Et Cetera Archives - Inside Chappaqua and Inside Armonk: The Magazines for New and North Castle

A Dog to Love – Maggie Mae

October 25, 2018 by Ronni Diamondstein

I never thought I could love an animal as much as I love my Maggie Mae. She is, without a doubt, my best friend and my biggest fan. She will follow me anywhere, is totally devoted to me–even when I scold her. Maggie Mae loves me unconditionally. She’s a black and white Parti-Toy Poodle and the joy of my life.

When I first saw her, her outgoing personality attracted me, and I knew right away that she was mine. But maybe it was the other way around and she chose me. Nearly eleven years ago, when she came to live with me, she was three months old and weighed only three pounds.

I can’t imagine my life without her. She’s a wonderful companion, and she makes me laugh. She can be sound asleep, but if the phone rings and I answer, she is by my side in a minute so I will play with her. When I say to her, “You’re the best girl I know,” she always rewards me with a kiss.

They say that dogs are man’s best friend, and they’re not kidding. When a fly is buzzing around the house, she’s right there to alert me and to guard me. She alerts me when I have accidentally left the front door ajar or if there’s something in the wrong place. And then there is Maggie Mae neighborhood watchdog. She can spot a car blocks away and frequently knows who’s in it.

As a perennial single person, I have lived alone for most of my adult life, and it is easy for a single person to become self-indulgent. Having to think about the well-being and care of another were valuable changes for me. That’s one reason I’m so grateful for Maggie Mae’s presence in my life. She also keeps me healthy. No matter what the weather, I am outside with Maggie Mae at least three times a day. We take long walks that are good for both of us–and not just physically. I often get good ideas as we walk. One was her Maggie Mae Pup Reporter column that many of you read in this magazine for years. I’m also grateful because she has made my life more interesting. I learned to write from a dog’s point of view.

As many of you readers know, Maggie Mae is “personable” and well-known by merchants in town. She has high self-esteem, which shows in the way she carries herself and walks down our streets and into the shops as if she owned Chappaqua. Other people notice her, and I could not have been more proud when Sophie Mendelson included her in the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival mural in the center of town.

Maggie Mae loves to ride in the car and is a great traveling companion who’s always happy with whatever we do. Since she was a puppy, she’s been a regular guest at the Red Lion Inn and has many fans in Stockbridge and the Berkshires.

As much as Maggie Mae loves to snuggle up next to me, especially when I am doing something that doesn’t include her, she is an independent dog who often likes to be alone. She’ll go into her crate, lie on her bed or find a square of sunlight on the carpet just to chill.

My heart is bigger than I ever thought. I love Maggie Mae’s little kisses, how she curls up at my feet to give me a hug. How she puts her head under my hand so I can pet her. I love her wagging tail and how she waits for me at the door.

So little can make her happy and that is a lesson we can all learn.

And as I was writing this, she came up to me, leaned in, pushed my pad and pen away and climbed on my lap. I can’t imagine life without Maggie Mae. She’s my girl and I love her dearly.

Finding Gratitude During a Mental Health Crisis

October 24, 2018 by Marlene Kern Fischer

I really don’t know how it happened. I had some physical, hormonal and emotional stressors early in the summer, which apparently became the perfect storm for an emotional breakdown. My anxiety, which has been a part of me for decades, erupted full force and consumed all of me. It so consumed me that I was unable to function. I stopped eating, sleeping, engaging with the world and felt panicked almost constantly.

On this journey, I have discovered that mental health issues are far more difficult to get a handle on than physical issues, and far more painful. Answers and cures are elusive. But even as I wage this war against my own mind, I realize that I have much to be grateful for.

1. I am grateful and stunned by the number of people who contacted me privately to tell me of their own struggles. Mental health issues are ubiquitous, so much so that it is challenging to get appointments for help because doctors are so busy.

2. I am grateful for an absolutely incredible support system that starts, but does not end, with my family. There are actually no words for how incredible my husband has been. Holding my hand, reassuring me, driving me to appointments, staying up with me countless nights, finding patience for me again and again. My kids, mom and mother-in-law have also been amazing, and their compassion and love has sustained me. I am grateful to be able to rely on my sons, especially my 17-year-old, who has pitched in without complaint and become a man almost overnight. I know this hasn’t been easy for any of them, but they have risen to the challenge.

3. I am grateful for and overwhelmed by the love and support of my extended support system of friends and acquaintances. During this time, through my distress, I have been able to feel, if not always acknowledge, the help from friends and family. I thank everyone who has called, texted or written to inquire about me. I thank those friends who have driven me places when I have not been able to drive myself and been there for me without judgment. I appreciate every gesture, even if I haven’t been able to answer. I’ve had limited ability and energy to reach out but despite that the calls and messages keep coming.

4. I am grateful to have the resources to explore many different kinds of therapies. Here are some of the things I’ve tried thus far; medication, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Hypnosis (really), meditation, yoga, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), functional medicine, homeopathy and acupuncture. I will weigh in at some point on what helped me the most. Voodoo medicine is not out of the question. And I am mindful that I am extremely lucky to be able to pursue various remedies and to focus on getting well.

Trying to heal has been a full-time job. But just knowing people are out there and are willing to help is a comfort. If you have a friend who is going through something like this, please continue to reach out to them even if you get a tepid or no response. Even when I don’t acknowledge them, friends’ messages mean the world to me. Mental health issues really do take a village.

I hope that by discussing this openly, I can help someone else who is keeping their struggles to themselves. I hope to write at length about my experiences someday soon but I’m still in the middle of this journey I had no desire to take. I know that I can only reflect when I have some perspective and I’m not there yet. I am still battling to find my way back.

I have newfound compassion and respect for anyone who has ever struggled in a similar way. I hope to come out the other side stronger than I was before and be a voice and advocate for others. I hope someday people can openly say, “me too” about their mental health challenges.

My School Days as a Twin

August 29, 2018 by Julia Bialek

(L-R): Rebecca and Julia Bialek on the first day of kindergarten
PHOTO COURTESY OF JULIA BIALEK

I have a twin sister, but we were born on different days. Throughout our lives, our parents worked hard to ensure that we were not grouped as a unit; in their minds, the fact that we shared a womb had no bearing on our ability to act and be treated as individual people. And it doesn’t. Whether it was pure luck or my mom’s greatest intentional gift to us (as she will claim), the fact that my sister was born before midnight and I was born after has profoundly impacted the course of our lives. Our separate birthdays have infused a sense of individuality into both of us from the very beginning, allowing us to retain our own identities. Yes, we are twins, but we aren’t “the twins.” We are Julia and Rebecca. It only made sense that when the first days of school approached, my parents continued this arrangement.

Parents of twins have a choice: place their twins in the same classes or separate them. Naturally, my parents elected to separate us, placing us in different classrooms in which to grow and learn independently of the other. Although one of the built-in perks of having a twin is never needing to face a new situation alone, our parents wanted to provide us with the space to become our own people. I am so grateful for that. As we enter our senior year and reflect on our time as students, people, and twin sisters, it has never been more apparent how much of a gift that decision has been. Thank you mom and dad.

Growing up as twins, Rebecca and I have experienced most of our milestones and achievements together, from first days of school and first days of camp, to becoming bat mitzvahs and getting our driver’s licenses. In many cases, the memories I lay claim to also belong to her, with our shared experiences outnumbering our individual ones. But when it comes to school, most of my memories belong solely to me, as our separate educational paths have rarely collided. We always had different teachers, we were always in different classes, and we were always happy that way. As twins, we have spent nearly 18 full years side-by-side, growing up in rooms next to each other, spending the summers in the same bunk at camp, coming home to the same house, and so on. Despite our love for each other, that is a lot of time to spend with one person. Going to school each day allowed us to spend healthy time apart, providing us with a place to be our own people (albeit in the same building). In fact, school is the only place where our individual memories, experiences, and stories outnumber our shared ones.

Spending our days separately and pursuing our educations independently of the other, my sister and I have been able to learn, grow, and prosper in our own unique ways. That time apart, that time to explore who we are without the influence of the other twin, has been essential in shaping the people we have become. For my sister and me, being twins has always meant going through life as our own people, just doing it next to each other. But as college approaches and my sister and I face being separated by a greater distance than just our bedroom wall, we are confronted with the reality that we must continue our lives as our own people, but not side-by-side. For the first time in our entire lives, not only will our educational careers be separate, but our entire lives will be separate.

For the first time in our entire lives, we will not be together.

As we tour colleges, write applications, and begin our last year of living together in the same home, I cannot help but wonder how different our lives are going to be without having the other twin a shouting distance away. Even though Rebecca and I have very different personalities and interests, even though we were happy to be in separate classes, even though we are both ready for this change, it is going to be a shock to live without her. I have never known life without my twin sister, and I know that I will have to cope with a Rebecca-shaped hole in my life. It feels like yesterday that we were walking off of the bus together after our first day of kindergarten, and now we are seniors in high school preparing to live our lives as independent people in college. While it feels surreal that time has passed so quickly, I am eased by the knowledge that my twin sister is experiencing these changes with me, even if she is not residing in the bedroom next door.

As we approach this new and exciting time in our lives, I realize that this is the first chapter of my story that will not feature my twin sister as a main character. But Rebecca, as we continue to write our narratives and live our lives, I want you to know that I am me because of you. You will always be an important part of my story, because you are an important part of me.

Courage & Compassion in Times of Crisis: The Keys to Helping Yourself or Anyone You Know

August 29, 2018 by Geri Mariano

Full Disclosure: I was not an active follower of either Kate Spade or Anthony Bourdain. In this day and age of social media and celebrity, I certainly knew who both were and what each brought to the table, pun intended. I never purchased the eponymous bag that made Miss Spade a household name. I should have been quite a fan of Mr. Bourdain, but truth be told, watching his programs discouraged me in recent years. I was reminded of all I have lost since the first of three major surgeries left me even more mobility impaired than I had been for the first 42+ years of my life. Additional truth be told, I’m a fashionista wanna-be born in the wrong body and a frustrated hostess with the mostess not to mention a grounded adventurer.

The two recent high profile suicides early this summer raised the serious topic of depression once again. It takes the hard to believe self-inflicted deaths of the famous for this to be covered in the news with the exception of occasional reporting on teen suicide as well as the high suicide rate among veterans. The death of beloved Robin Williams highlighted the topic that still today seems taboo. The vast majority of his fans, knowing him only from the small or big screens making us laugh, found it unbelievable that he could be desperately unhappy, depressed. Do we really WANT to know that friends, family or celebrities can be feeling hopeless?

Many who have read my blogs or followed my Just Call Me Geri Facebook page probably know that my Mother (the one who chose me from a newspaper picture), from my earliest consciousness, taught me the importance of not feeling sorry for myself. The message included the tacit warning that no one would like me if I showed self-pity. It was only decades later that I would learn that there is a significant difference between whining and legitimately feeling down due to my circumstances.

By no means have I had the worst life, far from it, but I started life with strikes against me, first being born in a deformed shell with a condition called Diastrophic Dysplasia (some still call it dwarfism) that would embody my soul and personality. Being abandoned in the hospital by biological parents who left instructions behind that “no pictures to be taken of this baby” added 2nd and 3rd strikes, yet I was never out.

I won’t list the entire litany of hardships faced through 50 years but some include:

Being asked why I would want to have a baby and do to them what happened to me;
Being humiliated at a summer camp by someone supposedly to have been family;
Hearing sighs, groans and whispers when people had to help me in/out of cars or up stairs (who’s going to help Geri?”) and to stay away during emergencies;
Being “gently” told I could never provide a home for a man I had feelings for and not to expect to ever get married;
Being “harassed” by a married man who knew I would have little to no other intimate opportunities;
Being belittled and disrespected in hospital facilities when known I was alone;
Having inappropriate medical treatments or not having appropriate medical interventions due to Government restrictions;
Being at mercy of caregivers, who can be rude, rough and larcenous;
Being told I’m too depressing to talk to …

When at 40 I had finally obtained a Master’s Degree to begin a long in trying to figure out career, I was soon stymied, having that career cut short by three surgeries that left me in worse shape than before. The last two surgeries I never would have consented to if I had been warned my mobility would be all but lost completely. I would have opted for shorter life span over non quality of life. When over 10–30 years ago I’d fall into pits of despair, I struggled mightily, conjured up plans, fingering bottles of medication, really my only option. Remembering the haunting conclusion of Edith Wharton’s “Ethan Frome” always prevented me from trying anything self destructive with my car, the only other possible tool at my disposal. Yet, I always dug deep, as far inside as I could to keep the wavering flame from going out. Once such night in the wee hours, I remember sitting on the floor by my bed sobbing with heaving muted screams. What brought me back was thinking of “my kids” and their parents …how would they explain to them that I gave up?

This disclosure can possibly hurt my alternate career in the making …aiming to be a successful inspirational speaker but this is my truth. I cannot be phony. I’m not asking for people to feel sorry for me, but to understand that there are no easy answers.

More additional truth be told, I’d much rather laugh than cry. I actually enjoy having others laugh at my sometimes corny, other times bawdy, humor. I really should find an amateur Stand Up/Sit Down Comedy venue. Ridiculous irony from the universe, I’m rather an extrovert. God couldn’t have made me an agoraphobic?

I have my “highs” when I have several speaking engagements booked but then the “lows” (oxymoronic?) come rising up. (oxymoronic?) when I can’t seem to break through, catch that one break. My life is not one that made headlines because of a national crisis such as the Boston Marathon Bombing. I didn’t lose limbs while fighting for my Country. I didn’t grow up in

the age of social media where Promposals to kids with Special Needs go viral. I do not begrudge today’s kids who benefit from widespread inclusion.

I do not begrudge these later generations of kids who have benefited from widespread inclusion. In fact, I’d like to think I helped pave the way. Perhaps I have been “of use” to quote John Irving’s Dr. Larch.

Depression can take deep hold of anyone. For those suffering, suicide can seem like the only way out. Others may see it as selfish. Feeling like a burden is not easy but once a person has that initial thought, it becomes nearly impossible to erase it from one’s mindset. Please have compassion for those who have left via their own actions. And if you “can handle the truth,” reach out to those who may be struggling. When I encourage students to look after each other, I ask, “wouldn’t you want someone to look after you?” For those who are struggling, please try to let someone know you’re hurting, reach deep down inside and find the courage to reach out for assistance without shame. Keep your flame lit!

Learning to Love My Dad Bod

June 1, 2018 by Daniel Levitz

So apparently having a Dad Bod is now a “thing.” You can certainly Google the term or drop it in a conversation. Most likely someone will chuckle and refer to a loved one who can be described as such. A Dad Bod, essentially, is a physique of middle-age that can been described as masculine, reasonably muscular and slightly overweight. What is intriguing and, counter-intuitive, are the positive connotations almost universally associated with this common and easy to achieve body type. Putting aside years of denial, I’m prepared to admit to having a Dad Bod but also to realizing that the concept is some kind of odd societal rationalization that is in reality just vaguely insulting to men and women.

Personally, I’ve had my weight fluctuate over the years for many reasons. I can say, first hand, that being too thin or too heavy can be really unpleasant. Of course, I’d like to be as fit-looking as possible but eventually one realizes that certain physical ideals may never be fully achieved. For me, probably the best personal state of my body is to be a few pounds heavier than I’d actually like to be. Aesthetically, believe me, this is not a thrilling state of existence but with maturity (Ha!) I’ve realized that the way I look is secondary to being as healthy a person as I can reasonably manage. What’s particularly galling about the Dad Bod movement is that while I’m strenuously trying to accept myself, it somehow makes this effort more difficult by making me feel slightly patronized by an entire culture.

I’d love to be writing this as an exotically rare middle-aged Dad with wash-board abs, 20:20 vision and a fast metabolism but I most definitely have to check none-of-the-above on those. From that super-fit perspective, I imagine it would be so easy to be enthusiastically supportive about the Dad Bod thing precisely because I wouldn’t be stuck in one. However, living in this body, as I must, I refuse to smile politely if someone wants to essentially say that the very same body I am regularly struggling to learn to accept is now, (drumroll please) objectively attractive. I just don’t buy it. There is some kind of passive-aggressive condescension connected with the embracing of Dad Bods.

As for the female members of our culture, I can only imagine how they must feel about the acceptance and celebration of Dad Bods. It’s something of a cliché but I’ve heard women confirm the difficulty in dealing with their own aging process in comparison to men. You know, men become more distinguished, the lines on their face only add character, etc. This is a societal reality. Look at movie stars. Clooney & Pitt will be leading men for decades to come because they’re perceived as only getting better looking as they age. Leading ladies of the movies hit the age of 40 and abruptly must decide between character parts, plastic surgery or professional oblivion.

Why is there no female version of the Dad Bod? The closest thing I can think of is Mom Jeans and that association is quite the opposite of the now sexy Dad Bod. Why are we, culturally, not prepared to embrace women with a female version of the Dad Bod as universally attractive? Obviously, in 2018, there’s still a lot of work to be done on gender roles in society. If Dad Bods are, presumably, built upon men who have worked hard professionally and, perhaps, parented as well, then why aren’t women afforded the same leeway in how their bodies evolve? Especially considering how child-birth can affect one’s physical being. It just doesn’t seem fair.

I suppose what really irks me with the whole Dad Bod phenomenon is the reality of analyzing someone’s physical appearance and imparting a judgement upon that particular bodily state. There is an impermanence of one’s physicality that is just a fact of human existence. I question why we assume that being kind about chubby Dads is any more appropriate than telling a woman she looks sexy or criticizing someone for being too fat or thin.

Don’t get me wrong. I know attaching the Dad Bod moniker to a middle-aged gentleman is essentially a way of saying we love you just the way you are. That’s a great lesson. We should all learn to love acceptingly as best we can. However, as a reluctant member of the Dad Bod club, I implore you to think about what you are actually saying when you label your slightly corpulent loved one as such. Might I suggest a karaoke dedication of Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are” instead? Just not Dad Bod. Please.