I can’t remember my first choir concert, but my parents can, and they love to bring it up. I was 2 years old, in pre-primary school. I went to a Montessori school that was big on music (choir especially), and they had us singing as soon as we began attending. Every year, there would be a few big concerts in the church down the street from the school, and even though our school was very small, there were several different choirs broken up largely by grade level.

The pre-primary kids (ages 2-3, after which they transferred to primary) usually sang about three short songs, and every kid was supposed to have a buddy from the elementary school. It was always a super cute thing, and because of the age, something usually happened that wasn’t supposed to happen. Most of the time, it was really funny and adorable, like when a little boy one year stood up in the middle of a song and yelled out into the crowd “Hi Mommy!” before being pulled back down by his buddy.

I’ve talked before about my crying issues (read my journal entry from a couple of weeks ago, Camping Trip, if you want to get an idea. It’s funny, I promise), and this concert was no different.

Also, at this time, I had several objects that I was very attached to, that helped to comfort me (though at the concert, they didn’t seem to do anything). The first was what my parents refer to as my “piece of garbage”, though it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. It was just a piece of wrapper from a diaper package or something similar. It wasn’t like I didn’t have tons of toys and stuffed animals, but that was what I loved. My babysitter had actually tied a ribbon to it to make it look nicer. The other things were two tubes of Vaseline of different sizes, which I called “mommy cream” and “baby cream”. I would carry these everywhere with me.

So at the concert, during pre-primary choir’s turn, all the kids filed in one by one and sat down on the stage. Then there was me, in the arms of my teacher, Deirdre, screaming and crying while she was walking me on stage, with my piece of garbage and one tube of Vaseline in one hand and the other tube in my other hand. Throughout the entire performance, I never stopped screaming, and I never sang.

And that was my first choir concert.

(Just so you know, even though it doesn’t seem like it from the story, I loved choir, and I still do. I was in it continuously through all my school years, and I’m hoping to be involved with it in some form or another as the years go by. This is just one (hopefully) funny story, and it does not in any way represent my actual feelings about being in choir, or choir in general.)

I noticed this quarter that there’s something odd about the way that, in our society, we treat age. It started when somebody found out that I’m nineteen. He was surprised, and when I asked him how old he thought I was, he said probably around twenty-one or twenty-two. I instantly felt flattered, in the same way that I’ve felt throughout my teen years whenever somebody told me that I looked older than I was.

And then I started wondering: why is it a compliment to be told that you look older than you actually are when you’re young? And at what age does it become a compliment to be told that you look younger than your age? With celebrities who are in their forties and older, it seems like the biggest compliments they can get from the media is that they don’t look their age, as if it’s a bad thing. Is there ever a time when people want to be told that they look as old as they actually are?

I’d like to explore these questions further at some point, because I feel like age, and our preoccupation with it, and about how we look in relation to our age, is something that we talk about a lot, but I don’t really know how or when it started, or why.

It’s the end of Week 7, and I have to say that this wasn’t a particularly easy week for me. I actually really didn’t enjoy Grace Paley’s Collected Stories for the most part. There were a couple of the stories that I did enjoy, but really overall I just wasn’t a big fan. I did really like the film for this week, My America, and I think that that is what I will do for my close viewing next week. I’m mildly stressed about getting that done, but I’m still feeling okay about it, since I still have about a week until it has to be done.

The biggest issue that I had this week was with my project. I’ve really been trying to stick to a schedule of doing one piece of my project every day, and for a while there it was working, but I hit several days this week where I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Maybe it was that the words just weren’t coming to me, or maybe I was just too lazy, but either way I didn’t get as much done as I had hoped.

Also, this week was my biggest moment of doubt so far in the quarter, where I was just disappointed with how my project was so far and questioning everything I’d done. I’m still not completely over that, but I’m past the worst of the doubt, I think. I am worried that my project won’t turn out well, or at least as well as I’d hoped, but I’m trying not to let that interfere with my working on it.

I cried a lot when I was little. Like, really a lot. I mean, that in itself I could write a whole journal entry on (and it would be pretty long), but instead I’m going to focus on one particular incident.

The school I went to was a Montessori school, and the head of the school, Leslie, was big on tough love and forcing us kids to be independent. I skipped kindergarten and got put in first grade at my teacher’s insistence, which meant leaving my friends behind in primary while I moved to elementary. So that summer, there was a camping trip with the elementary kids, and my parents figured it would be a good way to bond with my new classmates. They were a little worried because I had a lot of separation anxiety, but I had already gone on a short camping trip before and it had gone fine, so they figured this should be okay. Even so, they told Leslie to call them if I was having a hard time, and they would pick me up. (I didn’t know this part until years later. Maybe if I had things would’ve gone differently.)

I’m sure you can see where this is going. I was a little kid who already had a history of crying a huge amount at the slightest provocation, around completely new people, without my parents. I am really not exaggerating when I tell you that I spent those entire five days crying. Like, through meals, activities, boating trips. I think the only time I stopped was when I was asleep, but then I’d wake up early the next morning and start right up again.

The main reason this trip is memorable requires a bit of backstory. I grew up in an almost completely non religious Jewish family. We celebrated the major holidays, but religion wasn’t a part of the day-to-day in our house. I had certainly never prayed before. I don’t even know how I knew what praying was at that point. Also, at this time, I was in the middle of a several years long obsession with Greek mythology. I just loved it, and I knew all of the stories from my (children’s) books about Greek myths.

So, what happened was, I was so desperate to go home that every night before bedtime I would sneak off behind the Port-a-Potty and pray to the gods (Hera, Zeus, Athena, etc…) to take me home. Like, just picture it: a little five year old Jewish girl, who has never prayed in her entire life, praying to the Greek gods to reunite her with her parents, while sitting behind a Port-a-Potty, all while still crying. That might actually have been the lowest point in my life so far.

Whether or not my prayers were heard, I did eventually go home. And while the camping trip was a fairly traumatic moment in my childhood, the story of me praying to the gods has become a favorite of my family’s. So maybe in the end it was worth it, because now I will have this story to tell for the rest of my life, a story that will hopefully bring laughter and at least a moment of joy to the people I share it with.

Oh, screw it. It totally wasn’t worth it.

Written 1/28/16

It’s now almost the end of Week 4. Oh god. I’m getting a little freaked out at this point, if I’m being completely honest. I mean, I have my outline done, which is fairly detailed, and I’m pretty happy with it. I’m constantly thinking about my story, putting together sentences in my head, coming up with things to include, all that good stuff. And yet, I’ve hardly started writing the actual thing. So I just need to sit down and do it.

I’ve also begun rereading The Stranger Beside Me for some inspiration and ideas. Unfortunately, I’m finding it just as creepy and terrifying as when I first read it. Don’t get me wrong; I love it. It’s just one of those things where I know it’s not good for me but I do it anyway because it’s so good. Except this is for school, so at least I have a solid excuse.

But back to the actual writing. I guess my issue with just sitting down and just doing it is that the whole is a bit scary to me. First of all, I’ve not actually written much fiction, so it’s different from what I’m used to. And second of all, I’ve never really written fiction (or nonfiction) in more than just very short short stories, so the scope of this project, even if it only ends up being like 15 pages, is totally unfamiliar territory. And lastly, as of now, my project is still full of potential. I mean, sure, it could turn out like total crap, but it could also turn out to be completely great.

In my head, I know that it will most likely fall somewhere in the middle (hopefully leaning more toward the “great” side), but saying goodbye to that potential and possibility by actually taking the ideas and turning them into a story is still frightening, and even a little bit sad.

But I’m going to do it, with the hope that it lives up to at least part of that potential that I’ve been imagining.

Since we watched Lise Yasui’s “A Family Gathering”, I knew I wanted to relate it to my own relationship with my grandfather and great-grandfather, but I wasn’t sure how exactly to go about it. So that’s why it’s taken me so long. I’m still not exactly sure how this is going to turn out, but I’ll do my best.

My great-grandfather, Phil, died way before I was born, and yet, oddly enough, I feel like I know him better than any of my other great-grandparents (including the one I actually knew while I was growing up). Unlike Ms. Yasui, I don’t have any false or imagined memories of Phil, yet I feel this closeness to him, as she does for her grandfather, even if there’s no concrete reason for it.

I didn’t really know anything about him when I was a kid. Then, one night at dinner, when I was eleven or twelve, I randomly asked “has anyone in our family killed themselves?” I really don’t know why I asked it. And I definitely wasn’t expecting that anyone actually had. So it was really shocking when my mom answered: “you mean, other than Grandpa Phil? Nope, no one.”

“What? What do you mean? Grandpa Phil killed himself?”

I don’t remember very much after that of that particular conversation. Family members exchanged glances, not speaking, but I imagine they were thinking something along the lines of: “I guess she didn’t know. Oops.” And then I got the bare bones story of why and how. It would be several years later when I’d learn the details of Grandpa Phil’s death.

Philip Prince was an Eastern European Jewish immigrant who for a long time was a Communist and an active labor activist in his community in Newark, NJ. Later on he owned a plumbing supply store. At the time, bipolar disorder was not well known or diagnosed, but my family is fairly sure that he had it.

All of his life, my grandfather, Carl, had a difficult, complicated, and often antagonistic relationship with his father. I don’t doubt that Phil loved my grandfather in his own way, but, from what I’ve heard, he could be very cruel to his son.

Grandpa Phil killed himself in 1971. He hung himself in the upstairs bedroom of his and my great-grandmother Anne’s house, while she was out playing bridge with her friends. He left a note telling her not to go upstairs, and to call Carl to come over and go into the bedroom, which she did.

My grandfather was the one who found my Grandpa Phil hanging, he was the one who cut him down, and he was the one who was left to deal with Grandpa Phil’s affairs, including paying off creditors, reading the letters he left to family members, including his young grandchildren, and deciding whether or not to share them with their intended recipient, because some of the letters were also judgmental, cruel, and blaming.

I’m fairly certain that that was the worst and most difficult time in my grandfather’s life. Not many of us can imagine what it would be like to be in that situation, how we would feel, and how to possibly go forward. Learning about Grandpa Phil has both made me feel as if I have some understanding and connection to him, ambiguous though it may be, and has also given my relationship with my grandfather a new level.

I don’t pretend to know Grandpa Phil and all that he was as a person, and I’m the first to admit that I’m judgmental and negative towards him more than maybe I should be. After all, I‘ve never met him, never had the chance to speak with him, and I never will. But at the same time, I do feel a certain closeness to him that I don’t feel with my other great-grandparents. And it might sound odd, maybe even inappropriate, but I feel a kind of gratitude for learning about his story, because I have a deeper understanding, respect, and admiration for own grandfather, which I will always be grateful for.

After high school, I attended the University of Washington in Seattle very briefly. I hadn’t planned on it being brief; it was supposed to be where I would get my degree from after four years. But, for various reasons, it didn’t work out, and I transferred after my Early Fall Start program ended.

That first week (my first week of college!) my parents stayed in a hotel to help me get settled into UW. I was extremely emotional those first few days, and my parents were a big comfort, so I hung around them a lot. Midway through the week, my dad drove back to Olympia to check on our house and the cats, and the next day came back to Seattle.

Now, in order to understand the context of the events I’m about to describe, you need to understand something about me. I have a terrible habit of laughing uncontrollably during serious situations. For instance, when my great uncle died, I couldn’t stop smiling for several minutes as my dad relayed the news to my mom and I. Another time, my dad and I were home alone. All of a sudden, he had this terrible stomach pain. It was so bad that he was debating whether or not to call 911 (it turned out to be a kidney stone). But the entire time that this was going on, I couldn’t stop laughing. I was still giggling on the drive to the hospital. I think you get the picture.

So, anyway, back to the story. It was either the second or third day of class, and when it was over I hung out with my mom in the hotel room, with my dad set to come back anytime. I remember is that I woke up, and my dad was there. When he saw I was awake, he came and sat next to me, looking pretty serious.

“Alana, I have to tell you something,” he said. I just sat there, waiting.

“Papa died.”

Now, before I go further, there’s one more part of the story you should know. Apparently, my grandfather had died the day before, which is when my dad found out. So, on the drive up to Seattle, my dad was preparing not only to tell me that his father was dead, but also was preparing for my inevitable reaction of laughter. He knew that it was just the way I dealt with serious situations, and that my outward glee didn’t mean that I wasn’t feeling sad or scared or unsure on the inside, but it would still be tough to watch me laugh when he told me. So these were the thoughts at the forefront of my dad’s mind when he told me. Okay, now back to the story.

So it was an odd, surprising moment when he was the one who started laughing as he said to me “Alana, Papa died.”

I, on the other hand, immediately burst into tears.

The next moments were like something you could imagine taking place in a comedy. As I was sobbing and wailing “what?! Papa died?,” and just completely falling apart, my dad was telling me about how it was peaceful, he died in his sleep, family was already flying out to take care of Nana, all while he was laughing and smiling, and trying to get himself under control.

Later on, my dad compared what happened to a famous episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which a clown on the TV station in which she works dies. Mary’s colleagues all make jokes about Chuckles the Clown dying, and Mary is very judgmental about their flippant attitude. Later, at the funeral, when everybody is in a solemn mood, Mary starts giggling uncontrollably. What I’m getting at with this whole story is that sometimes we laugh, not because we think things are funny, but because it relieves our sadness, anxiety, or fear.