Ice Castles

Permission to Change Roles

I first became aware of how unusual my older sister’s name – Nanette – was during a trip to Niagara Falls.  We were in a souvenir shop and she became totally unhinged that not one personalized mug, shot glass or plastic bicycle license plate could be found with her name emboldened on it.  While she cried, I began to notice that my name could be found everywhere in the shop and also took note that it could be found multiple times in the Bible, located in a drawer of our hotel room, and in several chart-topping songs during our long car ride home.

And while I scored in the name department merch wise, it was also around that time that I noticed that Nanette herself was unusual without even trying.  Exotic, unique, one-of-a-kind, unlike Mary, who could be found everywhere.  I think that’s when I realized that would have to work harder to be a Mary that stood out.

My sister, who was beautiful, intelligent, and naturally more reserved, had it easy; she didn’t have to “work” for validation and admiration from the adults, earning her the role as the “smart, studious, responsible one”, whereas I felt I had to perform or entertain for mine, earning me the role as, “the funny, whimsical, messy one”.

She liked vanilla, I liked chocolate.  She was tall and skinny; I was short and chubby.  She liked pretty people like Simon Le Bon and John Travolta (the Staying Alive Travolta) and I liked less pretty people, like Ric Ocasek and Chunk from The Goonies.  When we went out to dinner as a family, she looked like she was perfectly put together by the best 80’s stylist, not a hair out of place, socks that matched, color coordinated accessories.  I was always struggling with “my look” which felt like I was endlessly waiting for my “bad haircut” to grow out, my boobs to come in and that feminine flair to arrive more naturally. My wardrobe consisted of mismatched humor t-shirts that read “Shirt Happens” or “Trust Me I’m A Doctor”, dotted with TV sitcom merch, a baseball hat from the then hit TV Show Gimme A Break starring the great Nel Carter, with Nel holding both hands up in the air in frustration, completed my look.

We both attended the same Catholic elementary school where more roles were assigned to us, she was the good one and I was the not-so-good one. School was the place where these differences became exceedingly obvious.  While Nanette was working to maintain her perfect GPA (she graduated Valedictorian of the 8^th grade), I was watching hours of television and listening to comedy specials, mastering the art of comedic timing but leaving me as a C+/B- student at best.

I don’t recall us playing very often as she was always locked in her room, stressed with her studies.  When we did, we played a game called Ice Castles.

“What is Ice Castles?”

Ice Castles was a supremely soppy film but also a blockbuster at the time (1978), and likewise, was also the focus of our piano lessons; as we were learning to play the theme song,  “Through the Eyes of Love.” In the movie, a talented female ice skater has a tragic accident (she skates into a bunch of patio furniture) and goes blind, leaving her boyfriend (HUNKY Robby Benson) to teach her how to ice skate blind and win the Olympics.

“How did you “play” this, Mary?”

Every winter my father would store the outside patio furniture in our basement, so my sister would say, “Let’s play Ice Castles” and this would mean, I would put on my lavender leg warmers and lace up my roller skates while Nanette would sit on the couch and watch me skate, headfirst, into the patio furniture, falling dramatically into the stacked up white wrought iron lounge chairs, yelling and screaming “OH NO! OH NO!” and then hobble to my feet with my eyes closed, NOW roller skating into the walls yelling, “I’M BLIND.  I’M BLIND.”  By the time, I would open my eyes, my sister was gone, having run upstairs to get back to her studies the moment I shut my eyes.

Game over.

When she got to high school, she grew even more reclusive, secretive, and mysterious at home. Our time together was brief spent at the dinner table only, where I watched her push around her food pretending to eat it, while I distracted my parents who were always telling me to, “eat my vegetables” with outrageous untruths about my sister, things she’d never do like, “Nanette, show mom and dad the tattoo you got today" and “Did you know Nanette is dating the mailman"?”

As we grew older, the beauty and glamour role she was playing only intrigued me more, which meant that I would go to extra lengths to spy on her making out with her boyfriend or pick the lock on her newly installed door locked placed there specifically to keep me out. Once inside, I was ravage through her love notes, not to invade her privacy but to get to know her.   Heaping tears feel down my face years later while watching Frozen during the scene where the little sister begs and begs outside the closed locked door, “Do you want to build a snowman? prompting my daughter to ask me between fists filled with popcorn, “Mommy, why are you crying?”  It broke my heart to think that maybe my sister was standing with her ear next to the door all those years just like Elsa, wanting to let me into her secret world but too scared to know how? Was it the exact opposite of what I assumed her unapproachable demeanor suggested?  Instead of the confidence and perfection I saw and mistook as a coldness, even grew resentful of, was she scared and self-doubting, looking for ways to share her warmth, her sparkle in the ease it came to me?

These roles.  Roles assigned to us by our grandparents, parents, the nuns, who knows? Roles we accepted without questioning yet played along for years.  Roles we wouldn’t dare challenge or defy.  Roles that would allow us both to get into terrible relationships, pick interests that didn’t quite fit.  Roles that would attempt to destroy both states of our mental and physical wellness.  Her with enjoying the fruits of life too little and me too much.  Hurting ourselves over and over to stick to these roles. Had we been living our lives in-spite of each other? How could that be as we have always loved and supported each other so deeply?

Recently, I watched my sister sit at the piano in our parent’s summer home, working hard on a musical piece she was writing titled, Cassata Cake. A cassata cake for those of you unfamiliar is a Sicilian cake known for its perfect, involved, and ornate beauty on the outside with sweet, simple, comforting sponge cake and ricotta cheese inside. I first laughed when she shared the title with me, thought she was stepping into my lane, trying her hand at comedy. Who names a song about an Italian cake with a funny name?   But as I sat as listened and really listened to both her beautiful lyrics and the beauty of her voice, I realized that my sister was finally discarding the roles placed on her, with each fresh lyric a shackle dropping and releasing her into a state of grace.  Confined no more by perfection and all the chains that confined her.  Ready to take the stage and sing loudly and proudly.  As I took my seat next to her on the piano bench and placed my very tired head on my big sisters shoulder, I felt her joyful liberation in proclaiming my happiness in just being still, quiet and me. Had she been there when I opened my eyes after falling during Ice Castles and not gone away as I remembered?  Was it time for us to live in our true roles, the ones that took us through frozen ice castles to find.