Coming to the Table

On my way to meet my Republican friend for a drink, I voted. My guess is we have cancelled each other out, and we could just have easily agreed to both not vote, saved each other the trouble.At least I wouldn't still be trying to peel the last layer of my "I voted" sticker off my suede jacket.

We dabbled in the obligatory pleasantries at first -- our kids, work, our travels, my failed attempts at dating and the sad truth that single men my age tend to have their hearts (or whatevers) set on thirty-somethings. So much for my fabulous personality.

Then we got into it, the whole Trump thing. The great divide, the stereotypes and the mutual disdain that has us retreating into our corners, like mortal enemies. He is able to divide Trump into two separate people -- one, the vile, indecent, grossly unqualified person who is our president, the other, the guy who's keeping the economy booming and our taxes down. At least for now. I cannot separate the two; sure, I wouldn't mind being a little bit richer, but the price is too high. My friend made a good point; Trump did not invent racism, and xenophobia, and automatic weapons. True. But he has turned over the rocks, trafficked in hatred, legitimized the most base instincts of the worst among us and given them sunlight. It is unseemly, to say the least, for the leader of the free world to behave as he does.

My friend has grown tired of being viewed as stupid because he's not offended enough by the "person" half to budge on the economics. I've grown tired of the absurdity of it all, that all intelligent conversation is eclipsed by the antics of this one, larger than life buffoon.

We found common ground on so many things, my Republican friend and I. We tossed around names of possible future presidents, and we agreed on most. He admitted he would vote for a moderate Democrat. I admitted I would vote for a moderate Republican (maybe). We are searching for that elusive middle, that space where compromise is not a dirty word and consensus is the only way we can accomplish what's best for most.

Our conversation gave me hope. About democracy anyway. Single men my age will always chase thirty-somethings, no matter who's in power. Which will free me up, sometimes, to take a Republican to lunch.

Coming From A Long Way Away

Finally, yesterday, I saw Come From Away, the brilliant Broadway musical about the unlikely collision of cultures in Gander, Newfoundland, on 9/11.

The moment the cast appeared on stage, I felt my hands clenching, the memories of that day flooding back. On my left sat my daughter, Nicki. She was five years old then, sitting with me in the kitchen as I watched one plane hit, then another, while I talked on the phone to my brother in New York. In New York, a doctor at St. Vincent's Hospital, only blocks away from the scene. The hospital where they waited, and waited, for the injured, as if mere injury were a possibility. They had been ushered away from the windows, and it was up to me to give him the play by play. I remained glued to the television for days, until Nicki asked why does this keep happening? I was still trying to understand why it happened even once, why the twin towers I had watched go up over a number of years had evaporated in what seemed to be a split second. 

On my right sat my mother. My 87 year old mother, who is virtually deaf, but loves going to the theatre and, though she cannot hear, reads voraciously beforehand and knows exactly what it is about. She was in New York that day, too. New York, her home. Though she still had her hearing, back then, she was out of earshot when it happened, somewhere on the subway -- by my calculation very near the World Trade Center -- on her way north to a museum. She emerged from the subway, several miles away, to a stunned and eerily quiet city, smoke billowing in the distance where buildings used to be. My brother and I were frantic, for a while, trying to reach her. It hadn't occurred to her to turn on her cell phone, and even if she had, service was spotty at best. Interrupted. 

A musical. About my youngest daughter's first real memory of life outside her own childhood. About the day my brother remained quarantined within his hospital's walls, awaiting patients who never arrived. About the day my mother, against all odds unless you know my mother, somehow made it across the river, home to Brooklyn, while the tip of Manhattan smoldered. About the day I lost my innocence. Or my ignorance, I suppose. A musical, of all things. 

A musical about the worst day. About the day when folks in a town in the middle of nowhere and the "plane people," the thousands of passengers on planes that did not blow up that day, collided. A day when people sprang into action and gave everything they could to welcome these unwitting victims, imperfect strangers. The plane people all came from somewhere else, from away, places where the locals had never been. By the end, there was no such thing as "away." Everything had changed, and nothing, no place, would ever seem the same. There was much good that arose from the ashes that day, and in the days and weeks that followed. This story was just one of many. 

My hands eventually unclenched. I could see that Nicki felt as uncomfortable, at first, as I did, laughing. We were both spent, by the end, from crying and laughing, as we rose with everyone else to cheer the cast and the musicians who had helped us to remember so much of what we often forget, from so many years away. 

Two Mothers, Journeying

We landed in Japan only (only!) eighteen hours after we left Chicago, but the better part of two full days had disappeared. It never ceases to be disorienting, this jump in days that happens somewhere over the Pacific.

It's my fifth trip here, and my friend's first. I assured her it was no big deal, getting around in a country where nobody looks the way you do, nobody speaks your language, and they don't make shoes large enough to fit your feet. I was lying -- not about the shoes, but about the no big deal part --but she knows that. 

Thankfully, Matt, my son, was with us to help work out the minor snafu with hotel bookings. Otherwise, my friend and I would probably still be growling silently at each other while we both stared helplessly at the hotel clerk, who stared back at us as if we were from another planet. With good reason; it can certainly seem that way sometimes, here. 

Today, we are on our own, while Matt is at work. I am the seasoned one, perfectly capable -- theoretically -- of getting us from Sannomiya to Shin Kobe to take the Shinkansen to Kyoto. She is still struggling with pronunciation, and I am guessing they all pretty much sound the same. I'm feeling a bit pressured, without my translator. I have grown accustomed to relying on Matt to point me in the right direction here, even tell me when and at how steep an angle I should bow. I am looking forward to dinner, when I can once again settle into my incompetency while he takes charge. 

It is difficult, sometimes, having a child live so far away. Even when he is twenty-eight years old, and would no doubt be spending little time with me if he lived closer. He is busy figuring out his life, wherever it takes him. As is the case with all three of my children, I simply love being in their presence, breathing the same air. I love listening to them, and watching them. I love imagining them when they were little, and marveling at the people they have become. 

I know how much of a luxury it is, for me, and for anybody who can do this, even if it's only a few times a year, at most. My friend and I raised our kids together, and we share a lot of the same memories. I can still imagine her sons when they were little, and she can do the same with my kids. She has lost one of her sons, and, almost three years later, here, on the other side of the world, visiting Matt with her, I imagine the bittersweet dissonance of fond memories and painful "what ifs." 

The best I can do, for my friend, is navigate the rails today, get us to Kyoto in good order, and back to Kobe in time for dinner with Matt. To eat some good food and drink some good wine, to get lost in our shared memories of all our children. To be in the presence of this tall, thin young man, the once chubby-cheeked boy, and marvel together as Matt inhabits a part of the world that neither of us can fully comprehend. 

Plastic Beach Boats and Stoops in Brooklyn

U.S. Negroes are Americans.

The headline jumped out at me as I flipped through the ancient issue of Life Magazine, removed from its cellophane envelope for the first time since I brought it home from Paris two years ago. It has sat on my bedroom dresser since then, under a pile of this and that, its silver stripe peeking out as an occasional reminder that I have yet to give it to my son the next time I see him. Even so, I have forgotten, several times.

When I slid it out of its packaging, I was surprised at how delicate it seemed, afraid the pages might disintegrate in my fingers. It was from the summer of 1949. I tried to remember why I had bought it, why I wanted to give it to my son. There is a picture of a woman standing in the surf, leaning on what looks to be a blow up raft, the kind you can pick up anywhere, really.  The kind we toss away carelessly at the pool when our vacations end, either because they seem kind of pointless or maybe because deflating them is too depressing, when you're already feeling deflated.

Plastic beach boats read the caption. For the first time, it occurred to me that these didn't always exist. Post-war America was filled with new inventions, I suppose, logical accompaniments for the growing landscape of suburban tract houses and white picket fences and folks re-acclimating themselves to leisure time. By the time I was born, ten years later, plastic beach boats were old news.
Maybe I thought my son would be interested in this little snippet of history, and maybe that's why I decided to buy it for him at the flea market somewhere in Paris.

It had  never even occurred to me to look inside. The headline was jarring -- U.S. Negroes are Americans. It seemed as odd to me as a cover caption about a plastic beach boat, as if it were newsworthy.

On the opposite page was a picture of Jackie Robinson and his young family, on the stoop of their home in Brooklyn. The quote was his, a polite response to being hauled before Congress to explain why Negroes are not Communists, at least not all of them, just because one Negro claimed that no Negro would fight for America in a war against Russia. Nineteen forty-nine, only ten years before I was born. Sometimes I forget that progress takes time and a lot of hard work, and a lot of backsliding. And heroes and leaders from the most unlikely places. Like an ordinary stoop in Brooklyn.

Fast forward almost three quarters of a century. I am flying somewhere over Montana, connected to earth by some invisible transmitters, on my way to Japan, I cannot believe there was a time when I couldn't do this; when I couldn't charge my cell phone in flight; when I couldn't take my phone out of the house. Technology never ceases to amaze.

I cannot believe there was a time when there had to be an article explaining that Negroes are Americans, or that a gifted athlete without a bully pulpit (other than a stoop in Brooklyn) would have to say this:

And one other thing the American public ought to understand, if we are to make progress in this matter, is the fact that because it is a Communist who denounces injustice in the courts, police brutality and lynching, when it happens, doesn't change the truth of [the] charges. 

Who knew folks could be so backward back then, that the inherent wrongness of racial profiling and stereotyping and discrimination had to be explained. Phew, glad that's all settled. The unlikely hero continued:

[The] American public is off on the wrong foot when it begins to think of radicalism in terms of any special minority group. 

Yes, the wrong foot. Seventy years later, we've come a long way. At least from plastic beach boats.

Curing Hiccups

If I could only teach my dog to stand behind me and rub my earlobes while I drink water when I get a chronic case of hiccups, I'd be perfectly content living alone. 

I thought about this last night, as I curled up on the couch with Eli for a marathon MSNBC hand wringing session on the huge flat screen TV I bought a few years ago so the guy I was dating could watch sports or other crazy shit when he came over. I remember wondering how somebody could stay so happily glued to the television, waiting for something interesting to happen. These days, I'm happy I don't have to compromise.

Even Eli rolls his eyes at me. He sighs audibly as I perk up each time "Breaking News" flashes across the screen, knowing full well it's the same stuff that keeps on breaking. He got to me yesterday, so I decided to flip to something different, something light and refreshing. Madame Secretary. Guest starring Hillary Clinton, Colin Powell, and Madeleine Albright. Sprinkled with some white nationalism and nuclear threats and a whole bunch of women's issues and, of course, faint glimmers of hope that decency will prevail and we will all live happily ever after. Well done, at once uplifting and depressing. 

I felt wistful. Sort of the way I felt when I watched my friend rub her husband's earlobes the other day while he drank water to quash his hiccups. I'd be perfectly content, if only I knew this thing we are witnessing every day were nothing more than a hiccup. 

What struck me most about the episode -- which ended with an inspiring speech warning of the difference between nationalism and patriotism -- was the woman piece. There's the obvious one, of course -- Tea Leoni's character:  beautiful, brilliant, ambitious, powerful, and married to a fabulously handsome and brilliant and sensitive man (that's just not fair). And there were the more subtle ones, about how we all wrestle with our inner contradictions and try to define ourselves in a world so filled with possibilities and barriers. I loved the mix of tension and comprehension between a very young woman and a much older woman, how the accidents of birth and moments in history and and the passage of time put our dreams and ambitions on a rocky continuum. I loved Tea Leoni's confusion, how her competency at work dissolved into blithering idiocy when her daughter lay in a hospital bed, how this superstar on the grand stage could come up with nothing better than more pillows for her immobilized child. 

It made me think about all the twists and turns in my own life -- blissfully less extreme -- and how dangerous it is to think about us women as one monolithic group. At worst, as victims, or an angry mob. At best, as a threat to the old guard, those women who don't shut up, who refuse to know their place. 

We have our struggles, but, like everybody else, we persist the best we can. Must persist, really, no matter where we end up on our own continuum of dreams, if we are to get rid of this hiccup. 

Dialogue vs. Demagogues

This is not about democrats versus republicans. This about democracy and the republic. Enough already.

An old friend commented on my last blog. Right after the 2016 election, when I was loudly wondering, on Facebook, how we had somehow elevated the personification of indecency to the presidency, he had been suggesting -- equally loudly -- that we sore losers stop whining. We both, I am guessing, wondered how we had ever been friends. Our dialogue, last night, based upon his comment, reflects the deep divide, but at least it was civil.

I am over Trump. Not over my firmly held belief that he is an unprincipled conman who cares about nobody but himself (and maybe Ivanka and Don Junior), but over my once irrepressible urge to express exasperation at his vile insults and grossly uncivilized behavior. He is just the flame, the shiny object, the thing that captures our attention while everyone chokes on the smoke. What we don't see -- and what we need to pay more attention to -- is the stuff that fans the flame, the oxygen that fuels the disaster.

The oxygen is everywhere. In the media, both liberal and conservative. When I watch the rare press conference, watch the president or Sarah lie and insult and shut down questioners, I silently implore the journalists to either call them out or walk out. The calling out comes later, when everybody goes back to their ideological cable camps and preaches to their own choir. The walking out never happens. I wish it would. I wish the media would stop covering Trump rallies. I wish they would stop giving air time to his vile tweets.

But how do we stop the oxygen that has revealed itself so starkly in the last few weeks in the United States Senate? Peaceful protest, the thing that defines democracy more than anything, is referred to by the majority leader and his buddies as "mob rule." When asked whether he believed that George Soros (and maybe other wealthy Jewish liberal philantropists?) were paying the Kavanaugh protesters, Chuck Grassley said "I have heard so many people believe that. I tend to believe it." I tend to believe it. Now there's a standard. Just like he tended to believe Kavanaugh was truthful in denying anything that might make him look bad, even when his bad behavior was on full display, in real time. Mitch McConnell persists in referring, from his bully pulpit, to the Democrats as if they are our country's mortal enemies. He talks about how he observes the rules, which I suppose is true, since he has the power to change them, and does, as he sees fit. I listened as Republican after Republican uttered the absurd talking point, about Kavanaugh's accuser, that they believe she is credible because they believe she truly believes that she is telling the truth. What? Is there anything more insulting? More demeaning and patronizing, to say about a woman who has risked everything to come forward? Don't even get me started on Lindsay.

I see no righteousness in any of this, yet there are people out there, old friends even, who disagree. We dig in our heels, and we have grown to view each other with distrust and disdain. We have, somehow, forgotten that it is okay to disagree, and, I believe, it is because we have given oxygen to the loudest and most powerful purveyors of divisiveness. Mitch and Chuck and their ilk still invoke the Clinton name as a last resort to fan the flames, the tried and true dog whistle for the haters. Kavanaugh did the same. What about Bill? What about Hillary?

What about what's happening right now, before our eyes. Americans versus Americans, when we should really be worrying about common enemies, about bigger issues that affect us all. I welcome the dialogue with my old friend, and anybody else, even the ones who call be a snowflake. I think it's our only hope.

The Rape of Lady Justice

A Republican friend thrust his phone at me this morning so I could read about what an asshole Obama was as a teenager. They don't publish those kinds of "truths" in my newspapers, certainly don't discuss those kinds of things on my cable news shows. (I cut this particular Republican some slack, because he refers to me as "nice, for a flaming liberal," even though I am neither.)

The truth, my only truth, I suppose, is that I don't really care how much of an asshole Obama was when he was a teenager. If you're going to be an asshole, the teenage years are certainly a good time for it. Life is a series of trade-offs, I think. What we lose in skin elasticity we gain, theoretically, in the wisdom of age. Theoretically. And possibly some measure of generosity and a modicum of good judgment and even  a small dose of sobriety -- within reason -- that just isn't all that cool when you're 17.

The year I turned 50, I began to reconnect with some old friends from high school. Facebook was being hijacked by folks my age, and the half-century milestone seemed to spur us on. I thought it was pretty cool, even though my kids did not. (They mocked me because one time -- seriously, ONE TIME! -- I mistakenly referred to it as "The Facebook.") Eventually, the kids moved on to more hip things like Snapchat and Instagram ("the Instagram"?) and let us have our old-fashioned cyber fun. Those were heady times, reconnecting with people who had been so much a part of my daily life so long ago, people I had not seen, sometimes not even thought about, for over 30 years. My friend list grew; for the first time in my life, I was impressed with my social life.

Fast forward nine years. We are knocking on the door of 60 now, and we are older than our parents were when we knew each other.  Yikes. One of my old friends sent me a message the other day. I knew him when we were 17, but only to the extent we can know anybody when we are 17. I know him at 59, but only to the extent you can know a person from his pictures, or his posted thoughts, or the pictures of his family. Oddly, though, I think I know him better now, because, well, like I said, with the loss of skin elasticity comes at least a bit of wisdom. We have journeyed through lots of years together, my high school friends and I, even though we have been apart. My friend and I agreed it was a good thing there had not been security cameras in our high school newspaper office. Enough said. That was a long time ago.

My point is, and I've probably said this once or twice in the last week or so, that it's okay to be an asshole when you're 17. It's even okay, sometimes, to be an asshole when you're all grown up. As long as you own it and apologize for it. It is not okay, ever, to be, well, whatever the fifty-something year old Kavanaugh was at his Senate hearings, no matter what happened or didn't happen when he was a teenager. A grown man tossing questions back at his questioners, sneering at them, weeping openly as he reminisced about summer nights with Tobin and Squee and, to quote Matt Damon, Donkey Dong Doug. As if a place on the Supreme Court bench was his birthright, and damn all those Communist Hillary lovers trying to pull it out from under him.

Seriously? Almost every 17 year old I have ever known would have behaved better. He threatened us, all of us, that what goes around comes around. This, as of tomorrow, is our new swing vote.