A Special Person, Gone but Remembered, Fondly

I never knew his name, and he never knew mine, but he always asked me about Eli, my boxer. He would tell me how much he loved Eli, which I thought to be impossible. They barely knew each other.

His name was Billy, and, as it turns out, he is the one who died the other day, hit by a car. I had heard rumblings about the tragedy, the circumstances, given it a moment or two of pause, and then tucked it away with all the other things in life that are not my problem. Another death, close to home, but anonymous.

Anonymous until this morning, when a Facebook post popped up, about Billy. The picture took my breath away.

I had heard Billy long before I ever really paid attention to him, narrating his thoughts, seemingly to nobody, early one morning in my new local Starbucks. Other than an occasional grunt, nobody really responded to what he was saying, which didn't seem to faze Billy. I saw him almost every morning after that, and he would stop to tell me about his day, or whatever he was thinking. Sometimes I nodded politely; sometimes, I asked him questions; sometimes, especially at the beginning, I walked away quickly, thinking about all the unimportant things I had to do. I hate that I did that, even once.

Eli and Billy took to each other immediately. Eli loves attention, and Billy loved Eli's slobbery kisses. It's an acquired taste, and most people have yet to acquire it. It doesn't bother me that Billy didn't know my name; he thought of me as the lady who brought him Eli, which was really all that mattered. It bothers me that I never knew Billy's name, though, never thought to ask. Billy would be referred to, I suppose, as a "special needs" adult, but -- as far as I could tell -- Billy was special but not needy. He seemed to find joy in everything and in everybody. He appreciated the things we all take for granted, and couldn't wait to share his joy, even if some of us, sometimes, were too preoccupied to listen. If he needed anything, it was to make sure every person he met could feel the kind of happiness he felt.

We all need a little bit more of "Billy" in life. I will miss the sight of him riding his bike in the neighborhood, greeting everyone. I will miss the sound of his voice, a reminder of how he saw every small thing as a gift, the way a lot of the rest of us do not. I will miss watching him receive Eli's kisses, and I will miss having one more opportunity to ask him to tell me more about the cubs game, or his "Olympic" games, or his family. To let him know I shared his joy.

Postcards from the Bubble

Yesterday, I joined a group of women in my old neighborhood for a postcard writing and phone banking party. I knew many of them, from the days when what drew us together was the dream (and the toil) of raising kids in a safe place with good schools. Our property taxes were high, the carpooling schedules were grueling, but we seem to have, as a village, launched some pretty good citizens.

What drew us together yesterday was the collective state of shock and outrage that has overtaken the bubble, festering as the months tick by and the indignities and atrocities go on, unchecked. We women don't like feeling powerless. I turned in my hand wringing for hand-writing desperate pleas on postcards to folks outside the bubble, imploring them to vote. If I were to receive such a card, it would go directly into the recycling bin, as does much of my mail. If I were to receive a phone call, I would let it go unanswered. It felt good, though, to do something. I stayed the course, kept writing.

Was it any different when we were raising children? I often think -- and admit, out loud -- that I believe my three turned out well in spite of me, and not because of anything I may have done right. As they grew, so too did their independence, and, it seemed, my irrelevance. I wondered, sometimes, if it would make more sense to just sit back and hope for the best. But I stayed the course, and did what I could, as pointless as it might seem.  Not just because I loved them unconditionally, but because was my responsibility, my job.

The night before Stanley, my "grand pup," had a bit of a freak accident, I had a dream that something happened to him. I have since decided that I am possessed of some mystical powers -- and promise to warn my friends and loved ones to be careful if they ever appear in such a dream, rather than wait for the confirming phone call. Stanley, thank goodness, has lived to tell the tale.

Last night, I had a dream that there was an earthquake in D.C., a quake that measured over 100 on the Richter Scale. Whom do I warn? An earthquake in D.C. is highly improbable, but I take comfort in the idea that a seismic shift is afoot, creeping up on us as slowly but as surely as the imperceptible changes that led us to where we find ourselves, now.

Most of us did not see it coming, the train wreck. Just as when my pediatrician told me, when my first born would not relinquish her pacifier, that one day her preferred form of plastic would be a credit card, the thought seemed preposterous. I never saw it coming, for any of my children, as they moved through toddlerhood and adolescence and the teens. I never saw it coming, even when I had already seen it happen twice. And I never saw "this" coming, the racism bubbling back up from its latency, the lure of crassness and indignity and an "us versus them-dom" the likes of which I never thought possible. I didn't even know there was a "them."

The shift is coming. Even if nobody reads the postcards, or answers the phone. I have lived it, and I have dreamt it. No warnings necessary; just rest, assured.

Thoughts About Nothing in Particular (So What Else is New?)

An acquaintance recently suggested I write something more useful than my self-reflective bullshit. That's not a direct quote, but it pretty much captures the spirit of the advice.

Two possible  responses sprang immediately to mind -- the third, to heed the advice -- didn't come into play until days later. I resisted the first option, which was to to simply tell him to fuck himself, and went with the other, my "go-to," which is to get defensive. It is useful, damn it. Even if only to my small handful of loyal readers. And, if not to them, it is useful, to me.

I'm not big on handing out suggestions, even worse about taking them. I cringe when someone questions me. And, by cringe, I mean I shrivel up into an amorphous and blithering little ball and remind myself I have never done anything right, ever. Maybe I should have asked the psychologist about that, the one I dated, once. I told some friends, the other day, that I've come to look at dating as simply a pathway to lots of free meals. The psychologist only sprang for a drink though; I should have extracted some therapy before scratching him off the list.

My son-in-law suggested I write a book about my dating life, pepper it with little vignettes about the man I sleep with on a regular basis (my devastatingly handsome castrated boxer) and the new gentleman in my life, Stanley, the bull dog, my grand-pup. He's recently castrated, but has yet to feel the full effects, and humps my leg whenever he gets the chance. It's annoying and a little painful, but I admit I kind of like feeling irresistible.

Dating, in my early 50's, was bad enough. Now, as 60 looms large, it's awful. It seems less about physical attraction than the absence of revulsion. Chemistry morphs into practicality, something certainly more complicated than a swipe left or right; it's a constant weighing of each other's baggage, assessing whether the two lifetimes' worth of wear and tear can coexist without disturbing whatever precarious balance we've each achieved. Only then do you even wonder whether, if you dim the lights enough, there might be something better than indifference or resignation.

If there's anything useful in here, I suppose it's only apparent to me. I know that dinners out are sometimes more fun than dinner at home, alone, and sometimes it's just better to hang on the couch, smothered by dogs, covered in dog hair. At least the dogs don't talk. If I had anything profound to say, I would write something useful, advise women coming down the pike behind me, divorced, approaching 60.

But you're on your own, ladies. Again, I'm not big on handing out suggestions. Or taking them.

The "Keeper" Pile

No worries. I'm struggling too.

I had a vague sense of somebody behind me, even though he had not said a word. Not until I glanced over my shoulder, and realized I had been weaving, tracing erratic figure eights over the center line on the bike path. I was mortified. Sorry, I mumbled, inching back over to the right, keeping my head down.

Could he tell, I wondered, that it wasn't just my legs that were struggling to get me up the incline. There are no real hills in my neck of the woods; the anomalous upward tilt in the path had caught me by surprise, after two hours of pure flat.

I was so caught up in my daydream, I had barely even noticed my labored breathing. There are plenty of mountains in my daydreams, those "over the hill" kind of mountains that seem so daunting, the kind that take my breath away just by being there. I've always relied upon my solitary runs or bike rides or, more commonly lately, long walks for some productive deep thinking. I would compose lectures in my head, when I taught, figure out how to juggle three kids and a job and a flailing marriage. My work has changed, my children have left, and, well, the flailing marriage failed. These days, it's tough to find solutions when I can't even put my finger on the problems.

It's kind of like peering into my overstuffed closet, wanting desperately to clear it out but having no clue where to start. Someone told me, the other day, that she starts by pulling out the things she loves. It's easier, after that, to figure out what to toss. Forget about the discard pile, it's the "keeper" pile that matters. It seemed so radical. So brilliant. Focusing on the good stuff I already have is a skill I have yet to master, and my closet seems as good a place as any to do a practice run.

I'm struggling too. His smile was kind, and he was decent enough to keep the pass slow, lingering a bit in front of me so he could leave me with a shred of dignity before he left me in his dust. I pedaled furiously, determined to prove (to whom, I couldn't say) that I was doing just fine. At least my legs were.

It's one of the hazards of an afternoon ride on a summer Sunday. Norman Rockwell's America rolls by -- picnickers, leisurely paddlers in the lagoon, couples chatting away on their bikes. Life in the suburbs, built for twos, and threes, and fours, as I ponder the universe on my bicycle built for one. Forgetting, momentarily, that I actually have a bicycle, and the wherewithal to go out and ride it on a beautiful summer afternoon.

No doubt, the nice gentleman who passed me has his own struggles, as do the picnickers and the kayakers and the chattering couples. But out on a sunny afternoon, we are all the "haves," and not, by any stretch of the imagination, the "have-nots." The discard pile can wait.

Learning from Lives Well Lived

I was at a small graveside funeral the other day, for the uncle of a good friend. I had met him several times over the years, but never really knew him. I knew his story, though -- at least the pivotal piece -- which is that he spent the better part of his early childhood hiding and running from the Nazis with his older brother, my friend's father.

Nobody is anywhere near as perfect as they seem to be in their eulogies, and I'm pretty sure Uncle Freddy is no exception. Still, I tend to feel inadequate at funerals (because, of course, as with everything else, it's all about me.). I wonder who will step up at my own funeral one day, attesting to my unique brand of perfection.  If only my dogs could talk.

The man standing behind me at the graveside tapped me on the shoulder. "Do I know you?" he asked.

"I don't think so," I said, certain I had never seen this elderly gentleman with an extraordinarily long salt and pepper pony tail.

"Well I'd like to."

We all cracked up, the small gaggle of outsiders standing along the back edges of the makeshift chapel. Who knew my odds would be so much better at a cemetery than on a dating site. I thanked him for the compliment, even thought about giving him my card (if I had one). But this was about Uncle Freddy.

Uncle Freddy was, to say the least, quirky. Kind of a know-it-all, though, as his oldest friend pointed out, he had a right to be.  He was voracious about reading, voracious about discovering food and drink and other glorious mysteries of life. I enjoyed hearing about the things that shaped Uncle Freddy. About how, when he was a little boy, hiding in the mountains, his only friends were his books, which explains why he so loved to read. How, as an adult, he always preferred staying home to going out. Understandable, when his formative years were spent not knowing what a home felt like. How he never asked "why me?" when he was so plagued by illness later in life. He had never expected to live past the age of six. The next 75 years were a huge windfall.

A few hours after Freddy's funeral, I found myself on an impromptu "date" (I use the term loosely) with someone four years younger than I. After an hour, he looked at me as if he had just noticed me, and he asked me why I have such nice teeth. Do I know you? Why do you have such nice teeth? It was certainly a day for weird questions. He explained that people my age tend to have rotten teeth. I laughed. Not in the kindhearted way I laughed at the funeral, but more in the why don't I ever learn kind of way.

I thought about Uncle Freddy.  Unkempt, unconventional, largely unknown Uncle Freddy, who nevertheless made an enormous impact on the people who crossed his path. Had we spent an hour together, he would have been curious about a lot of things, least among them my un-rotted teeth. And I would have come away better just to have spent that hour.

Uncle Freddy was buried in a simple pine box, and would have preferred that there be no pomp, no ceremony, no hyperbolic praise. I'm glad nobody listened to him, and I'm glad I got to hear more of his story. Worth telling, and worth hearing.

Tragedy in Tajikistan -- A Mother's Perspective

Twenty-nine years old. Georgetown graduates. Believing with every fiber of their being that people are essentially good. Dead on the side of a mountain road, somewhere very far away. Tajikistan.

I am the mother of a twenty-nine year old Georgetown graduate. They had walked the same streets, maybe even lived in the same dorm. I have a son, who will turn twenty-eight tomorrow, who lives somewhere very far away. Not in a place that ends in "istan" -- that suffix that, well, I can't help it, automatically touches a nerve. My youngest now lives in New York. Some might think of that as a dangerous place, or even a place far away. I do not. Every day, though, I worry about all of them. I am their mother, and that's what I do.

I vaguely remember hearing the story a few days ago, about the random killing of some tourists in a place far away. ISIS had claimed responsibility. No, that's not right. That sounds too much like remorse, like holding oneself accountable for a horrible deed. They were not claiming responsibility. They were taking credit. I had heard the story and tucked it neatly away, in that safe place where I can ignore horrible stories about things that happen to other people, things that have nothing to do with me. It might very well have remained there, had I ignored the brief New York Times teaser that had popped up on my phone yesterday, something about a dream ending on a mountaintop.

The story stopped me in my tracks. The nameless and faceless victims were no longer tucked away. They were idealistic. They were in love. They had shed their creature comforts and their good jobs and were living out their world view. A world view that was populated by good hearted people and beautiful vistas and serendipitous encounters that could never happen if you spend your life in a cubicle staring at a computer screen. They probably held onto that world view until the end, even as the  band of thugs, in cars packed with guns and knives, bore down on them and mowed them down, then came out to finish the job.

Somebody's child died, brutally murdered, on the side of that dusty mountain road in a place called Tajikistan. Only a few days earlier, some local folks had brought the bikers flowers, entertained them with some music. It was enough, despite the grueling trek, the occasional unpleasant incidents along the way, to reinforce their optimistic and maybe slightly naive world view. As a mother, I'm torn. I would love to know that my own children have that kind of outlook, that people are good, that there are impossibly beautiful views that should not be missed, that it would be a shame to miss it all, or any of it. As a mother, though, I want to shackle them to their computers, move them into a house a stone's throw away from mine, somewhere close where I can know, every night before I go to bed, that they are safe. I admit it. I want them to be jaded and cynical and conventional and bored. If it means they'll be alive.

"And in the end it's not the years in your life that count; it's the life in your years." Abraham Lincoln said that, and lots of other folks have repeated it. A piece of me believes that to be true. As a mother, though, I can't quite shake the idea of the shackles.

Bananas Republic

We the people. 

I try to confine my morning anxiety attacks to the garden variety stuff, like having procrastinated on a few too many work deadlines or wondering whether I remembered to let the dog in before I fell asleep. I'm trying, really hard, while I work, to find an alternative white noise source to MSNBC.

This morning, relieved that Eli was safely curled up on the couch, I sat down with my mega mug of coffee to get right to work. All is right with the world, I suppose, when you set the bar that low.

Aargh. I was so close, except I couldn't unsee the video of some twisted version of "we the people" at a Trump rally in Florida the other day, spewing venom at the press and thrusting fingers at them and calling them liars and uttering various obscenities that had to be bleeped out to protect the "we the people" being treated to the spectacle in our living rooms. Oh, yeah, it was "our" president right there at the helm, stoking the mob. Why the bleep? Whatever they're saying, it's got the presidential stamp of approval.

So much for getting an early start this morning. My fingers wandered aimlessly on the keyboard, and I opened some new tabs, scanned a few articles about James Madison and the Bill of Rights  and separation of powers and freedom of the press and all that other nonsense those folks fought so hard for so long ago. America then and America now. I search in vain for some vestigial resemblance. The best I can come up with is odd hairdos on the men in power. And even that's gone haywire.

Mobs and revolutions are nothing new. It's how a lot of modern democracies earned their footing, toppling iron-fisted rulers who did as they please. But mobs attacking the press? The messengers? While they dance merrily around an illegitimate leader who cares about nobody but himself, cares particularly little about the obscenity spewing deplorables dancing around him and kissing his ring.

At least the folks in Congress are doing their job, protecting us from unfettered executive power. A bunch of them even called our president's behavior inappropriate. Glad they're not holding back. Deplorables. Yes, I said it again.

We the people are having an identity crisis the likes of which most of us -- certainly our founders -- could not have imagined. We are a republic gone bananas, and I don't think we can sit back and wait for God or anybody else to bless America. November is approaching, and "we the people" have a lot of work to do.