It 's been awhile since I 've posted - either here or at Mostly Memoir . It 's been a very full time schedule - wise and I 've gotten behind on my typing . I write pretty much everything long - hand . This morning I was inspired to set other things aside and type up my work . It is an act of defiance and self - strengthening and empowerment . I was beginning to go down . To let the drudgery of the 9 - 5 get me down , to let other people 's opinions get me down . It is easy when you are doing something as unsupported as undisguised personal writing to feel alone and to even be tempted to dismiss your work . A form of suicide . I am so happy to have revisited my writing by typing it up and posting it . Oh god , I feel better . It was pretty this part of Athens , cloistered away from the raw cement , traffic and smog of the city by trees and gardens , houses usually only partially visible , set back , with now and then an ornate gate . The roads I walked along were only wide enough for one vehicle , and there weren 't any to speak of , nor did I meet anyone on the narrow strips of sidewalk . I just walked . It was all I wanted to do . I wore my usual costume - brown leather pumps , the narrow knee - length navy skirt , a blouse - clothes that distinctly felt like someone else 's , but I insisted on them because Natvar insisted on them . They overrode my old hippy tendencies , my blue jean past , all that silliness before I had learned from Natvar to dress , to be adult , to be part of his world . I came to a large open patch of grass , almost a traffic circle , almost a little piece of park . It was warm and this bright warm sunshine was the first of the season , the first after a long gray winter , the first promise of summer . Cars passed now and then by this long rectangle of grass . I was coming out of the shadiest parts of the neighborhood now , getting closer to the busy street below with its stores and steady traffic . I lay down on my back and I slept . I slept with pure ease and sweetness , sinking down into its comfort , every muscle relaxing . It was perfect . And when I became aware that I was sleeping , I pulled my awareness back down into the oblivion , pulling it this time , not sinking effortlessly . It was 3 or 4 o ' clock when I opened my eyes finally and though I tried to linger , lying on my back , the sun was cooler now , the day was passing . " It is 4 o ' clock now , " I thought as I stood , " But 6 o ' clock won 't come . And tonight won 't come . " It was an old trick from childhood . When dreaded things loomed in the future I could convince myself that the time would never arrive . The rhythm of the day had shifted , the traffic picking up . I walked down towards the busy street . I would get something to eat . I would check out the movie - after all , NatvPosted by I stand next to my father and he sits comfortably in the armchair . I stand to his right , my head a little above his . He is dressed in a suit - white shirt with cufflinks , a tie , matching jacket and pants with a sharp crase . His hands are fleshy and broad . He wears a thick gold wedding band and a thin expensive round watch with a shiny sligator strap . My father likes hi things - his cufflinks , his watch , his wedding band , which never looked for a moment like anything to do with romance . My father 's wedding band was a bade of stability , of all - rightness , a middle - class man , educated , tasteful , married . He told me to come to his room because my report card has come in the mail . I am not concerned . I am 9 years old and I 've had plenty of report cards and they 've always been very good and school has never been hard . It is a Saturday . That 's why my father is home . This is his room . We don 't use it for anything else . When he is not here it stays empty . It is a green room : dark green drapes and a dark green spread on the single bed . The house came with these things . These are not things we have had before - drapes that go all the way to the floor and close with a cord , matching bedspreads . This dark green room looks like it 's the man 's room . My mother 's room in this house is pink - clearly where the woman is supposed to go though there is nothing pink abut my mother . They had someone else in mind when they prepared this room , placing inside it not a desk and armchair like in the dark green room , but a glass - topped , kidney - shaped vanity with a stiff pink - and - white - striped skirt . My mother doesn 't sit at it though I wish she was the type who would . This is the house we have moved into . It is a rented house with all the furniture inside , but it is small , like a doll 's house . My father holds the white sheet of paper that is my report card from the school I started a few months ago . I like the new school . I like that I don 't have to come home , that I can live there . I like my friends there . I like allPosted by That afternoon I was coming down the stairwell when a guy I hardly knew came in and said , " Where are you off to ? " because it was only about 11 and I said I 'd just been fired and that 's when the tears rushed into my voice . I didn 't want them to show . I hardly knew this guy . I 'd only been at Fotonovel for a few months and I 'd hated every minute of it - from the dullness of sitting at a phone that didn 't ring to having to watch the rich pretty blond I 'd known vaguely in college 3 , 000 miles before , now the rich handsome boss 's girlfriend . But I hadn 't thought they 'd fire me . And it made me feel like a little girl , sad , crying , trying hard not to show it , but not having the strength to hold it back in front of this almost stranger . It was Los Angeles and it was summer , hot and bright on Sunset Boulevard , that dense part with all the billboards and Tower Records - just before it turns all hushed and green and Beverly Hills . The sun though is harsh and I don 't live in that hushed green part of town . I live in the cement of West Hollywood , just below the fumes of Sunset . There are lots of plants and even trees clumped around my white L . A . cottage , but the drive there is never sweet . It is always harsh and headache and I am only here because my boyfriend wants to live here . I don 't know how to live by myself . Though I feel very by myself . It feels just a little safer to stay with this boyfriend who , when I say I am leaving , starts to cry . And that 's when I feel that hot tangible strap that binds us to each other . We have been together since I was 18 , and I am 21 now . We have graduated college . We have driven across the country . We are sharing the white cottage and my mother and little sister are coming to visit this afternoon . I have not seen them since I got here last year . They are coming and I have to show them a good time . They have come into town by bus . They are at a downtown L . A . hotel and they are waiting for me to come and pick them up . Will I tell them I 've just been fired ? Yes , pPosted by I sat in a chair this afternoon in my boss 's office . We were supposed to meet at 3 : 30 but she 'd been pulled into a crisis . I had checked through the glass door of the executive director 's office at one point to see if that meeting was interruptable , but even I felt that I should stay away until they were really done . Yesterday I managed a 20 - minute cat nap in the conference room at a busy time of day . I had to do it . There was nowhere else to go and I had to close my eyes and get even a few moments of unconsciousness . I managed it - actually sleeping for five minutes , then waking myself up in time for a meeting in the same room during which I had to keep pulling myself back from a magnetic brink of unconsciousness . It 's like when I worked for Gurumayi , so like it sometimes . You 're responsible for making sure they see stuff on time , their time is unpredictable and spare - you try to be ready at all times and on the look - out for when you can gently , elegantly spring . You have to be appealing because you are bearing stuff they would love to put off . The person stuck her head in , then offered to come back later . " No , no , " said my boss , " what 's up ? " And the person proceeded to step into the room and tell her what was up . I kept my eyes down , not getting into the conversation , allowing myself to be mildly pissed off that Erica hadn 't asked them to come back later since she 'd kept me waiting for 45 minutes . But I know that one of the things I like about Erica is that she doesn 't mind being interrupted . I like that you can almost always knock , enter , talk . And as we resumed our small bits of business I thought about confiding in her . After all , we are close enough that she noticed some subtle shift in me . I wondered if I could tell her the story of the last day or two , wanted to , but then thought , no , I can 't . She doesn 't have the capacity to hold me in the complete way I would want if I were to tell this story . Though it 's almost there . I think she thought about asking in the same way as I thought about telling . But I kept it to myself , and she dashed off to her daughter 's first piano concert . Posted by UPDATE : April 2010 . This series was successful so that now we meet once a month on a Saturday morning at TRS , 44 E . 32 St . between Park & Madison . I will be offering three Authentic Writing workshops in Manhattan on Saturday mornings - - if you want to do some writing , this is the place to be . All the writing will be from life - - spontaneous and personal . The workshops are for people who have written for years , people who have wished they were writing , people who write in their heads but don 't manage to get it down on paper and everyone in between . These are studios more than workshops , a place for artists to come together and practice their art - - without competition or comparison . I do almost all my writing in these workshops . The Guru Looked Good was almost all written in workshops . You may take one or more workshops , or you can sign up for the series of three . We will meet at : TRS , 44 E . 32 Street ( between Park and Madison ) , 11th floorDates and Times : October 10 , November 14 , December 12 . 10am - 1pm . Rates : $ 75 / workshop ( please specify which date ) or $ 180 for all three workshopsTo register : You can use PayPaloremail me at : martaszabo @ yahoo . comorcall me at : ( 845 ) 679 - 0306 I wore the dark blue cotton dress with the tie around my waist that tied in a bow behind me . Not a big wide fancy bow like you saw in movies . Just a regular , narrow bow , like on your shoes . There was white smocking across the chest and no sleeves so my mother taught me to wear a white blouse underneath . I could see how the plain white blouse suited the somber blue fabric . This was my best dress . I wore it the day I got my first holy communion . I did it by myself on a Sunday . Only my mother came with me to church . My father was away that year . We went to church and when it was time for communion , before everybody else came up , the priest made an announcement about me and invited me up first . A month later it was my birthday and it was Sunday and I asked my mother if I could bicycle to church . We were not hardcore church people . I liked church though especially now that I could stand up with the grown - ups and go get communion . I wore the same dark blue dress and I wore a brown wool winter coat and I bicycled . As I coasted down a steep hill , a dog leaped out at me , barking , snarling , jumping , his teeth bared . I kept going and got past him . I left my bicycle out in the grassy parking lot amongst the cars and when I came out it was bent out of shape . I couldn 't ride it . I couldn 't walk home . It was miles . There were no cars left in the parking lot . Everyone had gone home . The only person I knew was probably still around was the priest . I had never talked to him . But I had no choice . I walked back into the empty church . I walked down the side aisle to the door of the room that the priest went into after Mass . I had never been in there before . I knocked . He opened the door , dressed in plain black clothes now . I explained how I couldn 't ride my bike . " Here , " he said . " Why don 't you use this phone and call your mother . " He sat me before a large black telephone . My mother suggest I should walk to the store and she would come get me . I knew where the store was . I walked over there . It only took a couple of minutesPosted by My parents ' anniversary was January 2 . When I was little my sisters and I would each sit down at the dining room table and make them a card , then deliver it on the day after New Years . It wasn 't much of a holiday , but better than no holiday at all , the last little whisper of Christmas season specialness that went steadily downhill after presents were opened on Christmas Eve . If I asked my parents where they met they said " at a party . " There was never more detail given - how did they notice each other ? what was the conversation ? - and I have pieced together a story from scraps found in other stories they told , and woven it with what makes sense to me . This is how I see it . My father was a handsome Hungarian refugee living in New Haven because he had an uncle there . He had some kind of graduate student status at Yale , but I can 't quite figure it out because he also could not speak English and was forced to do menial work . The menial work was torture to him - a man who liked to dress up and go to the opera . He 'd come to the States on the invitation of a rich pretty Smith girl on her Junior year abroad in Geneva , but when he showed up at her door at Thanksgiving she didn 't like him anymore . He 'd looked better in Europe than in the States . Life in America has been cruel . He meets my mother . They are both 28 and marriage is way overdue . My father has had one marriage , back in Europe , but it had only lasted 6 months . They are both very alone , both family - less foreigners in Eisenhower United States . My mother liked European refugees much more than the typical rich boys she was meeting around Yale with their crew cuts and baseball pleasures . She wasn 't a Yale student . She was working in a lab nearby . She meets this tall ( taller than her , rare ) dark Hungarian refugee - and , look , now he 's in hospital , and she can go visit him . If someone is sick my mother knows what to do . If they 're sick or in any way down on their luck my mother has a niche she knows how to fit into . If they are well , thriving , soPosted by It happened one evening , after dinner . All of us younger classes were in the hall for an hour of free time before bed , and it was mayhem . The hall looked like it had once been a ballroom with a high ceiling , a long , broad wood floor with alcoves and window seats . At one end was a gallery where musicians might have played in olden times . Girls from a higher class used it as their common room . I had never been up there . Below , the 8 - , 9 - and 10 - year - olds played tag like we used to do . But we were older now . We knew about sex and periods . That evening I stood and talked to Sheila and Jane . Sheila was a tall , quiet , pretty blonde . Jane was a dumpy , plain girl . They had been best friends for years , as inseparable as a married couple . Jane and Sheila were all right . They were not part of my main gang - the group of five who were the smartest in the class and got into the most trouble - but Jane and Sheila were in the next tier . Friends , just not best friends . By the end of the evening I had agreed to ask to be transferred out of my cubicle and into their dorm . They needed a third person , they said , and wanted to know if I was interested . Sure , I said , not knowing any other way to answer . I hadn 't been unhappy in the cubicles , though we liked to complain about them . For a moment , there with Jane and Sheila , it seemed adventurous to ask the nuns for a change ( I 'd never known anyone to do that ) , to move away from the cubicles where almost everyone else my age was living into a dorm room , which seemed , for a moment , like moving into an apartment . " The cubicles " - that 's what we called them - - were two long rows of cells , each with a window , a tiny sink , a bed , a wardrobe and a chair to put your uniform on at night . The floor was white linoleum . At the foot of your bed you drew a white curtain across to close yourself off from the corridor and the cubicle across from you . Lucy Ann and Madeleine and Nicola and Ann were all there as I brushed my teeth along with everyone else along the corridor , as we all changed into nightgowns and slippers and bathrobes and walked up and down to the toilets at the far end . The usual calling back and forth was there , the usual laughing and jokes that I loved to dive right into and be at the center of . But tonight I realized I had a secret . I couldn 't tell my friends what I 'd done . I knew they 'd be mad . They wouldn 't like it . I didn 't know why , but I knew I had a problem . I went to bed with strange feelings of dread , wishing I could turn the clock back and erase the evening . But I was trapped , headed down a chute in the wrong direction . Old Sister Barbara walked up and down the two cubicle corridors a few times in the darkness , singing softly , " When Grandpapa Kissed Grandmama in the Second Minuet " , and then she was gone , but I could not sleep . I lay in bed in the darkness and silence and began to cry , silently , in the boarding school way , making sure no one could hear me . As I cried I thought about our puppy who my mother had said in her weekly letter had just died at home . The little puppy I had played with that summer . She said Buffin had died . No one knew why . He 'd just gotten sick and died . I cried and cried for the hopeful little pup and for my mother who had been so excited about that puppy . She had bought him . We never bought our dogs , but this one she went out and chose and bought because he reminded her of the dog she had as a child . So I cried for my mother too and for how she had taken me to the muddy little traveling amusement park I had begged to visit the week before . I cried , thinking of her expression as she clutched the baby and gripped the bar of some ride , her clothes tailored , a black - and - white check suit with a full skirt and heels . I could tell she wasn 't having fun , but I was . I loved the rollicking capsule we were jammed into , the way it swung and jolted us . After the ride one of the silver combs from my mother 's hair was missing . My father had brought her those combs from a business trip to Morocco . As I lay in bed the loss of the comb the week before felt catastrophic , as if I had done something criminal and cruel in asking my mother to take me on a ride she didn 't want to go on . And then , look , she had lost a silver comb . I had asked for too much . That 's what it felt like . I grew up making my bed every morning , thinking you had to . I guess it started in boarding school , 9 years old . The nuns woke us up in the dormitories , small rooms at the top of the grey stone building that had once been a rich person 's mansion . The rooms way up on the third floor - some with slanted ceilings - held different numbers of beds . Some rooms had three or five , a big one had about 11 . They woke you up and before going down to Mass or to breakfast , depending on what day it was , you had to turn down your bed - pull down the top sheet and your eiderdown - your quilt . Each girl brought her own eiderdown from home . It was something you could choose , something that did not have to match everyone else . I picked the prettiest one I saw in the store , a delicate pink floral pattern . We washed in that sink every morning from the waist up - baths were scheduled two or three times a week in the evenings , each girl remembering when her shift was . The bathtubs were scattered about the third floor and given numbers so you knew which one to use , tubs set alone in small rooms . Once after I 'd gone to bed I was awakened . An older girl , scheduled to have a bath after me in the same tub , had registered a complaint that I had not left the tub clean enough . I was returned to the scene of the crime and went through the motions of cleaning - maybe for the first time that night , maybe for the second - cleaning didn 't register for me yet . I didn 't know what dirt looked like . There were many moments of sharp shame during the three boarding school years though shame was not a word I used for myself yet . I walked in blindly , nine years old , like a puppy , going where I was led . We had just moved to England in June and in September I began school . I changed schools every year or two so that part did not surprise me . But it still never felt good to walk into a new one . It was a short walk through fire you had to do by yourself . It made it much worse this time that my school uniform had not arrived and I had to wear my regular clothes when every other girl was in uniform . That was bad . But I did not say anything . That was one thing my mother couldn 't stand - my father either but he was not around much . My mother did not like it when I said I didn 't like something . It made her angry . Her voice got loud and harsh . Sometimes her hand whipped out and smacked you . It felt mean and scary and I did my best to see her anger coming and get out of the way somehow or other . So I didn 't say anything about the clothes and was relieved when the right ones finally came and I could match everyone else in my brown tunic , my beige cotton button - down shirt , the striped tie I learned to knot . I slept in a row of three girls in the corner . You were allowed to bring trinkets to place on a bureau top - I brought my two kissing - alligators - Mr . and Mrs . Florida that Leslie Rider had brought for me in second grade - and the head of Abraham Lincoln that looked like it was made of sugar . I told my new friends it was made of sugar . I lied sometimes - I always had - to increase my street cred . I was on TV I told a kid once , figuring there was no way she could find me out . It sounded so good I could not resist . " Go upstairs and wash between your legs , " the nun had called me up to the front of the class as we sat doing homework . She murmured this to me , letting me know that I smelled bad . I swallowed it down , went right upstairs to one of the tubs on the third floor and did as I was told , hoping to scrub away all offense . These things could come at you from any direction . You 're swinging along , blithe , and then someone informs you that you 've made a very big mistake . When it happened at the end , when my friends turned on me - the friends I had had so much fun with for years , the ones to whom I wrote deliciously long letters during school breaks when we were apart for four long weeks , the ones who sent me back fat envelopes with long handwritten missives in return - the friends with whom I got into trouble beautifully , like an art form - getting detentions for sneaking into forbidden territory , getting marks in the nuns ' little books carried in their hidden pockets - friends with whom I rode a wonderful wave of play and then the rising tide of sexual information . When one day they would not speak to me because I had chosen the wrong roommates - I asked not to return the following year . I asked my mother , scared and embarrassed to want something that much . Posted by I call my mother , never sure . I call her in the moments when it 's been not only at least a couple weeks since we 've spoken , but also moments when I am pretty convinced the obligation quotient is fairly low and I am doing this pretty much because I want to . If you asked me why I wanted to I 'd have a vague answer - I want to be in touch , there is a definite sense that having my mother on this earth and available to call is an option I will only have for a little more time . Maybe ten more years . Maybe much less . Who knows when a person is 85 ? Even if she still drives and works and does all the things she has always done , more or less , in smaller doses . Sometimes she refers to the future , just a little . We never talk about it for more than a sentence or two . This time she mentions how she doesn 't see well and how she probably won 't be able to renew her drivers license come the Spring her current one expires . " How do you feel about that ? " I asked . This was take the conversation down a non - family road . The normal thing would have been to say something that didn 't rock the boat or try to change its course . I guess recently I 've been wondering if maybe I 'm too shut down when it comes to my mother . Maybe she attempts a little more contact , maybe I rebuff her . " So how does that make you feel ? " was a little tentative experiment . " Well , you know , " my mother said matter of factly , " I 'll cross that bridge when I come to it , " and case was closed . All the doors in my family are closed . We do not open them and we do not look behind them . We are unknowns to each other . In this last conversation with my mother on the phone a few days ago I noticed myself not asking about my two sisters nor my father . When I talk to my mother it 's a matter of coming up with questions for her to answer . I have taken to asking about the neighbors as if they were family members , which for a few years - that at the time felt permanent - they almost were . I could tell that since these neighbors are fading out of my mothPosted by " So , how will you write about this evening ? " asked Stu . It was a sweet , touching question . He was sitting out in the small audience with me up front , reading bits and pieces from my book and talking about things like writing and memoir and whether I edit my writing or not . Stu is a big guy in a denim shirt . His hair is white . He looks a bit like a rancher though he lives in Rhinebeck , a wealthy man who looks like he 's been running things for a few decades . " How are you going to write about tonight ? " he asked , honestly wanting to know . I said maybe I 'd start with how an hour ago I realized the seam on my tight red dress was coming apart , how I searched my friend 's abandoned house where I was crashing for the afternoon for a safety pin at least , looking in all the places where a house might have tossed a stray safety pin years ago , and though I found many such places I never did find the pin . How I turned off at a supermarket on my way to the bookstore - - still thinking this was an emergency - 40 minutes before the reading , to buy needle and thread , and immediately realized there was no time for this and swinging back onto the road with the phrase " The Show Must Go On " in my head , imagining how actors must often have to leap onto the stage knowing their zipper is broken and you just have to pummel through . I didn 't say to Stu how I might write about how before the reading , before people had really started to arrive , how when Greg my photographer friend , a friendly energetic Canadian , asked me to come to the door of the store , to lean out and smile so he could get the store name and my face in one shot , how it reminded me totally of my wedding morning when I was getting dressed and Ben , another photographer friend , wanted me to come out for a shot but I didn 't want anyone to see me yet so I just stuck my head out the door , looked into the long black lens and thought " This is it , this is my Vogue shot , the one time in my life that a real photographer is going to focus on me and make me glamorPosted by He was tall enough though not a tall man . He had gone bald on top but somehow this didn 't make him look old or ugly . His brown eyes were bright and full of activity . His lips curved . But probably his strongest feature was his voice . It was strong . Not unusually deep . Not an obvious radio voice or anything , but his voice was strong and always sure and the words spilled from his mouth in an accent all their own , a Britishy accent that he had taught himself fiercely in London when a younger man - he was in his late 30s now . He 'd created a smooth English - speaking voice that wasn 't uptight and rigid , but which covered perfectly his Greek origins . He did not at all sound like the other Greeks I met all with their quickly identifiable and lampoonable accents . He was smooth in everything without being conventional . His clothes always looked expensive even when they were years old , even if way back then they had been cheap or hand - me - downs . He took care of every item of clothing as if it were precious - never pulled up the sleeves of his sweater to the elbow because that stretched out the wrist . But he lounged when at rest , leaning back with a blue and white cup and saucer in hand , drinking his strong coffee , looking out over the zinnias growing in the roof garden , his legs extended , bare feet , ankles crossed , his robe of burgundy paisley silk tied around his frame . And he moved quickly when he needed to , leaping onto subways in his white pressed cotton yoga trousers , shirt ironed , perky cap on his head . You didn 't notice he was taking care of his clothes . You only knew that if you lived with him . I was his yoga student along with several others and this is not a love story . He chose Mark as his lover , a boy in his late 20s , a few years older than me . Blonde Mark , dancer with broad high - arched feet , with large long - lashed eyes and a wide sensuous mouth , a boy who was going bald in the same way Natvar was . So I was not his lover . I moved in anyway . To the school when a room opened up in the back , not really a rooPosted by I received a letter from my father yesterday . From several yards away I caught sight of the envelope tossed onto a heap of newspapers and mail and instantly went into alert . I don 't need to see the envelope from close up to know it 's from Hungary . It 's in the handwriting . It wasn 't my father 's handwriting . He doesn 't write his own envelopes anymore . It was that I recognized that type of handwriting that I associate with Hungary and with Europe in general . I see that handwriting on an envelope and I am pretty sure there is a message from my father . Letters like this only arrive a few times a year . The letter is typed , another clue that my father is not well enough to write . I imagine someone else typing it , probably the woman who comes every week or so to do his secretarial things . She speaks English . She has been working for my father for twenty - five years and - with her husband - - has become a close friend of his . A surrogate daughter perhaps . He is writing because he received the copy of my book that I sent . I only sent it because my mother asked me to , even slipped me a $ 20 - bill to make sure I did it . It 's true - I probably wouldn 't have sent it except that I knew I had her money . Plus , she had gone and told him about it . I wouldn 't have done that either , but there it was , she had told him just as if he didn 't appear in the book . He thanks me for the book . Says that he and his sister are reading it together - he must be translating out loud to her . He says they have read only 50 pages so far . They are reading slowly , he says . Proof , he says , that they are reading carefully . There is a tone of sincerity in his voice that I note , but still hold at arm 's length . For a moment I think to call . And immediately think no . I dislike our calls , our conversations , our contact so much . I can 't bear it , ever . Just because there will be a time when I will not be able to hear the voice that was the soundtrack of my childhood doesn 't make me want to listen to it now . Or does it ? I could call . Hear his voice . I don 't think there 's a lot of time left . It 's not that I want to hear or say anything in particular . Maybe just be there . Maybe . Posted by My father wanted to be a writer . When I was little he had a typewriter . I remember a black and white photo of him in shorts , shirtless , at a card table , bare feet , a typewriter , his hair thick and black . One set he gave me , three long essays , almost all of it trying to make points about economics and government , material that was impenetrable to me . But here and there would be a glimmer of something softer , and more personal : the mention of a coffee shop on Wall Street , the mention of a child at a window . He wrote one piece called Suddenly Late Summer . He wrote it in the late fifties , at the real end of a real summer - I have always imagined he wrote it in the bare - bones farmhouse in Columbia County that we owned for a few years , driving up from Yonkers . It was a place of bare wood floors , card tables and rhubarb growing wild that my mother would exclaim about and cook . He wrote a book in the seventies , spent more money than he had to have someone publish it . It was supposed to make him famous . When I went to see him the first time in Budapest after he moved back , I saw a copy of the book , shrink - wrapped , lying by itself on a small round table . In Budapest , it looked pretty good . If I were a not - too - savvy Hungarian I 'd be impressed by this man who 'd had a career in the States and a book in English to prove it . In 1981 when I was living in NYC , when I 'd just quit my publishing job to be a writer though I had no idea how or where to begin , I wrote two pages that I liked . The piece was called Small Runaway and it was about a morning I spent in Van Cortlandt Park , taking the # 1 subway up north as far as it would go and then wandering for a few hours in woods . I wrote about what I saw - the pencil - yellow leaves on the ground , sitting while it rained , " tented " under a poncho , an abandoned car , a menacing woman in a black tee shirt . I gave it to my father to read . I don 't remember the exact circumstances of his response - where we were - but I remember him going through it and pointing out his favorite phrases . He took it seriously . Again , in the late nineties came a burst of writing and I sent him two poems . I did not show writing to my mother like this , in the same way . I did read her a short story about being molested by a stray farm boy while visiting her relatives - an event that happened completely on her watch - her response was only an uncomfortable and incredulous , " That didn 't really happen , did it ? " But when I read his sentences about " reading carefully " I again felt his great respect for this thing of writing - as if he were a fellow worshiper at my side . We rarely liked the same books . When I grew up I realized suddenly that his tastes were much lighter than mine - Somerset Maugham and Iris Murdoch . He always read , always read slowly and now that I think of it I imagine he is underlining throughout my book , something he did obsessively , hardly able to read even a newspaper without Mont Blanc ballpoint in hand to underline not just points he thought well made but just phrases that he liked . As a teenager beginning to challenge him I would sometimes open a book he was reading and say , " But Dad , why did you mark this ? " and I would read out loud a random selection of words he had marked . My father would look at me almost flirtatiously , and laugh - he didn 't know either , but he liked creating mystery and mystique . He wanted to be a personality , which created a huge impassable barrier to who he really was , something he didn 't really want to know . Posted by It was an apartment on the top floor of a three - story building , one apartment per floor . I never saw the other tenants . The stairwell leading up to the top had wide marble steps and smooth white walls and it curved gracefully up . Your footsteps echosed hollow as you climbed . Our front door at the top was heavy and made of wood . once Natvar slapped me in the face there . I was coming in and he met me at the door , furious at the mistake I had made , and he hit me in the face . I didn 't say anything . I thought by then that perhaps it must be true that there was something mentally wrong with me . I was tall and thin . I wore my hair up . I wore pressed blouses and narrow skirts and white stockings and leather pumps - all clothes that felt foreign , but what did not feel natural to me must be good . I was trying very hard , every minute , to get it right . When you stepped inside the apartment there was a short hallway with low shelves of books on either side , just a few feet , a narrow space before you stepped into the spacious el - shaped room . You stepped into the living room , two white couches that we had made - they looked expensive because they were so white , but they had been cheap to make . The two couches were at right angles to each other , a square glass - topped coffee table in front of them . On the low table were Vogue magazines , lined up carefully like in a doctor 's office . Natvar wanted Tracy and me to look like the women in the magazines . " Why not ? " he reasoned . My job was to keep the apartment clean - the living room and the dining area with its expanse of shiny pale yellow parquet floor and Natvar - and - Mark 's bedroom . Once a week I did their bathroom and bedroom while they went out . I had to be done , relaxed and pleasant when they returned , otherwise Natvar would be very angry and lunch would turn into a tirade during which he would prove through beautiful verbal acrobatics that not only was I pathetic and inept , but I was vicious and unloving . His bathroom had blue tiles that I must wipe carefully so no driPosted by " Art is either plagiarism or revolution . " - Paul GauginWhen Jeffrey comes in I don 't know which way it 's going to go . When I am in the blue bedroom and he comes in , or when I come home after work into the white cottage with lime - green shag . I take my cues . In the summer apartment with the pale shiny wood floor always spotless and the sliding glass doors that lead out onto the terra cotta roof garden - in that place , the tension is high . I awaken there in the bed that is tucked into the tiny room off the kitchen - a room where a person who wants to appear rich could house a maid - a bed that I will cover with a piece of maroon velvety fabric during the day so that clients can sit on it as if it were a couch . There I wake up in the morning . There are no choices . I must shower and dress and fulfill my duties . I have a set of duties here - setting the breakfast table exactly the way it was set yesterday - blue and white china we bought at Bloomingdales on my mother 's credit card which we will never pay . I have been a prisoner most of my life . Dexter sits next to the window in his office while I sit across from him on the couch . I opened the window while he was coming up the stairs . The room felt stuffy and Fred had complained . Dexter sits next to the open window now . He is dressed in casual black . His hair , eyes and beard are also dark . Somehow the spotlight of the conversation has settled on me . " Close your eyes , " says Dexter softly . " Finish this sentence , " he says . " If I don 't do it … " " Nobody will , " I say , nt letting myself pause to come up with something more interesting . " I have to do it because … " " I can do it better . " " If I make a mistake … " " I will get in trouble . " My mother called a couple of nights ago . Or I called her back . She had suggested a visit for this coming Sunday . For a day or two I had tried to see if I could fit in a visit with her and still feel like I had had a weekend - an opening , a space without restriction - but by Thursday I 'd rMartaSzabo You had to take sides in my house because there was a fight going on all the time . Usually , especially during the day , you couldn 't hear it . You could hear it at night , sometimes , after you went to bed . I could hear it from the darkness of my single bed , coming from downstairs , my mother 's raised voice , my father 's angry but fiercely controlled replies . That sound made me rigid with fear . I willed it to stop . During the day the fight , the war , the battle was more subtle and you could pretend it wasn 't there . The worlds of my two parents seemed like two different places that did not intersect except for the strange mistake that brought them together under this one roof . That 's why it was easier when my father went away . Even though I liked him so much better , even though he was the one who did the fun things , it was easier when he didn 't come home . Then I just had to live in one world . I noticed that I didn 't like him coming home when we were living in the small white house in England , when I had moved back home from boarding school . I was used to liking my father . " You 're Daddy 's girl , aren 't you ? " the old nun had observed one evening after my father had visited and I had demurred proudly . I had never heard that expression before - Daddy 's girl - and thought the nun had created it just for me . But now it is Friday afternoon and I am sitting alone in my mother 's bedroom , the one with the pink and white striped drapes that don 't look like curtains that belong in a room with my mother . this is a rented furnished house and so we live with what is here . I am sitting alone in my mother 's room , watching our small black and white TV set . I like just sitting here , watching the afternoon kid show . My father comes in downstairs . I hear the front door close and I hear him walk up the carpeted stairs , slowly . He always moves slowly . He has been gone all week . That 's what he does now . He lives in an apartment in the city during the week and comes home on the weekend . I have never questioned this 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