I”m sitting here trying to figure our what I want to say on this day before I turn 54. A nice biggish number. A good number. I naturally tend to look back a bit before moving forward. I like to use this as a springboard to help propel me. I know that I can’t help but think of Studio 54, which was like a second home to many of us growing up running the streets in New York City in the decadent ‘80’s. I also think of Xenon, Milk Bar, Area and later Nell’s but 54 still stands out as being the mother of iconic clubs during that time. What a time! What an incredible, unforgettable and ridiculously fun time. I’m thinking about Jaime Levy, Dru Davis, Hilary Morse, David Campbell, Anthony Barrile, Jeanine Primm and so many others. I think about them more than my mother. Or do I?
My mother was in fact nowhere to be found during that gently rebellious and largely incoherent period in my life. That time was at once a psychedelic blur and equally alive with day-glo pictures in my mind that are eerily bold and clear. This was also a time when I never talked to anyone about my mother. I didn’t have one. I’d privately decided that I didn’t have one because I didn’t feel she was one worth sharing about. I was deeply ashamed of the mother I had. It was MY shame although she had abandoned me. Funny how that works. Not unique or unexpected but so absurdly fascinating. I was doing drugs and crashing at a different friend’s house every other night not to think about her. I didn’t know that then. I may have thought that I was running (metaphorically speaking) from home with my father and Chip and my same sex parents that I didn’t fully understand but in actuality it was my mother’s absence that was the deadly dose of absinthe in my gut.
In 1985, my senior year in high school, I was hired as a dancer in the movie The Cotton Club directed by Frances Ford Coppola. The very progressive and supportive high school principal at the time happened to be a black woman and gave me a pass to take that job. Before starting that work I’d been in the city and was leaving my manager’s office (Kids ‘N Company) on 7th Avenue when I bumped into an old friend from my PCS (Professional Children’s School) days. She was just starting work on the film Footloose, directed by Herbert Ross, to play one of the supporting roles. I’d mentioned that I’d gone back to Jersey to school after I’d stopped dancing for two years, and would need to commute to Silver Cup Studios in Queens for the film. She asked if I wanted to stay with her on 72nd and Columbus Ave., which was a very lovely offer by the way. Anyone would have jumped at the chance to be living in that neighborhood, especially at that time. It was one of the most trendy and popular areas to live, eat and shop. I ended up working day jobs on that Avenue for a stint at Kenneth Cole and then Charivari.
While I lived with her, we each worked on our fun projects. We were young, carefree, focused and loving life. Then I was told that my mother was looking for me. I hadn’t heard from her nor looked for her in years. My father told me she’d called and wanted to see me. He told her I was working and living back in the city. My first response was, “Why?” and then, “No.” The last time I’d seen her I was eleven years old and had the Chicken Pox. Now I was eighteen and had successfully (or so I thought) stuffed thoughts of her so far down my throat that she never or rarely entered my mind, yet here she came to knock on my door. I vaguely remember dodging the calls. I knew that she would be in town for a limited amount of time. I finally gave in to at least talking to her on the phone. I told her that I didn’t think it would be possible to see her, as my schedule was too busy with work on the film. I should also mention that I lived for each and every day I had to be at Silver Cup. It was work but to me more like a party because it didn’t feel like work and I was getting paid lovely for it, at eighteen. I was not looking for anything to disrupt my Shangri La. We had some back and forth on the phone as we’d always had. I finally said no and she was furious. ‘She’d come all this way and I couldn’t make time for her?!” My reply, “Sorry Mom but I don’t think this can work.” I was in full license mode to live my life my way and making that decision completely on my own. It felt freeing and liberating. I was absolutely shocked and offended that she presumed my immediate willingness to halt it all so she could be my mother for two hours. Of course, later I would recognize this behavior as status quo and her “normal”. She was incensed with me and I was not moved. I remember walking down Columbus Avenue after that call, holding my head extra high and light as a feather knowing that I had friends, my father and Chip and an artist community ready and willing to embrace me with unconditional open arms and a great job at Silver Cup to go back to.
I’m older now than my mother was then, which is a strange consideration. On the one hand it’s perhaps a sad story to think that at this approaching age of 54 the dynamic between my mother and I hasn’t changed that much; not really so much for the better. And yet there has been change. I am different. I’ve come a long way from the angry teen who wanted nothing more than to make her feel the pain I’d felt all my young years growing up that came from her lack of presence. I was sorry for myself then. I am sorry for her today because it is she who has missed out; not only on what our relationship could have been but on that with her grand daughters.
At almost 54, I feel grateful to have arrived where I stand in my life, with my children and with my mother. There comes a time when you realize one can only do what one can do. I can only assume that she has been doing the best with what she’s got, as I am doing the same. The difference is that I had a blast growing up inside the walls of Studio 54, the historic memories of my time working on the Cotton Club movie all those years ago and have a rich, wonderful and ever-evolving relationship with both of my daughters. Turning 54 doesn’t look so bad after all.
