About Mallory Kasdan

http://www.mallorykasdan.com

Posts by Mallory Kasdan:

words

I haven’t written since mom died, which has been just over 3 months. And that’s mostly because of the fog in my head, which creates confusion and informs me when I have free time to sit at the computer I’m instead supposed to be reading books about stages of grief or else staring into space for hours. Or checking Facebook and email compulsively.

At first it was just surreal when she became very ill, even though we knew the ramping up was imminent. The disease was everywhere. Then we had to make decisions. Watch her body and mind completely surrender. Feel empowered in this one way because we were finally able to DO something for her, which was to give her a dignified death. The action of this experience felt like a reprieve after having so little recourse and only bad news during her illness. We watched her breath leave her body and then she was gone.

Then the funeral and shiva, which together were an overwhelming outpouring. People from every stage of my mom’s life were lined up to offer condolences to me and my sisters and my dad. They needed to see us, to cry with us and for us. And we needed to be there for them to process their own grief. Those days were agonizing, draining, and yet wonderful, as they enabled me to see all my best girlfriends from all over the place in one place, which happened to be the place I had my bat mitzvah.

Once that crazy amalgamation of party, food orgy, reunion, waterfall of support and love was over, we roadtripped home to Brooklyn and attempted the normalcy of ending school and starting summer. I tried to not make people feel awkward about seeing me for the first time and got better at saying the words “I just lost my mom. Yes, cancer. Thank you.”

One surprise was my physical reaction to the loss. My nerves were literally afire in the month following her death. I had pain shooting into my hands and feet. I felt bursts of panic and anxiety. There was that fog, which was punctuated by acute anger and rage. Then, moments of normalcy. Laughing at something I read, feeling cognizant of being entertained by a movie, dealing with poop or sunscreen or waterwings and forgetting for a second. And then deep, throbbing, sadness and loneliness.

The weirdest thing about losing mom is that I had no idea all the mom space my mom filled. She cared about all that bullshit minutae that meanders into my day. She wanted news about percentiles for height and weight and pictures of the kids not looking at the camera. She wanted boring details about their teachers and the precocious things they say and do. All the stuff of life that you don’t know someone is absorbing until that person is gone.

And yet, how lucky I am to have her within me. What a fine and loving life she led. I am aware how much I need her spirit and all the memories I can muster to help me rebuild myself. I only wish I could call or text her to talk to her about it.

Mom

She wanted you to be your best self. She wanted you to get moving, get off the couch, get outside and make something happen. Read a book, take a class, be in a play, volunteer, call your sisters. Just do something! Take the credit card and buy yourself a nice suit. And please stop feeling sorry for yourself. You have it pretty good you know.

Mom had impact. She loved to laugh and kibbitz, but not for too long because there was stuff to do. She was chatty and interested in you. Sarcastic when it was called for. She oozed warmth. Everyone wanted to be around her.

Mom was sparkly. She shone. She was present. Her love was steadfast and strong. She listened and talked in just the right combination. She had opinions but let you make your own mistakes. She was tenacious and fiercely loyal.

Mom tried to teach me to be confident in my decisions, not to over-analyze or let my emotions guide me … still working on that. She unconditionally supported my path as she pretended to understand my unusual career, and I know she was proud of me for cultivating a life in a place so different than where she and I grew up.

Growing up she was constantly reading. She took us to the ballet and signed us up for classes and took us on trips and to camps and nurtured all of our talents. I credit her with giving me the confidence and the curiosity to live a creative life.

I always knew she was an exceptional mother, but only now that I have my own kids do I realize just how confident and instinctual she was as a parent. When I have successes now with my kids – when I think of a good craft project, when I effectively follow through and discipline one of them, or when I see humor, creativity or empathy in them, my mom is pulsing through me in those moments. And in my failures and my frustrations with my children or with myself, I always hear her practical voice telling me not to be so hard on myself.

Mom loved her grandkids fervently and had a beautiful relationship with my daughter Zoe, who worshipped her and reminds me of her. She loved my husband Evan, which I know for sure because she would argue constantly with him about politics even when I knew she agreed with him completely.

Moving forward towards a life without my mom is deeply daunting. She inspired me, she loved me and she was everything to me. I can only hope to channel a fraction of the grace and strength in my own life that she showed all the way up to the end of hers.

20’s/40’s

I’ve been listening to this Taylor Swift song on repeat.

Listening to “22” is a four minute jolt of infectious auto-tuney happy earnestness which bleeds into intense nostalgic yearning. The soundtrack to trying on outfits while wearing a clay facemask. Sitting shotgun driving to get frozen yogurt. Laying out at the pool and not worrying someone will make you get them a graham cracker.

It’s pretty sweet to go inward in that particular way a pop song can free you from your present, even if that present is not exactly unpleasant and you’re cool with where you are in your life. Plus, I get a tiny thrill listening to it on my phone on the train between some skinny hot girl with librarian glasses and a tough thug with his legs spread maximally.

Factors that contribute to happiness in your 20’s are sharply different than those that please you in your 40’s according to an interesting article my husband pointed out to me while constantly reading his iPad. It’s about what motivates you at those specific times of life.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/05/how-happiness-changes-with-age/276274/

The author of the article, Heidi Grant Halvorson, who is on the cusp of 40, writes:

“Happiness becomes less the high-energy, totally-psyched experience of a teenager partying while his parents are out of town, and more the peaceful, relaxing experience of an overworked mom who’s been dreaming of that hot bath all day. The latter isn’t less “happy” than the former — it’s a different way of understanding what happiness is.

Social psychologists describe this change as a consequence of a gradual shifting from promotion motivation — seeing our goals in terms of what we can gain, or how we can end up better off, to prevention motivation — seeing our goals in terms of avoiding loss and keeping things running smoothly. Everyone, of course, has both motivations. But the relative amounts of each differ from person to person, and can shift with experience as we age.”

I suspect that the place of calm and complacency the author is writing from reflects that she is NOT having a midlife crisis, feeling the need to challenge herself physically by juice cleansing or running a marathon. Or becoming depressed and thinking a drastic career or spousal change will be the answer, or having another kid. This writer, in a vague, non-type A personality kind of way, seems to have what so many of my contemporaries are striving for: some peace and contentment for five minutes. It can be enough that everyone is healthy and safe and playing Junior Monopoly on Saturday nights. So good for her! This is great news and I appreciate the reminder that not everyone is out there being groovy all the time and that as parents we are occasionally allowed to breathe a sigh of relief that things are dull and unremarkable.

I listened to Terry Gross interview Greta Gerwig, 20 something actress and co-writer of “Frances Ha,” where Greta is talking about the moment, shown so beautifully in the film, where a person is a post collegiate mess a bit too long to be charming, and how some people seem to move more gracefully into adulthood than others. This film was excellent at probing that side of being youngish and flailing around, and how murky the experience of driving your life forward can feel. I loved it because it showed a character who couldn’t not be who she was, until she found her unique path, which most of us eventually do.

http://www.npr.org/2013/05/14/183648078/gerwig-baumbach-poke-at-post-college-pangs

I guess these pieces of art, this pop song and this film, are two halves of a whole. The Taylor Swift song paints a condensed and uncomplicated version of events, feeling free and happy because things are in front of you and who knows where the night will take you? And the film, “Frances Ha,” is a more lengthy, more intellectual take on this exciting and awkward time of life, more probing, more squeamish and more mortifying in its execution. Both young, female protagonists are searching for answers, hoping vaguely for the future and trying to find the joy in the journey.

I do love when a study in a magazine validates a feeling I’ve been having, which is that getting older, raising kids while watching parents age, and feeling overwhelmed with responsibility at times, can and does have its moments of relaxation and self acceptance, where your happiness can be found in staring into space and listening/watching/saying/doing whatever you want.

We need to congratulate ourselves for the work we’ve done to get to this boring-ish place.

Cue Taylor Swift, and whoever the hell else I want to listen to.

blah blah blah

It’s funny, but not funny. How when things are moving along for me creatively, finally starting to coalesce, when I have some linkage between the hundreds of tabs open in my brain, and I’m about to sit down to tap into those ideas and stories blending and blooming like food coloring in the bathtub, that’s when another crazy fucking tragedy explodes and I’m paralyzed looking at my news feed with an open mouth and tearing eyes.

This feeling: this creeping, seeping, horribleness. It keeps HAPPENING.

This is my 40th year. And things have gotten way adult. The last six months have begat one situation after another, a whole assortment of hurt from every category: Crazy Storms. Gun Violence. A sick parent. And now, an act of terrorism that feels, in its intense personal carnage, like a massive, evil, kick in the kidneys. Because it could happen to any of us, anywhere we go, and we kind of forgot about that for a bit didn’t we?

First I try not to look at the images and read the stories. Then I indulge. And then, I don’t know how to be normal for a few days. I can’t explain these tragic things to myself, why this person, how that person, what if that person ….. so I just smother it out by literally inhaling the innocence of my kids, breathing them in as we cuddle and play and dance to Beyonce.

I have my version of prayer and meditation when things are tough. I have my people I turn to for guidance and to crack open my thoughts: writers and comedians and people I love and all of that helps me grow and laugh and think.

But I am really scared. Times just seem so chaotic. I never know what news my New York Times alert app thing will alert me to when I get off of the train.

I want normalcy. I want my struggles to be about doing best by my loved ones and being happy and productive. But it seems that this fear and this sort of “what now?” is our reality. What will be the next scary thing? How will we adjust to the next one?

I know this is what it felt like for my parents too, as they went through scary times and tried to keep us safe and relatively free from suffering. And I guess that’s the true shift, because now I know they can’t make anything better. And I am in charge of making sure my small underlings are ok and protected by pretending its all going to be ok. I have been passed that particular torch.

I know this feeling will pass, soften, minimize. But the fear/anxiety/anger/sadness combo — it comes on hard, fast, and lately, all too frequently.

stay gold

Today I went to 47th Street to sell some gold for cash. Which sounds so pawn shop, so drug addict, so hawking the sax to pay for a fix. Really, I just went to sell some of mom’s jewelry, which she gave me last week and urged me to get rid of. It felt unsettling to sell it but she was so emphatic “with the high price of gold and all.” Plus she’s notoriously unsentimental, claimed she never wore any of it, and we could use the money to pay the deposit for next years preschool.

So I rolled up to 47th between 5th and 6th,, one of those world within a world New York City blocks. Lit by neon signs and florescent window displays during the day, the overall vibe is nonetheless SHADY. I swerved to avoid packs of roaming Orthodox Jews, homeboys handing out cards, and swarthy men smoking cigarettes and muttering, gold silver platinum we buy everything, under their breath.

I had the name of a “guy” from a jeweler friend, but as I walked in the front door of the huge room divided into kiosks, I was instantly schmoozed by a cute young man in a kippah with the counter right by the door. Real estate is everything.

I’m here to sell gold for cash I said. We can do that he said.

Their father and son outfit was straight out of Central Casting: the father spoke in brusque Hebrew inflected English as he looked through his jeweler’s loupe suspiciously at another customer’s treasures. A little sleazy, definitely the bad cop, dad looked like he knew his way around a karat, while the son, quite obviously the greener, good-er cop, looked me in the eye and smiled with his big white teeth while he tested my gold to make sure it was real with this little scrapey chalk board thing and various liquids. The two of them ducked heads, whispered under their breaths, and gathered around the calculator, doing their dance for me and the hopeful customers from Westchester, with their silverware and gold plated charms.

Boychick told me how he studied journalism and couldn’t quite believe he ended up in the family business. I could see the whole situation in a flashback – graduation day from Columbia, the fights, dad yelling that writers are losers and drunks and cajoling him to come to 47th street, it’s what WE DO! And now, son smiles at me confidently, salesman like, he really loves it.

Here’s what we can do for you said the son, and showed me the number on the calculator. Sorry there’s nothing we can do for you, said the father to Westchester. But we thought you were the experts, Westchester said as they slunk out the door.

I felt like I had won – my stuff was good. And as I readied myself to take the money and walk away from this Neil Diamond song come to life, I glanced at mom’s pieces of jewelry, sitting there innocently on the velvet tray after being analyzed and violated, not knowing what was in store for it. And I had another twinge: should I be doing this and will I regret this?

Because no matter how little this stuff means to my mom now, at one point it was on another velvet tray, housed in some other incarnation of a jewelry business, probably chosen for her as a gift from my dad. And it likely meant something. There was desire behind it or hope that she would like it. Plans for when she’d wear it.

Now it’s headed for the basement gold melting factory where some old bearded guy (probably the Grandpa!) cracks the stones with a hammer and melts everything into a giant cauldron of liquid gold soup, which is then somehow turned into a form (bars? sheets?) that some banker can buy and sell on a trading floor, and then after more travels and formations and incarnations I can’t even imagine eventually maybe finding its way back some day into a jeweler’s hand or factory and onto another velvet tray somewhere. For someone else to desire and dream about wearing or give as a gift.

Um, Happy Valentines Day?

This is 40 This is Not Funny

I sat down for our date night movie expecting a respite from the mental sludge I find myself struggling under lately. Said sludge is thick, opaque and a mishmash of Important Big Things: family illness, school shootings, Republicans, hurricanes and Not As Important Smaller Things: I look tired, I want people to read my mind, my hair looks bad. Also, I am tired and my hair looks bad.

Stuff came up for me this summer just before turning 40, so I was hoping Judd Apatow and Company would get at some of those emotions in a funny and relevant way with his film “This is 40.” Being married for eight years, having young kids and retiring aged parents, being somewhat settled on paper but still feeling restless – I’ve found this time of life to be complex and compelling, fascinating and terrifying. A middle place, as its been called. I’m a parent but sometimes wish I could still be a child. I yearn for freedom and want less responsibility but realize I will only have to take on more as the years pass because of my choices and situation.

At 40, I think I have the components of what I want in life but find myself searching, and often feeling disappointed. I have been hearing many variations on the mid-life crisis theme in my own world: several friends questioning their sexuality, for example, one member of a couple becoming an extreme exercise fanatic, yet another losing a ton of weight and getting weird. I’ve heard amazing things: marathons run, television shows produced, books published. And terrible things: Cancer — every minute it seems.

So back to the movie. How was this not funny? What a hilarious time of life right?

Yes, I nudged my husband at many moments that were scripted straight from our morning and evening routines, and laughed a few times at some of the mostly mean spirited jokes and the mocking therapy speak. But it was more of a bitter laugh than a belly laugh. These people were kind of awful. And strangely, every time Apatow had an opportunity for humor he let it end on a thud with something really dark or depressing. There was so much screaming at each other (mom and dad, daughter and daughter, daughter and mom, mom and daughter’s friend, daughter’s friend’s mom and mom) that at least 3 or 4 people walked out of our screening. They couldn’t take it.

People are criticizing “This Is 40” because of the clueless White People Problems of this family. They have money and groovy Hollywood jobs that allow them lots of free time for workouts — cool offices and boutiques with neon signs and ironic employees with mustaches. They drive fancy cars, go to a lovely private school, have personal trainers and houses too large for their needs.

It is hard to feel bad for them as they “struggle” with money, when the implication is that it will all be fine. I think this is mostly a distraction from the examination of a family and its values that could have had resonance. The beautiful house and great stylist Debbie (Leslie Mann) has for her perfect Cali-boho mom look is Hollywood movie crap that won’t trust an audience to deal with real emotions and problems without gloss. It is a missed opportunity to actually examine some of the ways people live beyond their means in order to “keep up”, just as I think Debbie’s focus on her (very beautiful, bordering on perfect) looks do not do any service to the issue of women aging gracefully. Lying about her age in the doctor’s office? That’s just stupid. Who is she, my Grandma Jeannie? And all the supposed jokes about sagging breasts and hemorrhoids and gynecologists and no feeling “down there.” True, yes, but funny? Nope, not funny.

(And by the way, where the hell is the couple from “Knocked Up” and the kid? How about a mention of their whereabouts perhaps? Are they on an ashram in India or is that the next prequel/sequel?)

I think this movie really tried. Tried to be meaningful and honest by examining mid life and being in the middle place and blaming your parents and ultimately forgiving them. Trying not to be a hag (wife) or be checked out on the IPad playing Scrabble (husband) and being grateful for what you have (children, everyone in the movie). It wanted to say something about our culture’s bi-polar desires for indulgence and then self-improvement without wanting to do any really difficult, sustaining work.

And it’s bothering me because if this movie was marketed as a comedy as the trailer for it falsely did, then it at least should have been entertaining and better edited. Either that, or be a freaking documentary, with some normal looking people and the actual dullness of real life. I’m annoyed that if the tone decided upon by the director and editor was to be mostly insufferable for 2 plus hours, that that fact should have been plainly stated in the brochure: WARNING: THIS MOVIE IS NOT FUNNY. NOT WORTH IT FOR YOUR VERY RARE DATE NIGHTS.

But the real problem with this movie is a lack of true goodness in this couple you are supposed to care about and that my husband and I would want to hang out with on a double date. I wouldn’t want to have dinner with Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann’s characters, because I know they’d be talking shit on us after the date. But I would like to know who her dermatologist is and who does her hair and fashion styling and how she buys all those workout clothes and pays the decorator and the housekeeper without knowing there isn’t money in the bank.

So maybe this is the point of the film. Distractions are good because they keep us from getting at the thing that’s difficult: life’s a bitch and then you turn 40 and then eventually, after a not so hilarious doctor’s office montage set to cool music by Fiona Apple and Ryan Adams, you die.

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