What We Are Worth

What We Value
On Christmas Eve my grandmother, who is now 101, discovered her rings, which she has worn for well over 70 years, were missing.  She lives in a lovely retirement home run by Catholic nuns, despite being a devout Methodist, and during the 22 years she has called it her home she has never worried about theft.

For her, the rings represented her legacy: the only thing she had left that held any real value.  They gave her the feeling that her life still had worth.

It is hard for the elderly to find value in their lives.  Most are forced to give up their possessions as they downsize or to pay for their care.  An entire lifetime is condensed down into one room.  They are left at the mercy of others for their care, sacrificing their privacy in the process.  

Thanks to a careless thief and a diligent detective, the rings were recovered.  They stay locked up now, except on Sunday when she wears them to church.

My grandmother is a strong, independent woman who has prided herself on being self-sufficient her whole life.  She developed an impeccable work ethic while putting herself through college.  She earned a Master’s Degree in engineering from Vanderbilt during the war, then spent the rest of her life teaching school.  She retired comfortably on her pension with no debts. 

However, when my daughter was born my grandmother struggled.  She didn’t have the income to buy her things as she did when I was young.  She couldn’t babysit or take her to the park. But she was determined to find a way to contribute.  To feel useful.  To prove that she still had worth.

Leap of Faith: or that time we drove to Chicago with 100lbs of shrimp

The Bare Necessities

When I was little my mom and I lived on a 38 foot houseboat appropriately named “The Bare Necessities”.  She saw its purchase as an act of feminist rebellion after divorcing my father.  She drank a lot of beer and smoked a lot of pot during those early years.  I helped nurse her hangovers with grilled cheese sandwiches made in the toaster oven, while administering BC Powders and Tab.  

The summer before I started kindergarten she realized she had to sober up.  She did it old school:  90 meetings in 90 days.  I would stay with my grandmother while she went to meetings, or join her where I took great joy in reading the 12 Steps at the start of each meeting.  Come Girl Scout cookie time, AA meetings were a gold mine.

Road Trip

After receiving her chip for 30 days of sobriety she decided to put the program to the test – or maybe tempt fate – by driving to a small town just outside of Chicago to visit one of her favorite drinking buddies.  By that time my mom was a single parent supporting us on a public school teacher’s salary.  The summers were always tight.  To fund the trip, she bought a hundred pounds of shrimp from a buddy in the Bayou, knowing she could resell them in Chicago for a profit.  Or at least that was the plan. It was a great idea until one of the ice chests sprung a leak, an unfortunate circumstance only exacerbated by the blistering heat of summer in the South.  It made for a long drive. 

But we made it there and back safely and sober.  Unable rid the car of the rancid smell of shrimp, she promptly traded in the car when we returned.

What is 40 Lunches?

I put that video production class I had to take in grad school to good use.  Take a look!

You can also read about the project here.  Please follow along on Twitter and Facebook and give the project a little love.(See the cute little tabs on the side? I installed those all by myself.)

Welcome to 40 Lunches

What is 40 Lunches?
 

Forty used to seem so far away.  

So far, I have lived on a houseboat in Alabama, a railroad flat in New York, on top of a mountain in Tennessee, and slept on many couches in Los Angeles.   I have been a teacher, a nanny, a Broadway usherette, an assistant in the big, bad world of investment banking, and done PR for Isabella Rossellini.  I have also ridden horses with the Women's Pro Rodeo in Idaho and square danced with Paul Newman in Connecticut.  On most days I consider myself to be primarily a playwright.

But now I’m turning 40 and I want a new adventure.  For the next year I am going to take 40 people out to lunch: people who helped shape the first 40 years and people who I hope will inspire the next 40.  People who are unique, political, creative, encouraging, insightful, adventurous and bad ass.  You can follow along as I write about the experience at 40Lunches.com.

What I Want

Good stories are about a person who wants something and what they will do to get it.  This is what I want:  I want to revisit relationships with people who were an important part of making me who I am today, and I want to reach out to people who I find inspiring.