod to Father’s Day following our focus on mothers in May. It was written by a 17-year-old Pakistani woman who immigrated to America with her family a month ago. Your blogger met N. a few weeks earlier and was so impressed with her articulateness and energy that he invited her to come to Noodle Night. Our circle is always enriched by noodlers of different ages and nationalities.
