Naomi Newman

A few weeks ago, I had RSVP'ed to attend the 25th anniversary party of Mustard's Grill, that culinary lodestar that placed Napa on the map not only as a wind destination but a gourmet valley.  Greatest food, finest wine, music and from the invitation, what promised to be a never ending stream of Napa society, foodies from everywhere, celebs, and Cindy Pawson's own down-home set (I'm in this group as a recent friend).  With the advice for local hotel stay-overs and limo-sharing from the city, Cindy was planning to rock us out into the AM.  The Big Fun -- and gratis.

I was subsequently asked to attend a private preview performance of Rose,  a two hour monologue (it turned out) performance piece by a dear friend, Naomi Newman, actress, director, writer and founder of A Traveling Jewish Theater. Naomi and I had been allies, and then friends, in transforming part of a major and world reknown Bay Area spiritual community.  We had been there for each other during the tough corners of those loving although frustrating years.  In quieter times, she was the one to reach out for dinners and invites to her theater and I reciprocated with invites to parties at my then partner's rather large house.

Initially, I declined due to the conflict, but later thought that I had consumed enough fine food, drank enough good wine, and partied enough for a few lifetimes.  And somehow it felt more important to show up for Naomi to support her in infusing Rose with the magic of theater before its L.A. tour later this summer.  And so to my surprise, I blew the gala party, and drove over to Project Artaud Theater on a cold, overcast, and quiet SF Monday evening.

Rose turned out to be two hours long and the 10 or us barely dented the seating in the theater.  It was an oft-night of course  and so there were no refreshments for sale during the intermission.  Still, although a well known narrative, Naomi's performance was  rich, emotional, and captivated us as the character Rose, related her her life as a child in a Ukranian village, surviving the Holocaust by living in sewers, almost smuggled into Israel, her adult life in the US on Coney Island and Atlantic City, and finally her retirement in Miami Beach among the Narco Trafficante mob.  Rose, in her dotage, at times couldn't tell whether her earlier memories were really from scenes in Fiddler on the Roof and Exodus.

It was so right to have shown up for Naomi.

Over this working weekend,  I took some time to attend a memorial gathering for an old high school English teacher of mine, Robert Tate Winkley.  He was my English teacher at Galileo High School, San Francisco, a literal giant of a man at 6'5"+ with a Tartar's moustache and a trim, broad body.  He clearly loved teaching and read every line of the daily journal that was but one part of our semester's homework, as attested to by his famous red pen comments.  Mr. Winkley, or Bob, as I came to know him after graduation, told me time and again that I could write, and to keep at it. Later, in other classes he introduced me to what we use to call World Lit, actually European writers, and encouraged me to attend films at art houses and Shakespearean plays performed at the playhouses that dotted Beach Street by SF's Aquatic Park.  In this way, he broadened my view of art, culture, and life.

One Christmas, he invited me to his house in the then unknown Noe Valley district where his gourmand wife, Marilyn cooked up a feast.  They introduced me to fresh-ground Chemex filtered coffee (Hills Brother canned coffee was de riguer then) and later, to margaritas at La Rondellas, an infamous Tex-Mex joint in the Mission District.  We had started to become friends.

But then we didn't see each other for decades.  When my memoir, The Eighth Promise, came out in 2008, I received an e-mail from him, the kind where someone starts by saying "You probably don't remember me, but...,"  Of course, I remembered him keenly, and earlier drafts of the chapter "All American High School" included paragraphs of our relationship, as I told him over the phone.  After a long, warm conversation, his tone shifted as he started to reference a certain section in the book with a "red pen" voice.  "You're retired from teaching and I'm no longer your student," I quickly interjected as we laughed and continued our talk.

Of course, we agreed to hook up and despite a crazy year of promotion that was 2008 plus a year-end trip to China for a month, I did call him to do so.  But he hadn't been feeling well and with my sked, it slipped.   As if giving me a final chance, I bumped into a mutual friend a couple of months ago and that jolted my memory to call him. Well,I ignored the sign and never did call him and apparently, it wasn't just a season's flu as Bob suddenly died on June 19th.  

I didn't show up for us actually and I feel this deep regret now.

I almost didn't make the memorial either.  The mind can manufacture so many reasons.  Under a spreading fruit tree, of over a hundred friends, three generations of family, and the members of a relatively unknown sport, Papenque (sic) gathered.  Maxine Hong-Kingston as mistress of ceremonies effortlessly and smoothly led us through memories and tears and joy.  Then we joined in the fine kind of feast Bob would have praised himself, including the French cheeses he loved.  He was, as I found out that day, a Francophile and a sailor, two of my enthusiasms that we might have shared last year. 

I felt his presence in the Japanese garden he had built (although never having been to Japan) and his vegetable garden, too, for he so loved good food.  His spirit was in those gathered and of course, a piece of that lives in me.

Still, I wish I had shown up last year when he was alive.