Goodbye, Pete Seeger, Goodbye

I used to be a great sleeper, could fall asleep on a dime and luxuriated in eight, even ten hours of zzzs, when I could catch them. Then children and menopause came around. So now, not so much so.

In fact, getting enough sleep is the bane of my life right now. I make a cranky insomniac, and though I tend to think of this as a new problem, every now and then I remember: I had a terrible sleep problem as a child. That was so long ago (I am OLD) and had been resolved for so many years, I'd nearly completely forgotten.

But yes, as a child of four, six, eight, ten, I would lie abed for hours, waiting for sleep to come, terrified of the night. And the one thing that would help? My record player. And my absolutely favorite album of all time? Pete Seeger's Sleep-Time Songs & Stories.

Without even trying I can instantly conjure his voice, telling me a wonderful bedtime story. There's Pete now, talking and singing of the giant Abeyoyo, conquered by a mischievous fiddling magician and his son; or of Sam, the young whaler, up high in the ship's eagles nest, ever searching, until... "Thar she blows!"

I was saddened to hear of his passing yesterday, of that chapter closing. But I also know, 94 is a good long run. And, as all the news sources said, he was chopping wood a scant ten days ago.  I also know he passed surrounded by love and loved ones. He passed making his mark on the century that was, and on the future rolling ever onward.

Pete Seeger was woven throughout my childhood in too many ways to begin to tell. My parents were lovers of folk music. In fact they met at the Music Inn in Lenox Massachussets, a wonderful place for lovers of folk music and jazz in the 1950s. A place Pete often played.

I saw Pete play numerous times in my childhood, most memorably at some of the first Clearwater Festivals. I remember the sun sparkling on the Hudson River, the majestic old sloop, and Pete serenading me with "Little Boxes" and "Roll on Columbia."

And then, many years later, I was working video production at the Philadelphia folk festival in 1991, where there was a Seeger Family reunion concert that year. It was clear his voice was starting to fade a bit, but still lovely to hear him sing again, especially surrounded and supported by his talented, musical family.

Finally, when my father died three years ago, an old Pete Seeger song kept playing in my head, over and over. At the end of their lives, my father and Pete looked a lot alike. (And I wrote all about that in a post, here: Why, Oh Why?)

I am still spooked whenever I see a picture of him pop up on the internet, my first thought being "Dad?" and then, no, just Pete.

So sorry to see you go, Pete.

“Why, oh why, oh why, oh; why, oh why, oh why?

Because, because, because, because.

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.”

Amy Grant talks (and sings) about Caring for Aging Parents on Katie Couric, and I was there...

What do Katie Couric, Amy Grant and I all have in common?

We have all gone through - and are still in the middle of - caring for aging parents through their physical and mental declines.

And how do I know this?

Katie and me

I was invited to the taping of Katie's show on Taking Care of Aging Parents, which airs today (at 3 pm here in NYC, check local listing for elsewhere), as a special audience blogger/tweeter. It's a lovely way Katie and her show are actively engaging bloggers and the social-media-connected generation.

I was also asked to contribute a post for the Katie show blog, and you can find it here: Caring For My Aging Parents

I highly recommend you watch this show if you have any interest in this topic, or even if you don't but you have still living parents or other older people in your life you may end up caring for some day. And even though it may SEEM years away still, you never know what fresh disaster is just around the corner (ever the eternal optimist, I know) to make that hazy "someday" instantly morph into today.

It is intense, exhausting, deeply rewarding, filled with love and sorrow, and something nobody thinks about - or wants to think about - until it is thrust upon them. It's better to be prepared. Don't turn away just because it's unpleasant to think about. Watch and start to plan now!

Also Amy Grant gifted us with a live performance - the world premiere of a new song that she wrote for her parents, her mother now passed on, her father deep in the throws of a grave dementia.

Amy Grant performing on Katie

Blogging the show was a great experience. I got to hang out in the green room beforehand, watch the show from the front row, and comment on it throughout via my twitter stream. Katie sat next to us bloggers during Amy's moving song.

Me at Katie

It was also fun to be back on a soundstage, reminding me of my former life in film & TV production. Sigh. And then it was back to "real life" (taking care of kids and mom).

Alternate Side

A detail of my car's dashboard. Very 90s.

We have a car in Manhattan and we park it on the streets.

And that's every bit as insane as it sounds, but we have our reasons. ($400 a month garage fees being chief among the street-park decision.)

I never set out to be an auto-bearing Manhattanite, but rather had this thrust upon me when my very elderly parents moved back to New York and under my care about seven years ago, and their car came up from Florida with them.

It was full of dings and scratches, patches of other car colors that had been acquired by... violent proximity. Apparently at the end of his driving years, nearly every time he took the car out, my father would return with dents of unknown origin.

If my parents had just moved to Manhattan, I would have sold their car and been done with it. But no, they chose a senior residence in the northern reaches of Riverdale. (Technically in Yonkers even, though literally it was just a toehold over the line, on the north side of the dotted-line dividing street, rather than the south.)

I was their chauffeur, ferrying them to doctor appointments, shopping trips, Dad's one-man show at the Yonkers Library (his last big professional hurrah).

Now, other than weekend road trips and family vacations, I mostly drive Ethan to school on alternate side parking days, when the car must be ritually moved and re-parked.* Twice a week. More if we've used it and been unlucky in our parking choices upon return.

And after dropping Ethan off, I have about an hour to kill before it's time to re-park. The perfect excuse for morning coffee with the mom-friends.

This morning our conversation spanned hysterectomies, Gay Day at the Mall of America, rating of local pediatricians, concern for a friend having a hospitalization-worthy manic episode, homework, Sacha Baron Cohen, Simon Baron Cohen, the horrors of the middle school application process, Freddy Mercury, a theatrical parent's reaction to numerous boyfriends over the years until her loudly sung declaration of the husband to be: "Keeeeeeper!"

Once again I was filled with that warm snugly feeling that I have the best friends in the world.

A particularly supportive non-judgmental group; when I hear of women complaining about the competitiveness, vindictiveness and shallowness of women's relationships I can't help but think: "Who the Hell are YOU befriending?" because that so does not describe anyone I know or choose to spend time with. Then again we're not the "perfect" moms in designer clothes (unless they came from Filene's or Loehmann's) with the "perfect" children. Far from it.

Giving a friend a ride home after coffee today, she hopped into the passenger seat and seemed delighted to find I had a cassette deck in my dashboard, with actual cassettes in the cubby. (I did mention it's a 1997 sedan that had been previously owned by old people - i.e. my parents -  right?)

She grabbed Special Beat Service and popped it in and we started loudly caterwauling together, singing along to "Sugar and Stress" as we barreled up Amsterdam Avenue.

By the time I dropped her at her door "End of the Party" was playing. A hauntingly beautiful song. We had spent much of the car ride talking about how important music has been to us at various times in our lives.

I mentioned how one of my blog friends had included a song in her post that sent me on a wild nostalgia ride: Kate Bush singing "This Woman's Work."

And then, a few moments later, just as I'd found a parking spot, the heavens opened up and a torrential downpour ensued, the kind that laughs at your puny little umbrellas as it soaks you with sideways rain and from the ground up in great splashing puddles.

There was thunder and lightning involved, and the blaring of alarms, as cars close to the strikes rocked in the violence of the electrically discharging blasts.

Me? I sat toasty in my bubble, listening to my old music on the cassette deck; enjoying the spectacle outside my windows.

Windows, from a rainy window

Trees above, through windshield raindrops

So I will leave you with a few words from and a video of this English Beat song I Confess: "I know I'm shouting, I like to shout!" Enjoy:

*Note: this is a post from my "Zombie Files" - written months ago, and just finished up and posted today (being reminded of it by the rain). Right NOW I am actually using the car a LOT driving back and forth to Long Island where my mother is in a nursing home.