Aspiration, Faith (And Poetry) in Montclair, NJ

I had a friend who lived in Montclair many years ago, right after college, when I lived with my parents before moving to New York.

Me and E spent many happy hours exploring her home town. It’s not often that someone comes along who is a true friend.

She had studied to be a broadcast journalist, and she resembled the actress Candice Bergen. This was a few years before the first episode of her legendary sitcom. E’s fate was to have her alternate life meticulously scripted and portrayed by a talented actress for our viewing pleasure.

In real life, E was always better than Candice Bergen. Years ago, I had promised to write her a poem explaining why.

I didn’t keep my promise. I thought of that the other day when my wife said she had an appointment to get her hair done in Montclair on Sunday. I offered to tag along so I could spend the waiting time re-exploring Montclair.

I’ve been there other times in the ensuing years: our wedding reception was at the Marlboro Inn in town, and our oldest daughter graduated from Montclair State.

But, since the pandemic, every familiar place seems irrevocably different.

In Montclair, the Marlboro Inn, which my wife and I drove past on the way to the hair salon, is now a condo complex. The big old Hahne’s store downtown, where E’s mother once worked, is now a condo complex too. Those two changes happened long before the pandemic.

However, here are two telling photos from Sunday: one outside the iconic Clairidge Theatre on Bloomfield Avenue, which was closed (temporarily, I believe) on March 16, 2020… and the other advertising events at Hillside School, also frozen in time in March 2020:

All that remains the same in Montclair, I found, are its magnificent churches. Consider these photos:

Immaculate Conception Church

Christ Church

First United Methodist Church

First Church of Christ Scientist

  

All these churches are within blocks of each other.

I’d like to write something profound here about the permanence of what E.B. White once called our visible symbols of aspiration and faith.

But I don’t trust these troubled times one bit.

Consider the photo at the very top of this page: It’s the hair salon. It used to be a Baptist church, then a Masonic temple.

So I’ll offer this instead. It’s a poem I finished last night. The pandemic can never change a word of it:

 

Why You Are Better Than Candice Bergen

(for E)

 

To begin with,

despite your striking resemblance,

you weren’t an actress.

You wore no makeup. You had no lines.

 

Replaying scenes with you in my mind, 

I see Isabella Rossellini, without pretense;

Eva Gabor, in the city;

Jane Fonda, unbound.

 

You are the tangible version of Candice Bergen

in Montclair, New Jersey, pre-“Murphy Brown.”

I still see us spooning ice cream at a diner.

In our booth, I hear the sound of the mini jukebox.

 

We improvised.

You took my hand,

and we sang about the morning rain,

when I felt so uninspired.

 

Harrumph.

Before the day I met you, life was so unkind.

Your unrehearsed laughter was the key

to my peace of mind.