Curable Romantic

It's been a week of doctors. My annual physical rolls around in August, and I've already done the follow-up mammogram and bone density scan, thanks to the Gale Keeran Center for Women. I had an eye exam and have ordered glasses online, which means my Facebook feed is inundated with snazzy frames. And I'm reading A Curable Romantic, by Joseph Skibell, a fun way of doing more research on Doktoro Esperanto, or L.L. Zamenhof, for the play I'm directing, The Language Archive. The narrator of the book, here wearing opera glasses, is also an eye doctor, Dr. Jakob Sammelsohn, whose name resonates wonderfully, we learn at the end of part one, in a way I will not spoil for you now.

Sadly, Gale Keeran was not curable; hence, the center in her name. Thank you, Jim Keeran. I have always been delighted that Jim's first date with Gale was watching The Fantasticks at my high school. She was the choreographer, and I was Luisa. I guess she got me to dance!

Here's a book that sounds interesting: Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life, by Abigail Thomas, reviewed at Escape Into Life by Julie C. Graham, who describes the book as a nonlinear memoir. Thomas, too, was married to someone incurable, though it sounds like she was nursing him when he was her ex.

And in a poignant full circle, Dr. Basel Al-Aswad tells us, four years later, about mentoring young doctors on the night he lost his son, Chris, who founded Escape Into Life.

It's possible I'm a curable romantic. Life has surely taught me much, softened and mellowed me, yes, and also toughened me, opened my myopic, operatic eyes, and left me laughing.