Digging for Gold

After my sister Natasha, three years younger, recited her Torah portion during her Bat Mitzvah and one hundred friends and relatives went to the hotel conference room for a reception that included our neighbor Joey loudly singing Sweet Caroline while Natasha kicked off her platform shoes and threw off her fitted blazer to reveal her thirteen year old figure in a halter top and elephant pants, she danced in a circle of friends until she grew tired and took a walk with Aunt Clarissa who had changed her name from Basha to Clarissa. Aunt Clarissa, by marriage, stuck out like a tall, thin, good looking aberrant reed in our family of small dark people with large brown eyes and wavy hair. Even her mother and sister, though tallish, were olive skinned, round hipped, and brunette. Her sister was two years away from attaining a Ph.D in Russian literature while Aunt Clarissa wasn't professionally using her degree in education. She had silvery blond hair, blue eyes, sharp cheekbones, and a fashionably bony figure draped in expensive clothing. Although she seemed proud of her family's Russian Jewish heritage, more traditional than ours, and spoke of her sister's intellectual accomplishments, I overheard that she had attended college only to dig for gold and found my uncle the heart surgeon in training.



After being correct about my uncle's successful career, Aunt Carissa spent a lot of the money on their gated community house, clothes, vacations in warm luxurious climates and people to help care for their children. They also owned a German Sheppard, Golden Retriever, Bichon Frise and Shitsu. Raising and training the dogs by her own hand, she liked to talk about them a great deal. Visiting meant spending part of the time in the backyard watching Aunt Clarissa demonstrate what she and the dogs had learned in obedience classes. My little girl cousins, age three and five, swung their blond and brunette long hair back and forth as they performed with their mother. Aunt Clarissa called both girls Princess.

In the beginning of Aunt Clarissa' relationship with my uncle, she had broken things off because he went on a date with someone else. A semi-precious stone studded collar for the standard sized white poodle she owned at the time was all she would accept as proof of Uncle's commitment and, according to my family, it was all down hill from there.

“We drove an hour to visit and she left us in her house with the princesses because she had an appointment to take the two little dogs for grooming.”

“She has hired help for everything.”

“I heard she spent $5,000.00 on drapes.”

“I wonder how much she spends on clothes and grooming for those fancy dogs.”

“What about the private obedience lessons?”

“I heard that famous dog trainer you see on TV came to their house.”

“Leslie didn't care about clothes,” a relative referred to my uncle's previous girlfriend.

“She wore a lot of plaid shirts, not very stylish.”

“She was naturally attractive without being so stylish.”

“Great sense of humor and smart.”

“I heard she joined the peace core.”

“You mean she's living in one of those third world countries with all kinds of diseases.”

“I couldn't live without air conditioning.”

“You'd probably feel dirty all the time.”

Aunt Clarissa put a charm bracelet around my sister Natasha's wrist just as a lender for their walk together so Natasha could see how it felt to wear real gold charms in the form of Clarissa's past and present pedigree dogs. Their little talk was a kind of Bat Mitzvah gift in addition to the check my uncle put in an envelope. I watched the two of them walk with their dress shoes around the open field next to the hotel.

After one week Natasha announced to our parents that she would be spending the weekend decorating. She didn't even ask for help painting her room a cream color with a yellow sun around a cubbyhole area just big enough for two large pillows and a lamp. Natasha liked to go into the cubbyhole to draw or read. In a year or two she would squeeze in with Joey from across the street who had sung Sweet Caroline at her Bat Mitzvah while she danced with her friends. After changing her room, Natasha seemed to be following a blueprint one weekend at a time. The following weekend she spent some of her Bat Mitzvah money on clothes with round necklines that seemed to accentuate her heart shaped face and long hair. After starting a journal of ice breaking lines, she moved to a popular lunch table and started going to parties that included successive Joey replacements in the form of cute older boys with cars. At the same time the walls in her room filled up with drawings and paintings that started with the sun around her cubbyhole, flowers inside the cubbyhole, then various kinds of expressive plants.

In college, I majored in elementary education because children seemed to like me when I worked as a camp counselor one summer. Natasha, locally recognized for her emotional paintings set in nature, went to a prestigious art school. She charmed a slew of men and settled for no one while staying friends with Joey who was passionate about his burgeoning career as an astronomer. Men came into my life at a much slower pace who were noncommittal in reaction to my anxious confrontations. I longed to be more like my younger sister who was too focused on her art work to pressure anyone about a commitment. We were all happy when Natasha and Joey's relationship developed romantically after Joey finished his Ph.D in astronomy. Aunt Clarissa came to their wedding reception held inside a planetarium. She and I chatted in front of the moon reminding me of the sun painted around Natasha's bedroom cubby.

“Are you by yourself?” Aunt Clarissa wore a lightly sequined dress gathered around her tiny waste. Her gold charm bracelet jingled with dog breeds when she raised her arm.

I looked down at my sophisticated yet plain pink silk shift feeling the shame of being at my younger sisters wedding without a partner. “My last boyfriend broke up with me last week.”

“You try too hard.”

“How do you know.”

“I can see it in your face. You care too much. Did you hear about Sam's recent show.”

She then pulled out a current picture of a golden retriever named Sam with well brushed fur and pointed dog show posture. “My blue ribbon champion.”

“How are the girls?” I almost said princesses.

In a relaxed voice she explained that the older one was studying to be a vet and the younger one was an undergraduate. She talked a little about Uncle's busy thriving career as a heart surgeon. I thought about my relatives criticizing her princess life yet somehow nothing seemed wrong even though she showed me the picture of her dog before mentioning the human part of her family.

“How's your teaching job going?”

“It's going OK. I like second graders.”

“Here's an idea,” Aunt Clarissa's voice became a little less relaxed. Her eyes lit up. “Since your by yourself, why don't you cut your living expenses enough for a trip next summer.”

I looked at her blankly.

“June, July and August is the best part about being a teacher.” She winked at me as I recalled education degree she never used.

Aunt Clarissa became my consultant that year for how to “cut living expenses” and cheered me on as I trained for a six week bike tour in the romantic country of Italy. Feeling physically fit, tan, beautiful in my bike shorts and in love with the country of Italy I met my future husband, a high school math teacher, on the same tour.

The following school year, I brought my second grade class to Natasha and Joey's wedding planetarium as part of our unit on space. On another field trip, I brought them to Natasha's studio exploding with human feelings in the form of the sun and everything brought forth by the sun.