By Elaine Soloway
Kveller
In June of 2021, I bought a six-pack of yahrzeit candles. I intended to use them for their traditional purpose: to light them on the Hebrew anniversary of a loved one’s death. In my case, I planned to light them for my father, mother, second husband and my brother.
But all of those dates passed without me ever opening the box. The carton sat on a shelf in my closet.
By Elaine Soloway
Washington Post
You know the scene: A white-haired woman sits in a wheelchair. Her head lists to one side. There are banners and balloons celebrating her 100th birthday. Caregivers and relatives clap as they help her blow out her candles. And atop the head of this woman — who has survived all these years and most likely buried many dear ones — is a child’s party hat.
That sort of thing makes me livid.
By Elaine Soloway
Chicago Tribune
Like any brilliant idea, this one emerged from a personal incident. Because I have arthritis in my knees, and my frequent bending down to tend to my dog, or to retrieve fumbled items, I’ve lately been wearing knee pads.
Turns out that my joints love their protection, and along with the lessening of knee pain, the pads stabilize my legs. When wearing them, I feel as sturdy as a bouncer at a bar.
By Elaine Soloway
Forward
Lucky you! The pandemic has spurred dog adoption to an all-time high. There’s likely just a few of you still hanging around. So take this time to be picky.
I wasn’t as lucky. It took me weeks to coax someone to choose me. You see, I was transported from the South by van, and brought with trauma, sensitivity to sounds and fear around people. No wonder no one rushed to choose me!
By Elaine Soloway
Next Avenue
Perhaps it was good fortune that turned our children into creative individuals, but I'd like to think my spouse and I had a hand in it, too.
By Elaine Soloway
Next Avenue
As the instructor was assembling foam dumbbells for her upcoming water aerobics class, I was grateful her busyness kept her from looking my way.
Because I was wearing goggles instead of my eyeglasses, her image had a soft blur, as if she were a figure in an impressionist painting. But there was no mistaking the steel grey hair, her body as slim and muscled as someone decades younger, and her air of drill sergeant.
By Elaine Soloway
Next Avenue
My scale toggles between 98 and 100 pounds, ideal for my 4'9" frame. I swim three mornings a week, eat a balanced diet and score nearly 10,000 steps a day.
So, with these chipper credentials, I made plans with two younger friends to celebrate my 82nd birthday vacationing with my two adult children and three grandchildren in Cape Cod, Mass. But a month before the August trip, I became alarmed by COVID-19 numbers reversing course.
By Elaine Soloway
Next Avenue
Doris pulls me ahead; I trot to keep up. Her tail is sailing, as if atop a mast. I take this as a sign that my 1-1/2 year-old Terrier/Jack Russell mix is happy and brave. Well, slightly braver than she was three months ago when I adopted her from a shelter.
As for me, a certified senior at 81, I check my Apple Watch and note my rising heart rate. “Good,” I think to myself — exercise and companionship from one 25-pound bundle.
By Elaine Soloway
Next Avenue
If you expected my voice to reflect disappointment when you cancelled our plans and instead heard muffled joy, please don't take it personally.
It's not you; it's me. You're a treasure, sure to provide compelling conversation and camaraderie, but the truth is I never want to leave my house.
By Elaine Soloway
Next Avenue
Perhaps it was good fortune that turned our children into creative individuals, but I’d like to think my spouse and I had a hand in it, too.
Here are our 10 words of wisdom for parents, as well as for grandparents.
By Elaine Soloway
Next Avenue
Gregory Hines leans on one bended knee and relaxes his elbow on the other. He is wearing a white shirt and slacks, and his bright red jacket mirrors the brilliance of his smile. The celebrated African-American dancer, actor, singer and choreographer, who died August 9, 2003, is part of the U.S. Postal Services’ Black Heritage campaign, and is pictured on my set of 20 Forever stamps.
The arrival of the sheet of stamps stirs me. As I slide the series out of its large envelope, I feel a wave of nostalgia, as if I was gifted a photo from a childhood album.
By Elaine Soloway
Next Avenue
Because I have a tattoo dotting each bicep, and because I frequently flavor my dialogue with an epithet that starts with an “f” and ends in “k,” folks have labeled me a rebel (or another, more profane word). And as a 4’9″, 80 1/2-year old woman with hair and face in their original wrappers, these same people believe I’m an adorable doozy.
While I’m appreciative of this applause, I’m countering that it is neither my body art, my salty language, my diminutive size, nor my avoidance of hair dye or cosmetic surgery that make me a rebel. Instead, I have 10 rules I’ve adopted over the years and am continually enhancing.
By Elaine Soloway
Huffington Post
Graciela sits atop my right bicep. She is a tattoo of a seahorse the size of my palm. She has an eye trimmed with a thick lash, a rose-colored tail that twists to the left and a crown of swirly arrows. Three times a day, I carefully lather my fresh tattoo with antibacterial soap and pat her dry. I grin as I perform this procedure, as if I were a postpartum mom tending to my newborn child.
My tattoo is a gift I recently gave myself as I approach my 80th birthday, which falls on Aug. 10. It is also a reward I bestowed on myself after finally learning to swim just one year ago.
By Elaine Soloway
Harpers Bazaar
When my ex-husband first began to dress as a woman, my second husband, Tommy, and I invited her to our home. "You look great," I said as I kissed her cheek. "But you need earrings." I placed my mother's clip-ons on her ears. "They're only costume," I added as I handed her a mirror. "Faux pearls."
I would've never envisioned this scene when my first marriage fell apart in 1990. It was only in 2011, when I was already married to Tommy, that my ex-spouse told me that she was transgender. Through Transparent, the show my daughter Jill created inspired by our family life, I've met many trans women who told me of the pain of keeping the giant secret, some who felt as if they were trapped in a false marriage.
By Mary Schmich
Chicago Tribune
Elaine Soloway is not Shelly Pfefferman. Amazon's new TV series "Transparent," praised by some critics as the best new show of the fall season, is not the story of her family.Soloway can't say that strongly enough. It's fiction.And yet the other day, when she was alone on her couch, in bare feet, with a meal tray in her lap, watching episode nine — the part where the character named Ed says to the character named Shelly, "I'm just here to make you happy" — she cried.
By Esther D. Kustanowitz
Jewish Journal
Next time you move cross-country to Los Angeles, do it the Elaine Soloway way. (The SoloWay?) Pack whatever you can into flat-rate Priority Mail boxes from the post office and mail them over a period of six months. Get a place on airbnb.com in a hip L.A. neighborhood, close to shops, restaurants and the Upright Citizens Brigade, an improv comedy theater that reminds one of their connections to Chicago’s Annoyance Theater.