I lay on the bed next to the boy from the writing class . It was a water bed . I 'd never been on a water bed before , but I did not tell him this . We were in his apartment - - one room really , at the end of a corridor on the third floor in an old building . He had invited me over for dinner . When he had asked me the week before what I liked to eat I did not know what to say . It was as if I were finally in the movie I 'd been hoping to get into , but I did not know the lines and I did not want to improvise because I wanted to stay in the movie . " How about Eggplant Parmigian ? " I had asked . We were in a parking lot . I had heard of Eggplant Parmigian because my friend Ruth had mentioned it once . She was the first friend I 'd had in many years and had introduced me to many things I hadn 't know about before : bagels , discount clothing , Maxwell Parrish , modern dance and making curtains out of colorful sheets . Also , colorful sheets . I liked the shelf of plants in Geoffrey 's apartment and the long purple tube lit up and suspended above them . My mother had houseplants , but they were geraniums and African violets that sat on window sills . This boy had plants on a back wall above an old couch covered in clothes and notebooks . I liked the unexpected green of the plants and this purple light , something new to me , something I would have been able to set up myself . None of this could I have had in my own life , this independent home complete with waterbed , telephone with a long long cord so he could talk in the bathroom , or the kitchen , or even out in the hall if he felt like it . And the long row of beat - up records housed in old red milk cartons , and the dumpy armchair by the window with a green plant hanging from a hook with long long trails of small green leaves , a gorgeous plant that looked so perfect here . He acts like all of this is nothing , very ordinary , and I feel like I must keep myself perfectly disguised here , not let one drop of truth emerge . I must never be found out or he will stop liking me immediately . I want him soPosted by Dear Friends , I 've been sick with cold / flu etc . and though I 've done some writing I have not been up to the task of typing it and posting it . But I am very much on the mend and will have some new pieces for you soon . love , Marta I have a long piece of plywood set up on three sawhorses . I found a hardware / lumber store through the yellow pages not too far from the apartment and though I am not supposed to buy anything until I pay Geoffrey back , this desk seems so crucial I think it transcends the obligation temporarily . I have pictured the desk here for months , ever since I knew I was coming back to this apartment . I knew this room with the dark salmon - colored walls and the parquet floors . When I lived here before - or sort of lived here - this room had a large four - poster bed in it , a color TV at its foot and a nightstand for the ashtray . Geoffrey 's father , Arthur , spent his evenings after work lying on top of the bed , sitting up in his clothes , legs outstretched , smoking and watching TV . Sometimes Geoffrey and I sat with him . Geoffrey liked his father , was always energetic and talkative with him . Arthur was a small , dapper man , who didn 't talk or emote much . When I knew I was coming back I knew that Arthur didn 't live there anymore . " Please get ride of the four - poster bed , " I asked Geoffrey , " before I come , " because that room was going to be my room . Where I would write , and I saw the plywood desk I would set up under the windows . " Really ? It 's a beautiful bed , " Geoffrey said . We were talking by phone , me in London , he in the apartment he had never left . I loathed even the idea of that big elaborate bed that took up all the space in the room . I wanted the space to be almost empty , a studio . We 'd be living in the apartment together , crazy - in - love lovers , years older than the first time we had tried it . And there had just been a Japanese girl living in the room with the four - poster bed , a Parsons student who had answered an ad , needing a room to rent , and she 'd moved in and become his girlfriend , but he had asked her to leave because now I was coming , and though her name was still part of his everyday life , a name that kept coming up , he had asked her to go to make room for me and she , Geoffrey said , was happy to take Posted by The man who picked me up somewhere in California , when I was still going down , before I had turned left to head across to New York , drove a cramped sporty sedan . He had cans of soda in the car and offered me one . He had dark hair and was a little older than me . Not a hippy . But he would do . He could be my boyfriend maybe . The cafeteria where everyone else ate I didn 't know how to walk into , didn 't know where to sit , who with . I pictured a noisy circus where everyone else had figured out their place , but I had come too late , that must be the reason , not arriving until tenth grade , but the reason didn 't hold water . Dino was a handsome easy boy who got absorbed quickly , and Nancy with her tidy long hair , arriving this year , knew just what to do too . I get out of the car with the man who hadn 't been what I 'd been looking for , but he had been a man alone , a man who had his own car , who drove freely wherever he wanted . If he had fallen love with me I would have stayed . Posted by My aunt from Budapest sent me the photocopy of a short letter she had received from a man who had just heard of my father 's - her brother 's - death . The letter is written on stationery printed with the man 's name at the top in a fine delicate script . The guy is a baron and he has modestly drawn a line through his name and title as if we are not supposed to notice it . The man writes two paragraphs - more than good manners demands - about how he will miss my father , of the great work they did together , the conferences they organized . I read the letter , thinking how much my father would have loved reading it , would have soaked up every word - especially the crossed out aristocratic title . I don 't remember anyone speaking of him so highly . I was looking recently at color photographs taken during those conferences , held in Hungary and Belgium , that my father had organized and been so proud of . I remembered thinking that in all the photos he was alone , never in conversation . I looked at him so closely in those photographs , confident I could read his every expression , not trusting that he was doing anything more than trying to make a good impression on somebody . He had talked to me of these conferences with great excitement . When I visited Hungary in the late nineties he showed me the beautiful villa they had rented , and I had listened with only restlessness . What were these co - called conferences , anyway ? Who came to them ? Did they really accomplish anything ? I didn 't think so . My father was proud that he was working with a bonafide baron , and he mentioned too with almost equal satisfaction the name of an English banker he was working with . I realized with embarrassment it was the same sleazy man I had met once at a disgustingly sleazy London dinner party , but I said nothing . During the same visit my father and I had the kind of shouting fight that only lovers have , and the words that came hurtling out of my father 's mouth at the peak of our exchange were , " You have never cared about my work . " No , MartaSzabo The ceiling slopes sharply on both sides so that really I can only walk upright down the center of the room . I stoop to open the cupboard doors that line the short walls . I have painted the doors bright sunshine yellow . It was my idea . They were white before , my mother 's color . The floor is covered in beige wall - to - wall carpet . It was added to the house while we were away for five years . My father made a lot of changes to the house while we were away and now it looks a little more like other people 's houses , a little more grand . Like the carpeting . We never had wall - to - wall before , just the dark wide boards with the old square nails . There is a softness to the carpet , a sense of comfort that seems foreign . I like it here in this attic room at the top of the house . One of the new things is the set of narrow French doors my father put in at the bottom of the steep carpeted stairs , so I can close them and I feel like I have my own apartment up here . In the morning , dressing for school , I use the French doors as my full - length mirror . They don 't work very well , with all those panes of glass framed in white wood . Sometimes I go into my mother 's room where she has an old square mirror framed in wood , propped against a wall . I can only see my bottom half with that mirror . I wear the pink cotton shirt that used to be a dress two years ago , but I cut off the bottom . Or I wear the beige knit top , a body suit that snaps at the crotch , a little too affected an item for a hippy , but I like how I look . Or I wear the bright orange , colorfully striped hotpants body suit as a shirt with jeans . This one has no snap at the crotch . I have to unzip and pull the whole thing down to go to the bathroom . But it looks great . I wore the hotpant suit with white cork - soled sandals , my first high heels , three years ago when we still lived in England . I 'd worn them to catch the train with friends for a day in London . I was 14 , and I heard a little boy refer to me , talking to his mother , as " that lady . " No one had ever referred to mPosted by As I walk up the crooked , uneven path to the front door I eye the disintegrating garden , looking for color . One of the pink daisies I bought in the Spring just put out one last small burst of flower - the color deep and strong though the bloom itself is small . I am disappointed in the garden this year . The zinnia - usually so reliable for color - turned brown and sickly right away - plants don 't flourish here and I am frustrated , wondering do I have to spend a ton of money on fancy soil just to get flowers ? That doesn 't sound right , and each year I try again , always with such limited funds , and there are pockets of fleeting success , but I haven 't mastered the sense of abundance and color I am hunting for . I garden like my mother gardened . She 's the only model I have . She gardened naturally , but roughly . She was not a Martha Stewart gardener . I had a dear friend , Amma , who had moved out of the ashram with her husband and 8 - year - old daughter . They moved to an old farmhouse in New Hampshire where Amma painted a colorful sign in her perfect calligraphy for the front door that said " Welcome , " and they bought a few sheep and some chickens . Ruefully Amma admitted that she subscribed to a magazine put out by someone called Martha Stewart . Amma and David and Libby were big figures in my life . Amma was tall , blonde and beautiful with an exceptional singing voice and a deep laugh . Her husband was tall , gangly , boyish and shy . Libby , when I first met her just 4 or 5 , was shy too , but Libby fell a little in love with me . We were all still living in the ashram then . Libby liked to read . When she got in the car the time I was taking her to see Little Shop of Horrors - a true aberration from ashram life - she brought her Grimm 's fairytales , a paperback about 4 inches thick , small print , no pictures , and she read to herself when we weren 't talking . Libby said she wanted me to be her godmother so we made up a ceremony , going to the Bade Baba temple on a snowy December night . The Bade Baba temple was the jewel of the ashram , located in the most celebrated area , the area where Gurumayi lived , where the nicest rooms were for the wealthiest guests , where the gardens were the most manicured , where the biggest meditation hall was with its glorious turquoise carpet , tiered floor and chandeliers . Everything was better in the Main Building - the name of this part of the ashram that had once been a Catskills hotel . Two other hotel complexes made up the rest of the ashram , all linked by a shuttle bus and footpaths . But the Bade Baba temple was the nucleus , the most sacred , holy place . It was a small white building , almost circular , each side of the polygon - shaped building held a wide , tall plate of glass , looking out onto the smooth lawns and tidy gardens . In the center of the temple was a larger - than - life bronze statue of a man in the lotus posture , set up on a white marble pedestal and encircled by a ring of four white marble pillars . Plush turquoise carpeting made the place deeply quiet , like the inside of a shell . So Libby and Amma and I went there for the godmother ceremony , offering Bade Baba a coconut and some prayers and afterwards we went to the Winter Garden to celebrate , a cafe that had been set up for the holidays in the lobby , complete with white tablecloths and fancy desserts , strings of white Christmas lights , menues and waiters , young people doing their seva - their selfless service . A few years ago I was being interviewed by a small new - age magazine about our Authentic Writing workshops , and I spoke with great enthusiasm and fluidity . " Well , " said the editor when we were about done , " would you like to say a few words about the value of service ? We 're doing an issue on service and asking this question of everyone we interview . " " No , " I said . " I don 't want to say a word about service . That 's totally not my subject , " and the man cracked up . He had thought I 'd launch into all the predictable platitudes about service and I had refused . I had just been talking about wriing , something that really means something to me - there was no way I was going to spout a bunch of crap about how service is a good thing . When Fred and I were first a couple we went to visit Amma and Michael and Libby . Libby was about 10 and writing books at the computer about gnomes . There was a new baby . They gave us their brand new guest room , an addition they had built where everything was perfect - from the smooth down quilt to the two unused bottles of expensive lavender shampoo in the brand new shower . Amma had a spinning wheel going in the living room , using the wool from their sheep and she and Libby sang the song that Amma had written for all the neighborhood kids which had a chorus of " If you love your parents , clap your hands . " When it came time to leave I saw that Fred was walking out of the room , leaving the bed we had slept in a tangled jumble of sheets . I knew the proper thing to do in this house would be to make that bed , even though Amma would be pulling it apart to launder everything . To leave that mess untouched seemed sacriligeous . I checked my impulse to tidy up and left it as Fred would have left it . A year later I invited Libby of course to be my flower girl at our wedding . But they had a conflict , Amma said over the phone , another wedding of someone from the ashram I hadn 't even realized she was friends with . But perhaps in some stressed out way they could travel back from Nantucket in time to make our wedding - because how could they miss it ? And Libby was so excited . But they did not come . Nor sent a card or gift . It ended in silence . Somehow , through a vague trace on Facebook , I have picked up that Libby might be at a college now a few miles from my house . Maybe one day , by herself , she will look me up . Maybe not . I look back at that friendship - see some red flags along the way that at the time meant less than the substance of the friendship . I hope for friendships that last , that are grounded on real appreciation , that don 't make demands or depend on shared dogmas . The ashram brought so many disparate people together , brought us so close we became family , even the people I only knew by sight . Now I see through Facebook all these people scattered - the woman who was so close to Gurumayi during my time has dyed black hair , a botoxed face , and vivid red lipstick firmly in place in every photo . Posted by Part of the reason I wanted to hitchhike was that anyone who picked me up did not know me , didn 't know that I had no friends , didn 't know I rode a school bus to a high school and sat in classrooms . When I stepped into a car or up into the cab of an eighteen - wheeler I could be the adventuress I was sure I was supposed to be . I told Joseph I had older brothers . Not true . I didn 't mention the two actual younger sisters . Older brothers at least put me in the company of men . It implied that I hung out with them and their friends . I liked the idea of older brothers . But I cannot talk . Even now that I am where I so much wanted to be . Joseph and his friend talk late into the night . We are in a plain room with a couple of old armchairs and we pass a pipe and the boys talk , but I cannot find a way in , and stay silent , and this I fear will give me away - that I am not at ease the way I want them to think I am . Alone with Joseph he can make me laugh . I feel connected . He is my friend . He waits for me when we go to the bathroom in the rest stop and then get into the big tractor trailer . But even Joseph says , " You don 't talk much , do you ? " and I have been discovered and must do all I can to get him off the scent . Bluff fast . It is almost perfect . If he would kiss me at night it would be perfect , but he does not . He says I am too young , that he could go to prison . What is he talking about ? And we stop in Buffalo for the night at a house on the street , a woman comes to the door , his wife . " Oh , " she says , " come on in . I was just going out on a date . " My aunt in Budapest sends me two color photographs , one of my father 's grave , heaped with flowers . The second of a ribbon around one of those bouquets imprinted with my mother 's name , my name , my two sisters ' names and some strange unrecognizable name at the end . In the photo you can 't see my father 's gravestone , which was what I looked for . Instead you can only see the gravestone next to his with the names of my grandparents . A big stone cross stands between the two stones , a grave with some status , planning and pretensions . My father buried next to his parents as if he didn 't get far . My mother on the phone last night saying finally , " I 'll let you go , " and me feeling almost hurt though I was aching to get off the phone , wondering why I can hardly tolerate two minutes with mymother one the phone though I always want to hear her voice and know she is there , I never want to tell he anything , never want to then hear her response which always feels off the mark , and always she keeps me on the phone longer than I want to be be except last night she actually said , " I 'll let you go , " as if she too did not want to be on the call , and we hadn 't mentioned my father , I didn 't mention the photos that had arrived just hours before , and maybe I thought as I hung up , maybe that 's what 's different that we - I - don 't want to talk about it , want that his death means nothing , in a way it 's easy to go that route - he 's been so gone for so long - out of the country for 25 years , in some kind of senility for a year , and even when he was in this country and functioning , always not someone we wanted around - me , my sisters or my mother . But now he 's really gone and I think as I walk to my car how I will never ever see him again . But I don 't want to talk about it with my mother . A gravesite has nothing to do with the person . In a way , I wish my aunt had not sent the pictures . I didn 't want to see something so gruesome . But it 's real and I claim to always prefer the real . My sister 's naMartaSzabo It is the first time Tamar has been so unwell . The doctors say she should feel better tomorrow . She 's had the first two doses of antibiotics and today she had a B12 shot and some dog aspirin and I could tell she rallied . I went on our walk without her , to smell the woods and move . I ran into Nancy who lives across the street with a small overweight dog called Sammy . " Where 's Tamar ? " she immediately asked . Both yesterday and today we have taken her to the vet . Both times I have had to overcome my kneejerk reluctance to let medicine intervene , but both times have been so reassuring . I felt like that was why it was so expensive - because I felt so much better afterwards . Less in the dark , optimistic . The woman , the friend , I let her down . Out of nowhere . She didn 't see it coming . But there was no pretty way to do it . It was something that I slowly realized really had to be done , to leave her , send her back to the quicksand of her life to let her come up with something , to withdraw the rope I had thrown and that she would not let go of . On the wall it hung , from a long leather strap a couple of inches wide , a leather strap decorated with cut - outs and fringes . A flask covered in short brown hair , smooth like a horse 's hair , a wooden stopper sealing the flask 's mouth . I did not touch the flask because of the smooth brown hair . I imagined it would shiver if I touched it , move , be alive . I knew the flask was Hungarian , one of my father 's things , special , better than ordinary things . He spoke of the flask to me , in a proud voice , a voice designed to convince me what was right , what was wrong , and what was better , a voice with force and gusto , something that it would always take an effort to live up to , but that that was what was important - - living up to something , a standard , something that kept your head above water , better than other people , something that saved you from drowning . Posted by In first grade at the new school in Virginia I am jumping rope outside . Two girls are turning the long rope and I am standing to the side , attuning my body to the rhythm of the rope slapping the ground so that I know the exact moment I can leap in and become one with that turning rope . It 's a small miracle to be able to run in at the right moment that doesn 't interrupt the rope 's smooth turning and now I am in the middle of its loop , jumping and shouting , " Paul John George Ringo ! Paul John George Ringo ! " I know they are the Beatles , but I don 't know which is which . The name you are shouting when you mess up and the turning rope stops is the name of the one you are in love with , a thought that makes me and my friends squeal in disgust for a moment before it 's the next person 's turn . I 've only been at this school for a little while . I came in on my first day in the middle of things - the middle of the year , in the middle of the morning - I still had my coat on , the one my mother liked , navy blue , woolen , the kind of coat you could wear with dresses - and the teacher stood beside me as she introduced me to the class , the two of us side by side while everyone else sat at their desks and looked at us . The teacher introduced me , said my name and I said nothing , hating this part where I was not yet part of them , but someone separate and strange . I kept quiet always in the beginnings . It was an old school and had a darkness to it as though it were always in shade . The floors were made of wood and there was a staircase like in a house that led up to floors I never went to . My classroom was at the bottom of the stairs . We had come to Virginia in a truck - me , my father and another man - my mother driving in a car with my little sister . I sat in the cab of the big truck that had all our stuff in it . My father drove the truck . Of course he did . My father could do things like that , things we hadn 't done before , my father could always do these things . There were a couple of crushed beer cans in the cab the men had drunk and then reflexively crushed before dropping them on the floor . I held a crushed can , one in each hand as we drove , me between the men , and I pretended the cans were people . First the one in my left hand talked , then the one in my right hand . I watched them . They talked silently . My father was always the hero on those walks . In the stories . In my world . Though he made me cry when we played Monopoly at night , him buying hotel after hotel while I had nothing and then buying more hotels and laughing as I could not keep up . Under the trees my sister and I made a store selling small rocks , an acorn - for 5 cents , 10 cents - inviting my parents to come and buy by the sandbox . There was a sandbox there and a turquoise tent , a tent my mother put up for me to play in , but I didn 't go in there , the small turquoise tee - pee - a tent being something from my mother 's world , but not from mine . My mother came from a place of outdoor things - a farm , British Columbia , a garden , bicycles and tents . My father was different , from the city . I liked him better . Posted by In a dream last night I cried a little bit . Not much , but a few tears came . In the dream I was in Budapest , my father 's city , and I was looking at a wide boulevard lined with trees and in the dream I thought , " Dad would have liked this boulevard " because it was spacious and elegant , and in the dream a few tears came and I was glad for them . Because I haven 't cried for him at all . Not since the Tuesday afternoon a few weeks ago when my mother called from her new home in California to say he had died in his sleep . Finally . A friend had just sent me a song by The Noisettes . I was thinking about that song this morning when I realized that the same spelling could also be pronounced " Noisette " - which is what my father called his car . Noisette , hazelnut in French . He didin 't get mad . That 's what I thought of this morning . Now I know how expensive it is to fix a car , but my father didin 't get angry and I didn 't feel the weight of guilt for an unnecessary expense . Because really I should not have a life of my own . I really should have dedicated my life to him . Should have always been there to help him . That is is what I have torn myself away from and what I do not completely forgive myself for . The other day , stepping out of the shower , I was having an imaginary conversation with someone in my office who , in my head , was uncertain whether I could write a letter to a very large donor , uncertain that I would get the tone right . And in my head I said to her , " Of course I will get the tone right . My father was Hungarian . " My father took me on long walks alone with him when I was little . He used these times to talk to me , drenching me with words . He told me of how in Budapest before the war people visited each other unannounced . If the person they hoped to see was not at home they left their card , and - this was my father 's favorite part - they turned down one corner of the card . He was full of the proper way to do things - how to eat soup , how to eat bread at the table . I remember him coming to my room when I was about ten when we were living in England to tell me - with delight - the salutation he used when writing a business letter : Gentlemen . Not " Dear Gentlemen . " Just , Gentlemen . The word gave him delight as if he were a musician and had discovered exactly the right note . My mother sent a birthday card to Fred yesterday . I saw her familiar writing - blue and loopy - amongst the chopped onions on the counter as Fred was cooking , and reached for it . " Oh , my mother sent me something , " I said , surprised Fred hadn 't mentioned it . " Actually , she sent me something , " Fred said . It was a postcard mailed inside an envelope with a few sentences about the weather . She said it is still very hot where she is , and inside I cringe a little , the cringe I do always at the thought of any suffering she might be enduring . It is an old habit . The first time I felt it was in boarding school , lying in bed one night , a single bed in a narrow cubicle , separated from the corridor by a curtain , in a long line of curtained - off cubicles . My mother had been to visit me that weekend with my two little sisters , one of them still a toddler . I had begged to go to the little local circus that had pulled into town , a shambly bunch of rides that looked like a glittery fairyland to me , until I saw how hard it was for my mother to pick her way through the mud in her black leather pumps , until I saw how little she enjoyed the careening car , her arm clutching the baby , her face concerned . The worse was afterwards when she realized a comb had fallen from her hair , the brown hair that she pinned up . I knew the comb was one of two my father had brought to her from a business trip to Morocco and though I knew there was no romance in the comb it still seemed a terrible loss , one for which I was responsible . I lay in bed that night and cried like I might never stop , silently so none of the other girls could hear . I was thinking too of the puppy that had died at home , my mother had just told me . My mother , the puppy , and the two girls I had talked to that evening who had invited me to move into a dorm with them . I had said yes , and now , in bed , in the dark , a sense of dread came over me , that moving in with Sheila and Jane was not really what I wanted to do , but how I could get out of it , and the puppy 's death and my mMartaSzabo It was a Tuesday two weeks ago and I was sitting in my office at work . Things were pretty quiet , my boss was away . Summer light was coming through the window , the computer screen was my main amusement . I had called my mother in the morning , some kind of short check - in call , nothing unusual , and she is calling me . It 's about 1 : 30 in the afternoon and my mother 's name comes up on my small black iPhone . I felt a small click of alertness . My mother and I don 't speak twice in one day . Once we 've had a call we wait at least a week . But I 've had that small click of alertness before when she has called or left a message , and there has been no reason for it . So I felt the click and answered the phone , waiting for it to be something unimportant . But this time it finally wasn 't . This time finally it was the call I had been waiting for for a long time - months , years - my mother 's voice was the same - calm , quiet , concerned . She had just gotten a call , my father had died in his sleep that morning . I heard it like I might hear any news . Calm , very calm . My mother and I spoke just for a minute or two and then I hung up . I called Fred , but he didn 't answer . There was no one at work to go talk to . The afternoon continued - a few phone calls , some scheduling to figure out , emails to send , photocopies . When I passed someone in the hall I said hi the way I always do and once in awhile I noticed that I 'd forgotten my father had just died . For a long time , usually when I am driving , I have asked myself - OK , Dad is probably going to die soon . Are you done ? Will you be OK if he does ? Will you have any regrets of things you could take care of now ? And it always felt like there was nothing more to say or do . Last year for his birthday I sent a Fritz Kreisler CD - some of my favorite violin music , very easy to listen to - I was sure he would like it . I hadn 't sent him a present in years , hadn 't been inspired until I got the idea to send him that record . Somewhere last year I got some kind of note from him - MartaSzabo My father got out of control angry just a few times , always because my mother would not stop talking , needling - I knew if she would just stop everything would be okay - didn 't she know she was making him furious , that it was building , cresting , like a wave ? In the car - he is driving , she in the passenger seat , me behind her , sisters , younger , beside me . It is dark . We are returning from somewhere . My mother is doing it , doing that thing that makes him grip the steering wheel in silence . Tighter . My sisters and I in the back seat are quiet quiet quiet , waiting for this to be over , my father responding in short terse phrases only when he feels he must , clenched teeth until finally he stops the car by the side of the road , gets out , says , " I 'll walk home , " - - he is about two miles away - and now my mother is quiet , finally , the spell broken . She drives us home and noone says anything except maybe I play with my little sister as if nothing happened , knowing I can give her this much , easily . It is easy to give to my little sister , the one with the curly hair , the big eyes , the round cheeks . Different from the other sister whose hair is straight and light brown whom everyone says takes after my mother . That 's what the adults say so she and my mother are one team , and me and my father are on the other , and the littlest sister , Esther , who comes last , after the teams have already been formed , is sort of on both and neither . Later , in high school years , my mother occupies the room at the head of the stairs . It 's the one she was in when we were little , before we moved away . Now we are back and though most things feel very different my mother returns to this room , and now it is completely her room . When I was little my father sometimes joined her in the double bed up there , but for many years that hasn 't happened in this or any other house we have lived in , and there have been several . Her room still has the dark wide boards with the old square nails - though by now much of the house and its old board floors have been covered in wall - to - wall beige carpeting , my father 's doing . Beige is his favorite color - he says so to me as if this choice is classy , a sign of aristocratic taste . My father would like to be a member of the aristocracy . Not American aristocracy . There is no such thing . There is only European aristocracy . He even uses the word " nobleman , " pronounced it gently with his Hungarian accent , with complete sincerity and respect when describing a character in a novel he is reading . My mother has a plain , wooden dresser in her room , dating from my early childhood when she used to seek out old pieces of furniture and refinish them - sanding and staining . She doesn 't do stuff like that anymore . When I was little she had a camera and a camera case and a light meter she held in her hand and a darkroom where my little sister sleeps now . My mother takes a few photographs now , but only snapshots and the drugstore develops them . In her room , in the corner between two windows , she has a simple wooden desk with three drawers down the left - hand side . The desk is glossy and must too have once been something she bought and re - stained . The beige push - button phone sits on this desk along with things needed to pay bills and write short notes . My father bought us all beds when we moved back in , and he bought a double bed for my mother . He sleeps downstairs now on a yellow fold - out couch . He closes the two narrow French doors at the bottom of the stairs in the evening when I , my two sisters and mother have gone to bed . He closes the doors and sometimes he plays classical music records on the stereo that sits inside a big piece of furniture with glass doors and shelves - it fills a wall . He calls it an " armoire " and he keeps his shirts folded from the dry cleaner on the shelves below , hidden behind wooden doors - and on the upper shelves behind the delicate glass doors he keeps mementos from his travels : the brass mold for coins from Morocco , the Kenndy silver dollar floating in a cube of plexiglass , the tiny enamelled pill box in which he keeps the gnarled stone they took out of his gall bladder when we still lived in England . The pill box has small elegant print : I am yours while life endures , it says , and I know the blonde , rich Swiss woman , Helga , whom we are supposed to call " aunt , " gave it to him and I know he would rather be with her than with us . Sometimes at night my father sits in one of the two big armchairs upholstered in a yellow and brown print of sunflowers , reading an Iris Murdoch novel or Somerset Maughm , always with a Mont Blanc pen in hand to underline the words and phrases he likes . Sometimes I review the marks he has made in a book . They usually make no sense to me - random underlinings - and when once or twice I ask him , " Dad , why did you underline this ? " he raises his eyesbrows and smiles as if he has a secret and will not tell . As he reads he keeps a chunky glass of whiskey on the rocks beside him , and the kitchen is nearby when he wants a late night snack . No one else snacks . When we first come back from England , moving back into this house , my fathers sits me down and shows me a brochure for asphalt . This is his new job , he says proudly . He will be selling this road surface and he makes it sound like a job that is fabulous and glamorous and how he is excited . He says too that he has only brought in $ 7 , 000 so far this year , a fraction of what he used to make . These numbers are foreign to me . I do know that my father has never sold asphalt to anyone before - that this is not at all what he should be doing . He is someone who needs a fancy office in a city with a secretary - but these things seem to have disappeared and he is acting now as if selling asphalt is the perfect next step . But it 's only when I see the Christmas tree that year that I know something is very very wrong . There are not enough presents . There are too many empty spaces and holes where there should be a package or a bow , and that 's when I know we are poor , that I must not ask for anything . My father liked to tell me things . I was his special friend in the family , the one he sought out to tell about his latest victory . He didn 't go to my mother and he did not go to either of my two younger sisters . He came to me , the first born . He had dark hair pushed back from a high forehead with blue eyes and a straight nose . His face was big , square and he thought himself handsome . Others thought him handsome too . I did . He spoke with a strong Hungarian accent though I didn 't know this until kids at school commented . My mother was quiet and pale compared to my father . He was the one who burst into a room and took care of things , made noise , insisted that everyone smile and be happy and cheerful . My mother did not know what to say ever to anyone . She was a shadow in the kitchen , sometimes the one who got angry , who yelled , who hit you . Not my father . He never yelled . His anger was more concentrated . It came out in stern lectures that made me cry because they seemed so mean . In the beginning everything was better when Daddy was home . I felt safer , like there was someone at the helm . My mother often failed . When she drove she got lost or crashed into something . But my father never got lost and he drove with his elbow out the window , his wedding ring tapping the metal of the car roof in time to the Hungarian song he was singing with gusto . He often had suitcases open , packing or unpacking for a business trip . Trips made him happy and I loved the drive to the airport to see him off or pick him up . When he returned he always had presents . In between was a table with skinny black metal legs and a smooth brown top , his desk . On his desk was a small white plastic cube that held a roll of gray stamps so you could pull one out at a time . And he had a small red stapler . When I was sick my mother put me in my father 's bed during the day so I could watch Captain Kangaroo and Romper Room . Outside the two windows grew a large tree , shading the room and its bare wood floor , a floor made with dark wide boards , stained and cracked with square nails . My mother said you could tell the house was old because of the wide boards and the square nails . My father gives me a book with pages that are thick and black . He gives me a bottle of glue with an orange rubber top and a slit in the rubber . When you turn the bottle upside down and press on the rubbery part the glue - thick and honey - colored - comes slowly out . He gives me postcards - from where he has travelled in Europe and ones my grandmother in Budapest has sent - and tells me to stick the postcards in the book . He thinks there is something nice about the postcards , but I don 't like them - photographs of public buildings and monuments against sunny skies . My father creates a shoe shine kit for me - flat round tins of polish - one black , one brown . They are hard to open . I have a brush and a cloth and my father wants me to shine his shoes when he comes home from work . And every Saturday after I clean my room he gives me a silver dollar to put in a savings account . He takes me to the bank , lifts me up onto the counter , shows me the little book . I prefer paper money though and wish he would give me that instead . Posted by I write , then come up for air , then look at what I have unearthed . It usually looks like just a handful of dust , not worth much . I could easily toss it out and forget about it . But I don 't . Not anymore . I add it to the pile . I am not sure what I am building , but this is all I have . For some reason , it is my most precious thing , the one thing that feels purely my own . In addition to regular workshops in Woodstock , NY , I offer one Authentic Writing workshop a month in Manhattan , always on a Saturday morning . If you want to write or to deepen the writing you are doing , please come along ! We meet at TRS , 40 Exchange Place , 3rd Floor . You will take home a great deal of writing plus the momentum and enthusiasm to continue . For more info : AuthenticWriting . com