Changing Sudden Crisis into Sudden Stories by C.O. Moed
Changing Sudden Crisis into Sudden Stories
by C.O. Moed
Decades ago I was an office assistant at this very prestigious art organization that gave very prestigious awards. My big assignment was to call 250 very prestigious artists and ask them if they had something exciting to report.
Most of them were men. Not unusual in those days. (Not unusual these days either but I hear it’s getting better.) Other than the very famous and very drunk male filmmaker who told me I was brainwashed to think this prestigious organization was prestigious, everyone was eager to update me with their activities.
Until this one woman.
“I’ve been taking care of my parents… there’s no time no time…” She sounded like she was fighting an undertow called “daughter.” I may have croaked out “Oh.” Or, “Thank you,” or “if you think of anything…” But all she kept saying was, “I’ve been taking care of…there’s no time…”
That woman artist was experiencing something the male artists weren’t.
I can’t remember my first holiday season with my now-husband, or where I put my phone five minutes ago. But I never forgot that phone call. Her words stayed with me for years; I’m not sure why. At the time, both my parents were older but not too old, and very independent and delighted to be free from parental duties. Even though I was making a documentary about my mother, a Juilliard-trained concert pianist who came out in her late 50’s, I wasn’t taking care of her.
A chunk of years passed.
I was set to join my then-fiancé who had returned to his home country. The artist life I had dreamed of was about to come true in a city known for its vibrant bohemian scene. And I needed to move. New York City was becoming unrecognizable with luxury housing popping up in tough neighborhoods and $5 cups of drip coffee in fancy cafés. More and more, I felt like a stranger in a strange land.
When suddenly…
Literally overnight all my dreams of that artist’s life came to a screeching halt. My mother suddenly stopped being the older, finally-free-to-dance-with-all-the-girls woman and rapidly became Old. Really, really Old. And seriously Infirm. Any plan I had to do anything, let alone move to my dream life, disappeared.
And then I understood that woman artist’s words: “I’ve been taking care of… there’s no time no time…”
The documentary I was in the middle of making went out the window. This was before Smart Phone videos, I-Phone movies, YouTube and TikTok and Instagram. This was when a “tiny” video camera needed two hands. I just couldn’t hold it while cleaning up a bathroom accident or doing laundry or rushing to doctor appointments. I also didn’t want to make a documentary about a parent slipping into Old and Infirm. That had been done. Clearly by someone who could hold a video camera while doing bathroom duty.
Between my day job, taking care of my mother, the flood of paperwork fighting for Medicaid home care, insurance claims, doctor appointments, emergency room visits, laundry, procuring food… or just keeping her company so there weren’t any unexpected events, I was also—in an attempt to keep my long-distance relationship intact—emailing like crazy my then-fiancé who thought I wasn’t working on my art because I was watching too much TV.
I was caught in an undertow called “daughter.”
When suddenly…
In the middle of days slamming together, from within this unconventional mother emerged an unexpectedly sweet and fascinating half child/half teenager. At the same time, a familiar New York reappeared in ERs, crowded waiting rooms, Social Security offices, bus rides, pizza joints, and I found myself back home surrounded by neighbors, some helping those who were suddenly Old, some who were suddenly taking care of Old, or some suddenly Old themselves.
And the real story—the heart of this woman who had raised me and the soul of our fierce city— emerged.
Although videoing was out, I could jot notes quickly in a little book and I found that I could hold a small point-and-shoot camera and take quick snapshots while feeding, cleaning, walking, traveling to-and-from medical stuff, wherever I was—a quick snap of the shutter and a note in my little book before shoving it back into a pocket or bag.
It became drive-by storytelling; shorter, less “good,” more to the point. With a Blogspot set up, in ten minutes at the end of the day, as I sat on the couch exhausted and numb and attempting to hold on to a disappearing relationship, I could slap a story together and post it online.
My fiancé broke up with me and my mother died. Yet, I kept writing those fierce little stories— they were the life raft that kept me afloat in the undertow of “daughter,” and they were now keeping me afloat in a tsunami of loss. The more I jotted and snapped, the more my mother—a woman, a lesbian, a concert-pianist, a person without money, a daughter of New York—came alive to me again.
And the more I jotted and snapped, the more this city—welcoming everyone with a dream—reminded me I was still home.
And one day, twelve or thirteen years later, suddenly….
I had the rarest of all wealth—time. I sat down with a stack of index cards and, from those 1,400 little stories and photos slapped together in all the cracks of those sadder days, I began…
It Was Her New York—a story of undying love, old lesbians, all our fellow New Yorkers and home. Welcome.
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C.O. Moed grew up in the Lower East Side of New York when it was still a tough neighborhood. An excerpt from It Was Her New York—about an old Lesbian, undying love and every New Yorker she meets—was included in issue #62 of Inspirational Art Magazine. Visit her website to learn more: www.comoed.net.
IT WAS HER NEW YORK
True stories and accidental snapshots about undying love, old lesbians, dementia, mothers & daughters, and a disappearing city.
In this engaging new collection of personal essays and full-color photographs, Moed tells true stories of caring for her mother Florence, a broke, Julliard-trained pianist who stumbles into dementia on the Lower East Side. This funny, poignant memoir asks questions both familiar and touching: “What happened to the neighborhood?” and “What happened to my mom?”
It Was Her New York is for anyone who has ever experienced the aging of a parent, the gentrification of a neighborhood, or the unexpected discovery of stifled love and hidden sexuality.
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Category: On Writing
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