A Tiny Tooth Recalls The Past

On Christmas Eve day, my granddaughter, Hannah lost her first baby tooth. She was six. Running toward me as I came into the house, she exclaimed, “Look, Granmom!” She pointed to the gap in her bottom teeth. With the other hand she held out a small zip lock bag.

“I pulled it out myself!” Pride gleamed in her brown eyes.

“Oh, Hannah, congratulations! Let’s see.” The tooth had been loose for weeks, the subject of much discussion.

She opened the bag and rolled the tiny tooth into her palm where it lay, pearly white, a minute splotch of blood dried just inside the root end. Our heads inclined together as we gazed at this perfect tooth. With the suddenness of a lightening strike, I knew I’d never seen anything more beautiful, more stunningly innocent, than this baby tooth resting in Hannah’s small hand. Hannah placed the tooth back in the baggie and carefully zipped it.

We talked about the fact that the tooth fairy would come on the same night as Santa Claus. Hannah wondered if Santa and the tooth fairy would meet and I offered that they probably already knew each other and would work it out. “They know each other because they are both magic,” she affirmed, her eyes bright.

“Granmom,” Hannah commanded. “Watch.” She pressed her folded tongue against the empty space between her teeth. The soft, pink flesh protruded between the two white teeth. I reached my hand toward her mouth and tickled the moist protrusion with my fingernail. She broke up giggling.

Most of the afternoon Hannah had the baggie either clutched in her hand or on a table or chair nearby. Finally her mother,Taylor, told her to take the tooth upstairs and leave it in her room. “It will get lost,” Taylor said. “And then what?”

On Christmas morning, early, I found Hannah in the upstairs hallway. She signaled me to come into her room. On her night table the tooth was in the baggie and lying beside it was another baggie containing some money. I queried, “The tooth fairy didn’t take the tooth?”

“She always leaves you your first tooth,” I was informed.

 That morning, in Hannah’s Christmas stocking, among the toys and treats was a small square box painted white and decorated with tiny pink roses. The box was inscribed in pink: “Your First Tooth.” Inside, a white satin pillow provided a proper resting-place for a perfect tooth.

“How did Santa know to bring me this?” Hannah exclaimed. 

Reaching for the ever-present baggie, she placed the tooth in the center of the satiny pillow and snapped the box shut. The rose-covered box was by her side most of Christmas day.

Hannah doesn’t remember herself without teeth, but I do. I remember each white bud pushing its fretful way through her pink gums. Tiny teeth marking the end of babyhood. Now space was being made in her mouth for the adult teeth she would have for the rest of her life.

In spite of her excitement about the passage that the loss of her baby tooth represented, Hannah was reluctant to let the tooth go. It’s one thing for that tooth to leave her mouth, another for it to be gone entirely. Making space for the new is challenging and exciting. Letting go of the old, more difficult.

 I imagined that gradually the rose-covered box would not be opened quite as often, would not be displayed to all her play dates. Eventually, her adult teeth having sprouted, the box would sit on her bureau with other small treasures, unnoticed for years.

Maybe, when she was 14 or so, with a mouth full of braces, she would say to herself: “Why am I hanging onto this old tooth?” and toss it out without a backward glance. Maybe not, but it wouldn’t surprise me.                                 

***

Hannah Lupica on Samba

It turns out that I was wrong in my conclusion when I wrote the original of this story. As I admired the girl above: the sixteen year-old, courageous, competitive rider, flying over the jump at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center, I found myself wondering about that first tooth. 

So long ago.

 I sent a text asking Hannah as to its whereabouts and she texted me right back. “I still have it!” That tiny tooth remains in the rose-covered box on her bureau.

 I find this fact comforting. At whatever age, it may simply be human nature to hang onto bits and pieces that connect us in memory to who we once were.

A Pivotal Person Can Save Your Life

Last night I dreamt about a pivotal person in my life, a person I haven’t thought about in years. Joyce. She was one of my college roommates. But that’s not the pivotal part.

In May of 1979 I traveled from Ohio to New York to attend a preview of my brother’s movie for television called Friendly Fire.

It was a low point in my life: my second divorce pending, I was forty-five years old, sleepless, skinny and despairing. I needed to leave the small Ohio town where I had spent twenty-three years-- married to two people--and where I had raised my three children. I knew I had to go, but I had no idea where.

In the New York hotel, I discovered a run in the only pair of stockings I had brought with me so off I went to Bloomingdales. I was staring at the various stocking options when I heard a voice. “Cecily! I can’t believe it’s you!”

It was Joyce, my six-foot tall, blonde, smart and funny roommate with whom, for four years, I had sung in the Vassar Nightowls. I had been a bridesmaid in her Washington wedding.

I hadn’t seen her for twelve years.

We hugged and exclaimed as women do when they are excited about seeing each other. Neither of us said OMG! because we didn’t say that in 1979, but it definitely was an OMG! moment.

We had lunch together and, at Joyce’s generous invitation, I spewed my falling apart life across our salads.

 When I had finished, Joyce said quietly, “come visit me in Bridgehampton in July.”

“Bridgehampton?” I asked. “Where is that?”

“At the far end of long Island. You must plan to stay two weeks.” Her voice was firm and definite.

“Two weeks? Joyce! No one should stay with anyone for two weeks, least of all someone who is a wreck! I’m no fun. I cry a lot.”

She grinned. “Two weeks.”

 With my kids well off into their summer plans, in July I flew east to spend two weeks in Bridgehampton, NY.

Joyce was right: right about it all. The vast Atlantic Ocean, the wide, bright beaches, and the interesting people-- the tiny farming town was full of writers and artists.

Joyce’s husband, Shascha, was a fine musician, a former Yale singer and the three of us sang as we did the dishes at night. We took picnics to nearby Sagaponack beach. I reconnected with writer, Jack Knowles, (A Separate Peace) whom I had known when I was nineteen, and began to meet other local writers who were friends of Jack’s and Joyce’s. We hung out at Bobby Van’s Bar, with Sascha or Bobby--a graduate of Julliard--at the piano. We sang, drank wine and laughed.

I loved the small town, the pretty Main Street with its two churches, the independent shops: De Petris’ market, The Bridgehampton pharmacy where Chip dispensed meds with a smile, and The Candy Kitchen where George, the proprietor, greeted everyone by name.

Bridgehampton worked its healing magic on me with the consistency and steadfastness of the tides and with the flare of a crashing wave, the droplets sparkling in the sun.

I began looking for a place to rent for the month of August—the busiest month of the summer. I was going to be on my own for the first time in twenty-three years and it had to feel safe and right. The agent and I found nothing I liked.

Near the end of July I called my brother to say “hello.”

“Where are you?” he asked. “I’ve called you at home and got nothing.”

“I’m in Bridgehampton,” I replied, and explained that I was with Joyce, had been there for almost two weeks, loved it and wanted to stay, but so far, I couldn’t find a house.

“I don’t believe this!” My brother exclaimed. “A friend of mine from advertising days in New York called me this morning to ask if I knew of anyone who might want to rent her farm house on Mecox Bay.

 Ces, I have been there.You would love it!”

He gave me her number.

I moved into Tina Raver’s house on the first of August in 1979 and I lived in that house for eighteen months. When I was divorced, I bought my own small house on Sagg Pond in Bridgehampton where I remained until 1993.

Call it serendipity? An accident of fate? That Joyce, unseen for so many years, was buying stockings in Bloomingdales on that Saturday? I call it God, Universal Intelligence, the Great Choreographer In The Sky, offering me a chance at a new life. And, Joyce, bless her forever, was the instrument.

All that was required of me was that I answer “yes.”

And then my brother in California finds me a house.

I knew that whatever happened after that—and there was to be so much!--I was in the right place and that a force beyond my knowing, a force I could trust, had led me there.

***

And you, kind readers, who were the pivotal people in your lives? I hope you are thinking of them now.

A Bit Of A Trauma At The Time, But In Perspective?

This morning in Florida it is dark, rainy and thundery and I don’t mind a bit. It’s very early and I am writing this lying in bed. Out of the window, assorted powerboats lie moored side by side near docks in a small, river harbor. My friend, Margaret and I are in Vero Beach.

I have to keep adjusting myself because my tailbone hurts. The meds have worn off overnight. The day before leaving for FL I had lunch with a friend and when we were finished, I slid off the slippery banquette at the Village Bagel Shop and because the seat ended before the edge of the table, and because I was still talking to Alice and looking at her, I went straight to the floor.

I flew here with a sore coccyx and after two days Margaret and I went to Corey’s Pharmacy and stood in the little alcove marked, Consultation, where Mrs. Corey, a short, brown-haired, late middle-aged woman, swiftly appeared and asked how she could help.

It was truly a consultation. “How did it happen?” She asked. “Where exactly is the pain? What, if anything, have you been taking for it?” (I was clutching a new bottle of ibuprofen, having used up the little I had brought with me.)

And then: “I want you to go to my favorite doctor at the Walk In clinic off the 17^th Street bridge. Dr. Olleneck. He will take good care of you. I really like him. You may need to have your back X rayed and Vero Diagnostics is right near his office.”

I am standing there, nodding dumbly while Margaret, clever woman, is writing down directions.

Yikes! There is really something wrong with me?

It turns out there is. The “very nice” doctor visit and an X ray later, and I have a fractured coccyx, which makes sitting a bit grim-even with the script ibuprofen I am now taking three times per day, but, hurrah! There is nothing that needs to be done about it except for my mustering a patient tolerance of the eight weeks healing time the fracture demands. I can walk, trot, and canter; I just can’t sit.

 Here’s what I now know. If you are going to hurt yourself, Vero Beach, Florida, is the place to do it. From Mrs. Corey of Corey’s Pharmacy to Dr. Olleneck at the Walk In, to the efficient and speedy X ray technician, I was kindly taken care of in every way. When I went to buy the special cushion to sit on I walked into the world of senior citizen—and other—rehab possibilities.  

The very sympathetic woman who waited on me also suggested a wrap-around heating pad. “You are going to LOVE this!” she sparkled. And then some roll on stuff called Bio Freeze which I haven’t tried yet. “I’m not trying to sell you stuff,“ she assured me. “These are products I know will help you”

And they do.

Now for the uncomfortable eight weeks to pass: I am already counting.

***

But this from Nigeria? Can you imagine this life? (The NY Times on February 6, 2015)

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — They came in the dead of night, their faces covered, riding on motorcycles and in pickup trucks, shouting “Allahu akbar” and firing their weapons.

“They started with the shootings; then came the beheadings,” said Hussaini M. Bukar, 25, who fled after Boko Haram fighters stormed his town in northern Nigeria. “They said, ‘Where are the unbelievers among you?’ ”

Women and girls were systematically imprisoned in houses, held until Boko Haram extracted the ones it had chosen for “marriage” or other purposes.

“They were parking” — imprisoning — “young girls and small, small children, parking them in the big houses,” said Bawa Safiya Umar, 45, whose 17-year-old son was killed when her town fell under Boko Haram’s control. “They parked 450 girls in four houses.”

***

The above makes a sore coccyx a complete joke!

***

Oh Lord, we are one world with one God and yet look at what we do in Your name. Forgive us when we imprison others in our rigid concepts and help us to create peace with one another.

Banking Happiness

It was fine with me that the storm last week was less damaging than predicted. I had no complaints about the lack of power outages and not having to be housebound for three days.

What’s with us? We attack the weather persons for misleading us and the mayors and governors for shutting down everything. What a no win! So we all got an unexpected day at home. Is that so bad? Not according to the woman I discussed this with the next day at the Cobbler’s in Westport. “It was really nice, all of us at home together,” she told me.

The meteorologists did the best they could with the information they had available and our governments, both local and state, reacted responsibly, based on that information.

 Perhaps our tracking systems can be improved, but do we really expect storms to obey our rules?

Sometimes I think we are a country of blamers and complainers.

I wanted someone on the television news, preferably one of the weather announcers, to say something like: “Weren’t we fortunate! What luck that we were wrong. This was a tough storm to track and how great that the New York, east coast area, was not hit as hard as we predicted.” (Never mind poor Boston and Nantucket got hammered and that a tiny Massachusetts town had the Atlantic Ocean roll right over it, freezing and making the place look like  planet Krypton.

I’m in favor of celebrating every feeling and everything that happens that is positive. We have enough suffering in this world. We need to bank happiness and joy, storing it up like a squirrel stores nuts for the winter, against the times when things aren’t so great and we are sad and maybe even miserable.

My happiness savings account has been running low: my brother died and my sister has been seriously ill. I feel like I am dragging a weighty anchor of sadness and anxiety. Already it seems like a long, cold winter.

Mind you, I do not want the above feelings to be fixed. Unlike weather prediction systems, my feelings do not present a problem to be solved, but instead, an internal soft spot, a vulnerability to be recognized, tended and lived through. Having become aware of my happiness overdraft, I’ve begun to move toward rebuilding it.

I took a walk in the sun yesterday and just looking up at the blue sky was wonderful and restorative. Forget how cold it was; I was so happy to see the brilliant sun!

And later, spending some prayerful healing time with a friend who has just had surgery to pin her arm--broken in three places--back together; that was wonderful, too.

On Thursday, I had lunch with my daughter who spends most of the winter in Florida, but who happens to be home right now. I love having lunch with my daughter. In fact, I love doing anything with my daughter.

And best of all, at least in this moment, is that I am leaving on Sunday for a week in Florida myself and it looks as if—assuming the meteorologists are correct this time—I will have a clear day to fly.

If they turn out to be wrong, I’ll do my best not to complain.

***

Check out www.whatiknowtobetrue.com offering personal growth groups in Fairfield every third Thursday. Caroline J. Temple and Lisa Jacoby are the compassionate leaders of What I Know To Be True and my companions on this journey of reflection and self-discovery.  For the details of the workshops, call Caroline at 203 866 9331. Click here for general information:

 www.whatiknowtobetrue.com.

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