The Bag Lady Papers (14 page)

D
r. J was the first person I spoke openly with about my bag lady nightmares. In the months after I came out of the bag lady closet I compared notes with many other women who described their own losing-it-all dreads. Sufferers ranged from age twenty-five to upward of sixty, they were married or single, some were mothers or grandmothers, many were successful career women, some had remained home to take care of children and were intending to return to the workplace.

The visual images we all harbor were surprisingly similar and vivid. Only the details of living circumstances and physical condition differed individually. The majority of us agreed that our most deeply felt fear was that we would lose our autonomy and would forever live in utter poverty.

Here's the full spectrum of bag lady anxieties that I listed for Dr. J. I feared that I would:

What causes these often-crippling anxieties? Since the fear of being a bag lady is, so far, not an authentic medical condition, the answers are speculative, but I spent a great deal of time and a lot of hard-earned money exploring the subject.

Some psychiatrists feel its origins are in abandonment, either by one's father or mother or both. The desertion doesn't have to be literal; most often it is an emotional distance or unavailability of a mother or, less commonly, a father.

As Dr. J pointed out, in my case, both my parents were distant. My mother's breakdown and her year in the hospital, which caused me to live with my grandmother, who was caring for her own dying daughter, contributed greatly to my sense of isolation and abandonment—both feelings that I imagine a real bag lady has to endure. There was no one I could rely on and thus I had to rely on myself. This was too
much for a child of six to cope with. With no one to pay attention to my needs, as a child I feared that I would be dumped out into the world with no one and no resources to help me survive.

I mentioned before that when my mother came home from the hospital, I happened to be walking with her and holding her hand when I saw a real bag lady. I imagined that this frightening-looking old woman had been left alone, out in the freezing winds, with no home to go to, no one to help her. My fear of that bag lady was extremely powerful, but of course I couldn't articulate those feelings then. It was only with Dr. J that I began to see that I wasn't a child anymore, and as a functioning and successful adult I could certainly take care of myself.

Although I experienced a physically absent mother and a distant father, Dr. J explained that you can feel abandonment and insecurity from parents who divorce, who are self-oriented, or who are withholding, controlling, and emotionally absent.

Another origin of the syndrome is the lack of a cohesive sense of self. The feeling of a wholesome healthy self comes mostly from childhood nurturing, which bag lady syndrome sufferers may not have had. Those of us who haven't had this kind of unconditional loving background may feel a lack of self-worth, creating anxiety and depression in later years.

Tied to this lack of self-worth is a loss of or lack of an identity.
If I'm not worth much to anybody, who am I?
To put it in the plainest terms: A sense of self, an identity, means
knowing who you are, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are. If you don't think you have value, it's an easy step to imagine yourself on the streets with your tattered shopping bags. In actuality, as an adult you can have lots of money and success and a loving partner, but the irrational, childish fear is that you're really a worthless person whom society might just as well forget.

Over the three years that I saw Dr. J, the fears abated as he extracted the root causes, such as my mother's illness and the judgmental silent treatment that she indulged in when I had done something “wrong” as a child or “bad” as an adult, like writing a sex book.

I have always been grateful to both my parents for giving whatever love they were able to give, as they themselves had severely damaged childhoods. They gave me a college education and a comfortable life and instilled in me a love for learning, along with a love of fine things like silver and crystal. They believed absolutely in decency and honesty and charity and transmitted their solid values to me. I really didn't like them—or love them. And I felt enormous guilt about this. But wise Dr. J helped to rout that guilt.

“You don't have to like or to love your parents,” he said. “What is necessary is to respect the institution of parenthood. If you honor and respect your parents simply because they were parents, you will avoid guilt, a powerful and crippling emotion that can cause serious dysfunction. The actions you take toward your parents—visits, calls, time spent together—are a recognition of your respect for
the institution of parenthood; they do not need to be made from love.”

 

As I continued to sit across from Dr. J every week, I felt myself growing stronger emotionally. On a practical level, I was more comfortable because I had a steady job and was saving every cent I could. Instead of feeling like the shattered glass I had described to him during one of our first sessions, at the end of our work together, I could portray myself as a filament of flexible steel, able to bend with the blows life might hammer me with, but not to break. Dr. J retired and I left
Self
and stable employment to return to freelancing and art. And slowly the bag lady nightmares began to intrude again.

I happened to be in Florida in 1999 on a magazine consulting job and decided to call Dr. J to say hello. It had been years since I'd seen him. He had long left his New York practice and was living in Florida. He was a serious golfer and world traveler but he continued to dispense his wisdom to his large group of friends, who constantly asked him for advice on problems. I knew of his doings because I'd kept up with him with a few phone calls each year, as I was so grateful to him. He was such an enormous part of my life that I still refer to him as “my father and my mother.” In strict psychiatric protocol, I should have never become friendly with him, but he often said that he loved his patients and that love was the key to the cure, so he had several of us who stayed in touch with him.

Now he was a hearty and fit eighty-nine years old and still hitting the golf course with his wife every day. “Why don't you join me for lunch after my morning workout?” he suggested when I called. Over a tuna melt for him and a BLT for me at his golf club—I remember this meal most vividly—I mentioned that I was having bag lady dreams again.

“I'm not practicing anymore, as you know,” he replied, “but you could spend years on a couch reanalyzing the issues we talked about long ago. You built a strong and enduring self and you've had many successes. My advice is, save every dollar you can and put it in a safe place. Knowing you have the security of your savings is the most pragmatic way to deal with your concerns.”

We'd finished our sandwiches and were sipping iced coffee when he said, “I have a good idea for you. I have used the same investment man for thirty years. My daughters now have their money with him also. He makes a steady nine to eleven percent every year. He's completely dependable and trustworthy. Many of my friends have had their entire savings with him for decades. His fund is closed, but I think I know a way that I can get you in.”

Thus, in what is my life's most exquisite irony, the man who had saved my life, psychologically speaking, now suggested I entrust my life's savings to a man named Bernard S. Madoff.

Do I bear Dr. J any ill will? Of course not! He was doing his best to help me. As he unfailingly did throughout the years that I was his patient. I still feel—and always will—
that he is the most influential person in my life. And, of course, I am still in touch with him.

So in 1999, on the recommendation of Dr. J, I was “allowed” to open an account with Bernard Madoff. I never met him. I spoke to him once for less than thirty seconds, when I'd finally demanded to at least hear the voice of the man who would be investing my hard-earned savings.

“Don't worry,” he said, “your money will be safe with me.” And that was the extent of our conversation.

I
t is late February and I'm still in Florida, near the lavish lairs of the has-been billionaires, writing my book. I would prefer to be in my studio in New York working on my photographs, and mental claustrophobia is closing in as I try to write in a very small, very chilly kitchen. It's an overcast silvery-gray morning here, an unusually cool sixty-two degrees, and I'm staring at the computer waiting for words and sentences to materialize.

Usually if I reach a work impasse, I leave the studio and walk around, idly looking into windows and sometimes stepping into stores. That kind of no-destination wandering is a visually stimulating activity that clears my mind, allowing it to regenerate.

The other kind of shopping that I used to adore occurred
when Alex or Buffy or Sarah and I made a date for lunch and then played hooky from work for a few hours to check out the latest in Bergdorf or Barneys or to gaze—sometimes longingly—at the baubles at the jewelry market on Forty-seventh Street. I've always joked that shopping, whether you spend money or not, is female bonding at its highest, or lowest, level—and there's some truth to it.

Down here, I have no friends and no desire to do that fun kind of shopping. Desire and hope desert me at times. Just as words have abandoned me this morning.

Maybe driving will coax the words out of my brain. I'll take the old wagon out for a spin to clear my mind.

I'm cruising down Dixie Highway and feeling the need for a second jolt of coffee. I pull into a Guatemalan bakery–
cum
–coffee shop that is a favorite haunt of mine because the croissants are better than any I've ever had, including the ones at the Ritz in Paris. But an extra cup of java is not in my new budget. Nor will I ever see the Ritz again.

The hell with it, I say, and I am enjoying a double espresso and a warm-from-the-oven buttery croissant back in the driver's seat. Next to the bakery is a thrift shop, one I've visited in BMF times when I was on the lookout for glamorous bargains. Palm Beach thrift shops and consignment stores are famous for fab buys, because they are where rich ladies discard their couture clothes like used Diet Coke cans.

I finish my croissant and wonder whether I should peruse the offerings at Almost New All for You. The store benefits geriatric causes. I'll soon be geriatric myself so I should prepare to use their assistance.

Most likely because I can't face going back to the computer so soon, I walk into the shop, which is jammed with the worst furniture, the most badly painted canvases, the most tacky china and glassware imaginable—I'm certain it's all very costly stuff that tasteless owners cast off only to buy new gross and wasteful objects. But the treasure here is in the back: stacks of clothes that range from Gap workout gear to Valentino couture.

With the ingrained shopping habits of decades, I sort through the rusty old chrome racks. Nothing much of interest here today. The place is pretty well picked over. And on a scale of one to ten, my desire level is less than zero. I have not bought one thing since Madoff. As a Person of Reduced Circumstances, I feel that I will never buy anything again. However—

There
is
an item that catches my squinty editorial eye. A classically tailored Bill Blass gray sharkskin, pleated, silk-lined, hand-finished skirt that looks as if it will be a perfect fit. There are no dressing rooms in Almost New All for You, so I pull the skirt over my head, drop my jeans to my ankles, and find a small mirror where I can see about a third of myself. This piece of expensive cloth has my name on it.

Thirty bucks! Too much! Way too much! The white-haired volunteer at the cash register in her pink smock is a cement wall that will not budge on the price.

“It's designer,” she tells me. “They don't go on sale.”

“I'll have to think about it; that seems quite high,” I tell her and walk back to my wagon. The original ticket was easily about a thousand bucks.

I owned many Blass suits when I had a clothing allowance. And Chanels, and Armanis, and Saint Laurents. They're still neatly packed in storage in my apartment basement. From time to time, I rummaged through the bunch and revived a special favorite by having the shoulder pads taken out or changing the hemlines according to the times. But those clothes, even if resurrected, are useless to me nowadays. It's a truism to say the world has changed: even President Obama sports khakis in the Oval Office. The fancy duds are headed for eBay or the closest consignment shop. In the past they would have been headed for a charity that helps down-and-out women who would have used the clothes for job interviews, but now they may make me a few dollars.

I leave the store but keep thinking about the elegant pleated Blass skirt. It's a classic. I wore similar ones in college with monogrammed Shetland sweaters and cashmere-blend kneesocks. I can wear this baby with flats or heels, with a cashmere sweater or a T-shirt. I have no clothing allowance, no clothing budget. I've got to figure out a way to look stylish and contemporary. If I look pulled together and tidy, I feel better.

I adored having a clothing allowance. Who wouldn't? It's the ultimate luxury. No, the ne plus ultra goody is a car and driver in New York City. I had them both!

But I was very careful in the way I spent my allowance dollars. I nailed several Hermès bags; a few watches; a Buccellati ring; earrings; and my favorite piece of jewelry, a strand of luscious baroque pearls that I still wear almost
every day. Most of my office and evening outfits were from designers who were delighted to sell editors items at cost or give them away free so that we would be seen in them at the Four Seasons, movie premieres, trendy new eateries, or other paparazzi-laden haunts.

I limited my purchases strictly to best-quality name-brand stuff like Franck Muller or Cartier watches because, very consciously, I thought, if I ever needed the money, these baubles might be worth something. And I may have been right.

Still, a question plagued me during these years. Was I superficial, did I care too much about how I dressed, how my apartment looked? As I accumulated some of the beautiful things I had always admired, I suffered guilt and embarrassment that I was the empress of shallowness, that necessary and useful clothes and a Timex watch were all that a “serious person” needed.

Now I like to say I'm “deeply superficial,” and what I mean by that is that I put a lot of effort into having my surroundings and the way I look and the work I do measure up to my aesthetic and intellectual ideals. I don't care about this year's trends. Well, I must admit sometimes I can be seduced by something that's new or something I've never seen before, but what is most important is honesty, authenticity, integrity, and a dash of style in my physical surroundings. If an object or item of clothing is, in addition, truly original—a rare occurrence—I value it even more.

A white shirt that's designed to fit the body well and
comfortably and is made of good, lasting cloth with well-sewn buttons and no unnecessary frills is something that I prize and respect. I'd like to be able to collect art that meets all the criteria I've set out above, but most often the work I would like to own is way beyond my means. I try like hell to make my own work fit those standards. One never reaches “the ideal,” but the attempts have kept me going for so many years.

 

I turn the wagon around and march back to the thrift shop. I carefully count out the thirty dollars for it because it is a classic. My new PoRC style is
all
about “classic.” Clothes, jewelry, and accessories that endure.

Classics, for PoRCs or WoCAs (Women of a Certain Age) like me are the best style bet because they last and never turn you into a fashion victim. Classic dressing saves me time, decisions, trips to stores to return items, and wastes none of the money I hope to earn. I have a look and I feel good in it.

Nice clothes aren't the only luxury to which I've grown accustomed. Over the years—starting with my beauty editor job at
Glamour
—I've morphed into a spoiled beauty princess. How will I ever afford haircuts, hair color, dermatology? None of these comes cheap. But if you're poor, you become wily and resourceful. It's one of the benefits of a very restricted budget.

I have a new idea—actually it's an old idea that I plan to dust off and put to use. Artists have always relied on swapping goods for services. A painter friend of mine recently exchanged a large abstract work for a gorgeous emerald engage
ment ring for his lady love. Lawyers and doctors have become major collectors by trading their services for works of art.

Each of us has something of worth to barter. It could be the silver spoon that graced your mouth at birth, an antique purse, closet organizing—anything that might have value that another might be willing to consider as swappable for something else. In extreme cases of need, PoRCs have even been known to barter their bodies, but this is certainly not in the stars for me.

My present state has made me much less bashful about asking for things than I was in pre-MF days. I've never been a person who asks for discounts, for special treatment, for freebies. I finally screwed up my courage a few weeks ago and asked if I could trade a photographic portrait for a beauty treatment. It worked! So, as soon as I find myself looking a bit more tattered, worn, and wrinkled, I'm offering photographs or even slightly rusty editing skills in exchange for blond highlights, a mini face-lift, veneering of chipped teeth, collagen, Botox. Swapping would never have occurred to me unless my entire life had changed. When your worst nightmare comes true, you discover valuable things about your self and your world. I certainly don't wish my semester in hell on anyone, but I do want to recommend thinking of adversity in a more positive way.

One of my unexpected experiences recently was a talk I gave to a group in California. I'd had dinner the night before with two of the women who organized the lunch, and they asked me about my speech. I'd planned to say how I got involved with the MF, reveal some dishy magazine experiences,
and provide a minute or two of the background of the pink ribbon, which they'd specifically asked for. Over a dessert coffee they asked me what knowledge I'd gained from my experiences and I told them I'd surely learned plenty.

Back in my room, I decided to dump the original talk I had outlined for the lunch and, based on our conversation, I pounded out the following list of what knowledge I'd gained over the past few months, much of which made it into this book.