The Naming of Natalie; or, How Cars Become Real

Can cars become real? And if so, how long does that take? I have a car, a dependable, sleek, not-quite-so-beautiful-anymore 1996 Honda Accord LX 4-door with a zippy 5-speed manual transmission that became real somewhere around 2006, when she was 10 years old.

At the time, I had a job requiring so many miles and hours on the road every week that my Honda became more of my home than my actual home or assigned work-chair did. And somewhere in that time, along those many miles, she acquired a name: Natalie.
The more scrapes she got me through, the more narrow the close call on wack Columbus highways, the more I loved her. After more than one death-defyingly dependable escape, I came to love her as much as a family member, and she needed to be acknowledged. Somewhere in that time, also, I began to address her, talk to her, and think about the state of being she liked to be in.
When I accidentally grind her gears in shifting and she protests by grumbling and grating her gear-teeth, I pat her steering wheel and tell her, "Sorry, old girl. I'm so sorry. I will be more careful next time."
I keep her clean, because as I tell my daughter and husband, "Natalie is a clean girl. She does not like to be dirty." And I know this to be the truth, because she drives more smoothly and has more snap when she is clean and shiny.
She's growing to be more like me with every passing year; she has a dent in the back left side, and more than one vandal or careless driver has put dents, dings and scratches in her once-lustrous silver-beige paint. But that's OK, because she is still beautiful to me.
Natalie also has a sense of style and likes to wear ornaments and jewelry in the form of bumper stickers. During the 2008 presidential campaign, she acquired a nickname, as well: The Obama-mobile. No one who sees my Natalie tooling quickly down the road can possibly have any doubts about her political beliefs: she wears the entire text of the First Amendment, an Obama for President, a PROUD DEM, and a peace sign bearing a quote from Jimi Hendrix that reads, "Only when the Power of Love becomes more than the Love of Power will the world know peace" -- and it is in rainbow-hued peace signs.
She has a necklace, too: there is an angel hanging from her rear view mirror that she and I have both credited with helping save us from many a scrape or would-be accident. Near that is my school parking permit.
Now, periodically my Honda dealership sends me letters telling me I am overdue for a trade-in and offering me flat cash money to buy back Natalie and trade "up" to a newer model, but she is far too good and loyal a friend to turn out to pasture just yet. Like me, she may have a few dings on her and not be quite as beautiful as she was in the prime of her life, but she has many good miles left on her and I fully plan to drive her until her wheels fall off. And even then, I'll probably have them put back on again and keep on driving her until we are both too old to navigate. At 135,000 miles, she still is only middle-aged and not ready for the junk heap yet.
(Shhhhh, shhhh, Natalie, it's all right; I didn't mean for you to hear that. You are a good girl, my good girl... )

The story of how I met Alice Walker and Gloria Steinem

So here is the story of how I met Alice Walker and Gloria Steinem:

In 1994, I think right around now, in late August, when I was pregnant with my daughter Rachel [who was born in December that year, and now, at 17, is hipster cool] Deborah Matthews, a fellow Newark native and NHS grad, was working with National Book Award and Pulitzer-prize winning author Alice Walker. She worked as Walker’s assistant as Walker wrote the non-fiction book, Warrior Marks, which is about the ceremonial “female circumcision,” or genital mutilation, of little girls in Africa. My husband Joe was Features Editor at the Newark Advocate at the time, had written a preview story about the publication of the book, and had interviewed Alice over the phone for it, and had also spoken to Deborah in setting up and doing the interview, since Deborah was assisting Alice Walker at the time.

Now, Alice Walker and Gloria Steinem are fast friends with Deborah and with one another, and Gloria was along on the tour, journaling their experiences as they promoted the book and the film they were making of the same story. Steinem planned at the time to turn her journals and experiences and notes into a book about the experience.

If you don’t know already, Deborah's mother, Fran Woods, still beautiful and feisty today at 80 years, is a pillar of the community here in Newark and in the Shiloh Baptist Church community, and a renowned cook. Deborah had come back to town to visit her mother and brought Alice along while they were touring in support of the book, and Fran hosted a big dinner and party to welcome them at the Washington Square community center, inviting lots of people she knew Deborah would want to see, including Lincoln teacher Carol Floyd, and other friends and relatives, and, most graciously, Joe and me -- an opportunity I would not have missed for anything. “)  And it wasn’t just the celebrity company; if you know Fran and the ladies of the Shiloh church, you know how awesome the food was that night. :)

That night back in 1994 was a very comfortable evening, and while Alice was so very sweet but incredibly shy, reserved and quiet, talking to Gloria Steinem was as easy as falling off a swing; we talked as easily as if we'd known one another for years; she is very easy to talk to; kind, and so very non-intimidating. And so beautiful! No picture you’ve ever seen of her quite does her justice; Gloria Steinem is stunningly beautiful.

Now flash forward to present day: Deborah has been back home in Newark for the past couple of weeks for her NHS reunion and to look after her mother, who has not been well lately, and invited me over while she was home. We had “friended” one another on Facebook about a year ago, and about a month ago she posted a black-and-white picture of herself putting lipstick on her mother, all backlit in silhouette, that was so touching and poignant that it made me cry, and I told her so. (The two of them reminded me of me and my own mother.) I wrote, Seeing this picture just makes me want to come and give both of you a big hug. When Deborah saw that, she called me and told me she was going to be in town, and invited me over to deliver those hugs.

Thus, Rachel and I met up with Deborah this past Thursday afternoon at their family home on Eastern Avenue. I did hug everyone -- and great huggers Deborah and Fran are! -- and we had a wonderful time catching up on the past and making plans for the future (more on that later). Deborah told me Gloria is still working on her book about that tour and experience.

During my years as a reporter, I was privileged to meet some famous people and to have the wonderful opportunity to talk with them, but even in that group, this night remains one of the most memorable times I’ve ever had. Before dinner, we all stood in a prayer circle, holding hands, with Joe and I on either side of Gloria Steinem, and someone said a beautiful grace, and while I cannot recall who that was, I am pretty sure that it was Deborah, who has the true God-given gift of inspiration and peace.

Anyway, I had apparently never told Rachel this story, and as she listened to Deborah and me talking Thursday, and to my questions about what Alice and Gloria are working on now, as well as projects Deborah herself is working on from her home in Berkeley California, Rachel began emanating what I call her Madonna look, with a slight secretive smile and pink, glowing cheeks. When we got in the car to come home, she said, "Mom! You never told me you had met Alice Walker! You are an amazing woman!” [They had read The Color Purple in school and Rachel adores that book.] Now, this is some mighty high praise to receive from an ultra-cool, beautiful hipster-chick high school senior, and I don't think any other praise of this magnitude has ever come towards me from this youngest child of mine.

I guess she has never really seen me be in “professional” mode before; mostly, like most kids, she sees me as mom and a buddy and chauffeur :) I’m so glad I was able to impress her. ♥

And Deborah, if you’re reading this, thank you for the lovely afternoon. And give your beautiful mom a big hug for me. ♥ And thank you so much for helping me impress my daughter.

Betty and the Lost Glasses

Gale Cady Williams

This is an essay I wrote in the spring of 2009. In honor of my mother's birthday June 13, I am sharing this with you all. 

Not so long ago, I lost my “good” glasses; not the $5 drugstore reading glasses, but my custom-made, no-line bifocal, $650 dollar designer glasses from Lenscrafters. Since I often misplace my glasses (along with coffee mugs and other portable objects) on a regular basis, at first I did not think much of this event. But as the days wore into weeks and the weeks into months, my lost glasses became a bit of a major thing, because well, after all, it is nice to be able to see – and one cannot really walk around in the world wearing 2.5 magnification reading glasses without tripping over the blurry bricks in the blurry sidewalks of the world.

Not that I hadn’t looked for them; I had looked on more than one occasion in all the places I always leave things: Under the bed. On the kitchen windowsill. On the table behind the couch. Under all the furniture in the living room. Under the computer desk (and behind, over and on it, too). And on at least four occasions, under the couch, my usual perch. I had convinced myself that our cat, Emmy, who I swear is part ferret, had carried them off to whatever unknown spot in the house it is that she hides all her loot, to add to the stack of single earrings, sparkly doll hair accessories, and other stringy, sparkly, crackly toys that she steals from us.

Last June, this all came to a head one day when I became frustrated for the final time at not being able to see the TV, so I said, half to myself, Where are those glasses? And a small, silent voice in my head said, Look under the couch.

Slightly annoyed at the voice, I responded aloud, I have already looked under the couch several times. They are NOT there!

And the voice said, Look again.

So I complied. I pulled the heavy hide-a-bed sofa (thank God I had had the foresight to have casters put on it years ago) out into the room at an angle, and looked behind it in the triangular space there. Nope, no glasses, I said.

And again, the little voice said, Look again.

Now, because no one else could nag me in quite this way, by now, I knew it was my mother, who died Dec. 9, 2003, but has never been out of my thoughts or my soul for even a minute since that day. She is with me everywhere, giving me advice, listening to me, calming me down and encouraging me to be strong; to be more than I am; to achieve; and not to stop reaching for my dreams, no matter how old I become.

Answering her, I said, “I have already looked there! Do you not see that they are not there?”

And the voice said this time, Pull it all the way across the room, clear over to the fireplace.

By now, I was openly arguing with her. Mom, I said, they are not there. But even as I argued, I was tugging and pushing the couch to the center of the room.

Now, a detail you need to know is that my sofa is upholstered in a skirted, pleated, tuxedo-style corduroy covering. The pleated skirt brushes the floor.

When I pulled the couch all the way across the room, there, lying just where the edge of the pleated skirt had been dragging them back and forth with it on previous attempts, were my sparkly brown glasses, unbroken and all in one piece.

I looked at them lying there, and I said to the little voice, Thank you. I should have listened to you earlier!

And I could almost hear her laughing.