Cookie cutter glass condos in Williamsburg and Greenpoint are decimating a way of life and putting in place rootlessness. I try to find the old place, my old memories. I grew up here – learned to ride a bike in the rickety (then) McCarren Park, rode the graffiti subway (which seems better than the L train now), played on the sidewalks, shopped on the avenue, went to Holy Ghost Ukrainian Catholic School (which is no more), compared kielbasa between Pete’s in Williamsburg and Steve’s in Greenpoint. I know there are many memories like these. So for my MFA program at the New School, I founded Williamsburg Memories and Greenpoint Memories as websites with stories open to all. The start is slow but memories just need to be tapped into to stay forever.
I shared some of these memories with my piece, “Doorways in Time,” for The Seventh Wave. More to come.
Holding Ukraine’s colorful banknotes is a history lesson in the country’s struggle for independence. A dear friend had brought me the new notes on her return from Ukraine’s most recent fight to keep its border intact from its aggressive northern neighbor, Vladimir Putin’s Russia. They were beautiful, fragile and striking. I was drawn to Ukrainian poet and dramatist, Lesya Ukrainka, who appears on Ukraine’s 200-hryvnia note over a century after she inspired millions with her patriotic writing.The new currency was created in 1992 after Ukraine declared its independence from the former Soviet Union. For the first time in over eight decades, Ukraine could announce its separate identity to the world and chose to do so honoring its freedom fighters and literary giants. Lesya Ukrainka is the sole woman. That is impressive considering a country as democractic as the United States still has to acknowledge one of the many women who built her history. When New York Times conducted a poll on what women to put on the U.S. $20 bill, feminist author Gloria Steinem suggested Sojourner Truth, who fought against racism and sexism, and writer Gish Jen offered up Harriet Beecher Stowe, another abolitionist and feminist. Social media chimed in with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt garnering a high number of votes, and even Kim Kardashian getting in the mix (to my horror).
And so my journey began with Lesya, reading about her life and her work, and beginning to translate her writings for a new era. My goal now is to spread her words widely on this side of the ocean, her words which are beautiful and uplifting in times of turmoil. Check back on my translation progress!
English: Vera Komissarzhevskaya as Nora in Ibsen’s A Dolls House (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Last night I saw A Doll’s House at BAM. The play by Henrik Ibsen debuted in 1879. The message is still relevant 2014. And that’s not a good thing.
Ibsen was was inspired by the belief that “a woman cannot be herself in modern society,” since it is “an exclusively male society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine standpoint.” His protagonist Nora lives this life. She is a pet, a bird made to sing for her husband. I was so annoyed; I didn’t think I could sit through Nora being objectified. And then a glimmer, we find out Nora saved her husband by secretly taking out a loan and secretly repaying it (even though her imbecile of a husband accuses her of being a spendthrift and clothes horse because she continually asks him for money). Nora knows everyone is underestimating her, but she keeps playing the role, dancing for dollars. I am again annoyed. And then in the finale, shouted down by her husband, Nora finally looks up – and leaves him. Pump fist, “You go girl!”
Nora walks away to find her voice. It is something we women are still doing 135 years later! Over the past year, I have been listening to my female friends talk about feeling unheard. Not just unappreciated – unheard. We are losing our voice as our families grow and there are more to take care of, as our work responsibilities become more demanding with new job titles, as more people take our shrinking time. When we constantly give, we lose our voice.
So on this International Women’s Day, here are 5 ideas to get our voice back.
1. Roar.
Yes maybe listen to Katy Perry. But also give yourself a shout out – literally. Shout how awesome you are, it feels so good. Get your friends to do it with you, and definitely your kids. I was leading my Girl Scout troop this week and telling them about Women’s History month and we shouted out several times about how women rock. We talked about famous women and the contributions women have made. We celebrated each other and talked about what each girl wanted to be when she grew up. I wish all of these little girls grow up in a world where they never feel their voice is unheard.
2. Write yourself a love note.
Even when we hear thank you and praise from friends, family and colleagues, we fail to give ourselves praise. Take a minute and write down what you have done in the past day, week or month that you are proud of. You’ll see how long the list is and you’ll know that you – and your voice – is irreplaceable.
3. Spend at least one hour every week not thinking about anyone else.
I was going say give yourself an hour say everyday, but I know that’s unrealistic when we are pulled in twenty different directions every minute. Let’s start with once a week: lock yourself in the bathroom for an hour and take a bath or sit down and indulge in one hour straight of reading that book that’s been sitting on your bedside table. Just you time. These moments help redraw the outline of you because when you are constantly caring for others or working, your outline fades and you become a shadow.
4. Save up for a treat.
We put away money for college for the kids. We save up for a family vacation. But when do we indulge in something just for us? Something impractical, something totally selfish? We feel so guilty when there are other priorities. But ladies, we are the priority! I am dreaming of saving up enough money to go to Mandy Aftel and have her make me my own perfume. A scent that says Tatiana. That is mine. My voice. (and for those of you who remember Tatiana perfume from the 1980s, that is totally NOT my scent!)
5. Reconnect.
Call your mom, sister, oldest friend. Do not email or text. Call. We need to HEAR the voices that inspired us in our lives. And in that way we will know our own voice.
The DJ was pumping summer specials (“Call me Maybe” anyone?), the drinks were free flowing and the bride and the groom looked spectacular, but yesterday at my table all were glued to my cousin’s phone watching the final between Spain and Italy. There were grumbles about how Poland should have done better in its division, but overall awe and joy at Poland and Ukraine getting their moment in the sun after years behind the Iron Curtain.
Though I am not a soccer devotee, it is hard to not be impressed by the spectacle of Eurocup 2012. And even more impressed at how far Poland and Ukraine have come.
I first saw the new Warsaw stadium last year on my return to Poland. Pretty impressive and now how everyone sees Warsaw in their mind’s eye after stupendous event coverage and smashing soccer tourism.
Last year I came back to Warsaw for the first time since 1985. Back then, Poland was just shaking off the ill will of martial law and suffering from a crumbling planned economy. I remember waiting to buy a refrigerator for my great-grandmother who lived in a small village outside Cracow and still did not own one. My family had tried sending her money to buy one, but each time there was none to be had. In the winter, having no icebox was no problem – milk and butter stayed fresh out in the cold; in the summer, these were kept in the well or in the cellar.
At the time, I was 12 and didn’t really understand, or appreciate, why everything was so Little House on the Prairie. I knew we wanted to make my great-grandmother’s life a bit easier. So one day, we got a tip from someone about a truck arriving at an appliance store. Rumor had it that the drivers would be selling the refrigerators straight off the back of the truck before they even had a chance to hit the shelves. We weren’t the only ones getting that same tip. There was queuing, pushing, haggling — dozens of frenzied voices and bodies ready to carry these refrigerators on square backs if need be.
It was the same everywhere. Enormous lines or empty shelves. We went into a restaurant one time, got a menu only to be told they were out of everything. Hours later, somehow a chicken was found and we had our dinner.
Now faded photographs of that time before remain (see my 1985 vintage photo). Today Warsaw is full of four and five star hotels that are at your service 24/7 (including going back to the airport to pick up a forgotten stroller!) and the restaurants are packed, from hip and trendy (U Kucharzy on ul. Ossolinskich, run by the Gessler family which have a restaurant empire a la Batali, www.gessler.pl) to excellent pubs (BrowArmia on ul. Krolewska) and even a superb wine bar (Mielzynski on ul. Burakowska).
Warsaw is also safe and child friendly! The Chopin Museum (ul. Okólnik) is an excellent place to spend an afternoon with a special children’s room full of musical games to a room where you can sit quietly and listen to his music — actually my favorite was reading George Sand’s letters to Chopin! Another fun place: Teatr Malego Widza u(l. Jezuicka 4 ) in Old Town which has shows for little ones.
Indeed, the arts are thriving in Warsaw, especially around the area where the once imposing Palace of Science and Culture (built between 1952 and 1955 as Joseph Stalin’s “gift” to Warsaw) doesn’t seem so imposing anymore. It’s now more on an arts complex, surrounded by half a dozen theaters. I also went to my first theater piece this year in Warsaw, Ingmar Bergman’s Wiarolomni (aka “Faithless”).
The acting was powerful, the neighborhood very Williamsburg. (check out the company site: (http://www.trwarszawa.pl/wydarzenia/wiarolomni). I felt at home. Then I met the cousin of my best friend who is starting a gallery specializing in antique photographs. He moved from Paris a year ago, enticed by the artistic opportunity in Poland.
And much more! One of Warsaw’s mall offerings, Arkadia (al. Jana Pawla), is the antithesis of my 1985 experience. Shelves are stuffed, shoppers overflowing. There are imported foods from around the world, designers galore, an English language bookstore. You can even get your Starbuck’s fix (on Krakowskie Przedmieście) where I love sitting so I can to feel the youthful vibe of the Warsaw University students passing by.
Warsaw 2012. I may have missed the soccer, but I think the city is amazing!
A couple of weeks ago one of my closest friends expressed concern over the message in Amy Chua’s memoir, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” My friend, who is really Chinese from Hong Kong and speaks Chinese and teaches her children Chinese – as opposed to Chua who is of Chinese descent and grew up in the Midwest and hired a nanny to teach her children Chinese – was aghast that Chua was dictating how she should be raising her children as a “real” Chinese mother, or that anyone would think she is as self-absorbed as Chua. Then ofcourse we all found out the details – how Chua yelled and browbeat her children into being her image of perfection – and I told my friend not give Chua the satisfaction of buying her book. Chua is no more Chinese than I am. What she really is is a second-rate mother.
Look I am guilty of some obsessive helicopter parenting. It’s my generation – my three year old goes to preschool, ballet, gymnastics, music, yoga. I use the time out, I take the toy away (and sometimes threaten to throw it in the garbage when things get rough), and sometimes, yes, I raise my voice. Parenting = tough. But you have to want to be a parent to be a good one. Clearly Chua is missing that gene.
Then I read David Brooks’ brilliant essay in the New Yorker about his so-called, Composure Class. He writes, “They live in a society that prizes the development of career skills but is inarticulate when it comes to things that matter most. The young achievers are tutored in every soccer technique and calculus problem, but when it comes to their most important decisions-whom to marry and whom to befriend, what to love and what to despise-they are in their own. Nor for all their striving, do they understand the qualities that lead to the highest achievement. Intelligence, academic performance, [and playing instruments to perfection is something Ms. Chua would probably add if she were writing], and prestigious schools don’t correlate well with fulfillment, or even with outstanding accomplishment. The traits that do make a difference are poorly understood [Ms. Chua pay attention I say!], and can’t be taught in a classroom, no matter what the tuition: the ability to understand and inspire people; to read situations and discern the underlying patterns; to build trusting relationships; to recognize and correct one’s shortcomings; to image alternative futures.
Mr. Brooks, forgive me for the long quote but in case there are those who don’t get the New Yorker, don’t read your column in the NYT or won’t buy your book, I really feel this should be read. People skills. That’s the ticket. Life is about people, about family and friends. It’s a wonder Chua has any left.
Yesterday’s New York Times Week in Review Article: “The War – A Trillion Can Be Cheap” made a very insightful point about the fact that since we do not feel the war, we are divorced from it. Meanwhile it is draining our collective coffers at a startling rate.
Meanwhile I am currently reading, “The Balkan Trilogy,” by Olivia Manning which chronicles the lives of Harriet and Guy Pringle as they live through World War II, first in Romania, then escaping to Greece (which is where I am in the book). The semi-autobiographical tale makes you feel the privation wrought by war – the lack of food (as the Greeks fight the Italians all the best food goes to the soldiers, what is left is intestines), the lack of comforts like a coat for winter (Harriet, having had to flee Romania when the Nazis occcupied the country fled without her one winter coat, and wonders as the Greek winter sets in if she will have the money to buy another.)
How lucky are we today to not feel war as the NYT points out – to have the choice of meals and closets full of clothes. We should not forgot the toll previous wars wrought, and should be more thoughtful about staying on our current course.
I first heard of the four female astronauts in space in a Tina Fey monologue on SNL two weeks ago. Fey said something like ‘if you told anyone in the 70s about four female astronauts in space it would be in reference to a porno, but today it doesn’t even make news’. I didn’t know what she was talking about, was it a joke? So I checked. And it is true. According to a piece in a UK paper, it is “a record for the most women in space” nearly fifty years after “the Soviet Union put the first woman into orbit.” So why aren’t we talking about it? I ran it by a couple of girlfriends who also had not heard the news. Ok so Iceland has a volcano, China an earthquake, Poland a tragic air crash. But this is history here…or do we still only tell history from a male point of view?
Then I read, “Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley: In the Wide-Open World of Tech, Why So Few Women?” by a former colleague of mine Claire Cain Miller (we overlapped at Forbes magazine) and I started fuming. She starts with this story which I have to share again because it is so telling:” CANDACE FLEMING’S résumé boasts a double major in industrial engineering and English from Stanford, an M.B.A. from Harvard, a management position at Hewlett-Packard and experience as president of a small software company. But when she was raising money for Crimson Hexagon, a start-up company she co-founded in 2007, she recalls one venture capitalist telling her that it didn’t matter that she didn’t have business cards, because all they would say was “Mom.” Another potential backer invited her for a weekend yachting excursion by showing her a picture of himself on the boat — without clothes. When a third financier discovered that her husband was also a biking enthusiast, she says, he spent more time asking if riding affected her husband’s reproductive capabilities than he did focusing on her business plan. Ultimately, none of the 30 venture firms she pitched financed her company. She finally raised $1.8 million in March 2008 from angel investors including Golden Seeds, a fund that emphasizes investing in start-ups led by women.“
Is this the world in which I am raising a daughter? It is supposed to be better than this. So I found Parenting’s “5 Skills Every Kid Needs” to be helpful because it still is an imperfect world.
Great piece in April 4, 2010 New York Times Magazine about photographer Roman Vishniac who chronicled prewar Eastern European Jewish life. The piece points out some of his images were manufactured and brings up again the question of what is truth, and what does personal perception bring to historical memory. The pictures in particular were amazing and make me want to see more of his archive.
I finished Lady Chatterly’s Lover this week. Connie’s thoughts on Venice – “Too many people in the piazza, too many limbs and trunks of humanity on the Lido, to many gondolas…too many pigeons…too many languages rattling…too much sun…” – written by D.H. Lawrence circa 1928 are still so true, even despite the ban on pigeon feeding in St. Mark’s Square. To see heaving masses swarming on the canals, it’s no wonder Venice is sinking!
Speaking of Italy, Sunday’s NYT Travel cover, “Mangia, Mangia!” on eating family style in Italy was wonderful. The best food I’ve had in Italy is at large gatherings of friends and family where everyone participates in the feast making. There are also small family style restaurants tucked here and there that give the same experience. The key is in the ingredients – local and fresh; I never gain weight there. (and I can’t say the same here even though I try to be a locavore!)
Started Mrs. Adams in Winter by Michael O’Brien; it’s a bit dense on the historical detail which the New York Times Book Review did point out. But I love the descriptions of Russian court life and how America’s earliest diplomats fared.
Speaking of Russia, Maly Drama Theater’s performance of Uncle Vanya at BAM is amazing. It helps to understand Russian because much was lost in the translation they had running on the top of the stage. Chekhov is amazing. And a Hollywood bonus, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard were at Friday’s performance.
And I completely disagree with Ben Brantley’s review of The Addams Family with Bebe Neuwirth and Nathan Lane. It might not be intellectually stimulating but it is fun – when we went the other week to celebrate my dad’s birthday we were rolling in the aisles – and that is worth the price of the ticket.
I sat down to my first Passover dinner several years ago when I started dating my husband and was mesmerized by the reading of the Haggadah, in particular the one my aunt-in-law had put together. In celebration of Global Markets and Ideas’ Women’s theme this month, I wanted to share what we read last night at Seder.
“Another Dayeinu”
If women has been among the writers of the Bible and had interpreted our creation and our role in history – Dayeinu
If Eve had been acknowledged as Adam’s equal and not a tempress – Dayeinu
If she ate from the tree of knowledge and had been recognized as a teacher – Dayeinu
If Lot’s wife had been honored for compassion in looking back at the fate of her family in Sodom and had not been punished for it – Dayeinu
If women had written Haggadahs and placed our mothers where they belonged in the story of our people – Dayeinu
If our mothers had been honored for their daughters as well as their sons – Dayeinu
If men had been taught to revere their role as father and teacher as much as warrior and ruler – Dayeinu
If men and women had stood side by side as comrades in the face of adversity – Dayeinu
If every generation of women and men would flee the bondage of an Egypt – Dayeinu
This past Saturday was something called Swan Day which is a celebration of women artists. The long term goal of Swan Day is “to inspire communities around the world to find new ways to recognize and support women artists as a basic element of civic planning.” I am doing my part by lauding the efforts of Virlana Tkacz who is our guest writer. She is the founding director of the Yara Arts Group creating theater pieces based on contemporary poetry and traditional myth and legend, much of it focused on women and many pieces about Ukraine. Her work is incandescent and I cannot wait to see “Scythian Stones” at La MaMa in April.
Also on my agenda: going to see the Whitney Biennial which showcases 20 women artists. And if I ever get back to Moscow anytime soon: Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Russian socialite and billionaire Roman Abramovich’s girlfriend, Dasha Zhukova’s, art space which is meant to rival London’s Tate.
I am also impressed with Ann Ziff who recently announced a $30 million gift to the Metropolitan Opera which turns out to be the largest single gift from an individual in the company’s history. Under the direction of Peter Gelb, the Met has been trying to dust off its staid image, and its new production of Shostakovich’s The Nose is a great example. I didn’t like all the visual projections – I thought they took away from Valery Gergiev’s beautiful orchestra direction, and Paul Szot’s amazing performance – but they were an interesting experiment and I was excited to be a part of it.
We can’t all be Ann Ziff, but we can do our small part by attending arts events and giving our time to promote the arts.
(built between 1952 and 1955 as Joseph Stalin’s “gift” to Warsaw) doesn’t seem so imposing anymore. It’s now more on an arts complex, surrounded by half a dozen theaters. I also went to my first theater piece this year in Warsaw, Ingmar Bergman’s Wiarolomni (aka “Faithless”).
