My So-Called Glamorous Life

Every week I toggle between two worlds. There’s the “suburban mom” in sweats and the Manhattan me in heels, however, I should mention, they’re often stuffed in my backpack as I hoof around the city. Although I live outside of New York, my work and part of my social life is in Manhattan. I’m an advocate for veterans’ causes (the Bob Woodruff Foundation), a contributor to CBS This Morning, an author, and, always, a mom. This makes the Metro-North bathroom, where I often transform into “City Glam,” the equivalent of a Superman phone booth. 

Here’s how a typical day goes when I’m on the morning show:

I jump into a town car at 5:45am with wet hair and slits for eyes. As soon as I arrive at the studio, the CBS makeup magicians get to work spackling my face (which takes a little extra effort at my age). In order to keep me from looking like a blind lab rat, they add false eyelashes that—once I’ve left the studio and am back in natural light—give me a “tranny” look and cause me to have to explain at every successive meeting why I’m made up like Phyllis Diller. 

After the show, I duck into a deli and order a three-eggs-and-bacon sandwich. The woman at the register doesn’t give my now-melting makeup job a second look—she must see all kinds of crazy pouring out of the various CBS studios. She stifles a yawn, and as I take a bite, the yolk squirts onto my boob like yellow blood. Great. 

Next up: a meeting with the Caroline’s on Broadway folks to discuss our annual “Stand Up for Heroes” fundraiser at the Beacon Theater on November 8.  Andrew Fox, the show’s creator, wants to talk about stacking the night with artists like Bruce Springsteen, Ricky Gervais, Jon Stewart, and Robin Williams. Not bad company for an old lady in sensible footwear. “Nice look,” Andrew mutters wryly, gazing at the sneakers I’ve already abandoned my heels for.  The crotch of my tights has migrated midway to my knees and they are wrinkling at the ankles, like the plastic bags my mom stuck in my childhood winter boots.   There is an occasional obstruction in my peripheral vision. Is one of my lashes coming unglued, or is that just my sagging lid beginning to impair my vision? Note to self: Get the name of any plastic surgeon except the one who embalmed Joan Rivers.

Working with Scott McMahan on our "Stand Up For Heroes" fundraiser.  

Noon. It’s time for some grits, and this gal doesn’t like to miss a meal. I walk to Michael’s restaurant on 55th and find myself outside the plate-glass window where the A-listers sit, in a public urination-like crouch as I swap out the Nikes for my city shoes. I remove the Mr. Rodgers cardigan I’m wearing over my dress, swipe on a little lipstick and brush my hair. I’m meeting with a magazine editor to discuss my newly released first work of fiction, Those We Love Most. 

 “So tell me,” she asks, leaning over her untouched salad,  “Is this book really about you?” Finishing a bite of my dripping burger, I give the reply most middle-aged mothers of four can relate to.  “If this book were true to my life, I’d have to add lots of spicy sex scenes!  And maybe even throw in some leather and a few whips.  You know us suburban Moms,” I say, as she sets her fork down with renewed interest,  “we’re as frisky as wild ponies!”

Cut to me and the executive director of our non-profit organization in the conference room of a Midtown investment bank. We’re making a pitch for them to sponsor our “Stand Up for Heroes” night. I’m 50 percent sure they’ve agreed to write a check just to get me out of the room, because by this point in time, the TV makeup looks like it’s applied to a Galapagos turtle and the bankers are staring like geologists studying a topographical map.

With one sponsorship in the bag, we take a Starbucks break. I massage my dogs and wonder how my chicer Manhattan sisters seem to spend all day in heels so effortlessly. I’m the one who gets the stiletto stuck in the subway grate when I try to copy the grown-ups.

It’s now the end of the day and I’ve crisscrossed the city to meet my hubby for a drink near his ABC News offices.  One fake lash is now half unglued and curled off my lid like a shrimp.  The other half refuses to budge when I tug.  I’ve learned the hard way not to mess with any of this industrial make-up until I get home to a hot wash cloth.  Anything short of the right removal tools and my face will resemble a Jackson Pollock painting.

Walking in the rain with Bob. 

“What’s wrong with your eye?” my husband asks, squinting, patting himself down to find his reading glasses (I’ve been tempted to duct-tape them to the bridge of his nose). When my pores come into focus, he recoils. I’ve firmly moved into Night of the Living Dead territory, but I’m too tired to care. He shoots me a sympathetic look.

We sip our wine and wait for the traffic to subside so we can head home. Somewhere north of Harlem, my head lolls to the side and I am drooling on my sweater. Next thing I know we’re pulling into our driveway. One of my twins gives me a hug with a skeptical eye while the other is quick to bring me back to reality. 

“What’s with the Halloween makeup Mom? I’m starving.” 

Welcome home.

Enjoying a hike with my girls.

An original version of this post ran in Oct '12 Manhattan Magazine
http://www.modernluxury.com/manhattan/articles/every-day-exactly-the-same

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Remembering a Friend

I cannot fall back asleep.  I am stuck on the dentist, the mechanics of how this works, identifying a person by their dental records.  Does he get a call at 2:00 AM, when family members and loved ones are awaiting an answer?  Or does he come to work at a reasonable hour?

 

I am struck by the term “lost his life,” as if it was simply an object he misplaced and someone will find again. As if you could walk out a door, never to return and then somehow walk back in again.  What an odd and inappropriate turn of phrase.

 

I am thinking about his last minutes and hoping that there was no suffering.  As a wife I would need no suffering.  I would want to know there had been that moment of being there and then suddenly not there, before you could even flicker through the fullness of your life, before you had time to tell yourself that it was abundant and well lived and that you had more than you even deserved.

 

I am remembering what that call feels like—to go from a before to “after” with one piece of news, a few words that ripple out to change the lives of an entire clan.  There is the cool ceramic shock that follows, the membrane that appears over your brain to prevent the truth from sinking in all at once.  The information digests slowly, as you toggle between numbness and disbelief at the oddest times. This is the only way a wife can absorb the enormity of that kind of loss, you cannot otherwise compute the circumference of such a thing. 

 

 

She will still expect to hear his shout out from the front hall, see his lopsided grin and wire glasses askew, his full head of ginger hair.  She will listen for, but not hear, his footfall and the familiar sound of his briefcase being hefted up on the counter where they will eat.  “You’re dragging the dirt of Manhattan onto our table,” she might say and now she smiles to think of it.  Impossible that someone could be there one day, taking up all that space and then simply vanish so fully that the dentist must be called.  “Never” is a difficult word for humans to grasp—we are creatures who crave.

 

In the early days following his death, the kitchen is warm and bustling with covered dishes and deli food. The fireplace crackles, the doorbell rings, flowers arrive and then more food.  In these early days there is way too much food.

 

The household spins with industry, the cluck clucking of the community of women and the spiked laughter of his pals, yes laughter, because this is still unreal.  She will not sleep, at least not without pills and aids, because the images both imagined and real and the questions and “what if’s” will swirl in her mind like a thick pudding.  She will replay the film loops of the past, the time they first saw one another in Manhattan, how he held himself, so sure and confident, a boy from a modest home who was determined to make a mark with his good education.  She sees a freeze frame of them in the maternity ward, holding their daughter, how they thought their hearts would burst with so much love.  And then more children, more love. 

 

She thinks about his passion for all things outdoors, of hiking and biking and being out on the water in the Adirondacks.  She pictures him coaching hockey and wakeboarding with his boyhood friends and their children on the lake.  He was a person always in motion, whose presence bulged, so that he seemed to occupy a larger space, in a way that made the people around him feel more alive.  He had a childlike sense of wonder and enthusiasm that made those of us in his presence smile.  He was the leader, the aggregator, the congregator, the do-er.  He was where the fun was.  He was the “Fun Dad.”

 

 

He always said exactly what he thought and he was forthright, never cruel.  Even when he was goading or teasing you there was something still appropriate, still loveable.  He was loveable.  He jibed and joshed and his self-deprecating manner made us all feel we knew him better than maybe we did.  We smile just remembering it, each of us reviewing our own cache of highlights.

 

But then there will come that period in the house when the activity will slow and sag.  All the plates will stop spinning.  The hugs, the calls and the people dropping by will diminish.  The cars that have occupied the driveway will pull out and friends will go back to their lives because that’s what people do.  And then the real life part begins.  The living with it part.  And this will be the difficult part for the family. 

 

In the quiet of their home, grief will settle around her like an unwelcome arm on the shoulder and she will ache for the sound of that briefcase hitting the counter, the small dog’s incessant bark, rejoicing that her husband is home.  I want to say to her, do not fester over recreating your last moments together, the fact that you might have discussed the credit card bill that last night instead of something more weighty.  Do not worry if you can’t recall exactly when you last embraced him or told him what was in your heart.  Do not punish yourself if the last night you slept together - and how could you know that - you didn’t spoon him or kiss him passionately, but instead poked him when his snores woke you.  None of that matters now.  It was a marriage and he adored you.  I saw it.  We all did.  You made each other stronger and more complete in the weaker places.  And that’s simply what the best of couples do.

 

And when you are ready to feel us, we will all be woven strong.  Each of your varying and diverse communities, all of the places you have lived and worked, played and learned, will be interconnected, like the reeds in a basket.  Although we will never come close to replacing him, we will hold you up, and cradle each one of you.  We will be here to remind you how well you are loved.

 

 

In memory of Tighe Sullivan—devoted father, husband, friend, brother, Colgate University alumnus and lover of Silver Bay on Lake George. 

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