GOING TO THE DOC

I've got an appointment, will see the Doc at 3.

It's a comfort but it's distressing, not hateful, not something to fear, but still, it looms. Will I get bad news about anything? Naw! Will I get permission to go on eating, sleeping, living, as I'm doing now? Well ... probably Yes.

When I was very sick after a car accident a long time ago I had to develop a way of handling a lot of doctor appointments. I had a list of 125 physical therapy exercises, a Physical Therapy nurse, a PT Head Doc, an Orthopod, an Endocrinologist, a Dietitian, and a GP. (Author E.F. uses her accident, a lot of this accident stuff is in "Somebody" Book II.)

The day before a Doc day, I make a list so I can arrive with an agenda. Of course I always arrive a little early, definitely on time though usually these days, you have to wait 30 to 60 minutes if you've got the kind of doctor who takes good care of each patient, addressing each patient's needs. And while I'm waiting, I'll review my mental list.

The fact is, I don't want anyone (including the Doc) telling me what I can do! Should do. Shouldn't do. Or give me permission about anything. But invariably the agenda of subjects to confront with the Doc grows in my mind while I'm waiting. It's making me quietly cranky. Don't I know more about me than anyone in the world?

The real true fact is, there's water in my left ear today. It gets there quite often, left and right ear, randomly, never both, after I shampoo. Even if I carefully don't tilt my head in the shower when I'm rinsing my hair. All day today I've been hearing a rhythmic thump. When I woke this morning, I thought maybe it was the tenant on the floor below, playing music with a persistent 4/4 beat. Nope. The rhythm has followed me. I've shaken my head, said "k" to make my ears pop. It persists. Soft. Gentle, thump thump.

While writing this, hearing it, I'm telling myself myself "Okay, ask the Doc." But, having diagnosed what it could be, dismissed it, ignored it, am thinking "You jerk, forget it!" Just now decided, NO! Decided YES!

Yes wins.

When I shampoo my hair tomorrow, I'll tilt to the left and encourage the water to head for the right ear. And deal with it tomorrow. I feel better already. It's almost time to go. I'm ready to BE and DO and THINK like me, not wait for anyone's permission, and simply deal with it tomorrow. Why? Because It's a Doc day, and a Doc day is probably why you're listening to your own thumpity-thumping heart.

WHAT'S IN A NAME

We're going to make you the Maria Callas of dance, said Matthews Napal, my agents, as I was off on a tour to South America. To perform Mahler's Fifth Symphony, a solo for symphony orchestra, in Medellin and Buenos Aires.

The agents changed the inflection, the pronunciation of my last name was FranKEL, not Frankel, emphasis on the first syllable. They were sure people were going to be giving me standing ovations, shouting my name. Fran-KEL was shout-able. Frankel was boring. And sort of Jewish sounding -- they didn't say that but I sort of wondered.

Around that time I was popping over to WQXR. (Bob Sherman, the boss (not sure what his title is but he's a kingpin there, has been for a long time) -- he'd interviewed me once or twice. When I described, hummed and sang some of the music that was being used for my "Medea," Bob was delighted. It was complicated modern music by Alban Berg, and I described the movements that the anguished jealous Medea made as she murdered her sons, using dancer language -- a mixture of words like "my left leg in a turned in arabesque, then a stabbing developé front, swirl turn, a double, suddenly becoming zig-zag leaps." It was fun, that broadcast. almost like rehearsing.

I was excited and pleased when Bob called and said, hi, let's talk about you coming in and describing your Mahler. I politely reminded him..."by the way, I'm calling myself Emily FranKEL these days...

Suddenly there was a silence.

Fran KEL, he repeated with an icy question mark in his tone.

When I explained why, he said, "They don't want you to sound Jewish." When I sort of laughed it off, and explained that they had my best interests at heart, like standing ovations and such, the conversation ended.

Bob Sherman didn't hang up. But he didn't invite me back to do any more interviews. His last name, "Sherman" is definitely a Jewish name.

(I haven't heard from him in a very long time, till today when he called Sue, our PR person to thank her for telling him about The Readery.)

Times have changed. It doesn't seem very important anymore, whether you put the emphasis on the first or second syllable, but even now, I say my name quickly, flatly, avoiding any emphasis. Which is actually tricky. I say it twice sometimes, each time a different way, ever so slightly embarrassed at the good reasons and bad reasons that they tinkered, we tinkered, I tinkered with my name.

SECRET PLACE

I used to have a diary. I started it with Dear Bobby...(Bobby Fine was a relative, about 18 when I was 11, handsome, tall, and he paid attention to me, acted like I was important which was important to me). I kept writing in it daily for many many months. I was determined to be a dancer and wanted to go to New York City and study ballet at the School of American Ballet which had pictures of it and some of its students, in "Life Magazine."

When I went to New York that summer, to live with Aunt Minna in Queens and study at Boris Novikoff's Ballet School at the Metropolitan Opera House, I stopped writing. I was in it, fulfilling my dream, and struggling with unexpected nightmares. Aunt Minna and her husband were saying nasty things about my parents. A scary thing happened on the subway traveling to my ballet classes -- at rush hour, a man tried to touch me under my dress. Then I moved from Aunt Minna's to Mrs. Merriam's boarding house, which was closer to the school, but extremely lonely, and I was always hungry. Though my parents gave me an allowance, I had only twenty cents a day for a midday snack at the automat -- a corn muffin. And my Achilles tendon in my right foot had started to ache from doing "point work," and a serious problem was developing that was going to endanger my future as a "great dancer."

All the details of that dream, the tendon, Mrs. Merriam's, loneliness ... the next things that happened on my way are burned in my mind.

I don't write daily diaries, or logs anymore. I wrote a daily something on my computer when I got my first computer in the seventies. It was an Exxon. (Hardly anyone had a computer back then). I used my daily log on the Exxon, to express/list/ assemble what was on my mind, worrying me, depressing me. It became a complaint list. And gradually I realized that the writing in my "wklog" (that's what I called it) was interfering with my real writing which was working on a book. It was "The Woman" back then, supposedly a story about Claire Booth Luce whom I was turning into me.

Turning into me ... me turning into her. So the hundred thousand Emily stories, events, inner snapshots, all those memories of dancing, booking tours, traveling, hoping, waiting for phone calls, writing letters, meeting people, performances, living ... just living ... are in a place I don't want to visit except when I'm writing a book, using myself. Using me dressed in the clothes, the dreams, the thoughts of a character I evolved in order to tell/write/make a story ... that's My Secret Place. No. I don't want to go to my secret place and write about me. That's for my new novel about Leah, the DANCER I'm working on ....

DOODLER

I like to get up early and write before my guys are up. Lay out the breakfast things, but greet them. (Both are named John).

I've developed the habit of leaving a doodle for them, a quick picture of my state of mind---am I up or down, feeling wonderful? Powerful, or fearful--fretting about something.

I'm still sort of sleepy, wondering what to do....