The Kids are All Right

Most mornings and many evenings last summer, we'd walk by them, the elderly couple outside their small corner townhouse. By then, Eli had had his fill of fetching and sniffing and the occasional laser focused sprints back and forth across some imaginary finish line. I'd had my fill of idle conversation, but I never tire of watching the pure joy of dogs at play. 

They were always outside, the elderly couple, drinking what I assume was coffee in the morning, and something a bit stronger in the evening. Sometimes, they sat together at a small round table; sometimes, one or the other would be up and about, tending to the flower beds that lined the curb. We would wave. I often wondered what they could possibly have to talk about after so many years, so many hours, but they seemed surprisingly content. 

The place seemed locked up a few weeks ago when Eli and I walked by, something we do far less often now that the weather has turned cold. A tarp covered their table, held down by bricks. I imagined they were somewhere south now, drinking whatever the hour called for and chatting and tending to other flowers. 

My kids are all in Chicago now for the holidays. I never tire of watching the three of them together. It is far more complicated than the pure joy of dogs at play, but it is, nevertheless, a marvel. They have the secret language of siblings, borne of a shared upbringing that somehow seeps to the surface when they are together, eclipsing the divergent paths they have taken. In their adult faces I cannot help but see the plump cheeks, the uncertain toddles, the neediness that made me so relevant back in the day. 

This year, for the first time, I have no spare bedroom. My life has been downsized, which works for me. I have my new routines, and I have my coffee in the morning, something stronger in the evening, sometimes just with Eli, sometimes with others. Sometimes I chat, sometimes I don't, but I am content. I am certain that my kids wonder at the seeming sameness of my days. When they are here, I am reminded of how boring I am. All right, that's not fair; I am far more multi-dimensional than that, at least to them. I am ridiculous, occasionally helpful, often incredibly annoying. 

Soon, we will all return to the lives we live, by some combination of choice and happenstance. It's easier in a lot of ways, but I will miss the joyful albeit fraught interruption of their presence, as a group. I will miss watching the three of them together, overhearing their shared sibling language. I will have to settle in, again, to marveling at the pure joyfulness of dogs, and enjoying my seemingly mundane existence. When spring arrives, I will look forward to that secret feeling of superiority that overcomes me when I walk past the elderly couple and marvel at the tedium of their contentedness. 

Let's Hear it for the Girls!

I’ve imagined all week they’ve been feigning excitement, the girlfriends who have chosen to celebrate by milestone birthday with me in Vegas. Not that anybody needs an excuse to leave Chicago for a few days in a November that already feels a bit like February. But it was summer when we cooked up the idea, and I still can’t help but feel a little self-conscious that they are making this trip for me.

Excitement, gratitude, an occasional twinge of anxiety, a fear that nobody will have fun. That twinge evaporated by last night though, lost in a crescendo of emojis -- party hats and champagne popping and clouds of confetti, texts about packing (with even the more holier than thou among us – namely me – finally succumbing to the need to check a bag),  and sordid and self-deprecating texts that only women of a certain age would find amusing.  I abandoned my laptop, made myself a dirty martini in my new shaker, and rummaged through my closets and tried on all sorts of things I know I’ll never wear out in public but what better way to get in the mood. Turquoise cowboy boots and khaki shorts; a tame prelude to what I imagine will happen – and stay – in Vegas.

The guy who took my bag at the airport told me to have fun, and reminded me not to tell. There’s a certain appeal to that, the notion that you can transport yourself somewhere and transform yourself, if only for a moment. I doubt I can shake 59 years, 363 days of relative self-restraint, but then again I’ve never been to Vegas with the girls. At least my daughters will be there to roll their eyes at me before I do anything silly. Or after.

I am giddy this morning. Excited and grateful, and free of anxiety. I cannot wait to greet them all as they drift in, hand them their drinks, settle comfortably into the cozy cocoon they have woven over all these years, the women in my life. My friends, who know me better than anybody possibly could and still hang around. My daughters, who have no choice but to hang around, who remind me every day of the good I have contributed, in spite of myself. They are, all of the women in my life, the icing on my birthday cake, the blue cheese in my olives, the dirty in my martini.

I am about to land in Sin City, on the precipice of yet another chapter. Sixty, all of a sudden, does not seem so bad.

A Bagel With a Schmear

It's never left me, my love of Sunday mornings.

It was my time with my father, just the two of us. In my mind it was always sunny, although, oddly, I can still hear the sound of the windshield wipers. We'd head off in his Cadillac -- always a two-door coupe, not a sedan, on the off chance my brother or I might lean against a door and fly out. We didn't wear seat belts back then, but flying through the windshield was never on my father's worry radar. Why would it be, as long as he was at the wheel?

I assumed my father would never let anything bad happen to me. I counted on it. In my mind I was always happy, although, oddly, I can still taste some tears. But Sunday mornings, I believe, were perfect. Off we went, in search of breakfast. My brother had no interest in going; he had his own special times with our father (or so he says), but Sunday mornings were mine. My father's comfort behind the wheel was contagious, and I'd settle in to the passenger seat beside him, content to go wherever he took me, content to listen to him talk.

The "appetizing store." I've tried, with little success, to explain what that is to my Midwestern friends, how "appetizing" was not really an adjective. Wikipedia has given it a stab: it is best understood as a store that sells "the foods one eats with bagels." That sounds about right, but it doesn't do it justice. For me, it is the claustrophobic shop on the corner of Avenue J and East 14th Street, where ornery men in stained white aprons tossed fish on wooden cutting boards and sliced them with delicate and painstaking precision, oblivious to the waiting mob of impatient customers while they catered to the whims of old ladies who ordered things like a half of a quarter of a pound of nova or demanded a redo when the slices were too thick. My father would steam, until it was his turn. He relished his turn, content to kick back into slow motion. All of a sudden, we needed boxes of "Tam Tams" and anything else that needed to be plucked off the packed ceiling-high shelves with a "grabber." I was happy just to have more time with him. This was before I could imagine that my time with him would end some day.

I thought about all of this, last Sunday morning, as I made my way through the crowds watching the Chicago Marathon, trying to catch a glimpse of the leaders as they rounded the final turn before the finish. The air was crisp and the sun was bright, and I felt almost the way I did back in those days, straining to see over the heads in front of me while everyone waited. I craved a bagel with a schmear. A ride with my father, the sound of his voice. The feeling of a perfect Sunday morning, rain or shine.

This coming weekend we will celebrate what would have been my father's 100th birthday. He has been gone for 21 years, but I remember everything about him, as if it were yesterday. Not just our Sunday mornings, but waiting for him to walk in the door every evening at six; doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with him; hearing him remind me I could do anything as long as I "applied myself;" reading obituaries with him so -- according to him -- he could make sure he was still alive. Our private jokes. The sweet smell of his cigars.

I will always love Sunday mornings, no matter how bittersweet. I still wish I could ask his advice -- even if I might ignore it. And, still, there is no better way to start a day than with a bagel with a schmear and a little bit of nova.

The Ring

It was a coincidental cluster, but a cluster all the same, the rash of departures of mothers. Chronologically elderly mothers, the generation of mothers that bore my generation, mothers who, to their own daughters and sons, always seemed larger than life and immortal. 

With each departure I was struck with grief and a pang of fear. Grief for my friends' losses and my own, particularly for those moms with whom I had spent so much time over the years. And fear that my own mother's immortality would prove, one day, to be nothing more than a sham. I know that's unlikely, but one should always be prepared for such things. 

As my friend and her sister have spent considerable time bonding, these past few months, going through their mother's things, I have sat on the sidelines, still not believing I would never again have lunch with Ann, or celebrate a holiday with her, or grieve together, or even serve as nothing more than a buffer between her and her daughter. We do that for each other, we daughters, able to spin what might appear to be a mother's unrelenting critique into nothing more than inartful expressions of unconditional love. It's cheaper than therapy. 

The clean-up helped my friend and her sister grieve, and it helped me know more about the woman I really only knew as their mom. I would never have expected the fastidious Ann to have expired food in her fridge and pantry. I would never have expected the methodical Ann to have dozens of half empty tissue packets buried in every jacket pocket. I would never have expected the sensible Ann to have too many pairs of the same kind of pants, or to waste her time with fake flowers. The tissues were unceremoniously bequeathed to me, by her daughters, since I never seem to have any. The fake flowers adorn what used to be a large empty vase by my front door. 

I loved Ann's whimsical teapot collection, though I hate tea. I know I am getting one, and I hope it's the polka-dotted rooster, but beggars (and merely honorary daughters) cannot be choosers. 

What I never expected though, never would have asked for, was the ring. I had forgotten about this ring, the wide one with intertwined ribbons of metal, the one she always wore and I always admired. After everything was packed away, her daughters surprised me with it. I felt unworthy, as if maybe we should have gotten Ann's permission. Deep down, though, I knew she would have been okay with it, and it made me smile. 

After so many years of being daughters and mothers together, my friends and I have managed to blur the boundaries between family and friendship, and we have woven together an intergenerational tapestry that keeps us from becoming unglued, not just from each other but from ourselves. 

A wide band of intertwined ribbons, without beginning and without end. 

A Fish Out of Water, Swimming Upstream

I was not so much swimming as hobbling upstream, moving gingerly in my wildly uncomfortable boots through the onrushing tide of Bears fans heading south for the opening game at Soldier Field. I yearned for the flip flops in my purse, but I was off to a soirée of sorts, a gathering of successful women, two of whom I had met only once, three of him I had never met at all. Not the kind of event that lends itself to comfortable shoes. 

Or maybe not. I felt intimidated, considered turning around and joining the football fans. They are devoted networkers, these women, and I happened to get caught up in their mystical web. Most of them had arrived before I did, in this eclectic condo in Printers Row lovingly packed with the most astonishing potpourri of perfect touches. They were outgoing and friendly, animated when speaking and intent when listening. This would be all right. 

They spoke in some sort of networking code, and I tried (in vain) to follow the evolution of all the various groups and sub-groups.  I know precious little about networking; my experience (other than the one meeting that brought me to this place) consists solely of trolling dating sites on a particularly boring Saturday evening, searching for somebody who might make me laugh. Nevertheless, I felt, almost immediately, entirely at home, at ease. I was barely even mortified when I dripped the juice of a  stuffed mushroom on my blouse. After about ten minutes, I felt like family.The company? The hors d'oeuvres? The smorgasbord of art pieces everywhere? Whatever it was, my feet were grateful. I went to my purse and retrieved my flip-flops. 

They are successful professionals in ways I was not raised to be; not lawyers or doctors or Indian chiefs but filmmakers and communications analysts and leadership consultants and holistic financial planners. A gifted musician who had traded in her violin, at least temporarily, for a more orderly profession. We are polar opposites really; I seek out disorder in hopes of achieving some gift, even a modicum of creativity. But we are both Scorpios. We sat together at dinner, gave a separate -- dare I say cliquey? -- toast to our Zodiac bond.  

They are armed with tales of discovery and adventure, so much more interesting that my old standby, the one about childbirth, in all its excruciating detail. There was a tale of a youthful encounter with a handsome stranger at the top of the Eiffel Tower. There was a tale of a serendipitous stop in a small and unassuming French Village left nearly emptied and silent by a brief and atrocious Nazi pass through. Trips to India and China and Milan. Oddly, I could not remember going anywhere, discovering any mysteries; I certainly could not conjure up any chance encounters with a handsome stranger. 

The writer among us piped up, eventually, somewhat embarrassed about the nature and extent of her travels.  She wished she had the travel bug, but she just did not. It's not that she hadn't thought about it; it's just that she prefers to travel by reading. It is her life blood, her books. She ventures across the globe and back through time. She realized, I think, as she spoke, that she is probably more well-traveled than any of us. 

By my count, only two of the six of us had chosen to have children. By my count, though everybody's life seemed full, not one of us could claim a great career and children and an intact marriage. Two of the three was the best any of us could do. 

I left both exhilarated and confused, uncertain of who I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to be doing.  I took comfort, when I returned home, settling into easy repartee in a group text with my old friends, all of them intelligent and accomplished in their own right but having chosen a somewhat different path from the women at the soiree. I admire all of them really, my steadfast and indispensable circle of old friends and my new acquaintances, certain that each one is far more sure of herself, whatever her choices have been, than I am. I take a few minutes to prepare for whatever I will work on tomorrow, and I remember that I am good at what I do. I remember that my resume is three pages long, which makes me either accomplished or flighty, maybe a little of both. 

This morning I walked up the same sidewalk I had hobbled down last night, now empty except for the occasional dog walker. Everybody is wearing comfortable shoes, and everybody seems lost in their own thoughts. Interesting if only for its ordinariness. I head east, toward Soldier Field, as the steady hum of rush-hour traffic builds. I wonder if I should maybe take an interest in football since I live so close. But then I think of the possibilities -- a chance encounter with a stranger, a serendipitous stop in a village with a heart-wrenching story to tell, a book that takes me somewhere far away, or back in time.

A fish out of water, sometimes. Swimming upstream, when I have to. But more and more, unapologetic about my comfortable shoes. 

Love Me Tender (But Please Don't Do My Laundry)

For our seventeenth wedding anniversary, my husband surprised me with an Elvis wedding. Well, a vow revewal. It's not that things went south after that, but it's the last anniversary I can remember. It made me laugh, mostly because he and our friends had come to Las Vegas armed with matching wedding guest attire, lewd sex gifts, and a well-kept secret, and my husband had written his own pitch perfect vows. And mine. After 17 years, at least you can be somewhat realistic. Elvis? Well, he was too skinny and couldn't sing. 

I found the video when I was packing up to move last spring, along with the certificate that, I suppose, still counts me as officially renewed in marriage in Nevada. It's more than we have from our actual wedding. The photographer went AWOL and the friend who insisted on being our unofficial videographer forgot to press "record." Or something. Viva Las Vegas for getting it right. 

The other night I took a chance and asked my Uber driver what his day job was. I should have known. From the moment I entered the car he peppered his conversation -- mostly one-sided -- with occasional bursts of baritone. The temperature okay back there. . . DARLIN'? How do you like the South Loop. . . LITTLE LADY? He gave me his card. An Elvis impersonator. Blue suede shoes, tight bell bottoms, gaudy belt buckle, big hair. The real fake deal. I bet he would've done a great re-wedding. I almost expected him to break out the guitar and jump through the sun roof when we passed the neighborhood, um, correctional facility. 

I'm heading to Vegas in a few months, with a handful and a half of friends and my two daughters. Not a wedding, or a vow renewal; just a regular old sixtieth birthday celebration. Still can't quite wrap my head around that one, but I suppose I'll have to. I told Elvis he should come with. I told him about my last Elvis, the skinny one who couldn't sing. He flexed a bicep muscle for me; he works hard to keep himself in character, he assured me. Who knows, maybe I'd still be married if the other guy had taken voice lessons and lifted a few weights now and then. Elvis, not my ex-husband. 

In that little chapel in Vegas, so many years ago, in the vows my husband wrote for me to read out loud, I promised never to do his laundry. He had this thing about clothes sitting in the dryer for days on end, shriveling. It was an easy promise to keep anyway. Still is, come to think of it. A wedding vow, kept. 

A View from a Rooftop

I could almost hear my mother saying it, that she had the map of Ireland on her face. On her whole body, really, from the flaming reddish hair on her head to the freckles on her bare legs, so plentiful they almost came together to make her look tan. That we would have been drawn to each other seemed unlikely -- this tall pale beauty with the pixie-ish nose and me, with the map of Minsk or Pinsk or some ill-defined border between Russia and Poland on my face. Hmm, no wonder that's never caught on as an expression. 

Her boyfriend was the leader of the band. I had shown up reluctantly to this rooftop party, as a favor to the drummer. She thought I looked like I needed some wine. I liked her immediately. She's dated lots of Jews, she told me, and has come away with a treasure trove of stories and a working knowledge of basic Yiddish. Better than your average M.O.T., I told her -- and she was stumped. Member of the Tribe, I explained. How odd that she had mastered meshugana (and all of its various conjugations) and never heard "M.O.T."? 

She went immediately to the "tribe" piece. Tribal. Tribalism. A bad word these days, in all of its various conjugations. She raised a good point; I rail against tribalism, and I had just declared myself to be a member. 

I thought about this today, when I read a post from a friend, reacting to all the meshugas with our president and Jews and Israel and the two rabble rousing Congresswomen who have almost made us forget about the lovely and talented A.O.C., at least for a few news cycles. It was an eloquent view from a center lane that has almost entirely disappeared, a cautionary tale, really, about the perils of tribalism when everybody -- EVERYBODY -- is behaving badly. Predictably, the president. Equally predictably, Bibi. And the provocative freshmen. And all the knee jerkers, on the right and on the left, which appears to be where everybody falls, these days. 

Denmark, we have a problem. (Houston seems so yesterday.) I attended a Mayor Pete event yesterday, and I was uplifted and inspired and, dare I say, optimistic. He is bright and articulate and thoughtful and calming. A natural leader, even if he looks like he is twelve. The event was in Bronzeville, deep in the South Side of Chicago, clearly intended to start a conversation with black and brown people. Yet Bronzeville has no doubt never hosted such a large crowd of white folks. If Mayor Pete can't draw out people of color in their own neighborhood, I wonder whether we will ever get out of our own lanes. 

Molly (remember, my new friend, map of Ireland; what else would her name be?), like everybody else on that rooftop, is solidly in my lane, in my tribe, even though she deemed tribe to be a dirty word. In the bubble of Oak Park, or white Chicago, we can't even imagine what life is like in the other bubbles, much less what they are thinking. 

I like Pete, and I truly believe he could wipe the floor with the idiot who has hijacked us and help steer us all out of our lanes, gather us together from the edges. If not Pete, or Joe, somebody needs to do it. The specifics can come later. 

Land of the Free?

I would not have guessed her name was Fatima. No hijab, her skin lighter than mine. The only hint of coming from somewhere else is a slight accent. I had guessed Eastern Europe, but a long time ago. She and her husband look like any American couple. They have a dog. 

As we sat watching our dogs play, we suddenly ran out of small talk. The weather. Work. How we like living in the city after migrating from suburbia. She misses the quiet. I do not. 

I asked her where she was from, before she moved to where she moved before she moved here. Have you heard of Bosnia? She was serious, which I guess is fair. She's lived here for almost 30 years, and she's no doubt become accustomed to our self-important ignorance, our dogged grip on the notion that bad shit happens elsewhere. 

She told me the story of how she and her young daughter escaped from war torn Bosnia to Austria, while her husband remained. How it was, without cell phones, unsure for long stretches whether he was alive or dead. Had she and her daughter stayed she would have been raped, they would have been killed. I tried to imagine this woman, about my age, on the run with a small child. Tried to imagine what it was like, listening to the sounds of war closing in. They had all lived together peacefully for years, she told me, all ethic groups. Until, somehow, everything changed. 

America in 2019. More than two and a half years into a nightmare presidency, more than two and a half years of watching one man dismantle our democracy in small increments while an entire party sits by in silence, complicit, as guilty as the man himself. It no longer surprises me that it happened; it surprises me now that people are still surprised. I hold my breath when nothing happens, when the latent hatred that has been given voice takes a day off from some kind of atrocity. I wonder, constantly, how many more people will die before we do something. 

Fatima's daughter, Yale educated, well-traveled, out of danger since she was four, is terrified. She wants her mother to change her name. At 32, she may not be hearing bombs, but she feels the unsettling rumble of rocks turning over and long-buried truths seeping out; she feels the deafening threat of silence. 

I walked into a sparkling shopping center in the heart of Chicago's Loop the other day. The stores are upscale, the shoppers well-heeled, but in a rainbow of colors. For the first time, I felt vulnerable, knowing that anyone is welcome here. I felt strangely afraid, not of an invading caravan of imaginary murderers from far away, but of something far more insidious, something homegrown. 

Fatima is Muslim, and I don't know if she ever did wear a hijab. But I get why she's not wearing one now. 

Dog Days

I watched today with fascination as the six dogs, all having spent the better part of ten minutes languishing in the shade and ignoring each other -- leapt up in unison to charge the fence. Two dogs from the other building -- the one with the bigger balconies and the pool, and, from what I've been told, a state of the art gym -- had entered the tiny pathway just beyond our fence, en route to their own park. 

The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence, at least if we're comparing dog parks. It's the same actually, the same synthetic turf, green even in the dead of winter, delightfully mud-free during the fickle days of spring thaw. But ours, well it stretches much farther away from the train tracks, gives us a buffer from the noise, if we prefer. We have benches and trees on our side, plenty of shade for the hot summer days we thought would never arrive. The dogs on our side of the fence have no idea how good they have it, while we humans sacrifice the more enticing people amenities in the building next door.  Still, they thrill at the sight of the other dogs on the other side of the fence, want only to be with them. 

So human. Sure that the good stuff is going on in somebody else's yard. I've spent the past four months slowly getting to know my neighborhood and its surroundings. I have explored the nearby dog parks and paths, I've biked north and south along the lake front, and I've wandered by dozens of restaurants, wondering when I'd be one of the lucky ones, sitting outside on a makeshift patio in the middle of the afternoon, stuffing myself and having an early cocktail. I've walked by those people dozens of times, thinking how charmed their lives must be. How green is their grass, as I can do no more than trudge by. 

I took the plunge today, dipped my toe into that mystical other place. I reminded myself I must belong, and I stretched my legs out into the sun while I carefully tucked my almost 60 year old face into a slice of shade. As I sipped my margarita and stuffed in the last remnants of my tacos, I thought it's not all that different, really.  Except, I suppose, that I was looking out from the table side of the sidewalk, thinking maybe I would have been better off had I kept walking. Thinking maybe I should have tried the hamburger place next door instead, with the adjoining ice cream shop. I wonder if I will ever grow wise enough to be fully impervious to the ridiculous fantasy of greener grass. 

In our dog park, we know all the dogs' names, but we humans remain cautiously anonymous. We barely recognize each other on the street, clutching purses instead of leashes, or maybe we just pretend, so as not to intrude. We are comfortable with each other on our synthetic turf, watching our dogs fall instinctively into their flirtations and friendships, unencumbered by leashes or age old insecurities. They run and they dance, or, as they did today, lay about in companionable silence, waiting for something better to come along, just on the other side of the fence. Blissfully unaware that the fantasy is no better than what they have. 

Twisted Fates

Fucking poignant.

That's how my friend described a moment this morning, as he sat gazing out at acres of natural beauty while life, as he's known it, anyway, unravels. He said it without even a hint of irony, though I suppose I could be wrong about that, since the message arrived by text. 

He's more serious these days than he used to be, back when we were in high school and we were convinced we -- and everybody around us -- were invincible. Substitute ridiculous for poignant, for starters, and that's how we were, back then. 

"Fucking poignant" has stuck with me since this morning, as I knew it would. I told him right off the bat I was stealing it. As I trudged through the realities of my day, I came back to the phrase several times. I imagined the perfect confluence of great joy and overwhelming sadness that had overcome my friend, caused him to pair up such incongruous words. 

He sent me a picture. It was dawn there, where he was, but it could have been dusk (had I not known better). The time when night and day intersect, the push and pull of light against dark. If I had to label the picture, I would have chosen "serenity." Or maybe, come to think of it, "fucking poignant." 

While I'm pilfering phrases, I'll work on the next thing he said --something about pondering the difference between fate and destiny. He's way ahead of me on that one. I've never really given it much thought, though my gut tells me if I had to choose, I'd go with destiny. At least I might have a fighting chance at shaping it. I wonder if that's what my friend was thinking, that he had arrived at this place not because of some malevolent twist of fate but because he had unwittingly prepared himself for it. This confluence of great joy and overwhelming sadness, of night and daylight, of being at once the shaper and the observer of ones own destiny. Whether you like it or not. Fucking poignant. Weirdly serene. 

Silencing Voices, in a Place Far Away

I know almost nothing about anime, except that it is colorful and vibrant and originated in Japan. I don't really get it, which is more a function of ignorance than any sort of rational assessment.

When my son was getting ready to move to Japan after he graduated from college, I had not so secretly hoped that maybe the tsunami and the nuclear disaster only a year earlier might dissuade him. I knew better, but it never hurts to dream. I comforted myself with the thought that a tsunami would never strike again in the same place. Right. And the nuclear plant glitches, well, they can certainly be fixed. I like to think. 

On a map, Japan seems so small, so fragile. Even after a half a dozen visits, I still think of it as an inch long strip of vulnerability, a heartbeat away from earth's next tectonic shift, spitting distance from Kim's missile playgrounds. I experienced an earthquake a few visits ago, and though the sensation of swaying back and forth in a high rise was disconcerting, and the deafening sound of the push alert on my phone, accompanied by what appeared to be a screaming text in Japanese, was frightening, my thoughts went immediately to my son, who was at work. He has assured me earthquakes are a daily occurrence. That was supposed to be comforting. It wasn't. 

When something bad happens in Japan, people tend to contact me, to make sure my son is okay. I suppose I'm not the only one who thinks it's small. This time, though, the disaster was close, in Kyoto, a sister to his home city of Kobe. Spitting distance for sure, or at least a short train ride away. A mass killing, 33 people killed after an arsonist destroyed Kyoto Animation. I knew my son was in Tokyo, but I texted to make sure. 

It's a studio that has produced some amazing and profound anime, he told me, including "The Silent Voice." I wondered how something that calls to my mind the "hello kitty" cartoons could be either profound or amazing, but I looked it up. The story is hardly cartoonish, and indeed sounds profound. I'm guessing the animation makes it amazing. 

I have grown accustomed to hearing about natural disasters in Japan, but this one is decidedly unnatural, at least on that inch long strip, which always strikes me as clean and orderly and crime free. Another misconception, up in smoke. 

Bid(en)ing His Time

Kamala gives good theatre. There's a reason nobody makes movies about lawyers like me, who sit by themselves writing briefs all day. 

With a carefully rehearsed and impeccably delivered surgical strike, Kamala pretty much broke the applause meter with her take down of Joe. Her voice was quivering but strong, and her eyes, though on the verge of tears, were laser focused on her target, and if the pundits are to be believed, she won the battle. But can she win the war, where the only thing Joe Biden has in common with the real enemy is his old, white, maleness? 

I thought the debate format was stupid, pitting so many relatively smart and qualified people against each other with little time available to any of them do to much to advance anybody's cause but their own? Kamala -- and many of the others -- were representing a constituency of one. And Kamala, the masterful prosecutor, was damn good. Damn good. 

Does anybody really think that Joe Biden would not be a champion of civil rights? Does anybody really think that his vote, 45 years ago, on bussing, is indicative of how he would represent us? Does anybody really think that working across the aisle with segregationists, long ago, means that Joe Biden endorsed their positions? Did anybody notice that Joe got a little shot in, drowned out by the food fight, reminding Kamala that he had been a defense attorney, not a prosecutor? I would imagine Joe is biding his time, as much as it killed him not to get drawn into the food fight. 

Bussing is complicated, by the way. I remember watching the buses arrive in my Brooklyn school yard in the sixties. I remember playing with the white kids on one end, struggling to master a single jump rope while we watched the black girls do double-dutch on the other end. Hardly an across the board cure for segregation, from my perspective. 

Experience and long records are certainly double-edged swords. But I have no reason to believe, going forward, that theatrical prosecuting and flashy stagecraft and taking full advantage of identity politics will help us to win the war. 

In the middle of the night, unable to sleep, I turned on the television to see Donald Trump "making history," crossing the demarcation line into North Korea. I suppose that is making history, in the sense that we have never had a president ring up a murderous dictator to tell him hey I'm in the neighborhood, let's take a short walk and grab a spot of tea. And pose for a few pics. Maybe just a quick hello, maybe even a hug? Talk about stagecraft. We've already lost our collective soul; have we now lost our minds? 

I hope the next debates will really be debates. Not just pronouncements about all that is obviously bad and promises that cannot be kept and strategic take downs that have nothing to do with where we are headed. 

The Hole in the Book Fair

It felt right, finally, navigating through the crowds with my dog, thumbing through books, accepting treats (for him, not me), wandering among the tents. The city life I had envisioned -- a convergence of all sorts of folks from all sorts of places, with all manner of stories to tell. The Printer's Row Book Fair. A magnet for the enlightened. 

I was drawn, at first, to the women who sat, smiling, behind modest displays of the books they had written. The woman who, in the ten years since she retired, has published a slew of crime novels, weaving in the biography of a fictional female detective with the history of places, local and far-flung. I asked her which book was her favorite; her publisher, standing next to her, told me that was like asking somebody to pick a favorite child. Touché. I lingered awhile, thinking the fact of having written a book would somehow osmote to me. I bought the one that takes place in Paris; not only would I become a great writer, but I would be doing it in a cafe, on the Rive Gauche. 

Then there was the memoir lady. Forget crime novels, forget Paris, I would be writing my memoir. Unbecoming, I'd call it, since Becoming has been taken. I lingered again. If I was going to buy this lady's book, I was going to extract as much advice out of her as I could. She worked hard at it, she told me. Read lots of memoirs. Took lots of classes. And worked even harder. Oh, and yes, she appeared to even have a story to tell. Damn. I bought her book, still banking on the osmosis idea. 

I returned in the afternoon. Though the crowd had by then doubled, I arrived, quite suddenly, at a clearing, a parting in the sea of humanity. I glanced over at the large tent in the midst of this gaping hole. There was a handful of young men within the circle of tables, which were lined with beautifully bound books. I looked up at the sign: Muslim. It didn't just say "Muslim" of course, but I can't remember the rest -- booksellers, publishers, literary group, maybe. From the looks of things, it said "terrorists." Some irrepressible force of nature had repelled the crowd, parted the sea of humanity, of the enlightened. I even hesitated before I approached the table, thinking if biblical forces were at play, a lightning bolt could be next. 

As I flipped through the pages of a Quran, a thick hardcover volume, purple, in Arabic with English translations, I caught familiar names on every page: Moses, Adam, David. One of the young men approached, explained to me what the differences were among all the editions -- the languages, the translations, the commentary. I told him I was Jewish, and he asked me if I had been "there." There. I am not an Israeli, but I knew what he meant, and I said yes, a long time ago. We talked about the Old Testament and the New Testament and where the Quran fit in, or where it was supposed to fit in. Well, mostly he talked and I listened. Still, nobody else came near the table. 

I asked him, Fawaad, from New Jersey, if it had been like this all day, this pronounced clearing. He told me they had gotten some traffic, but, when he thought more about it, he told me that yes, it's been pretty empty, but that's just how it is. There is a stigma, he told me, and he has always lived with it, and he accepts that he has to until, well, he doesn't. Just as Jews once did. I told him I had never experienced discrimination as a Jew, but why would I, having grown up in Brooklyn in the sixties. In a Jewish bubble, where nobody could have imagined the kind of hatred that would continue to bubble up from beneath the surface, well into the twenty-first century. Here, among the enlightened, my optimistic new friend had grown so accustomed to being a "them" in a sea of "us" he appeared unfazed by the knee jerk suspicion and hatred that had somehow overtaken even the jerkiest of knee jerkers who populate book fairs. 

As I finish this post, I am gathering together some cash and returning to Fawaad's table, as I had promised, to buy my Quran, with the indecipherable Arabic on one side and the English on the other and the footnoted commentary below. I will read it, the way I sometimes used to read the Bible while sitting through endless Bar and Bat Mitzvot, so many years ago. And I will understand, even less, why nobody had visited this table. 

I

Extraordinary Ordinary Women

Somebody had kicked off her shoes, leaving a small clump of dried dirt on the carpet. Not my shoes, not my house, not my dirt, but I panicked, momentarily. Ann would have died, but she had already done that. Even so, I did my best to clean it up.

When a friend's mother passes away, it stirs up all sorts of unexpected emotions -- like an irrepressible urge to clean a microscopic section of carpet. An empathic fear of losing the person who knew you before you were knowable, who taught you when you didn't realize you were being taught, who continued to shape you even when you thought -- insisted, really -- you could do just fine shaping yourself. The person who could, with a glance, make you feel safe, sure that you could do anything. The same person who could, with a glance, make you quiver with fear, certain you could never do anything right.

As friends, we see each others mothers through different lenses. Yes, we are far more familiar with the tales of well-intentioned emotional abuse than we are with the mundane daily touch, or the thousands of times she peeked into our room while we were sleeping, adjusted covers that didn't need adjusting,  or the hours of silent worry because she wanted our lives to be free of all that is not perfect. But from the outside, we are often more able to see the unseeable good stuff, see the humor in their oft repeated incomparable wisdom. My personal favorite from my own mom: The best exercise is pushing yourself away from the table. I didn't always find it as funny as my friends do, but I've certainly retained it far longer than anything I learned in school.

My friend's mother died last weekend, long after the doctors thought she would after her diagnosis. I had gotten to the point of believing she was truly superhuman, that she would never go. When I saw her recently, she was as smart and funny and deliciously sarcastic as she had always been. And meticulously turned out, though she had become painfully thin. She had made her daughters promise to not let the hairs on her chin go un-plucked, even at the end.

At the cemetery, I half expected her to start barking out instructions to the guys who were taking too long to get her settled. I'm sure she was hoping we'd all take our shoes off once we got back to her house; the ground was so muddy. To my friend, Ann, mom, has always been larger than life, a force to be reckoned with. I get it.

Back at Ann's house, I was struck by her ordinariness. The unfinished crossword puzzle on her toilet tank. The lotions and potions she had not put away before she left, thinking she'd be back. The piles of papers on her nightstand, the assorted items in her cabinets that had long expired. I zeroed in on one of the cookbooks on her shelf full of cookbooks. The Pillsbury baking cookbook. Even from across the room, there was something about it that took me back, way back -- even though my own mom never baked. I pulled it out, flipped through the yellowed pages, looked at the copyright date -- 1959. The year I was born, right around the time my friend's mother became a mother. I am claiming that book as my own, an ordinary reminder of the extraordinary Ann.

Mother's Day, from a Daughter's Eyes

When I was eight years old, I went to a little store across the street from my school (at least I think that's where it was) and I bought my mother the most beautiful house dress. It cost eight dollars. Mother's Day was a few days away.

In Brooklyn, in the sixties, moms wore house dresses when they came home. At least my mom did. Some, as I recall, also wore nylon knee highs rolled down to their ankles (why, I could not say) and hairnets. My mom was a cut above; no rolled knee highs, no hairnets, just a clip to hold the wispy front flips of her hair in place. My guess is there was enough spray to take care of that, but you can never be too careful.

Only my close friends knew the house dress version of my mom. To this day, that side of her remains a closely held secret. A half century since I bought her that Mother's Day present, the stylish woman everybody knows slips into a house dress the moment she comes home. A house dress and the clip. Mom.

The clip, I'm fairly certain, is the same one, but no house dress has ever come close to the beautiful, hot pink, wrap-around, above the knee little number with the colorful appliqué of something on the pocket and the black and white trim along the edges. I loved that house dress. So did my mom; she wore it until it was so threadbare it practically disappeared.

When I was eight, I still had no idea that mother-daughter relationships were complicated. What I did know was that even if I had purchased the ugliest house dress in the store, my mom would have worn it to death. And, as stylish and picky as she was, she would have thought it was beautiful. It was something I tended to forget over the years, when we fought, when I was sure she was my arch enemy, when I forgot she was the president of my fan club, much less even a member.

I celebrated my first Mother's Day just a few weeks after my first child was born -- I have the picture of me holding her in front of the Small Mammals House at the Lincoln Park Zoo to prove it. I remember thinking, back then, that Mother's Day was an earned holiday, eclipsing even my birthday in importance, though all I had done to earn it, so far, was endure a relatively pleasant pregnancy, an excruciating birth (immediately forgotten), and a few sleepless nights. I would never have imagined, that day, that the small girl mammal in my arms would one day snarl at me, maybe even question my devotion.

It has taken me a long time to realize that my mother, my true mother, is the one who wore that house dress until it pretty much disappeared. And, three grown kids into my stint, I realize I am always, above all else, the young woman holding on tight to the small miracle who gave me the first inkling of who I was meant to be.

The Power of Voice

Adversity, for me this year, is a winter that just won't let go. Last night's snow and slush were gone this morning, and the sun beckoned, but the chill remained and the new yellow flowers out front lay on their sides, resigned. 

Our waitress last night in the little bistro down the street was named Ursula. No older than any of my children, she vaguely remembered her namesake, the evil octopus, from The Little Mermaid. I always loved Ursula -- ambitious, vindictive, ironic (I'm wasting away!), convinced of her entitlement. A flamboyant plus-size beauty, wise enough to know that the best thing she could take from a woman was her voice. 

As any little girl would have been at the time, our waitress had been fascinated more by Ursula's shellfish lipstick than her villainous feminism, a belligerence that had long shrouded any hint of kindness or humanity. Adversity can do that do a person (or a sea creature), but we know, deep down, she wasn't always this way. Just ask Flotsam and Jetsam. 

Disney movies always fascinate me, with their multiple layers and their hidden and not so hidden messages, depending on who's watching. It's brilliant, what Disney does, providing as much entertainment for adults as it does for the children, in its parks and on the screen. I've always wondered, though, why the beautiful heroine's mother is, well, not there.

I feel fairly certain that Ursula would never have gotten her tentacles on Ariel's voice had Ariel not been motherless. I like to think that if I have given my daughters anything other than a random contribution of chromosomes beyond my control it is their voice. A voice that, to this day, I forget to use on my own behalf, but that I've never lost when I need to spur them on from the sidelines, remind them to be kind but to never relinquish what is rightfully theirs. Ursula understood this, the power of voice, although she learned a bit too late that you cannot borrow one, you have to find your own. 

When I came of age in the seventies, I thought it was a given that women could be loud and be heard, toss their bras, be in charge of their own bodies, do anything men could do. Back then, it often meant putting on a pin stripe suit with a skirt and heels and a floppy tie. Maybe that's why we're still confused -- we never figured out how to use our voices without losing ourselves in the process. 

And here we are. I still know people -- men, mostly -- who claim they couldn't even hold their noses tightly enough to vote for Hillary. They don't seem to find this troubling, even after two years of the worst stench our country has ever suffered. And then there's me. With countless women vying for the top spot, I'm drawn to the old white guy, because he's calming and he doesn't shriek, and he has the resume. I feel like a traitor to my gender; I feel less guilty about my affinity for Mayor Pete, for obvious reasons. 

I hope we get a woman in the White House one day, but I'm not sure this is the time.  We've been knocked around a little, by a dark winter that just won't seem to let go. "Me Too" and the rehashing of ancient indignities and, yes, unequal playing fields, may help us in the long run, but right now we're confused, and we need to find our voices again.

Fire and Fury

Just a few days ago, I heard that someones recent visit to Paris was not so good. "Yellow vest" protesters had overrun the city, bringing it to a virtual standstill. But still, I thought, it's Paris. It's tough to imagine the city of light losing its sparkle. 

I flipped on the television yesterday as I entered my apartment, and vaguely heard something about a fire at Notre Dame. I took note, but went about my business, assuming there was not much to see -- a small flare, maybe, and a handful of hunky French firemen. When I finally glanced over, I felt certain I was watching a movie. 

Having been to Europe more than a few times, I've become a bit blasé about cathedrals. Seen one, seen 'em all. I'm embarrassed to say I've uttered those words, or something similar. Churches, basilicas, chapels, cathedrals -- I admit I don't really know the difference. 

But there are certainly standouts, and many of them are in Paris. They are unforgettable, those marvels of the middle ages, no matter what they're called. The light sifting through the soaring stained glass windows of Sainte Chapelle; the long slow climb to the dome of Sacré Coeur, with its incomparable view; the sheer massiveness of Notre Dame, with its flying buttresses and its somewhat disarming gargoyles, seeming to mock the crowds below. 

I gasped, as did the world, at the inferno. It conjured up images of the blazing twin towers, of my double take as the first one suddenly disappeared, bright orange flames giving way to an avalanche of ash. I cringe at the comparison, knowing that those ashes, on 9/11, were a mix of concrete and wood and steel and the irreplaceable remains of thousands of humans. The only casualty yesterday, on Île de la Cité, was a thing, a thing that can be rebuilt. Sort of. 

But what of the thousands of humans, almost a millennium ago, who put this cathedral together. The sweat and toil and ingenuity without the benefit of modern science, the kind of handiwork that can never be replicated by 21st century engineering. 

I was last in Paris about two years ago, even more in awe of its beauty than I had been the time before that, or the time before that. I still gazed in awe at each monument, including Notre Dame, though I didn't bother to go in. In awe not only of its intricacies and its architectural perfection, but of the capacity of human beings to build such a thing, a larger than life tribute to their faith. As I watched the horrific dance of the bright orange flames, the plume of smoke spiraling toward the heavens, I thought there must be a lesson in all this, although I'm not sure what it is. 

Paris may have lost a bit of its sparkle yesterday, but still, the blazing cathedral leant an almost supernatural beauty to the night sky. It is heart-wrenching, the loss of such magnificence, but with a little faith, a dose of ingenuity, and, yes, a huge handful of euros, Notre Dame, and Paris, will survive.  

Sweet home (again), Chicago

It seems just a little bit arrogant to reclaim something that never belonged to you in the first place, but it's one of the perks of getting older, tweaking history a bit. When I moved to Chicago 34 years ago, I never thought of it as my city. My adopted city maybe, but not really mine. You can take the girl out of Brooklyn, but you can never take the Brooklyn out of the girl. 

I moved here for a whole host of questionable reasons, but the Chicago lakefront in the summer certainly helped tipped the scale. Though I grew up just a stone's thrown from the beach at Coney Island, I had never experienced the magic of sand abutting concrete thoroughfares, of venturing into a bustling urban landscape clad in flip flops and carrying a towel. Not north of the Mason-Dixon line, anyway. Summertime in Chicago -- that most odd sensation of being on vacation without going anywhere. 

Today was the day I had envisioned when I decided to move back to the city, a quarter century after fleeing to suburbia. Sunshine, blue sky, and a lake so crystalline you're almost tempted to dive in even though you know you'd freeze your toes off, for starters. It's taken my skittish boxer, Eli, a good ten days to be willing to venture more than a block or two from our new digs, but today he was up for a walk to Grant Park, and the lake. Sunshine after a long winter is infectious, and it had gotten to him, just as it had gotten to me. He marched on without complaint, nonchalant as he accepted the occasional compliment, sure he was headed somewhere good. 

I narrated the city I used to know as we walked. The grassy expanse over there -- where the guys used to play 16 inch softball. The ferris wheel at Navy Pier in the distance, a place that always looks so much better from afar. My favorite skyline view (it only just occurred to me we had settled on the wrong side of it); the stepladder of buildings south of the Loop, looking like a two-dimensional painting if you're lucky enough to gaze at it from a sailboat on the lake. It's taken on a few additions these days, modern glass towers in odd geometric shapes, but still, the steadfast rectangles take my breath away. 

I used to walk these same paths when I worked nearby, but somehow it feels different now. I'm not rushing to get back somewhere, and I can come back if I want, first thing in the morning. It feels, in some weird way, as if it belongs to me now, as if this piece of the city by the lake is finally mine. 

Sue is back. So announced the banner strung across the pillars of the venerable old Field Museum. Sue, the T-rex who has called Chicago home since the turn of the millennium, even though I'd venture to say she was not born here either. Sue has undergone a few nips and tucks, and is back, just better and in a new hall. 

I may be a little worse for the wear than Sue, but let's face it, she has a team and I don't. No matter though. It's good to see us both back home. 

Losing our Senses

Five senses. So primitive, so visceral, so informative, so comforting. We tend to take them for granted. They say when you lose one sense, the others take up the slack. But there's really no substitute for any of them. 

My dog's senses are on high alert as he explores our new neighborhood. The sounds -- the ding of the elevator, the rumble of the train, the footfalls in the hallway that are inaudible to me. The sights -- so many dogs, so many people. The tastes (I tremble to think about those), and the touch -- of friendly passersby, and the ever changing terrain of gravel and wood chips and concrete and the occasional surprising expanse of grass, still sparse and brown from winter. He is most informed by the smells; snout to the ground, he sniffs his way forward, committing all the newness to memory. 

Years ago, my then husband told me that the men in his family don't hug. The context: we had traveled to Michigan to say our final goodbyes to my dying father-in-law, and his son, my husband, had offered up a handshake. Our son, a teenager at the time, a "man" in that very same family, had taken a different approach, bending down to hug his grandfather. His sisters followed, as did I. In my world, we hug, gender notwithstanding.  

This story is not, by the way, a referendum on my marriage, certainly not an excuse to rehash my ex-husband's flaws. Or mine, for that matter. I was, after all, the shrew who berated him about the callousness of the handshake, when his father was dying. I like to think he has learned to hug since then, and I like to think I have learned when to just let it go. Getting older has its perks. 

I fear that we are teaching our children bad lessons these days. That touch is not just dispensable, but downright bad. That's not the worst of it though; we are teaching our daughters to be victims, and we are teaching our sons to be afraid. 

Bright lines are elusive, but we have surely stepped over some. Yes there are times when a handshake makes more sense than a hug or a kiss or a squeeze. Is it really okay, though, for a woman to wait years to announce she was uncomfortable? Does the level of discomfort suddenly become enhanced when the complaint can do some serious damage? Is a woman who is strong and accomplished enough to run for office really incapable of turning around, in the moment, and telling the guy that something is not okay? 

There are real issues out there -- with rape and sexual assault and abuse of power -- but they are being clouded and undermined. What we are teaching, it seems, is not only victimization and fear, but vindictiveness. That is not okay. 

Yesterday, a friend came to visit, and my dog -- all 65 pounds of him -- hopped onto her lap to deliver some unwanted licks. She told him no and gently pushed him away. Dogs, even old ones, are teachable. 

Life, New Orleans Style

My weekend in New Orleans was a welcome break from packing for my move, a much needed respite from dragging bookshelves and chairs and end tables and all sorts of unwanted stuff to the curb and watching out the window to gawk at the folks who take it. I marvel at their apparent joy in discovering my throwaways; I don't get it, but it makes me happy my things will be appreciated. I've never been very good at appreciating "things."

I traveled light to New Orleans, leaving behind whatever embarrassment of riches still remains in my house; I leave New Orleans even less encumbered than when I arrived, but filled with a treasure trove of riches not to be found on any curb. Forced togetherness with friends I see too infrequently, shared joy at the wedding of a girl I've known forever, memories cobbled together by a great mix of people in a place like no other. 

I had no "plus one," and weddings can be daunting when you're flying solo. Or so I thought. Minus a plus one, I found myself plus two hundred or so, concerned about nobody's fun but my own. My feet hurt and my jeans are a bit snug, but it was worth it. 

New Orleans is a hotbed of music and art and food and good fun, not to mention debauchery. And, like no other city, it doesn't sit by idly while it hosts your joy; it participates in it. Our buses left the wedding with a police escort -- a police escort! -- for the twenty minute drive back to the French Quarter. The police closed off a major street -- a major street! -- so that two hundred drunken revelers, led by a jazz band and our newlyweds, could march and whoop their way back to our hotel. Locals far less well-heeled than most of us cheered us along, shared in our celebration. I would consider getting married again, if only to experience that march -- the "second line" -- one more time. Okay, maybe I'll just watch the video. 

I return tonight to what has been my home for five and a half years, and it will be jarring to see all my "things" packed away in boxes in a single room. Tomorrow I will get the keys to my new home, in a neighborhood where I know nobody and know nothing of what to expect. I am struck by the realization that I will no longer be able to see some of my best friends on a whim, at the drop of a text. 

An old friend confessed to me this weekend that he reads my blog, always amused at first (if not a little bit annoyed) that he has no idea where the hell I'm going. I wander, he says, take turns that seem to make no sense. Then he gets to the end, so he can see where I was going, and it makes sense, finally. I assured him it's the same for me; I have no idea where I'm going when I start, or what the point is, or whether there even is a point. Ahh -- could this blog of mine really be a metaphor for life, and not just the ramblings of a middle aged woman trying to find her way? 

The best I can do going forward, I suppose, is let the story unfold.  

Chapter Next

A friend told me recently that he's rarely met a problem he can't solve by throwing money at it.  Or lots of butter. I'd add chocolate. Nothing to lose, anyway, at least with the butter or the chocolate. I've tossed a bunch of it around with my upcoming move, substituting painkillers for money maybe a bit more than I should. 

Twenty-five years ago, almost to the day, I moved to suburbia. With a husband, a couple of kids, and one more kid and a handful of dogs in my future, it seemed the right thing to do. Especially back then, when my inner hypocrite overtook my outwardly bleeding heart and I wouldn't even consider sending my children to a public school in Chicago. It was all about class size, we told ourselves. Sure it was. 

I find myself on a nostalgia tour these days. I drove by the high school the other day, remembered driving by there long ago, unable to imagine my own children that old. I drive by the restaurants, some still there, some long gone but with almost identical replacements, remembering the odd conversation. Even the not so odd conversation. Every place sets off a tiny flicker of recognition -- a celebration, friends who have slipped away, the occasional bad date, the rare good date. 

I had thought this move would be easier, having already gone through the purge of the home we all grew up in, my little family and I. I still had one daughter in tow for this interim move, and though the other two had launched, they seemed still to be finding their way. I clung to the illusion of being on call. This time, it's just me. And the dog, of course. 

Everybody I talk to passes on the current wisdom of tossing, keeping only that which brings you joy. Okay, if I took that literally, I'd just keep the money and the butter and the chocolate and the painkillers. And the dog, of course. 

What of the magnificent dresses I wore on magnificent occasions, the dresses crumpled and faded, the occasions reduced to bound albums I have not opened in years. What of my daughters' prom dresses; what of the miniature tuxedo vest my son wore at his bar mitzvah party? They are just things, really, and things cannot possibly bring joy. Can they? 

I fear there is no room for the stuff in my new apartment downtown, but I am terrified of letting it all go. Without the tangibles, what's left? Except the money and the butter and the chocolate and the painkillers, and all the unknowables of chapter next. 

The Muddled Middle

I've been chatting with an old friend lately, catching up on 40 years as if it were just a brief hiatus. Lots of stuff has happened to each of us during that "middle" chapter, a big chunk of life lived completely oblivious to what the other was doing. 

It's kind of like falling asleep during a movie. They say the devil is in the details for some things, but for me, in a dark theatre, the details are the devil; the middle is when I doze. I can fill in the minutiae on my own, as long as I know how it all begins and how it ends.  

So, here we are. Not the end, I hope, but as we approach 60, far closer than we were when. When. When we thought we knew who we were and where we'd be going and nobody clued us in that we really had no idea. Each of us, in the mind of the other, is still forever young. Grainy Facebook pictures don't change that. 

Life has thrown my old friend some curves lately, curves that make my own struggles seem, well, like a hill of beans. Years ago, I had a good friend who was dying. Not dying in the sense that we are all dying with each tick of the clock, but in the real way that most of us cannot fathom, when you know your days are seriously numbered. She used to call me to entertain her with stories of my petty problems, though she never so much as insinuated they were petty. She liked when I took her out of her head, even for a moment, to let her forget about all that she was destined to miss. I wish, all these years later, I could fill her in on the details, on the stuff that seems as inconsequential as the middle of a movie while it's happening, the stuff that somehow led me from there to here. It would be nice to pick up where we left off. 

It's been easy, somehow, to pick up with my old friend where we left off, despite the 40 year gap. He thinks I'm taking him out of his head, for a moment here and there, but the truth is he's doing the same for me. There's something about the ones who knew you before you were fully formed, especially when you have the sense, all of sudden, that you are. If I am, indeed, fully formed, it seems just a little less frightening when I talk to somebody who knew me, or at least thought he did, when. 

Zero Tolerance = False Equivalencies

A few premises:
1. Racism is bad.
2. Sexual Assault is bad.
3. A lifetime of unabashed corruption is bad. 

A few other premises:
1. Dressing up in black face 35 years ago does not, in and of itself, make one a racist; nor does it make one incapable of governance; the possibility that one was in a picture of somebody in black face standing with somebody dressed as a Klansman, and the fact that he could tell his constituents two diametrically opposed stories, makes the issue a bit more thorny.
2. An allegation of unwanted sex, 15 or 20 years after the alleged occurrence, first brought to light only when the alleged perpetrator can be pushed to a precipitous fall that might, coincidentally, be politically expedient for somebody else, does not make that accused person a sexual predator; nor does it make him incapable of governance.  
3. A lifetime of unabashed corruption is always bad. 

One more premise:
We flit, and flitting is bad. 

I don't know whether Virginia's governor should resign. I don't know whether Virginia's lieutenant governor should resign. I don't know whether Virginia's attorney general should resign. I do know that each situation is unique, and that a rush to judgment in any direction for any of these men is a bad precedent to set. 

I do know that we need conversations rather than knee-jerk reactions. About race, and about gender. As to corruption, the kind of corruption that affects us as a nation, that threatens to chip away irrevocably at our common good, the kind of corruption that plainly and overtly pervades our current administration (and I include, here, those who hold their noses and look the other way), we have already begun the conversation at the ballot box, and we will, I hope, continue the conversation when the next election rolls around. For that, as an electorate, we should have zero tolerance.

As to the rest, there are nuances. I have known not only of powerful men, but of young men in college, who can be and have been taken down by uncorroborated allegations of sexual assault or harassment. Is that where we want to be? And, unless Mother Theresa comes back to life, we will be hard pressed to find somebody who has not been guilty, in his or her past, in word or in deed, of some form of intolerance or apparent ignorance. We are all, last time I checked, human, inherently flawed. We should not be so eager to cast stones.

The most any of us can do is acknowledge our errors and try to do better. And keep the conversation going, and allow for redemption, when it is possible. 

Distractions and Smears

My republican friends never actually disagree with me when I suggest our president is unqualified, dangerous, and sociopathic. They tend to change the subject. 

Can you believe liberals think the governor of Virginia should not resign? Well, no, I cannot believe anyone believes he should not resign. Not because he may have put shoe polish on his face once or twice, but because he cannot say with 100 per cent certainty that he never posed for a picture, in either costume, as a Klansman with a black man. And because his wife had to tell him, at a press conference that no doubt already had her wondering how she could ever show her face at canasta again, that it was inappropriate to demonstrate his moonwalk at that time. 

How about the new New York abortion bill, that allows women having a sudden change of heart to kill their babies at birth. I've heard of women wanting to kill their husbands during labor (okay, kill is a strong word, but I do remember uttering a few profanities), but most of us who have made it to the doctor's office under our own power in the ninth month have grown pretty attached to the person within, despite the excruciating pain. 

Of course New York's law does not endorse whimsical infanticide, but my friend gets his news from Fox, so I asked Google. I watched Sean Hannity shut a woman up when she tried to explain the -- gasp -- facts, ultimately cutting her off by announcing that she was the "villain of the week." This, as she politely asked that Fox viewers refrain from issuing their customary death threats. I cannot help but wonder how heart wrenching it must be for a family to choose between a woman's life and the life of an unborn child, and I hope nobody I know ever has to face that choice. 

How did we get to this place, where our country, and everything it was founded upon, has been hijacked by hypocritical morality and false equivalencies? How did we come to allow the insertion of extreme religious viewpoints into politics and painfully personal decisions while we allow our collective freedoms and security to be whittled away? How did we get to the point where we are going to debate, in the same breath, whether a sexual encounter, years ago, between two adults in a hotel room should ruin a person's career, and whether a man should cling to his governorship when his  medical school yearbook page contains a supposedly funny picture of a Klansman standing with a black man. 

For some things, like racism or any kind of hate (particularly when there is a healthy history of violence and killing to go along with it) there is no gray area. But I fear for my gender, in this age of the "Me Too" movement. Can the endless and very serious fight for the life and dignity and safety of women survive when we give automatic credence to every woman who comes out of the woodwork with an allegation of sexual assault against a powerful or wealthy or influential man? 

Truly, have we lost our minds, or, worse still, our souls? 

Remembering Adam

Three years ago today, a piece of the world was shattered. A young man -- a boy, always, in my mind -- barely twenty-seven years old, died. My good friend's son, a veritable brother to my own children since they were babies, a child who grew to call me mom, didn't wake up. 

Adam. Gone three years. I remember where I was when I received the news. I remember what I was doing. I remember grasping at straws, suggesting to my friend that she was making this up. Why would I make this up? she asked me. She had just received the worst phone call a parent could ever receive, but she still had the wherewithal to make me feel like an idiot. 

I remember how a fog descended, how I walked around that evening (I was on vacation) feeling as if I was no longer part of the world around me but just an observer. Wondering how all these people could be smiling, laughing even. A piece of the world, the piece I had inhabited, had been shattered. Irreparably. Smiling, laughing -- the things I used to do. 

Time doesn't necessarily heal, but it lifts the fog and it allows you back in and it allows for smiling and laughing and it even allows you to lose the fleeting bit of perspective you had gained once and moan and wallow about the most insignificant hurts and indignities. No amount of time, though, will ever help me to understand this, ever help me to even dare to imagine how it feels to walk in my friend's shoes. I pretend to know what she should do, how she should continue to breathe, much less live life, and I'm not shy about sharing my ignorant advice. The truth is I don't ever want to go there, even in my imagination. I can't. 

On the handful of times I have visited Adam, with my friend, at the cemetery, she has come armed with coffee. One for her, one for me, one for Adam. She pours it on his grave, and we watch it seep through the soil. She told me she visited the other day, and had to use the coffee to melt the sheet of ice that had obscured his stone. Why hadn't I thought of that when I was shoveling my driveway. 

We talk about Adam all the time. My friend lights up when she speaks of him, just as she does when she speaks of her living son, just as we all do when we speak of our children. She no longer lives in fear of the question from strangers -- how many kids do you have? Sometimes she just says two sons. Other times, she explains. There are no rules when things go so awry. No playbook. 

Adam lives on, for each of us, with our own unique memories. My mother's favorite memory of Adam is the way he hugged my daughter, his friend, virtually a sister, when they had run into each other unexpectedly. I don't remember that particular hug, but I can picture it, exactly. Adam gave great hugs. 

I will toast you today, Adam, with my morning brew. I will keep my phone nearby, in case your mom wants to hear me spew some silly advice, or maybe just be there. You captured countless hearts and minds when you were here, and, there, you remain, always. 

A Place for the Table

For some reason, I've hung on to the big, square, glass dining room table, incongruously modern in a home otherwise filled with distressed wood. Yet I fear there may no longer be room for it in my next chapter. I've lost count. Chapter four? Chapter three and a half? It doesn't matter really, as long as they keep coming. 

I don't even remember why we bought the table, with the oversized metallic and velvety mint green benches and chairs and the side table that is practically invisible but far too heavy to move. I vaguely recall wandering through a store with my husband, noticing the table, deciding I had to have it. Like the full set of dishes I once bought in New York, each one with a different theme -- cartoon people, hats, purses, lady's underwear. At least I use the dishes. 

I'm preparing to downsize again, squeeze myself and only that which I need or really really really want into digs made for one human, one dog. The books that came with me the last time, still in their boxes -- they will go. The clothes my son never took with him, that I thought he might one day come to claim -- they will go. The clothes I never wear, the shelves that exist just to accumulate more stuff -- all of that will go. 

But what of the table? I convince myself, when I look at apartments, that there is room for the ungainly dining room set. I consider giving up couches instead. The mint green chairs are comfortable enough. I don't know why, but I cannot imagine life without that damn table. 

I tend to travel light these days. As I write this, I am sitting with my feet on top of a relatively small carry-on, packed with only the barest essentials for my three and a half day vacation with my daughter. Without much thought, I had grabbed the first few things I saw in my pile of summer clothing, dug out the dreaded bathing suits, knowing I could always hide them, if necessary, under shorts and a tee shirt. A watch, the tiny earrings already in my ears, some mascara, a lipstick. Sensible shoes. 

The dining room table is far too unwieldy to hide, and it is far from sensible, unless you like fingerprints. I don't need it, never did, don't even really really really want it, but still, I cannot imagine writing my next chapter without it.  

Knee Jerking

Two things I know about myself: 

(1) I know nothing of global economics. I can barely balance my own checkbook. 

(2) I am grateful I was never faced with the gut wrenching choice between abortion and an unwanted child. I am also grateful the choice is there. 

Last night, I was drawn into two separate conversations about Trumpism. Unwittingly, mind you. By nature, though I may appear rough around the edges sometimes, I am not particularly combative. 

Two things I learned last night, though I probably already knew them: 

(1) No amount of economic prosperity -- no matter what the cause --  will ever change my feelings about Trumpism, which arise out of my own zero tolerance policy for what I believe to be flagrant corruption and shameless pandering to all kinds of hatred. 

(2) There are people who feel so strongly that abortion is wrong that it trumps (pardon the pun) everything else. It is their counterpart to my own zero tolerance, and there is no room for compromise, no gray area. 

I was told, last night, at various times, that swarms of terrorists cross the Rio Grande on a daily basis, and that liberals who counsel young girls who find themselves pregnant mislead them into believing that abortion is their only option. And maybe this wouldn't be such a problem if girls hadn't been allowed to become so, um, loose. I was told that government workers would get paid if democrats would just give billions of dollars for a wall. I was told, also, that President Kennedy wasn't exactly an angel. 

We all have our versions of truth, fueled by a media, on both sides, at least in part, that is driven by viewer bias and pure profit. We are all guilty of what-aboutism. I don't care if Trump's China strategy has some merit (and, frankly, I am too ignorant to know whether it does). As long as immigrant families are treated like animals, and hard-working folks are wondering how they will pay their rent, I just don't care. I am troubled by the reactions of some, suddenly and for the first time directly affected by what I consider to be Trumps's ineptness as a leader (to put it mildly); I have heard people admit, out loud, that because they are finally being pinched, they care. 

After I had a conversation last night about China policy on one hand and humanitarian atrocities on the other, I despaired about both the divide and my own adamance, fueled, at least in part, by ignorance. So I read up on China policy, and my head began to spin. Is it good? Well it depends whom you ask. 

What struck me, as I did my admittedly superficial research, was a meme from China's internet mapping their stereotypes of the west. Norway: Not cold. Finland: Good English. Germany: killed Jews. Netherlands: tall. Italy: so weak. And, my favorite -- Chile: long. 

My head is exploding. The more I know, the less I understand.