Otherwise life seems too random, too full of chaos. So I am dictating my story to your mother, because I want to give you something of value, and life is always of more value than things . Perhaps when you are old enough to read this I won't be here anymore. This is my testament for you, Sarichka, my spiritual will. "Writing an autobiography and making a spiritual will are practically the same," says the great Sholem Aleichem. So what if I am not writhing but talking? I imagine you listening, mayne leben, mayne neshomo, mayne libe.
You were born in that generation whose parents were all divorced when you were young, so perhaps continuity means even more to you than to other generations. The class of 2000! Whoever thought we'd come to such a year! And who'd have thought we'd have a generation like yours, so deeply cynical about love, about sex, about politics. Perhaps you were reacting to your parents' belief that a drop of LSD in the water supply would bring world peace. With parents like that, no wonder you're confused.
Sitting here, talking into this machine, my mind wanders. Painting is really much more comfortable for me than writing—or even dictating. Speaking, I see everything in pictures. I wish I could tell this story that way. But time is my subject, and time requires narrative. That's me: the ancient narrator.
I never look at myself in the mirror anymore, because I am no longer the self that I remember. It dislocates me to see that old crone in the mirror. I'd rather remember myself as I was then—auburn-haired, beautiful—as you are today. I'd rather look at you and see myself.
Since you have followed me this far, you are probably wondering how much of all this is true. I can only say it is as true as memory, and memory is a notorious deceiver. Mama used to say: " Oyf a mayse fregt men nisht keyn kashe ." (With stories, you don't ask questions.) Like all records of a life, it is a sort of note in a bottle cast upon the waters, to be found perhaps by a future survivor of life's shipwreck. I hope that future survivor is you.
Time is an undertow. Most of us live in the past our whole lives, and when death confronts us, we surrender and are not surprised to rejoin our lost loved ones. I find that the older I grow, the more real Russia is to me, though I lived there only seventeen years. But I know it is an imaginary Russia, which no longer exists; perhaps it never did. Nevertheless, it is where I live in these last years of my life. Often I find myself surrounded by relatives who died long ago. The worst thing about being this old is that the telephone seems useless because you cannot call up the people you are mostly thinking of. No telephones in heaven! (Though probably the other place is wired for sound!)
I try to remember all the things my mother told me, so that I can pass them on to you. "You may have doubts about love, but you can't doubt hatred," I repeat.
"Another pessimistic proverb!" I imagine you saying. "Didn't your mother ever say anything cheerful?"
"By her, that was cheerful," I say.
Yiddish wasn't just words, you see, it was an attitude . It was sweet and sour. It was a shrug and a kiss. It was humility and defiance all in one. "A worm in horseradish thinks his life is sweet," Mama used to say. "If God wills it, even a broom can shoot" was another favorite.
What I wish for you, my darling, is that all the brooms in your life should turn into magic wands and that you travel always from horseradish to honey, knowing the sweetness for what it is and having keen taste buds to appreciate its savor.
It was a world of outdoor privies, Irish cops, whalebone corsets, dumbbell tenements, and Beaux Arts (or brownstone) mansions—but the griefs and heartbreaks were the same. The panic about being broke, the thud in the heart when love came to call, the hopelessness of the old and the arrogance of the young—all these were the same.
Human beings do not, after all, have such a varied repertoire.
You were born in that generation whose parents were all divorced when you were young, so perhaps continuity means even more to you than to other generations. The class of 2000! Whoever thought we'd come to such a year! And who'd have thought we'd have a generation like yours, so deeply cynical about love, about sex, about politics. Perhaps you were reacting to your parents' belief that a drop of LSD in the water supply would bring world peace. With parents like that, no wonder you're confused.
Sitting here, talking into this machine, my mind wanders. Painting is really much more comfortable for me than writing—or even dictating. Speaking, I see everything in pictures. I wish I could tell this story that way. But time is my subject, and time requires narrative. That's me: the ancient narrator.
I never look at myself in the mirror anymore, because I am no longer the self that I remember. It dislocates me to see that old crone in the mirror. I'd rather remember myself as I was then—auburn-haired, beautiful—as you are today. I'd rather look at you and see myself.
Since you have followed me this far, you are probably wondering how much of all this is true. I can only say it is as true as memory, and memory is a notorious deceiver. Mama used to say: " Oyf a mayse fregt men nisht keyn kashe ." (With stories, you don't ask questions.) Like all records of a life, it is a sort of note in a bottle cast upon the waters, to be found perhaps by a future survivor of life's shipwreck. I hope that future survivor is you.
Time is an undertow. Most of us live in the past our whole lives, and when death confronts us, we surrender and are not surprised to rejoin our lost loved ones. I find that the older I grow, the more real Russia is to me, though I lived there only seventeen years. But I know it is an imaginary Russia, which no longer exists; perhaps it never did. Nevertheless, it is where I live in these last years of my life. Often I find myself surrounded by relatives who died long ago. The worst thing about being this old is that the telephone seems useless because you cannot call up the people you are mostly thinking of. No telephones in heaven! (Though probably the other place is wired for sound!)
I try to remember all the things my mother told me, so that I can pass them on to you. "You may have doubts about love, but you can't doubt hatred," I repeat.
"Another pessimistic proverb!" I imagine you saying. "Didn't your mother ever say anything cheerful?"
"By her, that was cheerful," I say.
Yiddish wasn't just words, you see, it was an attitude . It was sweet and sour. It was a shrug and a kiss. It was humility and defiance all in one. "A worm in horseradish thinks his life is sweet," Mama used to say. "If God wills it, even a broom can shoot" was another favorite.
What I wish for you, my darling, is that all the brooms in your life should turn into magic wands and that you travel always from horseradish to honey, knowing the sweetness for what it is and having keen taste buds to appreciate its savor.
It was a world of outdoor privies, Irish cops, whalebone corsets, dumbbell tenements, and Beaux Arts (or brownstone) mansions—but the griefs and heartbreaks were the same. The panic about being broke, the thud in the heart when love came to call, the hopelessness of the old and the arrogance of the young—all these were the same.
Human beings do not, after all, have such a varied repertoire.
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