Happy Talk, For A Change

“South Pacific” opened at Broadway’s Majestic Theater in April 1949, when the nation’s wounds following World War II were still healing. One of the show’s memorable tunes captured Americans’ yearning for good news:

Happy talk,
Keep talkin’ happy talk,
Talk about things you’d like to do.
You gotta have a dream;
If you don’t have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true?

I’ve been thinking for a while that USA 2026 seems to be hungry for a shot of happiness. When I read of the death a few days ago of poet Edward Field at the age of 102, it brought to mind my dear friend Ilona, who also died at 101 back in 2021. Both of them attained enviable success in their fields – he as a poet, she an Impressionist painter. 

But it’s Ilona who possessed a velvet purse of happiness dust, which this pixieish lady so generously sprinkled on all who knew her. 

Ilona, who fled Berlin with her family in 1938, worked daily well into her nineties:

• She painted, wrote, swam in Cape Cod Bay, and strolled through Provincetown—her summer home since the 1940s—or in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village
• She taught painting, accepted commissions, did interviews and modeling, authored a book
• Sporting fishnet stockings and brandishing a neon boa, she performed  her “Eyelash Cabaret” to packed audiences in Provincetown and Manhattan, singing world-weary ballads reminiscent of Marlene Dietrich—and winning standing ovations each time she rendered “La Vie en Rose” or “September Song.”

“Otherwise, it’s bye-bye baby,” is how she justified her non-stop  lifestyle.

Here is a sampling of Ilona’s happy thoughts that I jotted down during the precious time I knew her. I hope they lift your spirits as much as she always lifted mine.

Comfort – "You have to have comfort. Comfort within yourself, comfortable clothes, comfortable shoes — or you cannot give all of yourself to another person. You also have to have people around you with whom you are comfortable." 

Balance – "Work alone is not enough; a person must have things that relax and enrich the mind. The arts — theatre, music, poetry, dancing — all these things are part of the balance of life."

Compromise – "If we are by ourselves, that is one thing, but when we deal with other people, they have their own needs and ideas, so we must learn to compromise."

Contentment — "We always feel we should do something better, or that this isn’t good enough. Contentment is the ability to look back at what you have accomplished — even if it’s a good cup of coffee that you made that morning — and give yourself credit. Our lives consist of hundreds of small things — be grateful for them. The big things come along only once in a while."

Awareness — "When you walk down the street and think of something else, you don’t see there’s a step in front of you. Fall, and it costs you a lot of time and money to fix it. While you are walking, think of what you’re doing. Whatever it is that you do, be conscious in that moment. Your body is like a child you have to take care of, particularly as you get older."

It sounds cliché, but it’s true. Ilona always found something to love in everybody. At her hundredth birthday celebration, she proclaimed to the friends gathered round: “When I’m gone I will always send my love.” She has kept her promise.

(Images: Trick-or-Treating with Ilona in her Greenwich Village neighborhood. Late in life, Ilona painted a series of small portraits of eyes. The second image is Ilona’s painting of my late wife’s eye. It’s the only image of Jo Anne that I display, because it captures her soul better than any photo.)