That's Me, on the Right. Spain, 1967
I remember the person in that picture. She was so very different from the person I am today, and yet everything I am grew from her. The other young woman in the picture, the one in yellow, was my sister's friend and my travel companion, R_.
1967 was a volatile year in the U.S., and in my life. I had started at NYU in September of '65. I was a scholarship student, completely out of place. Or so I felt, anyway.
The spring before my first semester I had a meeting with the dean of students. He told me the school was giving me a stipend, in addition to the scholarship. NYU didn't want me to work while I was attending classes, he said. The school wanted me to focus on succeeding.
My background was a little rocky. My family had been through some tough times, which didn't look very good on paper. One might say, I wasn't a proper fit, in the NYU culture, but for some reason, the school wanted me.
Well, of course I worked. The school had lovely intentions, but did not have a true idea of what it was like to be poor. At the time I was living with my sister. She was my main support. The school stipend was about $500 a year, which in today's dollars translates to a little over $4,000. Not enough to cover living and school expenses.
I had to work, sometimes two jobs. I juggled the commute to school and to the jobs with my class schedule.
However, in the summer of '67, I received a rather large check from the school--$700. My sister said R_, her friend, wanted to go to Europe, and I should go with her.
"You may never get another chance like this, in your life", my sister said. "Go".
Another Picture of Me, Summer of '67.
That's how I ended up in Spain. I think the trip saved me. There was so much stress at home, at school. I felt like a fish out of water all the time.
We lived in an attic apartment, and my mother lived with us. It was always embarrassing for me to walk up the winding stairs to our apartment. My mother had tried to furnish our living room with her limited budget, and her ingenuity.
Our 'couch' was three folding chairs tied together by a bit of covered cord. My mother sewed cushions for the seats and backs of the chairs. These cushions matched the cords, in color and fabric.
If guests came to visit, the folding chair couch was the one we invited them to sit on.
Certainly, I would never think of bringing anyone from school to my apartment. Every day at school was a charade. I pretended to be something other than what I was.
This pretense required an impenetrable secrecy, which seemed to be intriguing to my classmates. In a universe where everyone was trying to make friends and fit in, I kept myself apart.
I broke my resolve once. A young man was persistent, and a part of me wanted to connect, somehow. So I let him take me out to a park. He came home with me. He was the son of a research scientist and lived in a posh Manhattan neighborhood.
He planned to be a writer. Maybe he did become one eventually. Who knows where paths took those people I sat next to, passed in the halls. The look on his face when he climbed the winding stairs was almost worth the embarrassment.
He met my sweet mother and sat on her 'couch'. The boy was charmed beyond words. I think my family might have fit into one of the stories in his head. The cream on the cake, the pièce de résistance came when we were walking down the street in front of my apartment.
My brother passed by in his vintage car. The car needed a muffler, and its front fender was conspicuously dented. I waved. The boy looked at me and I told him, "That's my brother."
I couldn't have offered his story a better ending. He was delighted. I'm sure he had expected before we went out that I'd be unusual, because I kept so to myself. I think his imagination was more than well rewarded by the reality of me.
Obviously, after that I couldn't see him again. It was impossible. He had looked behind the veil.
He stopped calling after a while. I think it was when my sister finally told him I didn't want to talk.
The summer of '67. So much tension in my life. So much tension in my country. When I was in Spain, there was no need for a charade. There was no apartment, no couch.
It was the summer of pretend. Every now and then R_ and I would go into a bodega and the TV would show scenes from race riots that were raging in the U.S. A dash of reality, removed from me.
My family didn't hear from me for weeks. Finally, R_'s family contacted her. My mother was desperate. Was I alright?
Another Picture of Me From That Summer
You can see in the picture, I was fine, living a fairy tale, taking a break from life.
I almost didn't go back. But you see, I did, and I even graduated sort of on time, with a respectable GPA.
Thank you R_. Thank you my sister, my Mom, NYU. It was a most remarkable--essential--summer. I'm grateful for every last, lazy moment of it.
