A Series of Circles
“Maria was a large woman with a round body. She scared me. But not because she was fat.”
Venice, California | 1967 to 1968 | By LISA MARGUERITE MORA
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Life with Lois“At a certain age, children imagine that everybody is staring at their parents, but in my case, it was true.” | As she has grown older, Sara has begun to appreciate, and even admire, her mother’s brave and unapologetic quirkiness. On the Road with GinsbergShe had packed only the bare essentials: her “Say No To Cages” T-shirt, journal and pens, a carton of cigarettes. She had a few hundred dollars in her pocket, her jacket tied around her waist, and her pet rabbit Ginsberg secured in a pouch that hung around her chest. Clothes Cutting BanditHer mom always looked professional and beautiful. She wore named brand skirts and long wool coats. She kept her clothes ironed neatly in her walk-in closet. It was a great place to hide, a place of refuge. It also became the location of the infamous clothes-cutting massacre. Club WeirdoHer first year of college was a disaster. She commuted to Manhattan every day, two hours each way. As hard as she tried to study, the distractions easily prevailed. This discouraged her enormously, and she quickly found herself spying on other passengers from behind her books. Places in the HeartAll the luxuries her mother would have inherited were lost when the Nazis invaded Poland. Her mother’s family was sent, with all of the other Jews of Vilna, into the ghetto. Overnight they were forced out of their elegant villa and onto the street. She was 13 years old. Just JoeJoe’s particular topic of research happened to be the Midwest. The details he wanted involved how many places in Illinois were named Carroll: how many Carroll counties, cities, streets, and on and on down to the last detail about anything in Illinois with the name Carroll in it. Pigeon FeedKogel’s pigeon coop was in back of the house. That was the first place they went to. He followed his father inside, who immediately began to examine certain birds. His father never said what he was looking for or why he was only interested in a particular bird. The CheatHe cheated. In high school, in college, in graduate school. He was always cheating. Not in your traditional sense. He didn’t have cheat sheets. It was far more complicated than that, and he never really knew he was doing it, and certainly not why, until much later. The Expiration DateMany have had roommates they’d rather not remember. The kind who still annoy with memories of dirty socks on the coffee table or dried toothpaste in the bathroom sink. Her ex-roommate probably thinks of her with annoyance anytime she sees an expiration date.  |
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