The Bag Lady Papers (13 page)

The rest, as they say, is history.
Self
magazine launched the pink ribbon in October 1992. Evelyn is the one who made the pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness a global symbol. She is responsible for saving the lives of thousands and thousands of women. Phyllis Wilson would honor her as a true heroine. So would legions of others here at home and around the world.

Without the Boss of Bosses there would be no pink ribbon, and he deserves real credit as well. The impact and effectiveness of the pink ribbon was something that was achieved only through many activists and the power of an established publication with millions of intelligent readers. I was immensely grateful for the chance to help so many
women. In the end,
Self
magazine was indeed a keystone in building a new self of my own.

 

During the years I edited
Self,
I was making what I considered an astronomical salary and salting away every cent I could. I felt like a rich person for the first—and only—time in my life. Here was my first real lesson in what money
could
buy! I had a car and driver, clothes, jewels, orchids, money to throw great parties, and lots to spend on exotic, luxurious travel. I mostly worked seven days a week, with business breakfasts, business lunches, and business dinners. Work was so inextricably woven into what I thought of as “real life” that I couldn't tell the difference between the two. I met fascinating people and had adventures and experiences that no other job would have given me.

One thing I never lost sight of: though I was sitting in an elegant and expensive—but rented—chair at my Condé Nast antique table, the rich days there would not last forever.

I had finished my sessions with Dr. J. I felt strong and confident but restless. I had talked at length with him about leaving my job to go back to a more independent creative existence, even though it was far less secure financially. I understood that over the years of my professional life, I had always survived—and succeeded—and now I felt resilient and much more equipped psychologically to be on my own again. I made my decision and scheduled an appointment with the Boss of Bosses and we mutually agreed that I had accomplished my mission. After seven years of hard work, in 1996,
the magazine was on a steady course, revenues had escalated, readers renewed their subscriptions, newsstand sales were healthy, and I wanted to return to some form of creating art. What that form was I didn't know. I had, over the years, lost my passion for painting. I knew deep down I wasn't good enough to be the kind of painter that I wanted to be.

I became a well-paid freelancer, consulting on magazines and Web site development to make money, but I was, for four years, in an uncomfortable free fall when it came to what I really wanted to do. At the same time, inexplicably, the bag lady fears were on the rise. I had been regularly contributing to my IRA and I had some money left in my bank savings account. I bought the little house on Long Island with a small down payment and a large mortgage, thinking that it would be a good investment if those fears ever materialized. I thought of consulting Dr. J again, but he had long since retired to Florida.

On Christmas Day 1998, Paul, whom I'd been seeing for a couple years, gave me a present he'd received in a charity takeaway goody bag. It was a blue-and-gray plastic digital camera, worth about thirty bucks. It weighed less than a stick of butter and was such a primitive little thing that it didn't even have a screen on the back so you could see what picture you were taking. The digital cameras I use now can be up to 22 megapixels and even more. My little plastic Intel camera was just half of a single megapixel.

I adored that simple camera far more than I would have loved a twenty-five-carat flawless D diamond. I took thousands of pictures with it. Everything looked better through
its tiny eyepiece: the sky was bluer, the ocean greener, the waves whiter. Flowers had the most ravishing colors. The world is gorgeous when you look through a lens. The final pictures took time and effort but they didn't take years of trying to control beautiful but intransigent oil paints. I felt the results from a camera were far more exciting and satisfying than painting. Thanks to Paul's gift, I had stumbled on the medium that was made for me.

The little camera took possession of me. I bought eleven more on eBay over the years and I still use some of them to this day. Of course I wanted to print my work, so I had to learn how to operate complex printers the size of a living room sofa. The effort of mastering Photoshop to manipulate my photographs was worthy of a doctorate degree. I spent six long and fruitful years understanding the technology, working from a room I'd converted into a studio in the lovely new apartment that I'd moved to during my magazine days. I had searched the Village for something where I could do more entertaining, but nothing seemed right. My new apartment with its sweeping East River views was luxurious and much larger than my Village place. It had been the perfect setting to give business dinners but the best part was having a sunny extra room in which to do my photography. I loved getting up in the morning, drinking my coffee, and not having to dress for work. My “studio” was ten feet away and it was perfect for the relatively small flower prints I was making at the time, but I was soon to outgrow it.

MF + 9 WEEKS

Y
esterday, Saturday, I was feeling upbeat and optimistic here in Florida until I received an e-mail from Louise, a good friend, informing me she'd been laid off the day before. At two in the afternoon she was told to clean out her desk and depart the premises by four p.m. Twenty percent of the staff was sacked in the same inhumane way. She is the eleventh person I know who's been fired in the last few weeks.

Louise is a sexy elegant woman in her mid-fifties, an award-winning graphics designer at the top of her profession. Although her publication was suffering from decline in  ad revenue and newsstand sales like everyone else in the business, it was nevertheless a shock when the company
announced a major downsizing to concentrate on building up its net presence. Younger, less highly paid people will absorb her job.

The week before, her husband, a quiet, brainy guy, a published writer, and an editor at one of the top publishing houses, was also unceremoniously let go. He had been hired with great fanfare and a major salary to start his own imprint there only six months ago. I phone her immediately.

“I don't know what will happen to us,” she says, in an eerily quiet voice. “We won't be able to pay the rent on this place. Our savings can last us a year at most. We had a small amount of money in the market, and less than half is left. I wanted to buy bonds but the broker convinced me that blue chips would do better and be safe. And, of course, they went down with everything else. I am so staggered by this, I can't even think. We'll be out on the streets.”

I know exactly how she feels. I am at a loss about how to help, but at last an idea comes. She can use my studio until I sell the Florida house and am back up north. It will give her a place to go and think clearly—I know that is something I needed desperately in the first few weeks post-MF. We discuss the possibility of freelancing, designing books, writing books, even working in a bookstore as a salesclerk.

“Thank god I was tops in a secretarial course I took,” she says, trying to lighten the mood, and falling flat. “I can enter data into a computer at six bucks an hour.”

She is fifty-five and may never find another position at her present level in publishing. It is even possible that she may
not find a job for years. She can consider becoming a salesperson, or a real estate agent, or a cosmetics hawker, but everyone else who's been laid off is looking for the same kinds of jobs. And what about the years of experience that she may never use again? Will she and her husband have to leave New York and go back to Pittsburgh, where they are both from? I have an acute pain in my gut for the sleepless nights she will have to endure.

Yesterday I also received an e-mail from a writer friend, Marcy, who knows about my bag lady fears, explaining her own situation:

Like me, my writer, editor, and painter friends depend on and trust “experts” to take care of what money we may have. Marcy's e-mail got me thinking.

Were our decisions bad? Were we wrong to trust other people with our fortunes? Were we so focused on other things in our lives that we simply “didn't pay attention”?

This is the kind of thinking that gets you into trouble, but it's almost impossible to avoid. You start thinking backward and examining all the decisions you made, or didn't make. You lament that you followed this path instead of that. You start with the “if only”s. Regret, to me, is a big waste of valuable time. It can't turn back the clock and only serves to make you more anxious and upset. I slap it down whenever it rears its devious little head.

When I made the decision to give my money to the MF in 1999, I did my homework. I was wary after my experience with the financial adviser/insurance agent who was double-dipping with his fees, and then with the highly regarded fund that invested in Japan. I checked out the MF with smart money people who had also invested with him. Ditto financial advisers who seemed envious that I was in the elite Madoff club.

My novelist friend also did some background checking on the recommendation she had received: Her financial guy worked with many other writers, and the lawyer she's de
pended on for years as a sounding board approved her decision. Does she regret putting her money with him?

No, she tells me, she doesn't. And for the same reason I don't regret my decision. Our judgment calls, based on the information we had at the time, were right at the time we made them.

“All the knowledge I had last year pointed to investing with him,” she tells me when we meet for an early dinner at our favorite place, EJ's Luncheonette. “I have learned not to second-guess my past and hang out with my regrets. It's a waste of emotional and mental energy that can be used for other things.”

“Like trying to stay thin,” I interject.

“Yes,” she says as she orders her usual: an egg white and basil omelet, “no butter on it, please, no bread, no potatoes.” She weighs all of 103 pounds including the black jeans she has on tonight.

We both laugh.

Usually we trade work stories and chat about what we've checked out on eBay, but tonight we're in a philosophical mood. We're “creative” people, we've been successful at what we do. And now, like everyone else, we suddenly find ourselves in a completely new world.

We start ruminating about “success” and what it is. Meanwhile, I am debating whether to order the carrot cake, which, at EJ's, is incredibly delicious, especially the butter-cream frosting. Two warnings skitter across my mind: No, don't do it, you've been “good” and had a boring but low-calorie egg
white omelet like Marcy. No, you should not spend three more dollars. You just had all your money stolen!

I defiantly order the carrot cake and ask, “So what separates successful and not successful people?”

“We all face setbacks,” Marcy replies. “We're all going to get jolted. Good or bad, something is going happen to you. It's life and it happens to you. If you don't accept what's happened—like your thing with the MF—you're just having a tantrum like a two-year-old, and what good will it do you? A ‘successful' person adjusts to the situation and presses on.”

“Yes,” I say. “We're talking here about being successful as a human being, not necessarily being ‘successful' in Wall Street terms.”

“What other way would you want to be successful? Sure, it's important to have money. I'm talking here about people who are not defeated by setbacks,” Marcy replies. “My guess is that those kind of people will also be financially comfortable, but not necessarily rich.”

The carrot cake is a dream. The calories are a nightmare. Wouldn't it be great to order a second one—just this one time? I think.

“It's about self-control and discipline,” I say, finally nixing the idea of more cake. “You just can't allow yourself to wallow in your problems. You suck it up. Get on with it.”

“One other thing,” Marcy says. I am wildly envious she has left half of the egg white omelet on EJ's beige oval plate. “If something bad happens I always think it's ‘life' or rotten luck. I don't take it personally.”

“That's the only attitude to have,” I agree.

We split the check, leaving a big tip because we've been there for hours and the waitress has been giving us nonstop free refills. I take a last look at my spotless plate. I've broken my diet, but “No regrets!” I remind myself sternly.

Nevertheless the next morning I wake up bemoaning my carrot cake indulgence and I begin thinking what would happen if I could never eat another peanut butter cookie or my all-time favorite, bread and butter. What could I live without?

It's five thirty a.m., raining hard, too early to head to the studio, so I make a second cup of coffee and start jotting down lists on the back of an envelope that had contained a credit card solicitation: