Art By The Ferry

After 15 years, I’ve finally let Gabriella off the hook. Every year, Gabriella asks me, “What do you want for your birthday, honey?” And every year I answer, “Nothing, sweetheart. Just get me a card. Write something from your heart, and that will be gift enough.” Ok, I don’t actually call her ‘sweetheart’, but it seemed rude not to reciprocate the ‘honey’. “I always figured that I was doing her a favour by sparing her the task of buying the perfect gift. What could be easier than buying a card and jotting down a little something from the heart, right? Wrong. I now admit aloud what I’ve known for years. Gabriella gives bad card.

She can pick out a card just fine. I’ve received all sorts of beautiful cards. Some I could frame and pass for art. Others have thoughtful prose written in fonts simulating letters from old typewriters printed on handmade, textured paper. I will also say that her handwriting is, like Gabriella, neat and easy to read. The handwriting is important because I can think of little else to say about what is written mostly because little else is written. Gabriella is talented and smart and capable in many areas, but writing is definitely not her thing.

The last card I received for our anniversary included a lovely poem about the beauty of love, and I really did smile when I read it. Gabriella added her sentiments at the bottom in her neat and legible handwriting. “I couldn’t have said it better myself. Love, Gabriella.” And that was, in fact, true. How cruel I am now that I think about it. Asking Gabriella to write any more than her name is like asking me to cook anything more than scrambled eggs. It’s torture. So we’re going green. We’re sparing the trees and I’m sparing Gabriella from a future of stress-filled hours coming up with yet another way of saying “Ditto” or “True that” at the end of someone else’s love poem.

If I needed some sort of written proof that Gabriella loved me, I suppose I’d be more upset about abandoning the card exchange. I’m good with it. She laughs at all my jokes, and she cooks my favourite meals upon request. She never complains about my general state of slobbery. She is my biggest fan. Nowhere did that become more evident than at the reading at the Art By the Ferry Festival this past Sunday.

I was asked to do a 15 minute reading from the blog by the curator of The Spoken Word segment of the festival, Marian Fontana. I held previews Erev Festival (the night before the day) to an audience of one, Gabriella. In order to fill 15 minutes, I pieced together a couple of blog entries, and threaded them together with a little bit of new stuff. Aside from the new bits, Gabriella was listening to the reruns. While I stumbled my way through the reading, editing along the way, Gabriella laughed at all the appropriate moments as if she were hearing it for the first time, AND as if it were actually funny. And at the end, she clapped, immediately turned tomato red and covered her mouth with her hand. Gabriella was crying; a bit of a concern because I didn’t write anything that was sad. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m just so proud of you,” she sniffled.

At every piano or ballet recital, my mother would sit in the back row and sob throughout the entire performance. She would wear these enormous sunglasses in an attempt to hide her tears, but her heaving shoulders gave her away. I was mortified as a child, but now that I am a mother, I can fully comprehend that overwhelming pride. It was the highest of compliments, and I felt ready for the big time.

I don’t know that you would refer to a reading for 20 people in the old Fish’s Eddy warehouse in St. George on Staten Island as the big time. But it was my little moment in the spotlight, and I loved every minute of it. Gabriella recorded the whole thing and still managed to applaud longer and louder than anyone. She has always had quite the heavy hand. I don’t mind telling you that I find that quality attractive in a partner.

After the reading, I cleared out to make way for Don Cummings and our friend Mark Chambers who did a beautiful reading from his memoir about saving a puppy during his cross-country motorcycle ride. A little man darted over to me with such purpose I thought I was about to be served with a court summons. “That was great!” he said. “You were even better than that Ellen.”

Now, I’m not going to tell you that I agree with the man. I think Ellen is superhuman clever. I’m in awe, frankly. It’s possible that this man had an underdeveloped sense of humour or that he was simply hard of hearing. I blushed anyway and thanked him profusely. It was such a wonderful thing to hear regardless of how deluded.

The next day, life would go back to its regularly scheduled programming. “How does it feel to be with a celebrity?” I asked Gabriella.

“Where did you put all the tissue we just bought at Costco, Madame Celebrity?”

“It’s up my vagina!”

I don’t know why after 15 years she insists on asking me where things are. Everything is ALWAYS up my vagina. And if you’ve noticed something that has gone missing recently, chances are...yup, it’s up there, too.

"It's amazing how much you can get up there."

"I'm no Ellen, but I am amazing in my own small way."

"Yes, you are, honey."

Part I

Part II