Chapter 2 - Creativity

I’ve spent much of my life in creative pursuits, mainly through writing, music, and crafts. My writing began with a career focus, later shifted to memoir and fiction, and also included playwriting. Music includes playing the violin as a child, then guitar, harmonica, ukulele, dulcimer, and drums. Crafts have included needlepoint and macrame. My proficiency has ranged from pretty good to atrocious, but I’ve always enjoyed it. In this chapter, I’ll describe those efforts.

Writing

I’ve been writing material for others to read, off and on, for about 60 years, often in collaboration with others. Professionally, I was the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of seven books and seven articles on mental health, social services, and related subjects. Most of my recent writing has been literary, including fiction and memoirs in both poetry and prose.

In Chapter 1, I described how my mother’s difficulty recalling the details of her life prompted me to write memoirs. I began because I wanted my children to know who I was, especially since I struggled to communicate with them verbally when they were young.

I began by writing letters to them. They were largely chronological and certainly not interesting. I didn’t think I would want to read them if I were them, and assumed my children would grow tired of them quickly. As they increased in number, I imagined them saying, Oh no, not another one.

Soon after, I received a notice from The New York Open Center announcing a memoir-writing workshop. I attended it, liked it, and followed up with an extended workshop with the same teacher, Nancy Slonim Aronie. My letters to my children improved, and the vignettes I sent to them were soon turned into memoirs. 

I then began taking workshops and private instruction in poetry with Rita Gabis, thinking I could express myself more emotionally in poems. I wrote many and kept writing memoirs. None of these writings focused on my children, and I thought some should. As mentioned in Chapter 1, we began sharing family stories at each of our birthday parties, a process we called the Legacy Project. My wife, Linda, came up with the idea, which I loved, and I decided to record the parties digitally. Through this process, I accumulated about 30 hours of family history, which added content to my growing list of memoirs.

With additional instruction from Emily Sachar, Rebecca Gee, and Therese Eben, and editorial support from Tom Fenton, I gained the confidence to self-publish. I independently published four books. One of them, Travel Light and Other Explorations, resulted from a collaboration with three other writers, Phyllis Carito, Al Stumph, and Phil Palladino. We explored our experiences of travel, both literally and figuratively, through poetry, essays, fiction, and memoirs. I had already published a book called Brief Memoirs, which contained 45 memoirs. The second book, The Fanciful and the Mostly True, included 20 additional memoirs, five of which I had contributed to Travel Light. It also contained 19 pieces of flash fiction, each a complete story of 1,000 words or less. The third book was called 23 More Memoirs, which brought my total of printed memoirs to 88, a birthday present to me, after passing my 88th birthday.

I consider my memoirs essentially true, though not entirely. A rendition of facts can be boring and usually needs embellishment, because a memoir needs to be a good story that grabs and holds the reader's interest. Also, memory fades, and gaps must be filled. When there are such gaps, I might ask relatives or friends if they recall the incident. If that doesn’t work, I make it up. What matters more than accuracy is the feeling that something essential about my life has been communicated coherently.

I changed course in my writing from time to time, from memoir and flash fiction to writing scripts. In 1990, I wrote a play called “Conversations on Death and Punishment,” which explored how people with potentially  fatal illnesses often attribute the disease to divine intervention, characterized by the expression, “What did I do to deserve this?” The play was presented for several hundred people at an annual meeting of an agency where I worked.

Four years later, I was working at a settlement house on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I was overseeing a program focused on people with AIDS and was struck by how exhausting it was for people who worked directly with people with that illness and how very difficult living with AIDS could be. I spoke with Joan Grossman, a filmmaking friend, about collaborating on short films on that subject, applied successfully for grants, and wrote the scripts. Joan produced and directed the films. The first was called “Both Ends Burning: Working with People with AIDS,”  the second, “Rude Awakenings: Spiritual Support in the Time of AIDS.” Both films were shown at separate events and made available to agencies serving people with AIDS.

At times, my writing slowed, particularly during major life changes or health challenges. Yet even then, I sought opportunities to return to the craft, including attending workshops to reignite my creative flow. To see a complete list of my publications, click here.

Music

I played the violin as a young child, but I didn’t get back to playing until the hootenanny craze of the 1960s. I learned three chords on a guitar: D, G, and A, so I could play in the key of D. If anybody wanted to play in a different key, I had to use a capo, but that was fine with me. I later played the harmonica; its main attractions are its size, its ability to fit into virtually any pocket, and its intuitive playability. You can play a beautiful chord simply by inhaling or exhaling. I first became attracted to the harmonica during the two years I spent earning a master’s degree at NYU in Greenwich Village, New York City. There, I saw Bob Dylan playing the guitar with a harmonica rack attached to his neck. At the same time, I loved the harmonica sound on blues records and some popular songs, including the Beatles’ “Love Me Do.”

After I earned my master’s degree, built a career, and started a family, I put my creative endeavors on hold until January 13, 1975. On that day, I was politically terminated from my position as Deputy Director of Public Welfare for the State of Ohio when the governorship changed hands. I not only lost my job, but I also lost my identity. When people asked, “What do you do?” I had no answer. I needed to do something and decided to try crafts, first needlepoint and then macrame. I told people I was a fiber artist.

Crafts

My first endeavor was a rather elaborate needlepoint tapestry, a family tree of sorts, which became a wall hanging.

The Needlepoint

At the top right was the word “Chai” in Hebrew letters, which means “life. To its left was the letter A for Aronowitz, and below that were representations of Inuit and African artifacts that symbolized fertility, each of which we owned because our adopted son Jeffery’s mother was Aleut Indian and his father was African American. The pedestal bore the names of family members.

Needlepoint didn't last long because I struggled with fine motor coordination. I turned to a much less detailed craft, macramé. My first project was a long quadruple plant hanger. We placed it within the stairway of our house.

The Plant Hanger

I made many more macramé pieces, but my most ambitious was made in 1981. It was a huge macramé sculpture I made for an employee art show.

The Macramé Sculpture

The piece was 96 inches wide and very complex. When the show ended, I didn't have enough wall space at home to hang it. However, I worked closely with Four Winds Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Northern Westchester County, New York, and asked them if they would like it. They did, and we hung it in one of its beautiful rooms.

That led to two of my all-time favorite recollections. The first occurred at a gathering, where I was talking with a well-known local artist. I told her about my interest in macramé, and she began to talk about the “magnificent piece" she had just seen. As she described it, I asked whether she had seen it at Four Winds, and she said she had. I was ecstatic. She obviously didn’t know it was mine, so I knew she wasn’t just being kind.

The second recollection occurred one night when I was with a friend. We went over to Four Winds so I could show her the hanging. They moved it because they needed to paint the room where it had originally hung. During the move, some of the cords became twisted. The piece was designed to be symmetrical, but the twisting made one side noticeably askew. I tried to adjust the affected cords, but was unsuccessful. I thought it would be a good idea to cut about an inch off the bottoms of the offending cords so the problem wouldn’t be as noticeable. I asked a psychiatric nurse who was walking by if she had a pair of scissors.

"What do you want with a pair of scissors?" she asked.

"I want to cut this hanging. It’s a little askew."

"Oh, I see," she said, one eyebrow lifting noticeably.

Oh, it's OK,” I said. "I made this hanging. "

She looked at me, tilting her head a bit, and said, "Sure!"

"No, really," I responded. "I’m the Commissioner of Mental Health, and I gave this to the hospital.

"Right," she exclaimed, putting her left hand on her hip.

She began to walk away, and judging from the drift of the conversation, I imagined she went to tell some gargantuan psychiatric aides to get me back to my room. So I left. The piece is probably still askew.

The Happy Hour

Even though I was no longer interested in being a fiber artist, my interest in creative expression did not wane for long. Five years later, in 1986, Linda was the Director of Activities at St. Cabrini Nursing Home in Dobbs Ferry, New York. One of her programs was a once-a-week sing-along she called Happy Hour. She hired Dominic Chianese to lead the event. I was pursuing Linda at the time and sought opportunities to be with her. One evening, when I attended Happy Hour, I told Dominic I played the harmonica and asked if I could play along. He said I could. I did this every chance I could, and it went reasonably well. After a couple of times, he let me play some solos

At Happy Hour. Dominic is holding the guitar. I'm the one with the hat.

Dominic also occasionally played in taverns to supplement his income while working sporadically in theater and film. Once, he asked me to accompany him on one of his tavern gigs. I did, and I was hooked.

With Dominic Chianese at one of his gigs

Then Dominic’s acting career took off. He soon became famous as Uncle Junior on the HBO hit series "The Sopranos." He also began playing music with a small group of backup singers at nightclubs. Once, Linda and I attended one. Afterward, we went up to say hello. As soon as he saw me, he said, “Gene, what I need is a good harmonica player.” I didn’t know if he was serious, but in that moment, I decided it was time to get serious about my harmonica playing. I contacted an excellent teacher, Marcus Milius, who had a college degree in jazz studies and specialized in harmonica. I studied with him for almost 10 years, stopping only because, in 2018, Linda and I moved away from New York City to East Taghkanic in upstate New York.

Music and Memories

Up there, I began to play at an excellent nursing home. That facility was home to many residents, including Linda’s mother, who stayed there until she died. Once a month, from October 2018 to March 2020, when COVID prevented us from entering the building, Linda and I provided a program we called “Music and Memories.”

For about half an hour, as residents were brought into the program room in their wheelchairs, I played familiar folk, campfire, and spiritual songs on my harmonica. Once everyone was assembled, we played recordings of four or five popular 1940s songs that most residents could remember.

Before each recording, Linda talked about the meaning of the song’s lyrics. We did this, of course, to help the residents recall significant events from their lives before they needed that kind of care. If time allowed, we would do some sing-alongs, which I accompanied on my baritone ukulele. Then we would end the session playing a rousing Louis Armstrong recording of “When You’re Smiling,” hoping that when they returned to their rooms, they would do so with smiles on their faces. The song’s lyrics suggest that if people smile and laugh, those around them will too, because these expressions can be contagious.

We hoped that our efforts would bring pleasure and joy to the residents' lives. Furthermore, we expected those emotions to extend well beyond the session, so they might even view their stay at the nursing home more positively. Most people think that being in a nursing home is undesirable, and caretaking children often feel guilty if they have arranged for their parents to be placed in a facility. Yet, a good nursing home can be just what is needed to manage a deteriorating condition.

Linda and I tried month after month to convey to the residents that they could choose how they perceived their time in the nursing home. Although it wasn't how they initially wanted their lives to turn out, we thought we could help them understand that, all things considered, it wasn't too bad and likely was better than it might have been.

That reminded me of a time when I was coaching a children’s baseball team. One boy wanted to be a catcher, and I agreed. But because he sometimes closed his eyes as the ball approached, he occasionally missed it, enabling stolen bases or even runs to score. Some of the more competitive parents urged me to take him out. I asked him if he wanted to stick with it. He said he did because he had spent his allowance on the catcher’s mitt and thought he would get better at it. He liked being a catcher, no matter how bad he was.

I’m like that kid. I consider myself a pretty good writer and macramé artist, a respectable needlepointer and harmonica player, a mediocre guitar, Djembe drum, and ukulele player, and an atrocious dulcimer player. But mastery isn't the issue. Being creative means staying in the game, being willing to miss the ball, and, if you do, keep trying.