Personal Power | Learning Life from Birds & One 747 Turnaround

Flickr photographer jack weisberg
An updated essay from Anne’s original journal

My Aunt Naomi says that reading my letters is an adventure in itself. She never knows where she’s going, when she opens the envelope. And often … neither do I when I begin writing.  In truth, I’ve left parts of myself and unfinished business all over the world. Fragments of me are also spread across the website, difficult to track at times because I tell too many stories at the same time.

It seems that now is the time to look back into my writing … considering the years after I returned to New York from Ohio, where I stayed after leaving Victoria’s Secret to continue my eight-year relationship.

I originally wrote “Life Is For The Birds” after Sept. 11 and more importantly at a time when I launched this ‘Life Journey’ of mine for real. I’ll do my best not to be too confusing as my tale unravels. More than one editor considers my writing style a nightmare.

“Life Is For The Birds”, written Jan. 15, 2002

Forgive the superlatives, but I shop at the most picturesque food market on the planet: Whole Foods in Edgewater.

Flickr photographer Lesliepear

Last week, I experienced a life lesson in their parking lot, trying to avoid a hundred sea gulls prancing around like dancers, double-daring me to harm just one feather. I like to drive fast, but I inched along in the Whole Foods parking lot, cajoling these sea birds to give me an opening. “Come on birds,” I pleaded in frustration. “Give me a break.”

I drove my five-speed sports coupe masterfully and prided myself on being able to answer almost any question in cyberspace in under 60 seconds. I’ve travelled around the world over 100 times from New York to Europe and then Asia and home. Round and round the world I went for 10 years.

Nevertheless, these birds stopped me dead in my tracks.

Flickr photographer Belle’sDaddy

“So like what’s the story,” I asked my sea gulls. “I’m on a tight schedule; with a meeting a 3, and I’m way behind in my writing. What  can I do to expedite this situation? There is a solve to every life situation. Let’s negotiate.”

It’s important to understand that I had a profound relationship with sea gulls at that time. In the days after the World Trade Center came falling down, the sea gulls were crazy with confusion.

It had been a very challenging year for me, even before Sept. 11, having left my eight-year relationship that I truly wanted to succeed but knew it couldn’t. When the expert marriage counselor told me in front of my partner to go back to New York for my own good, I listened. Such an overt move of advice is rarely made by professionals.

I didn’t live on the water in Jersey City but in a renovated industrial laundry building a couple miles away. After September. 11, the seagulls were everywhere in my parking lot, flying outside my window, trying to reorient themselves. Silly as it sounds, I felt that they protected me in my crushed emotional state, especially when flying outside my sixth floor windows.

At this moment, however, the sea gulls that usually gave me solace were in my way. Beep, beep. Come on birds!

Just that moment I noticed a man sitting in his parked truck, eating a sandwich and watching me. He was laughing at the entire scene, and shrugged his hands as if to say: “can’t help you, darlin’, but I’m sure havin’ fun watchin’ your highly-organized 24/7 existence come to a grinding halt over a few sea gulls in an Edgewater parking lot.”

I smiled back, at least able to acknowledge the humor of the moment. The trucker-man motioned me to roll down my window, and I did.

“Hey, gorgeous, why don’t you stop worrying about shopping and enjoy the view,” he suggested, waving his sandwich out the window towards the water. “You got to pay homage to your City before those birds will let you through.”

Flickr Photographer romanlilyThe view of Manhattan from my Jersey City apartment revolved around the Twin Towers and lower Manhattan. The view from Edgewater is panoramic up and down the Manhattan coastline, with a straight-line trajectory to St. John the Divine’s church, site of that horrible December fire.

Unable to move and with no cars in back of me, I decided to share this convergence of a truck and its driver, sea gulls, and New York City.

Sensation and memory engulfed me without warning. In seconds, years of my adventurous life washed wave-like over my consciousness. I saw parts of my life everywhere on that island, symbolized mostly in buildings from the George Washington Bridge to Wall Street.

True Airport Story from the Drama Queen

My mother describes me as a total drama queen, and the story I’m about to tell you is absolutely true and a turning point in my young adult life.  There is a good-luck charm on my head. Some people seem to have it, and I am a blessed one. While my life has been enormously challenging on many levels, the forces of the universe always bail me out of trouble.

Flickr photographer Edward Sudentas

Broke and 19, Anne Turns Around a 747 Airplane at JFK

Stalled in place by sea gulls, now looking at the Manhattan skyline, I remembered the first night I flew out from this city, leaving Kennedy Airport bound for Minneapolis.

I was out of money—just a twenty and four singles to my name, after five days in New York.

My trip was scheduled for two days, but I immediately became involved in a mad cap love affair with the only son of Orthodox Jews on Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn, and had extended my stay in New York.

Now I had just enough money to get home, no credit cards back then, and a reservation on the last flight to Minneapolis from JFK. The limo driver had stopped in Queens to see his mother-in-law on his way to the airport, with a full group of hyper-ventilating passengers.

When we finally arrived at my terminal, furious and fearful of missing the plane, I handed the driver four unearned bills, tipping him a quarter for a $3.75 ride, before racing into the terminal, towing my Samsonite.

Running to the Northwest gate, my worst fears became reality. No only were the doors closed, indicating the plane was loaded and leaving on time, it was taxing out, joining the departure lineup of jumbo jets. 

Panic gripped me. I had $20 in my wallet, no credit cards, and I wasn’t sleeping in the airport … no way. To be honest, I feared getting fired from my new job in I didn’t show up for work the next working.

A game plan was urgent. My next move required a grand stand performance, and I went into acting mode.

About to commit the most serious deception and lie of my life, I said a Hail Mary and went into action. The hysterical tears came so quickly, I surprised myself as I stood shaking, while pleading with the gate staff to help me.

The situation was a life and death emergency I cried. If Northwest Orient wouldn’t help me get home, then they were an agent in an event that could haunt me the rest of my life. “You must help me,” I pleaded.

Oh Mother!

Unlike many people in this situation, I made my case and didn’t hover on top of the negotiations. “Give them space,” I told myself.

Walking to the big windows in the gate, I stood quietly, wondering why I ended up in such fixes.  These jams … I was always in a jam. My life was chaotic since the day I was born.

Misty, lying eyes were glued to the steely lineup on the runway, fixated on the Northwest nose as it inched forward. I could hear the gate agent speaking with the cockpit. Sound … silence … words … silence.

My conviction was absolute as I tried to intercept the captain’s mind. Just as Ronald Reagan stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate near the Berlin Wall years later saying “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!!!”, I stood at the Northwest gate saying quietly “Mr Captain, turn this 747 big bird around. Come and get me.”

I blinked. Oh my God! The 747 turned slightly… lumbering, plodding forward at an angle, moving so slowly but clearly moving off course, edging its way out of the lineup of planes waiting to take off.

Rescued Again

I watched that big bird 747 — the biggest plane in the sky at the time — turn its nose back towards the terminal, coming to save me and my future career. Shaking in disbelief I thanked God, promising to never ever again perpetuate such a terrible lie. Social conservatives would have you believe that I would become a serial liar for the rest of my life, but not so in my case. I kept my promise to the big guy upstairs.

Within minutes, the door opened and one of the flight attendants grabbed my suitcase, comforting me onto the plane, and putting me in first class.  I heard the captain explaining to people why he had returned for me, asking for people’s understanding and reminding them that they, too, would want his support in such an urgent crisis.

What a fake I was, as I slumped into my first class seat! My actions were full of self-indulgence … but I succeeded in my mission, knowing that I would get home that night on a Greyhound bus with money to spare.

The stewardess did not take my scotch away during lift off.

We took off together, the three of us: my drink, that awesome airplane and me. Climbing higher into the sky, I put my head in my hands, incredulous over what had just happened. Linda Anne, a small-town girl from Minnesota, had turned around a 747 airplane, with her own wits and convincing personality.

The truth of the tale, dear reader, is that we are not done yet. This is why I am an editor’s nightmare. Yet another life lesson lay in store for me; and it was not punishment for my sins.

Payback for the 747 Turnaround

Mine was a terrible lie, and I prayed to the universe that it wouldn’t come true — not because the subject of my lie deserved grace — but because of my reluctance to put a hex—deserved or otherwise—on anyone. I’m not a bitter person.

Life always hovers on the edge of darkness. Pleasure/pain; love/hate … life can change so quickly into its opposite. My elation and sense of security was about to become more panic.

For no good reason, I opened my wallet and was horrified with my discovery. Searching for my $20 bill, enough to cover a taxi from the airport to the Greyhound bus station and the $5 ride home, I saw only a $1 bill. In my fury and hurry jumping out of the airport van, I paid $23 for a $3.75 ride.

I had exactly $1 to my name, and my then brunette smart-woman head in my hands.

A Modern Day Knight to the Rescue

A kind-looking man sitting across the aisle from me touched my shoulder, comforting me, as I swallowed hard, immobilized by stress. My whole life I’m a sucker for father figures, so I told him the details of my ordeal, but not the truth about my lie.

“Where is your father?” he asked. “Who is picking you up at the airport? If you were my daughter, there’s no way you would be walking around with $1 in your pocket.”

“I have no father,” I answered, lying again but stating a metaphorically correct fact. “I am on my own in life.” This was a true statement. I left home as soon as I could after graduation from high school, was working full-time and was also a full-time university student in a school that I hated. My father told me that he had to choose between my mother and me, and he chose her.

“This should be the last of your worries,” he said, consoling me and opening his wallet to hand me not $20 — which was more than enough — but $50. 

Protesting, I said that I couldn’t take his money. “Yes, you will take it,” he stated emphatically, giving me his business card. “No, you’re not repaying me, and for heaven’s sake, call me if you have more problems in Minneapolis. Just promise me that you will be equally generous to someone else in the future. That’s all I ask of you.”

New York Wallets in an Edgewater Parking Lot

Again the dial turned in my favor. Many times I doubled my money in New York, the panorama stretched before my eyes in a post-September 11 world.

This stranger’s gesture defined my future relationship with New York. It wasn’t the last time New Yorkers would open their wallets for me, backing me in business, understanding my creativity, encouraging me to go for it.

New York has always been there for me, and while it can be superficial and only for the rich these days, New York was great to me most of my life.

A Crazy Babe Prodigal Daughter

Flickr photographer Rob Inh00d

Lying on my stomach, a young girl reading about New York City in World Book, I always knew I was destined to be part of this city. New York represented everything I demanded for myself, pulled together by a massive centrifugal force called the pursuit of excellence.

The crazy sequence of career events that brought me to Manhattan just a month after starting a job I didn’t want, and then left me on an airplane with $1 would be repeated more than once in New York.

I hadn’t met my friend Dagny Taggart yet, but her image was branded on my brain that night. Finally sitting back in my seat to relax, knowing that I would return to work the next morning with money in my pocket, I whispered out the window of that plane: “Keep those lights burning, beautiful New York—because I’ll return soon.”

I left my life in Minnesota six months later, returning to New York and never looked back. The Orthodox Jewish parents of my new love threatened to disown him if he didn’t end his relationship with me. Randy’s Reform Jews uncle and cousin had really gone to bat for us, immersing me in issues of Judaism for the first time. Their assurances that I was a spectacular young woman met a wall of resistance that we couldn’t overcome.

It’s Jewish men who have always stood by this Minnesota shiksa, but RC chose his parents.

For Good This Time

I stood with the sea gulls now, on a sunny but cool January day, looking at my wounded city. Her loving, prodigal daughter was back back for the third time. Sharing the view with a flock of birds, tumultuous years after my first visit. I was still mesmerized by Manhattan’s challenges.

I didn’t know then what I would do next … but I sensed that my demanding mistress would push me beyond all my limits in the coming years.

Returning to the sea gulls, I looked those birds straight in the eye, face-to-face, feeling a bit sad for my city still hurting from the assault … and me, too.  I was hurting, too, but my reflection on the night I turned around a 747 reminded me of my own personal power.

It’s there for us, if we wish to take it … to wear it … to accept the responsibility of living life to the max.

Flickr photographer DitB-Downintheblue
It was time to go … time to leave this New York moment in Edgewater and the Whole Foods parking lot, with my young-woman reverie lesson learned.

The lead bird nodded his head in acknowledgement that I was ready and gave the signal; the sea gulls dispersed, and my trucker-man waved goodbye. I drove forward into hope — still foolish, but also wiser in my years.

Linda became Anne that day, in another case of not looking back.  Actually, that statement is a bit overly simplistic. The journey was gruelling, and I will share the details over time. But I did decide at that Whole Foods moment, that it was time to leave Linda behind, once and for all. 

I never liked my name, and I was just beginning to understand how much I loathed the woman in the mirror. She had to go, and I was up for the makeover.

Within days I would launch a journey into self-understanding that astounded me with the depth of its confrontation with my erotic, sensual self. This very liberated success story was as guilty and self-loathing inside as most American women.

Having enjoyed a positive sexuality most of my life, I was stunned to discover just how much I hated my own physicality in every aspect. But that, dear readers, is an entirely different story, one best written on another day. Anne