Chapter 2 - Creativity

I’ve spent much of my life trying to be creative, mainly through writing, music, and crafts. Writing has been both literary and career-related. Music has included playing the violin as a child, and then playing guitar, harmonica, ukulele, dulcimer, and a drum. 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.

I’ve been writing material for others to read off and on for about 60 years, frequently 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. Almost all of my recent writing has been in a literary vein, including fiction and memoirs.

In Chapter 1, I described how my mother’s difficulty recalling the details of her life became the impetus for me to write memoirs. It began because I wanted my children to know who I was, particularly because I had such difficulty communicating with them 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 workshop on memoir writing. 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. . Calling myself a writer felt a little presumptuous, but I got past it.

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 were focused on my children, and I thought some should be. As mentioned in Chapter 1, we began sharing family stories at each of our birthday parties, a process we called a Legacy Project. My wife, Linda, came up with the idea, which I loved and I decided that they would be digitally recorded. Through this process, I was able to accumulate about 30 hours of family history, which added to my growing list of memoirs.

With additional instruction by Emily Sachar, Rebecca Gee, and Therese Eben, I gained the confidence to self-publish my writing, with assistance from Tom Fenton. I independently published four books. One of them, Travel Light and Other Explorations , was the product of a collaboration with three other writers. Each of us explored our experiences of travel, both literally and figuratively, through poetry, essays, fiction, and memoirs. I had already published a book called Brief 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, complete stories containing 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 some need embellishment. 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 a relative or friend for help. 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 preserved and communicated coherently.

There were times when my writing slowed, particularly during major life changes or health challenges. Yet even during those periods, I sought opportunities to return to the craft, including attending workshops to reignite my creative flow. If you want to see a complete list of my publications, click here.

Music

I played the violin as a young child but, although I loved listening to good music, I didn’t get back to playing it 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 primary attractions being its size, fitting into virtually any pocket, and its ability to be played intuitively. It‘s possible to play a beautiful chord simply by inhaling or exhaling. I became attracted to the harmonica during the two years I spent getting a master’s degree at NYU in New York’s Greenwich Village. 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.”

I got married after I received my master’s degree, and building a career and then a family consumed most of my time and energy; I would only play the guitar and harmonica occasionally, and never proficiently. My creative endeavors were put 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 sense of identity. When people asked, “What do you do?” I had no answer. I needed to do something so I would know who I was, even when no one was asking. I decided to spend much of my time on crafts, first on needlepoint and then on 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.

Needlepoint was not long-lasting because I had difficulty with fine motor coordination. I turned to a much less exacting 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 pieces of macramé, 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, far bigger than anything I ever made. It was very complex and very delicate. When the show was over, I didn't have enough wall space in our 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 party, 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. It had been moved because they needed to paint the room where it had originally hung. In moving it, some of the cords had become twisted. The piece was designed to be symmetrical, but, because of the twisting, one side was 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 moving noticeably upward." 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 stay dormant 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, which she called a 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 joined with him every chance I could, and it went reasonably well. After a couple of times, he let me play some solos

At the Happy Hour 1

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 of his concerts. After it was over, 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 at that moment, I decided it was time for me to get serious about my harmonica playing. I contacted an excellent teacher, Marcus Milius, who had a college degree in jazz studies with a specialization 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, while the residents were brought into the program room in their wheelchairs, I played some familiar folk, campfire, and spiritual songs on my harmonica. When everyone was assembled, we played recordings of four or five popular 1940s songs that most of the 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 there was time, 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 are smiling and laughing, those around them will also smile and laugh because these expressions can be contagious.

We hoped that our efforts would bring pleasure and joy to the residents' lives. Furthermore, we expected that those emotions might extend well beyond the session, so they might even perceive 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 they could be helped to understand that, all things considered, it was probably 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 wanted to 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 wasn’t the issue. Being creative is about staying in the game, willing to miss the ball and, if so, try again.