Thank you for this post! First, you both look beautiful and yourselves, as always!
I learned I had a miscarriage this week (I am currently in the process of letting my body finish its natural course), and reading about integrating the good and the bad feels just what I needed to be reminded of.
Last Friday we had an emergency ultrasound, there was an embryo and a heartbeat. For the first time, we saw something. Something beautiful. Then I had another bleeding between exams, and this Thursday we received the news it was no longer there. It was painful.
I hope to soon find a place where both experiences feel integrated. The beauty of being able to see it for the first time that little flickering image, and days later the void of knowing it is no longer there. But it happened, I can't ignore the good and only stay with the pain. I need to learn how to make space for both to exist.
Thank you once again for sharing your experience and words of wisdom.
As always thank you. I haven't posted before, probably out of fear my thoughts wouldn't be "good enough" for anyone else to hear. I am a cancer survivor and a stem cell transplant survivor like Suleika and everyday I am grateful to be alive. That sounds trite but for me it is my essential truth. I am alive and I am here. I get to enjoy and endure each day so far as it will take me.
Speaking of far, traveling is on my bucket list. I live alone without a partner so traveling would mean going solo. Back in my twenties my ex husband and I traveled the country in a VW bus for a month. I have a son who with his wife lived in an airstream trailer and traveled all the 48 lower states for about 10 years. I have always joked that when I retired, they would have to pull me along in an "in-law" trailer. Now that I am totally retiring when the semester is done, the calendar is open and I should be on my way. Fear of who knows, anything, everything keeps me from planning. At Thanksgiving someone 10 years older than me told me he was happy to have traveled the world when he could because his body wouldn't let him do it anymore. For me that was advice to do it while I still can. Fill me with your loving kindness and support as I try to conquer this fear and plan a trip for myself.
My risk taking this week is letting go. Last Sunday I wrote in my planner what my week was going to look like. Work, making tea cosies for my friends for Christmas, taking my sister for her surgery consult was the “worst” thing on the list. Then on Sunday night my daughter in law and her father were rear ended on a motorcycle and my controlling planner and the false narrative behind it suddenly was exposed and had no place in my life. I “slept” in the ICU on Sunday night until his other daughter could get there because I didn’t want him to be alone and my son was by his wife’s side in another room on another floor. My sister and I went to her appointment, in the very same hospital, and giggled uncontrollably about drains and post surgery care and it was the highlight of my week because we both have cancer and sometimes life sucks. Today I am going to let go of my plans. I’m going to “let go of my grasp on people, outcomes, ideas, wants, needs, desires - everything….letting go is the action part of faith.” The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beatty. I’m just going to look at today today. My “singing outside the shower” will be going out into the world today being real, the way I imagine in my best dreams about who I might actually be under all these layers of control and denial.
And while we are here, can we take a brief moment for Suleika’s shoes? Slay.
Suleika, seeing photos of you and Jon in the news this week made me so happy. What an incredible experience you got to share and a reminder that life is now, the good the bad, all of it.
I especially loved the lines from the poem you included in your prompt intro and will write them later in my journal as a prompt themselves.
Lately my risk taking is all about writing. I’m going after the big goals. Submitting to dream publications, risking rejection as a necessary part of being in the game.
I’m nearly finished the first draft of my memoir and will be working on a book proposal during the dark months of winter before moving onto draft two. There’s an urgency I feel, having stepped onto this path in my fifties. Mostly it’s excitement to make up for lost time. It fuels me.
The biggest risk for me right now would be giving up. I’m inspired by everyone in this community
Ahhh...the honesty of children (Jon's nephew) and that honesty making us brave enough to own our own. I want to do, burn to do, a writer's reading of my own work. The ironic thing (and so cool that it just happened yesterday) is that I began to set those wheels in motion yesterday at a new (oh-so fabulous) bookstore. My daughter started talking to her and mentioned that I used to be a teacher. (Even those she's 21-she's still my child, my giver of bravery) This led to a magical conversation between me and the co-owner where I offered to do a children's book reading and if she liked it, a regular gig. AND I mentioned my memoir, and that I was ready to self-publish and (here comes the brave part), would she consider stocking my book? She said, "Yes! We are doing this for several other authors. Suleika, you are a constant source of inspiration, reminding me of the ability and the need to hold two truths of opposing feelings/reality simultaneously. Tracey, you too are an inspiration for a woman living life fully, (I mean, the Redwoods, a new show...I love this!) Thank you both for the courage to go for it, my way.
12 years ago I was dying of pneumonia that turned into sepsis. I was in an induced coma on a ventilator for two months. An induced coma is not what people think it is, at least not for me. It was a roller coaster of having very real hallucinations and then of realizing they weren’t hallucinations. I could hear what was being said. I heard them repeatedly tell my husband to “pull the plug”, that I was not going to survive or if I did survive, I would be severely incapacitated. I couldn’t say anything, I couldn’t move, I could only lay there and eventually I became angry. I was mostly angry at myself, but I was also angry that doctors had given up. I made one of my never ending ( and usually not completely checked off lists) in my mind. I was going to show those doctors how wrong they were. I was going to walk out of there and stick my tongue out and flip them off. Well fast forward a month and I did just that. I am still angry that these highly educated twits would give up like that on a person. I was lucky, my husband never gave up. One of my goals was to celebrate my 50th wedding anniversary with my husband. Life didn’t allow me to do that. I helped my husband transition to the next life just before our 46th anniversary. That was two years ago. It has been hard. However, I feel so lucky to have been there to hold him, to support him, to love him to the very end. We were basically alone because of Covid, and it was such a privilege and honor to be able to be there with him on that journey. Goals and dreams are fantastic, but sometimes life says “no, this is what you are going to do” and it turns out to be much more important and much more needed than what you dreamed.
Just writing this is a risk for me. Will I sound stupid? Will I be able to state my truth in a way that doesn't later haunt me as not true after all? So--taking a deep breath--here I am, typing these words into my Mac, thinking of how wonderfully your weekly columns inspire me, Suleika, how I have something I want to say. Because of my shyness, I've avoided responding to your prompts up till now.
I've always aspired to write, and over the years I've found that practice has given me a little more confidence, enough to put myself out there at times, stating publicly who I am and what I believe. It is exhilarating and freeing to assemble words in a way that creates something almost tangible, a visual manifestation of the mysteries trapped in your soul. It's exciting but also terrifying.
I spent this past year in cancer treatment, for the second time, like you. I, too, have been crushed by the physical and mental pain, and I want very much to live. Perhaps that has given me the perspective to actually follow your prompt this week, to stifle my fears and just do it. I will nervously click "post", then try not to stress all day about it.
Yes. Choosing to honour your own story with your own short hair style spoke volumes to those of us who are familiar with your storyline over the past nine months. Amidst all the glamour you stood strong and proud - it was a glorious moment to see. The fact that your nephew influenced your decision is priceless. Seeing the world through a child’s eyes can lead us into our own internal reckonings - if we are open enough to hear and see them. You embraced your own star shine and shared it with the world. Perfect. Thank you, dearest Suleika.
Some years ago, I took a leap and went back to my early years as a performer. This is a piece that I wrote and actual sand a bit at Bucks County Playhouse,New Hope, PA.. such fun.. need another leap, a but bound since COVid
The Reeperbahn is a street in Hamburg St. Pauli district, one of the two centers of Hamburg's nightlife and also the city's red-light district. In German it is also sometimes described as die sündigste Meile (the most sinful mile).
My 6 years in Europe began with a trip across the Atlantic on the Yugolinia. a freighter. The cost was $108 to travel between Brooklyn and Casablanca. My companion was a casual friend who had relatives in Greece where we were headed. At the last minute she told me that they had not responded to her; leaving us without a destination. I remembered a friend from acting class whose husband was accompanying opera singers in East Berlin, and she was more than happy to welcome us to the then divided city.
Berlin, was and exciting place to be during volatile years of the early 1960’s. I had arrived penniless and quickly found work as hatcheck girl in the most popular bar and Discotheque in West Berlin the Old Eden Salon. Most everyone that I knew was impoverished living on pennies, some squatters in apartments that had not been renovated since the war ended and 80% of the city was destroyed. I soon learned that most of my friends had lost a parent on the Russian front and many had survived the bombings of Dresden. Once the war ended, it was back home to a destroyed Berlin where food was scarce and eating cats and vermin common.
It was at the Eden that I made many friends and Roy who became a constant traveling companion until he died of AIDS in 2002. Roy was very handsome, of Eurasian background, and had many admirers. The early sixties were a period of idolizing noir, and Roy and I found we dated young men of some disrepute. This was understandable in many ways because people born in what was East Berlin and had escaped often had no recourse but to turn to crime. These guys were small time crooks, like Jean Paul Belmondo played in Breathless. Ole and I became friends and were close enough that he invited me to an uncle’s house for Christmas. It turns out that his uncle had spent the entire war in Dachau for being against Hitler. This was a lesson to me. Here was a man who was a gambler by trade and had more courage than many by standing up to Hitler.
Roy and I went off to Paris for some months, where I sold the New York Times on the street. When we returned completely broke Ole suggested that we get a job at a new club called the Smoky Bar. Over the months that we were gone he had gone from petty crime to becoming a sometime- pimp. One might wonder at this profession, however, in Berlin all was accepted. Survival was a necessity living in a divided city where much was still bombed out -- remnants of the war’s end.
The only caveat of working at the Smoky Bar was that Roy would have to be in drag. Putting on makeup would be no problem, but clothes were another matter. Neither of us had an extensive wardrobe—a few handmade sweaters or straight leg pants fashionable in the era. We carefully prepared for the interview and were hired by Klaus who was the formidable host. He was particularly impressed by my cleavage, and told us that our job was to sit at the tables and entertain the men while girls performed. We would be paid according to how much champagne was sold. This was particularly challenging for me since I drink little or not at all. Klaus was proud of the club said the club was modeled on the notorious Reeperbahn of Hamburg.
Berlin had no closing hours and we were to work from 8 PM until 5 in the morning. That first night we dressed extra carefully and took the bus amidst German burghers to the club and entered a surreal environment. The floor was covered with something that looked like AstroTurf and tables circled a stage with a pole in the center. The same Beatles Girl song blared through the night over and over again.
Is there anybody going to listen to my story
All about the girl who came to stay?
She's the kind of girl you want so much
It makes you sorry
Still you don't regret a single day.
Ah girl
Girl
Other girls were seated at the tables and when the men arrived they could choose where they wanted to sit. My table was empty for quite a while until a few men from Scandinavia sat down. Being poor at small talk it was difficult to find things to say. The champagne flowed and I soon noticed that the other girls were very adept at throwing it over their shoulders onto the floor so another bottle could be ordered. This world was strange indeed.
The performances began, one very blond woman came out in a bunny costume and sang “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”, as she went from table to table. Another who I recognized slithered out as if a snake on the floor and came to the pole which she suggestively climbed to music long forgotten. Hours dragged on, the atmosphere become intoxicatingly hard to know what reality was. Even a little champagne left us tipsy.
I don’t remember how we extricate ourselves, on the bus ride home. I do remember feeling a blur and not recognizing myself. Not many nights after Roy and I decided that enough was enough. Klaus admitted that we were not successful but continued to tell me how much he liked my tight red sweater.
What a gift to be able to show up together at the White House. You both look fantastic.
I’ve been thinking of my dad so much this week. He died of cancer in 2015 and his birthday is on Monday. He was an enormous Fleetwood Mac fan and with the passing of Christine McVie, I feel like the universe was speaking to me. So much of that music for me was tied up in my dad. Maybe it’s this time of year (his birthday and my birthday is in December too), but I miss him terribly.
Once again, thank you for sharing all of your stories and feelings and hopes and dreams with us, Suleika. You are loved.
Hello Suleika! I am quite late to the party as you published Between Two Kingdoms in 2021, but I have only recently discovered it. I haven’t been able to finish it yet because one, it stirs up such deep emotion that I have to put it down to take breaks (in a good way, it isn’t always easy to connect deeply with one’s emotions) and two, because reading it makes me feel like I am on a journey with a friend and finishing the book will mean an end to the journey. Many thanks for sharing your story. It will be one I do not forget.
I've lived almost all of my dreams, and worn many hats, and now my 'I would love to' is to have my appliqué art be the center of my life, to say 'I'm an artist'.
dreams live
in our hearts
waiting to be facts
Suleika, when I saw the picture of you and your family in a news story about the dinner, I think I glowed as much as your gown with joy!
"Rather than the good and bad being at odds, at separate ends of a pole, they’re contiguous plots in the same landscape." Thank you for that wonderful image.
Suleika you inspire me so much, I was full of such joy and admiration when i saw those photos this week. You are GORGEOUS inside and out. Big love to you.
First of all agree with everyone it was so spectacular to see you, Jon and his family at the White House. I am so glad you had the opportunity.
I have always loved to read. I have never been a member of a book club, but it sounded like something I might enjoy. I had no idea how to go about finding a group because I have an unusual work schedule which makes finding an appropriate time to meet difficult and also I want to read books that would appeal to me. Just this week someone posted a query on one of my list serves about how to find a book group or how to start one. A number of people posted about already existing groups, but none were convenient or appealed to me. Then several people responded that they would be interested in being a member of a book club. I realized that this might be my opportunity and that someone would have to step up to coordinate it. I sent an email to the list serve asking those who were interested to get back to me by telling me what kinds of books they wanted to read, how often they wanted to meet, whether they preferred in person or virtual meetings, if in person where do they propose meeting and what days and times work for them.
About ten people responded, most preferred in person and monthly meetings. Their book interests pretty much matched mine. Their availability was all over the map, but it appeared that we would be able to find times that would suit most of us. One person (who I have not heard from since) suggested a book she would like to read. Before I knew it I had volunteered my house for the first meeting and selected the book that one of the people suggested. We will have our first meeting on Martin Luther King Day and chose subsequent books, dates and locations there. I am very anxious about it and am not sure how I ended up in this position, but am willing to give it a try. Wish me luck!
Good morning. First, I just want to say how giddily happy I was to see Jon and Suleika’s White House posts. I’m not a mushy person but I was gushing. I was warm and fuzzy all over. I couldn’t stop smiling. Jon’s smile us infectious. And his adorable sweet nephew. So much happy there. So so overjoyed for you guys. And seeing the White House coming back to life gives me hope again.
Prompt:
Bucket list? I’ve been thinking on this. My younger self had lots of bucket lists. I dreamed as big as an Olympic dressage rider, going in the peace corps, marine biologist, horse trainer, artist. Late night or this morning I had a dream. I was trying to talk with my sister. My sister is 11 years older than me so we weren’t joined at the hip. We were almost raised in different families. It’s complicated. My mother didn’t inspire closeness in her family or between her children. My sister is closer to one of our cousins as they are close in age and my sister lived with my aunt and uncle after her father left the picture.
Well, anyway as I mentioned earlier I’m not a warm and fuzzy. I think I can appear distant and stoic. Or at least outwardly. My sister is even colder acting. We don’t hug or say I love you. I also want super close to my sister’s daughter, my niece. I do love them but I feel like an outsider so I’m not the hands on aunt. Also I was a kid when when my nieces and nephews came into the world. Last night I was talking to my sister. Telling her that I do love her and my niece. That I admire my niece as a mother. I think I have unexpressed feelings I would like to express..also growing up I had lost of anguish. My brother in law is, um, well I jerk. And I have trauma from his actions which included tormenting my pets and flaunting his unethical hunting. Seeing animals hurt is one of the things that really distresses me the most. So there was acrimony there. So I sometimes reflect on my sister with some resentment. Also our mother would compare us. My sister was the Holden child and I never added up. I was not ( as it was drilled into me) anything like my sister.
Now, as my older self looks back on this, I realize my sister was also a victim of this family dynamic. She did some things that hurt me but I could be an ungrateful brat too. Even though I was a kid, I see my behavior was obnoxious at times. Now I can see a lot of the kind nice things my sister did for me. My sister is a talented sewer and home decorator. She made me a beautiful medieval style witch costume of black velvet with white faux fur trim. She made me some really beautiful clothes. She did my hair for me over the years. With Covid we haven’t been in touch. True, she hasn’t really reached out. So I think after my dream I will be the one to reach out. Even if I have to force the door a little. I’ll never be close close to my sister’s family. But I would be happy if we could get together a few times a year. I want to some sort of relationship with my niece and her children. I blame myself for not being proactive enough. I’m innately shy. So I guess today my bucket list is to extend my hand to family and friends toward having contact again. Whew! I got a bit long winded.
Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday and great week. And lots and lots to be grateful for.
Thank you for this post! First, you both look beautiful and yourselves, as always!
I learned I had a miscarriage this week (I am currently in the process of letting my body finish its natural course), and reading about integrating the good and the bad feels just what I needed to be reminded of.
Last Friday we had an emergency ultrasound, there was an embryo and a heartbeat. For the first time, we saw something. Something beautiful. Then I had another bleeding between exams, and this Thursday we received the news it was no longer there. It was painful.
I hope to soon find a place where both experiences feel integrated. The beauty of being able to see it for the first time that little flickering image, and days later the void of knowing it is no longer there. But it happened, I can't ignore the good and only stay with the pain. I need to learn how to make space for both to exist.
Thank you once again for sharing your experience and words of wisdom.
You are just the best ❤️
As always thank you. I haven't posted before, probably out of fear my thoughts wouldn't be "good enough" for anyone else to hear. I am a cancer survivor and a stem cell transplant survivor like Suleika and everyday I am grateful to be alive. That sounds trite but for me it is my essential truth. I am alive and I am here. I get to enjoy and endure each day so far as it will take me.
Speaking of far, traveling is on my bucket list. I live alone without a partner so traveling would mean going solo. Back in my twenties my ex husband and I traveled the country in a VW bus for a month. I have a son who with his wife lived in an airstream trailer and traveled all the 48 lower states for about 10 years. I have always joked that when I retired, they would have to pull me along in an "in-law" trailer. Now that I am totally retiring when the semester is done, the calendar is open and I should be on my way. Fear of who knows, anything, everything keeps me from planning. At Thanksgiving someone 10 years older than me told me he was happy to have traveled the world when he could because his body wouldn't let him do it anymore. For me that was advice to do it while I still can. Fill me with your loving kindness and support as I try to conquer this fear and plan a trip for myself.
My risk taking this week is letting go. Last Sunday I wrote in my planner what my week was going to look like. Work, making tea cosies for my friends for Christmas, taking my sister for her surgery consult was the “worst” thing on the list. Then on Sunday night my daughter in law and her father were rear ended on a motorcycle and my controlling planner and the false narrative behind it suddenly was exposed and had no place in my life. I “slept” in the ICU on Sunday night until his other daughter could get there because I didn’t want him to be alone and my son was by his wife’s side in another room on another floor. My sister and I went to her appointment, in the very same hospital, and giggled uncontrollably about drains and post surgery care and it was the highlight of my week because we both have cancer and sometimes life sucks. Today I am going to let go of my plans. I’m going to “let go of my grasp on people, outcomes, ideas, wants, needs, desires - everything….letting go is the action part of faith.” The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beatty. I’m just going to look at today today. My “singing outside the shower” will be going out into the world today being real, the way I imagine in my best dreams about who I might actually be under all these layers of control and denial.
And while we are here, can we take a brief moment for Suleika’s shoes? Slay.
Suleika, seeing photos of you and Jon in the news this week made me so happy. What an incredible experience you got to share and a reminder that life is now, the good the bad, all of it.
I especially loved the lines from the poem you included in your prompt intro and will write them later in my journal as a prompt themselves.
Lately my risk taking is all about writing. I’m going after the big goals. Submitting to dream publications, risking rejection as a necessary part of being in the game.
I’m nearly finished the first draft of my memoir and will be working on a book proposal during the dark months of winter before moving onto draft two. There’s an urgency I feel, having stepped onto this path in my fifties. Mostly it’s excitement to make up for lost time. It fuels me.
The biggest risk for me right now would be giving up. I’m inspired by everyone in this community
Ahhh...the honesty of children (Jon's nephew) and that honesty making us brave enough to own our own. I want to do, burn to do, a writer's reading of my own work. The ironic thing (and so cool that it just happened yesterday) is that I began to set those wheels in motion yesterday at a new (oh-so fabulous) bookstore. My daughter started talking to her and mentioned that I used to be a teacher. (Even those she's 21-she's still my child, my giver of bravery) This led to a magical conversation between me and the co-owner where I offered to do a children's book reading and if she liked it, a regular gig. AND I mentioned my memoir, and that I was ready to self-publish and (here comes the brave part), would she consider stocking my book? She said, "Yes! We are doing this for several other authors. Suleika, you are a constant source of inspiration, reminding me of the ability and the need to hold two truths of opposing feelings/reality simultaneously. Tracey, you too are an inspiration for a woman living life fully, (I mean, the Redwoods, a new show...I love this!) Thank you both for the courage to go for it, my way.
12 years ago I was dying of pneumonia that turned into sepsis. I was in an induced coma on a ventilator for two months. An induced coma is not what people think it is, at least not for me. It was a roller coaster of having very real hallucinations and then of realizing they weren’t hallucinations. I could hear what was being said. I heard them repeatedly tell my husband to “pull the plug”, that I was not going to survive or if I did survive, I would be severely incapacitated. I couldn’t say anything, I couldn’t move, I could only lay there and eventually I became angry. I was mostly angry at myself, but I was also angry that doctors had given up. I made one of my never ending ( and usually not completely checked off lists) in my mind. I was going to show those doctors how wrong they were. I was going to walk out of there and stick my tongue out and flip them off. Well fast forward a month and I did just that. I am still angry that these highly educated twits would give up like that on a person. I was lucky, my husband never gave up. One of my goals was to celebrate my 50th wedding anniversary with my husband. Life didn’t allow me to do that. I helped my husband transition to the next life just before our 46th anniversary. That was two years ago. It has been hard. However, I feel so lucky to have been there to hold him, to support him, to love him to the very end. We were basically alone because of Covid, and it was such a privilege and honor to be able to be there with him on that journey. Goals and dreams are fantastic, but sometimes life says “no, this is what you are going to do” and it turns out to be much more important and much more needed than what you dreamed.
Just writing this is a risk for me. Will I sound stupid? Will I be able to state my truth in a way that doesn't later haunt me as not true after all? So--taking a deep breath--here I am, typing these words into my Mac, thinking of how wonderfully your weekly columns inspire me, Suleika, how I have something I want to say. Because of my shyness, I've avoided responding to your prompts up till now.
I've always aspired to write, and over the years I've found that practice has given me a little more confidence, enough to put myself out there at times, stating publicly who I am and what I believe. It is exhilarating and freeing to assemble words in a way that creates something almost tangible, a visual manifestation of the mysteries trapped in your soul. It's exciting but also terrifying.
I spent this past year in cancer treatment, for the second time, like you. I, too, have been crushed by the physical and mental pain, and I want very much to live. Perhaps that has given me the perspective to actually follow your prompt this week, to stifle my fears and just do it. I will nervously click "post", then try not to stress all day about it.
With love and gratitude,
Teri Shikany
Thank you so very much for this’ post🙏🏻
✨
25 years ag I was the Director of a Cooking School.
It was my first Success…’
Success meaning:
I LOVED my work…
Then life got me…
I gave birth to my beautiful child Sam.’
He’s Dad was a chef at the Cooking School.
Sam cracked me open per se’
This was when a whole host of abuse and neglect as a child flooded my system.
I quit everything/myself…
Sam became my entire world after 2 marriages failing from affairs etc…
I was a single parent just bairly surviving emotionally and physically…
Complex PTSD.
Then Sam was killled, and my Friend Nicole was killed as well.
Driving our boys to the beach the week before High School.
I had to fight the Stare of Texas for Justice in a very clear cut case.
The Offender was under the influence of drugs snd alcohol.
lots of details around that~
I’ll spare the group…
Needless to say,
The past 9 years have been torturous in many ways/as I have seen the light’ in many ways too…
My confidence is low seeing that I have been like Forest zGump walking tbd world, literally…
Living somewhat primitively….
I am now working with professioowhl are addressing my deep depression and complex PTSD.
Daily brain magnet therapies, group therapies etc.
IM BACK AT THD COOKING SCHOOL!
After 25 years…
I have basically lived in my cave of safety/mostly silent, and walking with my dog…♥️🐾
Rossi, the wonder dog!
I’m
Very awkward and scarred about following my deepest desires to teach’ medicinal food, be an activist for survivors of violent crimes.
I just ask that this community holds me up in the values, dreams of what are dear Suleika has created…🙏🏻♥️
Please forgive typos.
I’m only writing from my heart…
Peace &Love
Michelle
Yes. Choosing to honour your own story with your own short hair style spoke volumes to those of us who are familiar with your storyline over the past nine months. Amidst all the glamour you stood strong and proud - it was a glorious moment to see. The fact that your nephew influenced your decision is priceless. Seeing the world through a child’s eyes can lead us into our own internal reckonings - if we are open enough to hear and see them. You embraced your own star shine and shared it with the world. Perfect. Thank you, dearest Suleika.
Some years ago, I took a leap and went back to my early years as a performer. This is a piece that I wrote and actual sand a bit at Bucks County Playhouse,New Hope, PA.. such fun.. need another leap, a but bound since COVid
The Reeperbahn is a street in Hamburg St. Pauli district, one of the two centers of Hamburg's nightlife and also the city's red-light district. In German it is also sometimes described as die sündigste Meile (the most sinful mile).
My 6 years in Europe began with a trip across the Atlantic on the Yugolinia. a freighter. The cost was $108 to travel between Brooklyn and Casablanca. My companion was a casual friend who had relatives in Greece where we were headed. At the last minute she told me that they had not responded to her; leaving us without a destination. I remembered a friend from acting class whose husband was accompanying opera singers in East Berlin, and she was more than happy to welcome us to the then divided city.
Berlin, was and exciting place to be during volatile years of the early 1960’s. I had arrived penniless and quickly found work as hatcheck girl in the most popular bar and Discotheque in West Berlin the Old Eden Salon. Most everyone that I knew was impoverished living on pennies, some squatters in apartments that had not been renovated since the war ended and 80% of the city was destroyed. I soon learned that most of my friends had lost a parent on the Russian front and many had survived the bombings of Dresden. Once the war ended, it was back home to a destroyed Berlin where food was scarce and eating cats and vermin common.
It was at the Eden that I made many friends and Roy who became a constant traveling companion until he died of AIDS in 2002. Roy was very handsome, of Eurasian background, and had many admirers. The early sixties were a period of idolizing noir, and Roy and I found we dated young men of some disrepute. This was understandable in many ways because people born in what was East Berlin and had escaped often had no recourse but to turn to crime. These guys were small time crooks, like Jean Paul Belmondo played in Breathless. Ole and I became friends and were close enough that he invited me to an uncle’s house for Christmas. It turns out that his uncle had spent the entire war in Dachau for being against Hitler. This was a lesson to me. Here was a man who was a gambler by trade and had more courage than many by standing up to Hitler.
Roy and I went off to Paris for some months, where I sold the New York Times on the street. When we returned completely broke Ole suggested that we get a job at a new club called the Smoky Bar. Over the months that we were gone he had gone from petty crime to becoming a sometime- pimp. One might wonder at this profession, however, in Berlin all was accepted. Survival was a necessity living in a divided city where much was still bombed out -- remnants of the war’s end.
The only caveat of working at the Smoky Bar was that Roy would have to be in drag. Putting on makeup would be no problem, but clothes were another matter. Neither of us had an extensive wardrobe—a few handmade sweaters or straight leg pants fashionable in the era. We carefully prepared for the interview and were hired by Klaus who was the formidable host. He was particularly impressed by my cleavage, and told us that our job was to sit at the tables and entertain the men while girls performed. We would be paid according to how much champagne was sold. This was particularly challenging for me since I drink little or not at all. Klaus was proud of the club said the club was modeled on the notorious Reeperbahn of Hamburg.
Berlin had no closing hours and we were to work from 8 PM until 5 in the morning. That first night we dressed extra carefully and took the bus amidst German burghers to the club and entered a surreal environment. The floor was covered with something that looked like AstroTurf and tables circled a stage with a pole in the center. The same Beatles Girl song blared through the night over and over again.
Is there anybody going to listen to my story
All about the girl who came to stay?
She's the kind of girl you want so much
It makes you sorry
Still you don't regret a single day.
Ah girl
Girl
Other girls were seated at the tables and when the men arrived they could choose where they wanted to sit. My table was empty for quite a while until a few men from Scandinavia sat down. Being poor at small talk it was difficult to find things to say. The champagne flowed and I soon noticed that the other girls were very adept at throwing it over their shoulders onto the floor so another bottle could be ordered. This world was strange indeed.
The performances began, one very blond woman came out in a bunny costume and sang “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”, as she went from table to table. Another who I recognized slithered out as if a snake on the floor and came to the pole which she suggestively climbed to music long forgotten. Hours dragged on, the atmosphere become intoxicatingly hard to know what reality was. Even a little champagne left us tipsy.
I don’t remember how we extricate ourselves, on the bus ride home. I do remember feeling a blur and not recognizing myself. Not many nights after Roy and I decided that enough was enough. Klaus admitted that we were not successful but continued to tell me how much he liked my tight red sweater.
What a gift to be able to show up together at the White House. You both look fantastic.
I’ve been thinking of my dad so much this week. He died of cancer in 2015 and his birthday is on Monday. He was an enormous Fleetwood Mac fan and with the passing of Christine McVie, I feel like the universe was speaking to me. So much of that music for me was tied up in my dad. Maybe it’s this time of year (his birthday and my birthday is in December too), but I miss him terribly.
Once again, thank you for sharing all of your stories and feelings and hopes and dreams with us, Suleika. You are loved.
Hello Suleika! I am quite late to the party as you published Between Two Kingdoms in 2021, but I have only recently discovered it. I haven’t been able to finish it yet because one, it stirs up such deep emotion that I have to put it down to take breaks (in a good way, it isn’t always easy to connect deeply with one’s emotions) and two, because reading it makes me feel like I am on a journey with a friend and finishing the book will mean an end to the journey. Many thanks for sharing your story. It will be one I do not forget.
Blessings,
Lacey Brunner from Houston, Texas
I've lived almost all of my dreams, and worn many hats, and now my 'I would love to' is to have my appliqué art be the center of my life, to say 'I'm an artist'.
dreams live
in our hearts
waiting to be facts
Suleika, when I saw the picture of you and your family in a news story about the dinner, I think I glowed as much as your gown with joy!
"Rather than the good and bad being at odds, at separate ends of a pole, they’re contiguous plots in the same landscape." Thank you for that wonderful image.
Suleika you inspire me so much, I was full of such joy and admiration when i saw those photos this week. You are GORGEOUS inside and out. Big love to you.
First of all agree with everyone it was so spectacular to see you, Jon and his family at the White House. I am so glad you had the opportunity.
I have always loved to read. I have never been a member of a book club, but it sounded like something I might enjoy. I had no idea how to go about finding a group because I have an unusual work schedule which makes finding an appropriate time to meet difficult and also I want to read books that would appeal to me. Just this week someone posted a query on one of my list serves about how to find a book group or how to start one. A number of people posted about already existing groups, but none were convenient or appealed to me. Then several people responded that they would be interested in being a member of a book club. I realized that this might be my opportunity and that someone would have to step up to coordinate it. I sent an email to the list serve asking those who were interested to get back to me by telling me what kinds of books they wanted to read, how often they wanted to meet, whether they preferred in person or virtual meetings, if in person where do they propose meeting and what days and times work for them.
About ten people responded, most preferred in person and monthly meetings. Their book interests pretty much matched mine. Their availability was all over the map, but it appeared that we would be able to find times that would suit most of us. One person (who I have not heard from since) suggested a book she would like to read. Before I knew it I had volunteered my house for the first meeting and selected the book that one of the people suggested. We will have our first meeting on Martin Luther King Day and chose subsequent books, dates and locations there. I am very anxious about it and am not sure how I ended up in this position, but am willing to give it a try. Wish me luck!
Good morning. First, I just want to say how giddily happy I was to see Jon and Suleika’s White House posts. I’m not a mushy person but I was gushing. I was warm and fuzzy all over. I couldn’t stop smiling. Jon’s smile us infectious. And his adorable sweet nephew. So much happy there. So so overjoyed for you guys. And seeing the White House coming back to life gives me hope again.
Prompt:
Bucket list? I’ve been thinking on this. My younger self had lots of bucket lists. I dreamed as big as an Olympic dressage rider, going in the peace corps, marine biologist, horse trainer, artist. Late night or this morning I had a dream. I was trying to talk with my sister. My sister is 11 years older than me so we weren’t joined at the hip. We were almost raised in different families. It’s complicated. My mother didn’t inspire closeness in her family or between her children. My sister is closer to one of our cousins as they are close in age and my sister lived with my aunt and uncle after her father left the picture.
Well, anyway as I mentioned earlier I’m not a warm and fuzzy. I think I can appear distant and stoic. Or at least outwardly. My sister is even colder acting. We don’t hug or say I love you. I also want super close to my sister’s daughter, my niece. I do love them but I feel like an outsider so I’m not the hands on aunt. Also I was a kid when when my nieces and nephews came into the world. Last night I was talking to my sister. Telling her that I do love her and my niece. That I admire my niece as a mother. I think I have unexpressed feelings I would like to express..also growing up I had lost of anguish. My brother in law is, um, well I jerk. And I have trauma from his actions which included tormenting my pets and flaunting his unethical hunting. Seeing animals hurt is one of the things that really distresses me the most. So there was acrimony there. So I sometimes reflect on my sister with some resentment. Also our mother would compare us. My sister was the Holden child and I never added up. I was not ( as it was drilled into me) anything like my sister.
Now, as my older self looks back on this, I realize my sister was also a victim of this family dynamic. She did some things that hurt me but I could be an ungrateful brat too. Even though I was a kid, I see my behavior was obnoxious at times. Now I can see a lot of the kind nice things my sister did for me. My sister is a talented sewer and home decorator. She made me a beautiful medieval style witch costume of black velvet with white faux fur trim. She made me some really beautiful clothes. She did my hair for me over the years. With Covid we haven’t been in touch. True, she hasn’t really reached out. So I think after my dream I will be the one to reach out. Even if I have to force the door a little. I’ll never be close close to my sister’s family. But I would be happy if we could get together a few times a year. I want to some sort of relationship with my niece and her children. I blame myself for not being proactive enough. I’m innately shy. So I guess today my bucket list is to extend my hand to family and friends toward having contact again. Whew! I got a bit long winded.
Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday and great week. And lots and lots to be grateful for.