Susan Gordis

Although my fellow New Yorkers are a truly wonderful group of people with whom to talk, obviously I hold the majority of my conversations with people I already know, and the person to whom I most want to listen is my lovely husband, Jay. Cat Stevens may have given us the poetic and tempting concept of, “A thousand hours I’ve looked at her eyes, but I still don’t know what colour they are,” but I know exactly what color my sweetie’s eyes are; they are the color of the Caribbean on a clear, sunny day. By now we have had millions of conversations, and then there are the times of obvious absence when we did not cover a given subject which might have merited some communication. Potentially those could have been about enormous, weighty issues, but for the most part it has been minor details, and a few of those turned out to have had significance (at least to me).

When we first started to live under a roof together (more than three decades ago) there were already lots of useful things in that apartment. One of them was a toaster oven which was elderly, so when toasting two pieces of bread it always made one light and the other dark. For at least a year I would necessarily serve my sweetie the dark piece, knowing that it was the better one. And because he is both a careful and a thoughtful man he would necessarily serve me the light one, making sure not to be greedy by keeping it for himself. Any four-year-old could’ve done better than we by simply declaring, “I want that one!” but we persisted in doing what we knew was the nice thing to do, to serve one another the “good piece of toast.” There are perfectly acceptable ways for adults to express their preference, in this case “I like dark, crunchy toast, don’t you?” would have worked, but much toast was eaten less happily until we (finally!) got this figured out.

A favorite story of mine is the first time Jay came home and I was ironing. He came in, put down his things, took off his jacket, and went to the other end of the apartment. As he was a news cameraman I wondered if some story he had covered had been upsetting, or if something had happened to cause him to very much want to be alone. Eventually, though, he came back into the room and I asked him if he was okay or if something had disturbed him. He said, “You’re ironing,” as if that statement would explain for me what the problem was. “So?” “I know better than to talk to a woman when she’s ironing.” It seems that his mother and his first wife had found ironing to be a heinous job, so he had learned to avoid the area where that activity was taking place. I, however, like ironing; it’s clean work, it smells nice, and since what I iron are table linens which were used for nice meals served at home, or the pillowcases for the little specialty pillows on our bed or a shirt that my love had worn, I get to think about occasions I enjoyed and a person I adore when I’m doing it. I explained that to my sweetie and ever since he has been pleased to chat with me when I’m ironing.

One of the other decades-long misunderstandings we have had is on the subject of skincare. Since my late teens or early twenties I have been very diligent about slathering myself with creams and lotions. I inherited my mother’s skin, very thin and very dry, and in need of attention. It wasn’t until quite recently that my dear husband had to come to terms with the fact that he has inherited his mother’s skin, and that it requires tending.

When I began to become insistent (or perhaps obnoxious) about the necessity of moisturizing, it came to light that my sweetie had always assumed that I had been doing all that skincare as a “preventative” measure. He knew my behavior wasn’t prompted by leftover youthful (nor late-blooming) vanity, but it appears I had been so thorough for all these years that he had been unaware of the fact that I actually have extremely dry skin and had somehow misunderstood the motivation for what I had been doing. Without intending the pun I said in disbelief, “All I’ve been trying to do is to be comfortable in my own skin!” We both laughed at that, and although I know that he still doesn’t see why I found this so weighty, I was struck by the irony that he has witnessed me using a great deal of time and energy (and money for the products I have had to purchase) without ever examining why I was doing so. A three-year-old would have been sensible enough to have asked me, “What are you doing?” and then “Why are you doing that?” but my brilliant husband never thought to question the reason.

In a way Jay was right, although I hadn’t really thought about it until then. I learned a lot from my parents, but one thing my father had said quite casually struck a chord and, I suspect, has figured into my approach to certain things. When my mother was probably about seventy-five my father said, “She’s never looked prettier.” My mother wasn’t trying too hard, and by then her life was quite relaxed and happy, and the ease with which she functioned “inside her own skin” meant that indeed she was quite pretty, so I suppose I learned this lesson from my mother by the way she behaved quite apart from what my father had actually said.

I’m pleased to be able to say that my dear husband and I are much more adept at talking about the big things. We have suffered numerous enormous losses and heartaches, and also a good deal of great gains and triumphs, and we have always managed to deal with those verbally (as well as in the little ways that loving, intelligent adults are able to find to soothe the bumpy spots and celebrate the soaring moments), but as I am made of words and my Jay is much quieter than I would ever even consider being, the things that go unsaid or the questions that have been unasked fascinate me.

My sweet man and I understand that for those of us who are talkers there seems to be a budget of words that needs to be spent every day. (My budget is a lot larger than his.) I’ve come to understand that although he always pays attention to me when I’m talking about the important stuff, in order to preserve his own sanity he only half-listens to a good portion of what spews forth from my lips. It was only a couple of years ago that he told me that he thinks of me as a chatterbox, which one might take as an insult, but if you knew him you’d know that it is simply an observation, fueled by love. Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac wrote, “You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you,” and (although I would change the grammar from “that” to “who”) I relate to what she has written in a different way from what I believe she intended when that line is preceded by, “I’ll follow you down ‘til the sound of my voice will haunt you.” I suspect that the sound of my voice is a background for my lovely husband’s time, a kind of auditory wallpaper.

Early in our relationship three different members of my darling’s family made the observation that he was doing a lot more talking than he had in the past. His mother, his sister and his niece each commented that he had found his voice again after a long time when he was too quiet, too reserved. And I’ve noticed that the pattern has grown during our time together, so that he talks even to me much more than when we began. When we’re out together and I have gotten into (yet another) conversation with a stranger he often joins in that too, or sometimes he strikes up an interchange with someone else. When we’re alone again we sometimes discuss the conversations we’d been having with those other people, even though we were together at the time. Certainly all couples or friends who attend social events together and then go in different directions have that happen, but we seem to have “reports” to give one another from short periods of time spent at a bus stop or in a store, even when he and I were standing side-by-side at the time.

There is a particular set of circumstances when it’s best if we both talk to the same person, and that’s when we’re talking to a child we don’t know (and whose parent doesn’t know us). If I smile at a child or engage a child in conversation it seems to be more acceptable because I’m a woman. As a truly gentle and good man (and a father and grandfather) my husband is a completely safe person with whom children can talk, but in our society we tend to be more suspicious of men who talk to children than we are of women. Thus if we are together the parent or caretaker (or older sibling) seems comfortable with my husband’s attentions to the little one. This means that all parties are free to exchange their ideas, and more than almost any conversation one can have with an adult, what children have to say helps us to recapture the energy and wonder of who we were in our own past.

Each of us has relationships with children we know and whose parents know and trust us to be a good influence on their children. But in a way our conversations with those children are already impacted by the history we have with that child and the child’s family, so children who are strangers to us have nothing imposed on them. As a result the conversations I have with an “unknown” child often contains an explanation of the child’s version of his or her own life, often with a laughable outcome. I got into a conversation with a lovely little girl on a bus who told me that she had three brothers and that they had two dogs and a cat at home. She told me she was on her way to visit a friend who had some number of animals as well. (I was wearing a tee shirt that day with the face of one of our cats on it, so she must have known I am “animal friendly.”) When she had had enough conversation she began to look through a book she had with her, and her mother then told me that she actually has one sister and that they do not keep pets because the girl’s father is highly allergic. They were on their way to the Children’s Museum and they were not meeting anyone, so the little girl was not going to be with a friend. I must have looked quizzical about the fact that the little girl had so much convincing fiction to tell, because her mother told me that her daughter often “tested a story” on someone she doesn’t know to hear how it sounds or to see if she can be convincing. Perhaps I met a future novelist or screenwriter that day. When I told Jay about this little girl he wisely replied, “It’s good that her mother lets her use her imagination in that way. Hopefully she’ll be able to keep that with her as she grows.” Sweet, isn’t he?

© 2007 Susan Gordis

Susan Gordis

Native New Yorkers are, as I’ve said before, a very unique bunch. But we do the same kinds of things that people do wherever they live, we just do it while we’re very close together. When we find ourselves among strangers we impose the context of our surroundings on our interactions. In shoe stores we look at each other’s shoes, in jewelry stores we look at each other’s jewelry, and of course at the veterinary office we look at each other’s pets. In New York even before you get to the veterinarian you have dealt with other people. We do not get to lead our dogs to a car, nor can we just secure a cat carrier in the back seat. (Cat carriers contain ferrets and all sorts of other pets, but somehow they’re always called “cat carriers.”) If you can walk your dog to the office then there’s nothing remarkable to see, but if you are carrying a cat carrier it’s obvious that you have “someone” with you. We are either on the street or in the subway or a bus, or in a taxi.

Some years ago we had a wonderful cat who had been sick from the moment I had brought him home as a kitten. His name was Sherlock. (We named the next incoming cat Watson, because the moment she was installed in the family Sherlock became her confidante and mentor.) Sherlock’s diagnosis after about six months of not being well was lymphosarcoma and he had to have surgery followed by chemotherapy treatments, first every week, then every two weeks, and so on. In order to get him from our apartment to the oncology service at the Animal Medical Center I had to take a taxi.

One freezing cold January morning I was on the corner for an inordinately long time trying to get a taxi. I was concerned that poor Sherlock would be chilled to the bone, but then finally a taxi stopped for us. When I opened the door the driver, seeing me starting to maneuver the carrier into the back seat, whirled around and said, “I Don’t Carry Animals In My Cab!” I got out (I didn’t really have to do that, as the law says the driver must take me if my animal is secured in a carrier) and Sherlock and I waited another long and cold period of time for a second cab to pull up. I was getting into that taxi with my precious cargo no matter what, and when I got the carrier and myself positioned, closed the door and told the driver where he was going to take us, he turned around and said, “It’s nice to have an animal in the car who’s not disguised as a human being.” He went on to ask me about the cat and whether his health was good, and listened sympathetically to the details of Sherlock’s health history. When we got to the Animal Medical Center and I paid the fare he said, “I hope everything will be all right with him.” Of course that driver got a bigger tip than any of the others who had taken the same trip with me and Sherlock.

In New York we have a lot of “celebrities,” that is, the people who would be recognizable all across the country, or perhaps even around the globe. Some of them need to be here for their work, the theater or the ballet or the opera or Wall Street, but many have made this their home. (That’s a very wise choice, in my considered opinion.) New Yorkers seem to inherently understand that celebrity is a double-edged sword, that while it’s wonderful to be successful in your chosen field it’s also nice to be able to go about your busy day without people interfering by telling you their opinion about your most recent undertaking, or how much they admire you (or don’t).

I was once at the veterinarian with one of our cats and I ran into a man I know from elsewhere. (I came to know him because he used to frequent a particular Japanese restaurant where I was also a regular patron and, in true New York fashion, we got into conversation and ended up being friends.) I was sitting and talking with him as my cat and his dog were determining what they thought about one another when a woman came out of one of the examining rooms. She was clearly upset, on the brink of tears, and began to pace and weave her way around the waiting room in an attempt to relieve her distress. She was holding a dog’s leash, so I knew she had come in with her dog. I said, “It’s not easy to wait for your pet out here. Why don’t you come over and mush Duncan?” She came darting over and grabbed hold of Duncan (a very lovable and mushable dog) and it calmed her down immediately. She smiled at Duncan’s father for sharing his dog and at me for having suggested it, and began to tell us what the problem was with her dog and what the doctor’s (and her) concerns were.

Only a minute or two later the veterinarian came out with her dog. Of course mother and pooch were thrilled to be reunited, and she went off to discuss the health particulars with the doctor. My friend and I were still in the waiting room when the woman came to thank us profusely and then left with her dog. We resumed our conversation, and then suddenly I realized that that woman was not familiar to me from seeing her in the veterinary office, as many people were, but is a film actress of some renown. My restaurant friend realized it too (he actually is a jazz musician of significant acclaim), and we exchanged her name and shrugged and went back to talking. In New York we are accustomed to being in situations with famous people, and are glad to be able to treat them simply as people with whom we have something in common, in this case the love of our pets.

I have had dozens and dozens of conversations in the buses with other animal lovers. People tell me the rescues they have made (of which they are dutifully proud), and pets they had in their youth, and the animals who live with them who insist on sleeping in the middle of their bed, or get into creative mischief, or who have invented games they had never seen before. They tell me about their pets’ health, about wondrous or tragic interventions on the part of their veterinarian (or former veterinarian), and about how much their lives have been enriched by sharing them with their belovéd animals. Cat people are all in agreement that we recognize that we do not own our cats (although we’re responsible for all their expenses), as my sweet husband and I define ourselves as the servant couple our cats keep, a maid and a butler to wait on them paw and paw and minister to their every need.

But the very best thing about being in the streets and public conveyances in New York while carrying a cat is the response of the children. The moment a child notices my cat carrier I have an instant friend. (If it’s a shy child then only the cat gets a new friend, but that’s fine too.) I have had children ask me with concern if my cat is going to the doctor, and then talk to the cat about how it’ll be okay, “The doctor is going to make you feel better.” Other children have asked me the name of the kitty, and how old the kitty is, and have then told the kitty how old they are and what it means to be older, or younger, or the same age as other people. (We refer to our cats as people too, but it’s strange for adults to do that while it is quite ordinary when it comes from children.) Other children have told me all about their pets, or the pets of their friends, or both. Still other children who do not have pets tell me how much they would like to have one (or more), and some seize the opportunity to begin to try to reason with their parent(s) about how nice it would be to have an animal in the house. They understand without hesitation that we animal people are all part of an extraordinary group who knows what’s important, and they have no difficulty including me by virtue of traveling with my pet companion.

© 2007 Susan Gordis