Once I read a book in which a New York woman, a Catholic, was asked about the impact of her faith, what it meant to her, to her life. She thought for a minute and then shrugged, and said, "If I didn’t have the Eucharist I’d just … die." I read this about 25 years ago. A number of thoughts pierced me at once: 1. I totally get that, I understand that completely. 2. You’re being told something important. 3. Why don’t I feel that way? 4. I want to feel that way, have that sense of reality. 5. Someday I’ll feel that way. It is funny the things you remember, the things that pierce your brain and don’t leave. You were just reading a book and a sentence from it enters your mind for the rest of your life. Now it’s years later and I feel as the New York Catholic woman did.

Caffeine

Cannot limit to one. Not possible. Because first, it would be my daughter. But then I’d also need oxygen. And water. In my case, food. Then my husband. My brother. Dogs. My BlackBerry. You see my dilemma. And humor. My comfy mocassins. Favorite CD. But ONE thing?? My daughter.

The one thing I can’t live without is home. That is the apartment (whatever one it’s happened to be over the years) I live in, in New York. I am like ET, when I’m traveling I often, toward the end of the trip, start to moan to myself, “hooooommmmme.” I’ve always had a weird attachment to my homes … a couple of years ago, I took my granddaughter, Chloe, out to Phoenix, AZ, where I grew up. We went over to the house I moved into when I was two days old and where I hadn’t been since 1956, when my father died and the house was sold.  The owner was in the driveway and I asked if she would let my granddaughter and me come in to see my old house which she graciously agreed to. It’s hard to describe the feeling of joy — joy with no ambivalence — I felt when I entered. I concluded that home is and always has been the one thing I can’t live without. It’s why I feel so haunted by the people whose homes are destroyed in floods, hurricanes, tornados and fires.

I could not live without my son who inspires me every day with his enthusiasms, joy and humor. How I lived the first 40 years of my life without him I don’t know.

A clear head. I metabolize alcohol into an immediate hangover. That’s why, no matter how much I like the taste of champagne, or a good red wine, I don’t drink. I have been a killjoy for decades. At parties I’m the annoying sober one who wants to play word games and hates it when people repeat what they’ve just said. I figured out I was allergic to alcohol in my 20s when I realized there was probably a rational reason why every New Year’s Day felt like the end of the world.

My sense of humor and a good book. With those two I could survive the penitentiary.

I could not live without my daughters. That is my greatest fear. I frequently have to work hard to ignore their flights and their very busy lives that are sometimes far from mine.

A sense of purpose. I’ve never been a lady who lunched.

Books and the ability to read them.

 

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Newspapers. At my breakfast table, not on my screen. But I fear the time may be coming when I will find out if, in fact, I can.